Comus - C/D?

how about other suggestions of wacked-out-british-pagan-psych-folk-madness?

i just saw Wickerman this weekend. i'm thinking that soundtrack would do.

Oh god, that was totally noncommital and very unhelpful!

and in the aquarius review, they compare a period of Current 93 records to Comus. any recommendations of this sound?

$20 for the vinyl version of "first utterance" is totally worthwhile, though, because you get the bonus 12" with "in the lost queen's eyes," a great track not otherwise available.

as for C93 - swastikas for noddy might be the closest they ever got to comus, specifically the song "beausoleil."

I don't know, I'd say they're a decent gothic pastoral folk collective! Diana, Diana, getcher feet up. Oh, DA Anna.

steeleye span

Where is the LOVE for Dr. Strangely Strange??

This gentle psychedelic album has many fine moments and sounds like it was recorded in 1968. Its subject-matter is quite fantastic. One song, Tapestry Girl, tells the tale of a rape which takes place amongst the figures inside an ancient goblin, while Girl That Came Out Of My Head has the following lines:

"I've seen some mystics and I've seen some fakes,
but the girl from my head she got what it takes
to give all men comfort and give all men peace
and a hole in the brain for the freedom it needs"

Musically the songs are deceptively simple, but underscored with beautiful atmospheric touches of sitar and harmonium, sometimes recalling the best of Bulldog Breed.

everyone says this. everyone's wrong. STITSR is good, though.

Where is the LOVE for Dr. Strangely Strange??

Hey, I made a little reference to Dr. Strangely Strange up above which was my way of showing a little love.

i mean...not the cdr, i sold the original cd.

And what I take to be the painting on the inside of the original gatefold sleeve (which is in the CD booklet of the version I have) is GREBT.

I thought Amateurist didn't burn CDs.

Yo, does anyone have the Breathless reissue of First Utterance? I just got it in the mail and there is some gnarly distortion/digital errors all over the first three minutes of Drip Drip--sound familiar at all? Other than that it's great, good packaging, etc. etc. I don't particularly want to buy the complete collection but if that's what it comes to I will.

Holy shit, Comus have reformed and are playing on a boat in Sweden next summer!

Here's the full line-up :

OPETH
COMUS
KATATONIA
LEAF HOUND
ANEKDOTEN
TRETTIOÅRIGA KRIGET
BO HANSSON with Eric Malmberg & Niklas Korssell
MATS/MORGAN ALL STAR TEAM
THE COLINS OF PARADISE
PROMISE AND THE MONSTER
QOPH
PLANKTON
EMMA NORDENSTAM
CECILIA KLINGSPOR
EMIKA KLASDOTTER
PIU
MARTIN AXENROT and NATHALIE LORICHS

And here's their new official myspace page :

http://www.myspace.com/comusofficial

They will be playing the second album in it's entirety!

Holy heck, that's a weird one. Good luck to them and I hope they get some $$$$$. I do sort of hope though that they'll resist the urge to polish and finesse their stuff and instead play their songs like they've been rotting in the grave for 25 years.

They will be playing the second album in it's entirety!

that's... not very exciting.

great line-up at that show, though. the names i recognize, anyway.

Trettioåriga Kriget are active? Brilliant! Hope they'll do some solo shows, as I'd quite like to see them.

After years of hearing about it, I've only just heard the Comus 1st album! Why do people call it folk? Because it's acoustic? It's much more of a prog thing. I'm reminded of Family (mostly the vocals) and even Jethro Tull! Also, Comus fans should check out the Incredible String Band's "Pictures in a Mirror", which seems to me to be coming from a similar(ly) (bizarre) place.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZbQEJoqr_fQ&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oezufUjr50s&feature=related

i cant hear it! is it good?

It's not bad, a lot of bass though.

oh em gee

Friday May 22 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
Saturday May 23 - NYC
Sunday May 24 - Washington, DC - Velvet Lounge
Tuesday May 26 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar
Thursday May 28 - Portland ME, Space Gallery
Friday May 29 - MA TBA
Saturday May 30 - NYC

wtf, wow

did anyone see that crazy reunion show on a nordic cruise? i would definitely like to hear details.

