Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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Intelligent, moving, jazz influenced, progressive rock performed by a stellar cast of musicians including amongst others and in addition to Pip himself is: Dave Stewart, Barbara Gaskin, Phil Miller, Jakko M Jaksyk, Richard Sinclair, John Greaves, Fred Thelonious Baker, Hugh Hopper, Paul Rogers, Didier Malherbe and Elton Dean. Pip Pyle has played drums with amongst others Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health and In Cahoots and this album shows also what a great composer he is. Quite simply this album contains some of the best examples of the Canterbury/Prog Rock music that has been heard on CD. The opening track 'Seven Sisters', originally written by Pip and performed in a different form by National Health (a version is available on 'Playtime' called 'Pleiades') has to be one of the top five pieces of music of the last few years. It's simply stunning, no other way to describe it. What is amazing here and on other tracks written solely by Pyle is the beauty of his compositions from a melodic and harmonic viewpoint. 'Seven Sisters' is the only track sung by Richard Sinclair. Jakko sings on 'Chinese Whispers', 'Long On' and 'Shipwrecked', Barbara Gaskin on 'Strawberry Fields' and 'I'm Really Okay' and John Greaves the title track. Greaves imbues the title track with the angst the subject matter demands and more. Highlights of the album are the full band performances on the aforementioned 'Seven Sisters' plus 'Chinese Whispers', I'm Really Okay', 'Long On' and 'Shipwrecked' (up there in the 'Seven Sisters' class with great solos from Stewart and Jakko). These tracks are really as good as the work of the Hatfields and National Health. 'Once Around the Shelves' is a competent, programmed jazz-funk fusion workout, 'L'etat…' a piece of rumbling synth space ambience and 'Foetal…' a military drum and brass band finale with a hint of the Gong sense of humour about it. All are good tracks but the brilliance of the five band performances serves to put them in the shade rather. A most excellent album.

~ Amazon

Drummer Pip Pyle had been involved with so many Canterbury scene bands that one interviewer asked the entirely valid question, "How is it you never managed to play with Soft Machine?" ("Well, I never got asked, I guess" was Pyle's reply). He wasn't there at the beginning, but Pyle was Gong's drummer when they solidified a lineup around 1971. A year of the communal life with his Gong bandmates was enough for Pyle, but the drummer would occasionally drop in on the band throughout his career and has always had kind things to say about Gong's leader, Daevid Allen. In 1972, he formed Hatfield and the North with Richard Sinclair and Phil Miller. Critically loved but without any commercial success, the band ground down to a halt in 1975. After the short-lived Shortwave with Hugh Hopper, Miller and Pyle started a new band with Alan Gowen, the beloved National Health. Although the proggy band was slow with the output, National Health had a loyal following until they dissolved in 1982. Pyle and Gowen had also taken a break from the band in 1979 to reunite with Hopper for another short-lived band, Soft Heap, while later Pyle rekindled his musical relationship with Miller for his '80s-and-beyond band, In Cahoots. The early '90s found Pyle back in Gong for the "Shapeshifter Gong" era and its resulting Shapeshifter album. By the end of the decade, the drummer looked to front his own band and ended up with two. The 7 Year Itch album from 1998 was a solo Pyle affair, but 2000's Equipe Out was released under the name Pip Pyle's Equipe Out with Hopper, Elton Dean, Didier Malherbe, and Sophia Domancich rounding out the group. His other band, Pip Pyle's Bash!, with Patrice Meyer, Alex Maguire, and Fred Baker, premiered with 2004's Belle Illusion on Cuneiform. Equipe Out returned in 2005 with Instants on the Canterbury-loving label Hux. 2005 also saw the reunion of Hatfield and the North. The group toured up until Pyle's death on August 28, 2006.

~ David Jeffries, All Music

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Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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Pip Pyle - 7 Year Itch (1998)

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