This Weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… The Cardiacs

The Cardiacs, weirdly good, particularly for those of us who still cherish parts of Please Don’t Touch by Steve Hackett. The Cardiacs took progressive, then punk, then blended them and saw what came out. Pronk, so they call it, and who can disagree. They’re still going sort of (albeit stymied a bit by main man Tim Smith’s heart attack late last year), and now much lauded by what appears to a be revitalised prog-rock scene that encompasses everything from Porcupine Tree (rather fine) through Rush to… well, whatever you’re having yourself.

Actually, isn’t it odd that perhaps the most reviled musical scene in rock has made a reappearance. I guess one could argue that when other styles have been played through, and through again (ah yes, how many iterations of goth will we endure? Although that said parts of Porcupine Tree’s output sounds suspiciously like late Fields of the Nephilim) and then again, that it’s near inevitable that the more esoteric byways should be reconsidered. Although in part this revitalisation is achieved by spreading the net and the definition of prog pretty damn wide.

Anyhow, the Cardiacs have had quite a career, one has to cherish the story of them supporting Marillion (Fish incarnation) during 1984 and being bottled. I’d have thought their approach was much truer to the spirit of prog than Marillion.

Land and the Sea, released in 1989, is the album I know best and like best so here are a few tracks from that…

This claims to be live, but… I’m not so sure.

Arnald

The Duck and Roger The Horse

Mares Nest (Live 1990 – recorded in a Church in Salisbury – natch!) It’s a sequence of 15 or so YouTube clips of the entire gig including the above… start here…