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RECORD REVIEWS

ROY HARPER: Flat Baroque And Berserk [Science Friction] / ROY HARPER: Stormcock [Science Friction] / ROY HARPER AND JIMMY PAGE: Jugula [Science Friction]

Ask for Englishman Roy Harper’s references and you’ll get pages of popular and semi-popular names that span decades. Led Zeppelin sang a song about him, and Pink Floyd had him sing one of theirs; Kate Bush, Pete Townshend and Jim O’Rourke have given him a public thumbs-up. Even so, after a 43-year career, the man is a cult figure, partly because his authenticity is the sort that makes people uncomfortable. Harper is an uncompromising social critic, quite willing to follow his muse to places people really don’t want to go; for a taste, visit the May 2006 entry in his online diary and read his thoughts on organized religion. His unswerving devotion to driving his point home manifests in songs such as “I Hate The White Man” (from Flat Baroque And Berserk), which holds England accountable for the racism that was the flip side of what was then a still much-missed empire, and “Twentieth Century Man” (from Jugula), which is an explicitly detailed chronicle of carnality vanquishing civility.

In recent years, Harper has gained control of his catalog and has been reissuing it via his Science Friction imprint. The early stuff, like 1970’s Flat Baroque And Berserk, is great; Harper sings vivid and erudite lyrics with winning understatement and sets them to music that weds Dylanesque talking blues to an updated British Isles melodicism in a way that predicted all the good stuff from those folky Jethro Tull records. 1971’s Stormcock is Harper’s masterpiece, four epic performances that move unpredictably but inevitably from solitary strumming to dramatic orchestration. No wonder Joanna Newsom had him perform it when she played at the Royal Albert Hall in 2007. However, dubious production choices mar later efforts such as 1985’s Jugula. With Jimmy Page on board, you’d hope for hot licks and heavy tunes. Instead, you get busy, synth-heavy jazz fusion; the words may still be strong, but it’s a tough slog getting to them. Bonus material: Stormcock has been remastered for greater presence and repackaged in a hardcover book sleeve. [www.royharper.com]

—Bill Meyer