HARD N' HORNY
Wigwam
•Jazz Rock/Fusion
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3.45
| 89 ratings | 9 reviews | 15% 5 stars
Good, but non-essential |
Studio Album, released in 1969 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. 633 Jesu F�glar (0:07) - Jim Pembroke / lead vocals, piano
LP Love Records - LRLP 9 (1969, Finland) and to projeKct for the last updates Edit this entry |
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WIGWAM Hard N' Horny ratings distribution
(89 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(15%)Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(40%)Good, but non-essential (35%)Collectors/fans only (9%)Poor. Only for completionists (1%)
WIGWAM Hard N' Horny reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
PROG REVIEWER
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
I will round off the rating to the upper unit for this album. Wigwam is one of the most important Finnish prog group historically speaking along with Helsinki's crosstown friendly rivals Tasavalan Presidentii. Like T P , Wigwam developped a very wide musical scope , almost as to show that they could do almost every style of music. I think that the bond between T P and Wigwam was mostly due to Londoner Jim Pembroke. Pembroke along with drummer Osterberg are the mainstays throughout all of Wigwam albums.
As you can read in other review the parting of the writing credits on two side shows the personnal musical difference between Pembroke (Acoustical and guitary) and Gustavson(definitely bluesy-jazz). There is some Procol influences but I think mostly of early Traffic - most notably the track Mr Fantasy both in the vocal delivery and in soulful KB lines (Winwood was very Motown influenced). The proghead will find it confusing to find Folk , jazzy-bluesy-rock , experimental (Gustavson's compsitions) all on one album but pasted on each other clumsily with more country music of Pembroke (the Band or Dylan-style). The suite on the second side , describing Harry's adventures and misgivings could've been a major work if Gustavson and Pembroke were to find a middle ground (something that they will never really manage while they were both in Wigwam) even though you can hear them collaborating in each other's composition) The suite is clumsy but endearing if listened to with complacency. Same can be said of the first side. Bassist Hulsdon will find himself ousted by much superior bassist Pohjola but will remain friendly with Pembroke (co-writing some lyrics) and will be responsible for the Sleeve artwork of two albums after Gustavson and Pohjola left.
Somehow a very naive but worthy and enjoyable first effort.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
If you collect vinyl seriously, you may wish to try hunt down the first pressings of "Hard'n'Horny", numbered only in 400 of copies (surviving number may be lesser today?). Their record company Love Records didn't have enough money to press the album jackets, as all their available money went to the underestimated studio recording fees of this album! As the solution, band members had to draw personally all the needed 400 covers on freehand. They are not very neat, but at least each copy unique. It would be a nice a project to make a website, presenting pictures of verified copies of these different covers.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
I don't understand what's the rationale about giving a title to something with a duration of 8 seconds, so let's forget it.
This debut is jazzy. "Pid�n Sinusta" with its bass and organ base has a Canterbury feeling. I think to Caravan mainly. There's a similar instrumental on Waterloo Lily.
The organ of "En Aio Paeta", but all the song effectively, is on the same way of Procol Harum. I think that the cold athmospheres of songs like A Salty Dog fit well with a Finnish band.
The things start to be different with the highly experimental "Neron Muistolle; Hyv�� Y�t". Free jazz piano, drums and contrabass with two persons having a dialogue in Finnish. It's where jazz meets psychedelia. Just a bit less eclectic than Ron Geesin.
Back to Procol Harum with organ, bass and choir on "Guardian Angel/The Future", the first song with lyrics in English. Respect to the British band the vocalist has a voice similar to Roger Chapman so the result is a nice but very dated psychedelic mix.
"No Pens, El Karsinoit" is a jazz piece with a bit of rock/blues influences. Surely one of the best things of this album even if not the most original, either with the clavinet in the final.
"Henry's...Mountain Range Or Thereabouts" starts over the last clavinet notes of the previous song. A contrabass and various percussions put the listener back to the dark and acid world of cold jazz until the song turns to folky. I hear echoes of Pentangle as the melody is folky, but it's the contrabass and the rhythmic section in general that sounds like Terry Cox and co. just more acid.
"Geographical And Astronomical Mistakes" sounds more beatlesian, instead. since the previous track we have just a single "epic" that for some reason is split into different tracks instead of being a single track logically divided in parts. This is particularily bad when you copy it on an mp3 reader.
"Highway Code" is a song of the end of the 60s, so still in the style of Procol Harum or Family. Whoever like this genre will like it. Since now it's a sequel of 2 minutes short songs.
"...Ghastly And Diabolical Mistakes" is beatlesian with a bit of jazz in the piano solo; " ...Cancelled Holiday Planes" is deep in the 60s (Moody Blues), as well as " ...Concentration Camp Brochure" (nice title) and "...Ears, Eyes, Girlfriends And Feet", its follow-ups.
