That House We Lived In

That House We Lived In is a double live album by the United States experimental rock band Keep the Dog. It comprises material from their final European tour in 1991 and was released by Fred Frith on his own Fred Records in 2003.

That House We Lived In
Live album by
Keep the Dog
ReleasedAugust 2003 (2003-08)
Recorded1991
VenueAustria, Italy, Germany
GenreAvant-rock
Length96:17
LabelFred (UK)
ProducerFred Frith

Background

Keep the Dog (1989–1991) was Fred Frith's review band that performed live in Europe, North America and the former Soviet Union. Material for this album comes from DAT recordings of the band's final performances in Austria, Germany and Italy in May and June 1991. Frith only considered releasing an album of their work in 2002 when Jon Leidecker spotted the tapes in Frith's office and volunteered to assemble a montage for review.[1]

Frith arranged the tracks on the two CDs to "... re-create the feeling of a typical two-set concert while including as much of our repertoire as possible within the time constraints of the format."[2] While the pieces represented a typical concert, they were in fact selected from some 20 different performances on their final tour.

Content

The tracks on That House We Lived In are primarily Frith compositions from about a dozen of his solo, group and project albums. All are free interpretations by the band of the originals, often leading to improvisation. These include "pop" tunes like "Some Clouds Do" from Cheap at Half the Price, "dance" numbers like "Rock and a Hard Place" from Allies, "Hola, On Danse!" from the rock opera, Dropera, and two of Frith's "classics": "Norrgården Nyvla" from Gravity, and "Domaine de Langendreer" (originally "Domaine de Planousset") from Speechless. Two versions of Massacre's "Bones" are here: a take on the original, and a slow number rendering it barely recognisable as "Bones". A few of the tracks are entirely improvised and do not appear elsewhere, like "Revelation" and "That Home We Lived In".

That House We Lived In is largely an instrumental album with the occasional vocal utterances from members of the group, and Frith singing the refrain "some clouds do, some clouds don't" on "Some Clouds Do".

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Clouds and Clocksfavorable[4]

In a review at AllMusic, François Couture wrote that That House We Lived In is "a must" for enthusiasts of Frith's "livelier, more vivacious writing".[3] Highlight tracks for Couture included the "lively" "Hola, On Danse!", the "darker" "Propaganda Suite", the "mad rendition" of "Some Clouds Do", and the "beautiful" "Norrgården Nyvla".[3]

Writing at Clouds and Clocks, Beppe Colli said that Keep the Dog plays Frith's material "with a freshness, assurance and creativity" that demonstrates how well the sextet work together.[4] He praised the band's repertoire, adding that "[t]ime has been kind to these melodies and arrangements, which now sound 'classic'".[4] He spoke highly of Derome, Lussier and Parkins, but questioned Hayward's "limpid rhythm framework", and said Ostertag's sampler is "indispensable but not always easy to hear".[4] Colli also questioned Frith's statement in the liner notes that he wanted to include as much as he could of the band's set "within the time constraints of the format" when another hour of music could have been accommodated on the double-CD.[4]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Fred Frith, except where noted.

Disc 1
No.TitleLength
1."Revelation" (Derome) / "Bones" (Frith, Laswell, Maher)4:59
2."Rock and a Hard Place"5:45
3."Hola, On Danse!" (Frith, Richard)2:20
4."Foot in Hole"7:38
5."Fanfare" / "Lizard's Tail"4:31
6."Suspended"2:02
7."Quick Sign"5:16
8."Propaganda Suite"8:37
9."Walking Song"5:32
10."Some Clouds Do"2:57
Disc 2
No.TitleLength
1."The Same Eye" / "Fives"5:37
2."No Legs" / "Slow Bones"7:13
3."That Home We Lived In" (Keep the Dog) / "Candy Machine"3:24
4."The Trace" (Frith, Kaiser)5:18
5."True Love (instrumental version)"4:01
6."Instant Party"3:07
7."Small Mercy II"3:34
8."Norrgården Nyvla"3:13
9."Year of the Monkey" / "Dark as a Match"6:21
10."Domaine de Langendreer"4:52

Original recordings

Most of the above tracks were adapted from original recordings by Fred Frith that appeared on the following albums:

Performance venues

The tracks on That House We Lived In were taken from Keep the Dog's final European tour in May and June 1991, and performed at:

Personnel

Production
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References
  1. Sękowski, Tom (October 2003). "Fred Frith interview". Bagatellen.com. Archived from the original on June 12, 2006. Retrieved June 13, 2007.
  2. Fred Records (2003). That House We Lived (CD liner notes). Keep the Dog.
  3. Couture, François. "Keep the Dog: That House We Lived In". AllMusic. Retrieved 2018-06-08.
  4. Colli, Beppe (2003-09-07). "Keep The Dog". Clouds and Clocks. Retrieved 2018-06-08.
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