Man, this thread is not exactly bustling with activity. Oh well
Those who like National Health are probably familiar with their tasty debut and brilliant second album, but there's a lot more out there. Their third album, DS Al Coda, was a tribute album to keyboardist Alan Gowen who died from leukemia in 1981 (I believe) and features his compositions only. It was made after the band had broken up, but they basically got together to do this one record to his memory. It's slightly 80ish compared to the first two albums, but it still has some really nice songs on it. The opening track, Portrait of a Shrinking Man, is one of my favourites.
It's a pretty funky track with some very nice sax by Elton Dean. The shrikning man is of course Alan Gowen.
An archival release of previously unreleased material called Missing Pieces also turned out to be quite a treasure trove of tunes from this band. The recordings and compositions are very good and have some added interest in that most (if not all) are from very early line-ups of the band, featuring early band members Dirk Campbell (bass, compositions) and Bill Bruford.
Here are a couple of favourites from Missing Pieces. I'll start with Clocks and Clouds which is a nice song with vocals by our dead Amanda Parsons.
There aren't that many NH songs with sung vocals, but all of them are great
I'm also very fond of Agrippa whichis a Dirk Campbell composition. Dirk (previously Mont, but changed his name) is a very interesting and perhaps somewhat underrated musician from the Canterbury Scene. He certainly had a knack for intricate compositions and was a huge influence on fellow band mate and composer Dave Stewart. The two actually share birthdays, both year and date.
Enough National Health trivia for today, I guess.
