Dave Brooks – Piper On The Heath

Label: Silly Boy Lemon Format: CD

Dave Brooks has had an interesting musical career, involving a court case taken against him by the local authorities over his playing his bagpipes on Hampstead Heath, a charge he defended by contesting that the pipes are a weapon of war, not a musical instrument. During the compromise which was reached in settlement, it was observed by the judge that bagapipes only count as a weapon in times of war, and since peace reigns, they were an instrument after all. Still, Brooks is allowed the odd skirl of a weekend, and has recently taken to playing on the South Bank in London outside the Tate Modern, dressed as a tree decked in various polluting objects to highlight enironmental damage, and to entertain the hoards of tourists.

Now on the point of the agressive or otherwise nature of the sound of the pipes, there seems to be a definite reaction of either loving or loathing them – and en masse, they certainly have the capacity to raise the hackles in a unique manner. Wheteher accompanied or solo on Piper On The Heath, Brooks is an accomplished player, bringing out the finer points of traditional and self-composed numbers, the latter tending towards quirkily-titled efforts such as “Birds Eat Turds”. Among the semi-familiar Scots and Irish tunes (sometimes accompanied by square frame drumming) and the rather evocative flute and pipe combination of Irish and Mauritanian songs “A Chailleach do mharrias me/Arts Plume”, are more intriguing experiments like “Did They Come From Outer Space? No They Came From Hendon Central”. This work, while evoking suburban extraterrestrial nightmares of the comic kind, also brings in trickling electronics, restrained playing of a live drumkit by Glen Colsen, organs etc. to make a mellow pulsing Ambient/Post Rock piece where the pipes fuse with a flute to pleasant enough effect. There is also a mostly effective spoken and sung piece “The Sea Wind” with Adrian Frost and Lynda Turtle, recorded in New York State, which has a faintly portentious feel with its slow monotone drum and a vocal delivery in self-consciously poetic style to the pipes and running water sounds.

Likewise, “Blues For The College Of Audio Engineering” and “Heath Thing” attempt to bring sampling and pipes together, the latter in collaboration with DJ Logic. The results are somewhere in the realms of a good-time groove and drone-out trance music, with the thumping bass kick propelling the tune to the wheezing melodies of pipes and brass with intermittent enthusiastic vocal whoops and calls in the case of the first piece. “Heath Thing” has a funkier breakbeat vibe going on, with turntable scratching and rewinds making an entertainingly off-kilter (no puns intended here!) dance track which works surprisingly well. “Lament For John Cage’s Parrot”, featuring a radio cut-up mixing with the disjointed bagpipes is yet another unusual arrangement which enters a dervish world of skipping audio chaos before the final drone of the album. Piper On The Heath is a stimulating listen, and while fans of traditional music might find the experiemental forays outlandish, the diverse range of material on the album from the simple to the complex (both old and new) can be highly invigorating.

-Antron S. Meister-