Trout Mask Replica WB rating out of 100

Trout Mask Replica, deemed by famed rock historian Piero Scaruffi as "the only record of rock music worth listening to", is not so much a diamond in the rough as it is a diamond pulled out of the collision of a fireworks truck and a busload of homicidal clowns.

At first the album seems almost indecipherable: a hodgepodge of genres (rock, blues, jazz and sometimes even pop) coupled with Captain Beefheart’s existentialist wailings on politics, history, music and society. The myths surrounding the production of the album, mostly propagated by Beefheart (real name Don Van Vliet) himself in a 1970 interview, such as the band’s abstinence from drug use and the songs only taking minutes to write, are now part of rock history in and of themselves. With each of the album’s 28 tracks recorded in one take after over six months of grueling rehearsal in almost complete isolation in Van Vliet’s California home the overall tone of the album is one of ordered disorder, perfect imperfection and strangely accessible insanity.

One feature of the album is Van Vliet’s chameleon-like vocal skills, able to change flawlessly from burning falsettos on ‘Pena’, to Louis Armstrong-esque gravel voice on ‘Frownland’, to pre-heavy metal growling on ‘Dachau Blues’, to fitful screaming on ‘When Big Joan set ups’, to an almost pitch-perfect Muddy Waters impersonation on ‘China Girl’. In fact Waters’ Delta Blues genre is a huge inspiration for Van Vliet on this album, lyrically and musically, although not directly in the replication of sounds, chords or vocals, but more in spirit throughout the album.

Often described as ‘avant-garde blues’, the album genuinely, intricately and sometimes playfully, explores the many spaces of blues, a genre massively responsible for contemporary music but sometimes forgotten in its pure form. Traditional chord structures are often rejected in favour of a more anarchic, liberated progression, and this chaotic base is the springboard from which Van Vliet expresses his madness through vocals and solos from a variety of horns and guitars. Of course after so many months of rehearsals the skill of his players is unquestionable: guitarists ‘Zoot Horn Rollo’ (real name Bill Harkleroad, who later formed Mallard after a falling out with Van Vliet) and ‘Antennae Jimmy Semens’ (Jeff Cotton) prove to be unique, talented and versatile duo and it is their musicality which keeps the album going in its most anti-music periods.

Aside from the blues, the biggest influences of the album are jazz, especially the more modern free jazz, and producer Frank Zappa, who was in turn heavily influenced throughout the following decade by the finished product in his own music. Structure and form are difficult to pin down on such a highly experimental album, but the central section does boast what can be called a loose ‘jazz suite’ in the tracks ‘Dali’s car’, ‘Hair pie: bake 2’ and ‘Pena’. ‘Dali’s car’ starts with a chiming guitar lead in, before introducing a central theme which is explored further on the following two tracks.

The album’s reach is legendary. Kurt Cobain famously said it was one of his favourite albums, and some of his more avant-garde output, such as his collaborations with beat writer William S. Burroughs, is directly influenced by the searing, atypical guitar lines from Trout Mask Replica. Likewise Red Hot Chili Pepper’s guitarist John Frusciante has also claimed it as a major inspiration and in his less accessible solo work one can again find the album’s touch. But it is not just the avant-garde who are inspired by this album: the punk movement of the 70s and 80s owes much to Trout Mask Replica, and it can be seen as an influence to artists as disparate as Jeff Buckley, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.