Review Summary: Another prog band from Chicago with an interesting mix of eclectic music.
“Anomaly” is the debut and only album of McLuhan that was released in 1972. The line up on the album is Dennis Stoney Philips, Tom Laney, David Wright, Paul Cohn, Neal Rosner and John Mahoney. The album had also the participation of Bobby Christian and Michael Linn.
McLuhan was a short lived US progressive rock band based out of Chicago who put out only an album brimming with adventurous ideas and humour. It’s perfectly clear that these young College students were very intelligent and talented musicians. But, what impresses me most is the “out of the box” thinking when it came to their music and their live shows. Named after the theorist and philosopher Marshall McLuhan, the group formed after meeting as students at the University of Illinois in Chicago in the late of the 60’s. The band was able to develop a kind of a mutant strain of progressive music incorporating mixed-media footage in their live sets. So, the cinematic backdrop is there though too.
McLuhan traced back to a band called Seven Seas that operated in Chicago in the late of the 60’s. It had just been joined by trumpeter David Wright when the group fell apart. From the remnants of Seven Seas and some new comrades-in-arms, Wright formed a larger, cross-style formation that stayed mainly in the border of proto-prog, jazz and brass rock, but incorporated tape recordings and film excerpts into their performances. As one of the house bands of the Chicago pub The Wise-Fools, the band gained a small fan base and a recording contract with the label Brunswick Records. In 1972, the bands only album “Anomaly” was released. But unluckily they broke up almost at the same time.
The United States was only in the background of the progressive wave in the 70’s. Only a limited number of formations emerged in that decade but jazz-fusion was more productive with Return To Forever and The Flock, for instance. The geographical origin of McLuhan obliges, and so jazz is very present in their writing, but always with a rock perspective and a desire to be atypical. The band’s 1972 debut, “Anomaly”, blends heavy freak outs with 50’s pop vocal harmonies, classic horror storytelling, and quasi orchestral arrangements with instrumentation incredibly rich. Beyond the typical rock instruments, there is a huge wind section that allows the band to have a dense subject and above all, to combine multiple influences. The register is that of the demanding music but that is very difficult to categorize, a real “anomaly”.
“Anomaly” has four tracks. The opening number “The Monster Bride” is inspired by silent films about Frankenstein. It introduces numerous jazz sequences. In particular we have the experimental solo passages which border on free-jazz pretending give a cinematographic aspect to the title. It thus begins with a Hitchcockian film atmosphere and then explores more original paths, such as many progressive moments like the use of the flute in the King Crimson’s style. The artistic Dixieland monologue on “Spiders (In Neals Basement)” is partly based on the collisions of Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart Of Darkness”. The song paradoxically combines the spirit of the Broadway musicals with Latin rhythmic flavor. “Spiders (In Neals Basement)” is almost entirely in the fusion register with touches of soul and jazz-Latin music. “Witches Theme And Dance” is the title that comes closest to progressive rock with more present vocals and guitar, inventive and meaningful keyboards, or even the bassoon that gives to it a folk side. Despite everything, the numerous passages of the brass band type are reminiscent of jazz. We can note here a very interesting second instrumental part with rather experimental choruses. “A Brief Message From Your Local Media” is divided into four parts: “The Garden”, “The Assembly Line”, “Electric Man” and “Question”. This is a very mysterious quadriptych that seems to be the great progressive reference of the band. It starts with a romantic tale that is completely cast in the music of Robert Fripp’s style, “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, while its second phase once again finds film references and a jazz-fusion removed which turns into a polyphonic burlesque piece clearly influenced by Leonard Bernstein’s piece “America”.
Conclusion: Basically, McLuhan is a first example of a style mixing band. However, the mix is extremely successful and exudes a very uniform and unique atmosphere. “Anomaly” is certainly one of the most interesting works released in the USA in the early 70’s in terms of progressive rock, with its expansive and richly instrumented pieces. Anyone who appreciates Zappaesque, canterburesque jazz-rock, powerful blowers, proto-prog oddities and simply some very colourful, complex and imaginative music should know this great album. In short, “Anomaly” is an album certainly very little known but unique and quite intriguing. It far exceeds most jazz-fusion bands that only make limited excursions into this neighbouring genre, committing them fully to this path. It’s an excellent release, a forgotten classic perceived as a breath of fresh air. For those who love prog rock and jazz/fusion, “Anomaly” comes as an easy recommendation.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
