A different kind of art rock

What do you think of when you think of "art rock"? Lou Reed's Velvet Underground? David Bowie? Yoko Ono? Early KMFDM? Bauhaus? These are all artists/bands who brought ideas from the world of contemporary art into their music. What if we went the other way? What if i handed you an album assembled by an actual art collective who weren't specifically musicians; a real graphic design house very well known for their music related posterwork, but extending their output as producers/writers of two essentially compilation albums?

I'll let you ponder which name goes to the band and which to the album for a while (i didn't know until i looked it up).

The only other albums i can really compare it to are by Rotary Connection and The Incredible String Band, and if you went and listened to either of them then you'll know that you're in for some weirdness. Yet, knowing this is art first, music second makes a big difference. I'm still not sure if the other two bands had any concept of reality to begin with, but this album has a clear intentionality to it. It's wacky because they are seeking out the wacky. The core of what they are going for here is a fusion of cajun/creole/zydeco with psychedelic folk and rock, and noise, a mash up of competing but ultimately opposite worlds, as the cover illustrates. These things can obviously coexist, but their differences are in fact integral to the experience. That's what a collective really is; a group of wildly different people working individually toward some larger communal goal.

So, they're British visual artists exploring American musical subcultures. Make your decision. Ok, time's up. The album is Western Flier, by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, but i still can't figure out which of those fine gentlemen is Hapshash. My money's on the guitar player. Perhaps, if i can get them to answer the telephone right side up, i'll ask....

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