Pritchard to the converted

Damn! if I had known this was being reissued in March of last year I would have attempted to review it or write up the story of its making somewhere or other

I came across the vinyl of Nocturnal Earthworm Stew by Canadian radiophonics dude David Pritchard about a decade ago. Knowing nothing about the artist, but going through a phase of intense interest in all things Island Records and pre-punk Seventies, I decided to take the leap despite the not-cheap price tag and was not disappointed. It's a delightful oddity, laced with late-period Can whimsy, and it's electronic and stereodelic aspects would make it Creel-worthy I should have said.

Here's what I said about it on Blissblog back in 2008:

"A real curio stumbled upon in my local used record store, grabbing my eye on account of the title and the fact it was on Island in 1976, yet I'd never heard of the artist. Turns out he was something like the Canadian David Vorhaus, or more like their one-man equivalent to the Radiophonic Workshop (interesting how so much of the post-War avant-garde was linked to national radio stations: WDR in Cologne; the Experimental Studio department of RTF in Paris; the Studio Fonologia Musicale of Radio Italiana in Milan). Pritchard did a freaky all-night radio show for CHUM-FM in Toronto in the late Sixties and early Seventies, then went on to found a long-running operation called Sonic Workshop doing adventurous audio projects for some 30 years. The release date--1976, that liminal year--is signficant: aspects of the music hark back to Eno, Faust, the pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk, Uncle Meat Zappa; other look forward to Cabaret Voltaire, TG's 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Der Plan. I wouldn't say this record is quite in either of those leagues; there's a whimsical/willfully wacky/messing-with-FX/ooh-look-at-all-my-synths (every piece of gear and every treatment used is itemized in classic Tomita style) that equally brings to mind Godley & Crème with their Gizmo or Peel Show quirksters like Morgan Fisher. Yet (like Radiophonic Workshop or much of the stuff on Daphne Oram's Oramics) there's that aspect where it's all the more enjoyable for being grounded in the pragmatic/mercenary, no-nonsense-yet-gimmicky-and-Goonsy world of radio and commercial jingles, radioplay Foleys and sound FX, interstitional muzik etc. Mind you, the second side--"Nocturnal Earthworm Stew" itself--is actually a side-long opus/sound-suite intended as "an electronic rendering of the night"--which suggests a certain grand ambition.

Release blurb:

Nocturnal Earthworm Stew is a glorious experiment in electronic music, capturing the vitality and early curiosity of the 1970s. An earlier press statement called it "Serious headphone music made under the influence of Stockhausen, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Charles Ives and others." The influence of prog and space rock is pronounced, and contributions from Canadian prog legends Nash the Slash and Martin Deller (of FM) solidify Nocturnal's place in the prog cannon. The website Prog Archives calls Pritchard a "pioneer in experimental, cosmic-synth electronics." 

The Artoffact Records reissue is housed in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve, complete with photos, reproductions of essays by David Pritchard and Nash the Slash, and an all-new piece by Scott McGregor Moore. The audio is remastered for vinyl across three sides, and a fourth side contains a marvellous etching of Pritchard himself. Bonus tracks that were never pressed to vinyl are also included. A special collectors' edition on cream-coloured vinyl is also available.