"...Hard And Horny All-Niter" seems coming from Sgt Peppers, as the closer " ...Milk Round In The Morning".
In the end is an interesting document of its age, made more interesting by the fact that the band is not British, but surely it's not essential.
Good enough, anyway.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
HARD N' HORNY is a testament to just how brilliant the band was before Pekka Pohjola joined the group and quite the surprise for the listener as one track after another is top notch late 60s psychedelic pop rock that delivers strong hooks, heavy doses of groovy freakiness and stellar musical and vocal performances. In fact, at this point WIGWAM was certainly Finland's answer to The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper" days excellently heard on the second side of the album that incorporates a stream of tracks that connect musically and lyrically beginning with "Henry's? Mountain Range Or Thereabouts." The album is a bit strange and not exactly uniform in theme although quite consistent in quality. It begins with the Finnish lyric tracks in a clearly psychedelic and jam band mode with a lazy and chilled bass and drum groove with some swinging 60s organ runs and becomes trapper on the next couple of tracks reminding me a bit of Procol Harum only with a different vocal delivery which in my favorite Finno-Ugric language makes it sound even trippier as the Finnish language has a strange rhythmic flow i'm not accustomed to.
The fourth track " Neron Muistolle; Hyv�� Y�t�" is the peak of the trippiness on the album as it contains a spoken dialogue of some sort between Marjoritta Gustavson and Jukka Gustavson in Finnish while strange piano rolls create a highly surreal background along with accompanying guitar squeals and slides. As strange as this track is, it does display the strong piano playing skills of Jukka Gustavson as the backbone of the song structures on board. The next few tracks are well-crafted psychedelic pop rock tunes that offer strong melodies, pseudo-classical keyboard parts and mid tempo 60s feeling songwriting with slight touches of progressive behavior meaning a few time sig changes here and there and some slight syncopation and jazzy type of structures. Beginning with "Henry's? Mountain Range Or Thereabouts" it begins to feel like a totally different album which takes on a Beatelesque "Sgt Pepper's" flair although more rooted in a psychedelic Pink Floydian type of space rock. The lyrics are surprisingly very good and one could hardly detect that these guys were Finnish although that may have something to do with Jim Pembroke being an English speaker from the UK. The remainder of the album goes through a few short movements that allow the band to exercise their psychedelic and pop hook chops with slight jazz and prog influences.
I was quite taken back by this debut as it is completely different from what came after and more often than not debut releases by 70s prog bands that debuted in the 60s are steeped in amateurism and banality but WIGWAM hits the ground running having developed a highly satisfying musical interactive experience that shows off their brilliant Finnish take on the British psychedelic and pop rock of the latter half of the 60s. The mix of the Finnish and British influences from the band members blends quite well together and it's no surprise that with the magical ingredient of Pekka Pohjola jumping on board that the band would go on to become one of Finland's greatest prog exports. I find this an excellent listen from beginning to end which more than holds up on repeated listens although it does feel like it is two different EPs strewn together as each half of the album is distinct from the other. Despite the album being slightly disjointed in theme and structure along with a rather misfitting title, i find HARD N' HORNY to be a brilliantly constructed album that with a little help from a musical director in a more connected country could have propelled these guys into the international pop rock scene. That was not to be but on this one we have one of those glimpses of what could have been.
Latest members reviews
This album was put out very early in the Love Records effort to broaden the horizons of rock in Finland. Producer Otto Donner assigned some musician to oversee recordings, but was often doing the arrangements. He had already helped put out a Blues Section album and singles with Pembroke. I got h ... (read more)
Report this review (#2964077) | Posted by Tero1 | Tuesday, October 24, 2023 | Review Permanlink
Made in Finland in 1969. And it really sounds like that. But i guess the not-so-good sounds are the spirit of this album. Anyway, about the songs: The A-side is very interesting. There is good stuff like "En aio paeta" and "Guardian Angel: The Future" But there is also crap like "Neron muistol ... (read more)
Report this review (#423563) | Posted by Talybont | Sunday, March 27, 2011 | Review Permanlink
This is the debut album of the arguably most important prog band ever to come from Finland. This is also the only album where they sing in Finnish (well, only a few of the Gustavson tunes, but still). Hard N' Horny is an album of opposites. On the other hand we have the Gustavson penned jazzy f ... (read more)
Report this review (#229823) | Posted by nikow | Monday, August 3, 2009 | Review Permanlink
Some people might say Wigwam was a milestone in Finnish prog, but then the band is still in function after numerous and long lay-offs and umpteen changes in their line-up. Their first album in 1969 - Hard N'Horny - belonged to an era when adventurous rock was still a somewhat odd thing in Finland ... (read more)
Report this review (#75137) | Posted by OT R�ih�l� | Sunday, April 16, 2006 | Review Permanlink
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