One UK date announced: 05 Sep 2009, Moseley Folk Festival, Birmingham

What are the chances this will be better than the Flower Travellin' Band reunion?

whoa, i will keep 5/29 open

i'd give comus, um, a 40% chance of being better than the flower travelin band reunion. not good odds, i know, but a lot of comus's finest moments revel in tension & energy release that if the old folks can't pull it off convincingly, it stands a chance of coming off as a third-rate death in june parody.

Heck I think I wanna go and see some of this shit:

Equinox festival in London in June:
http://www.equinoxfestival.com/performers.html

Comus
John Zorn
Aethenor
T.A.G.C (Adi Newton)
Z'EV
Burial Hex
James Ferraro (Skaters)
Rob Mazurek
Pestrepeller (Savage Pencil, Ed Pinsent, Peter Hope-Evans [ex-Medicine Head])

Weekend passes for 80 quid, hmmm. Might have to rob my children.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61moGOCUFSL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

So Out Of The Coma this has just been released on Rise Above.

'Out Of The Coma' is the much anticipated new album by Comus, their first in over thirty three years.

It features three brand new songs, 'Out Of The Coma', 'The Sacrifice' & 'The Return', through which courses the unmistakable, Stygian DNA of First Utterance, plus the only known recording of the band playing their legendary 'Malgaard Suite', live at a college gig in 1972.

The new songs all feature in the band's current live set, and have been enthusiastically received by audiences.

'The Malgaard Suite' was planned as the follow-up album to First Utterance, but it was rejected by the band's then record label. This recording, made on a mono cassette-player, languished forgotten for some thirty years before being re-discovered and given to the band. Is an aural artifact, a grainy, partly-occluded lens through which we can glimpse, squint-eyed, the past, raising tantalising questions as to what Comus might have become, had their ambition to record it not been thwarted.

Comus in 2012 consists of five original members, Roger Wootton, Bobbie Watson, Glenn Goring, Colin Pearson and Andy Hellaby, plus reeds-player & percussionist Jon Seagroatt.

Side One

1. Out of the Coma(8.35)

2. The Sacrifice (8.39)

3. The Reurn (6.22)

Side Two

The Malgaard Suite (15.49)

I noticed that the advert for the new Comus vinyl (cd from Coptic Cat) accentuated that the bside was the only recording of the specific track live. That had me wondering if there were other recordings of the band live in their heyday. Would love to get my hands on recordings if they're out there.

I know that there are live sets out of them since the reunion . I assume that the playing the 2nd lp live thing talked asbout with the Swedish boat trip is actually talking about the projected but unreleased 2nd lp that this bnew release's live track was initially supposed to have a studio version of on.

Incidentally, if people still don't have Comus stuff the most econoomical way to buy it might be the Sanctuary Songs To comus 2cd which contains pretty much all the released material from the 70s on.

Also I got to see the film Permissive which mentions an appearance by the band, but all you get to see is them hanging about at the back of a shot in a party scene. I think one of them may have a guitar with them though. Film is much better for Titus Groan who have 2 or 3 nearly full live tracks included. Plus the dvd hass a film about setting up an impromptu festival at a stately home with more of them plus another couple of bands on.

Oh & ther is another forthcoming live date in london on the 28th of this mopnth. Venue is the Borderline.

Just got that from a Rise Above info email. which also mentions a new cd from Astra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FprrpLJyniQ

^ this is the 1972 live recording of 'Malgaard Suite'. some beautiful passages, well worth a listen

Incidentally, if people still don't have Comus stuff the most econoomical way to buy it might be the Sanctuary Songs To comus 2cd which contains pretty much all the released material from the 70s on.

Yeah, this is a great little collection. Lucked upon a used copy for $8(!) last week, just in time for the new album. Really excited to have loads of Comus to dig into.

I love Out Of The Coma, Bobbie's voice has barely changed, in contrast to Roger.

I really want that Bobbie Watson solo album. Any of you heard it? I could have swore amazon uk were selling it but it isn't there anymore.

...(searches around a bit)...

After checking it out a bit more, there are only 50 cd copies of it! It is a compilation consisting of some tracks by her band Drift and a live Comus track and some other things.

http://bobbiewatson.bandcamp.com/