Kevin Ayers Whatevershebringswesing (1971)

Review by ghost_of_morphy

The capsule review for this one is that it contains great music, but a very uneven style. Some artists use solo albums to explore different types of music. (Peter Gabriel I or Jon Anderson’s Animation would be good examples.) Anyhow, put on your hiking boots, because Mr. Ayers is about to take you on a whimsical journey across musical boundaries.

There is Loving/Amongst Us/There is Loving is easily the most adventurous track on the album. Combining symphonic music, a take on modern classical music and rock, this song charts new and exciting ground. It’s not catchy, it’s not pop and it certainly does require a degree of patience from the listener. But it is rewarding.

Margaret is a lush and beautiful ballad. There’s not much here that takes it beyond the realm of ballads except for some unexpected chord changes, but it’s still a beautiful song, even though it’s simplistic. Lord knows, if I can play it and sing to it, it has to be simple. Yet it’s a very attractive song. So much so that I tend to start listening to the album here instead of on the first track.

Oh My brings down the level of interest, if not the quality. This singalong song (with what at least sounds to my ears as a New Orleans jazz influence) is excellently executed, but ultimately doesn’t really catch my interest.

Song From The Bottom Of A Well is probably the strangest and most interesting song on this album. It’s an attempt at some of that really disturbing music from the psychedelic tradition, complete with drastic changes in the left/right balance, dissonance, and weird lyrics. Yet it’s better produced and somehow more positive than most similar songs in that tradition.

Whatevershebringswesing is another song that I can’t recommend. It’s a mellow ballad with country influences, and that kills it for me, despite a very nice featured guitar solo.

Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes, on the other hand, is a great song despite being grounded in old fashioned rock and roll. What can I say, this song is cool! It features great lyrics that tell a good story in a memorable way, complimented by some brilliant performances (especially on the piano) and vocal sound effects that should sound cheezy but instead fit the song well.

Champagne Cowboy Blues is another Western influenced track. It has some nice effects in the percussion and ultimately is well produced, but I can’t recommend it. It doesn’t even have the redeeming feature of a great guitar solo, unlike Whatevershebringswesing, although it defnitely does have some weirdness in it.

Lullabye is another song that is punched up by great production values. It’s basically a flute solo over some piano work, and it’s really likeable. What do I mean when I say really likeable? Well, I just took a list at my last.fm page and Lullabye is tied for eighth as my most listened track. (If you are interested, it is tied with UK — In the Dead of Night, Camel — Supertwister, Bill Bruford — Hell’s Bells and Steve Hackett — Spectral Mornings.) Anyhow, I recommend this song unreservedly.

I’m only reviewing the original album, but I do have the remaster, and I would be remiss in not mentioning that Fake Mexican Tourist Blues is a novelty song that would have been a welcome replacement for several songs on this album. The other bonus tracks are generally strong as well.

So now on to my quandry. What do I rate this? I definitely want you to hear this, so I’m really tempted to give it four stars and claim that it’s an excellent addiont to any prog music collection. On the other hand, the inclusion of a few songs that are clearly worlds away from prog makes me think that three stars for an album that is good but non-essential might be more appropriate.

Screw it. The highs on this album outweigh the lows. Four stars.

Review by Easy Livin

Following the release of “Shooting at the moon”, which was actually credited to Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, that band toured in support of the album. Ayers however found that touring was not really his bag and subsequently disbanded the group. He then set about recording “Whatevershebringswesing” as a solo album. This was not however to be a one man effort by any means, and pretty much The Whole World(!) plus members of Gong step in to help out.

Released in January 1972, the LP consists of two sides of four tracks each. Each side starts with a feature track running to 7 or 8 minutes, supported by three shorter tracks. The first track is an amalgam of an Ayers song and a David Bedford composition. This track (alone) was actually recorded prior to the break up of The Whole World, hence Bedford’s compositional credit for the full orchestra “Among us” section. After this rather avant-garde indulgence, the rest of the album seems more conventional and melodic.

“Margaret” is a delightful love song with understated orchestration, while “Oh my” is an old tyme brass band style happy song with a deep south jazz feel. The song is not unlike the similarly named “Ah me, ah my” by The Strawbs from around the same time. “Song from the bottom of a well” returns us to Ayers at his most indulgent, the spooky vocals (along the lines of the start of “Thriller”!) being supported by off beat sound loops and backwards recordings.

Although the title track is the longest on the album, it is not overburdened by complexity by any means. Here we have one of Ayers fine mid-paced soft songs, of the type which I feel he does best. Robert Wyatt adds harmony vocals and Mike Oldfield provides an extended lead guitar solo to this, the highlight of the album. “Stranger in blue suede shoes” provides some light relief musically and lyrically, the song also being released as a single.

“Champagne cowboy blues” is a sort of melancholy drinking song, with breaking bottles providing the rhythm. It is lightweight, but inoffensively pleasant. The album closes with the brief, appropriately titled “Lullaby”, essentially a flute and piano duet. The piece is unusual for an Ayers album, but then by now we should expect the unusual.

Overall, a typically eclectic Kevin Ayers album. There is much to enjoy here along with the odd frustration along the way. The good far exceeds the not so good though.

The remastered CD has 4 additional tracks. One of these is just an early mix of “Champagne cowboy blues”, but the other three are non-album tracks. “Stars” was the B side of the single, the song being upbeat and commercial. The other two bonus tracks are not actually from the same period as the album recordings, but were put together later in 1972. It seems the songs may have been intended as two sides of a single, but they remained unreleased until they appeared on an Ayers compilation album in 1976. Both songs are from Ayers whimsical, retro side, appealing but unchallenging.