Cheap at Half the Price

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Cheap at Half the Price
Cheap at Half the Price cover
Studio album by Fred Frith
Released 1983
Recorded United States, August 1983
Genre Avant-progressive rock
Length 38:29
Label Ralph Records (USA)
Producer(s) Fred Frith
Professional reviews
Fred Frith chronology
Live in Japan
(1982)		 Cheap at Half the Price
(1983)		 The Technology of Tears
(1988)


CD releases
Fred Records CD release. The cover includes a detail of the original Ralph Records (1983) cover.
Fred Records CD release. The cover includes a detail of the original Ralph Records (1983) cover.

Cheap at Half the Price is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It was Frith's third and last album for The Residents' Ralph Records label and was recorded by Frith at his home in New York City on a 4-track recorder. Frith played almost all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums, for which he used drum tapes and samples previously recorded by other drummers.

Cheap at Half the Price differs from Frith's previous "avant-garde"/experimental albums in that it comprises a collection of pop-like songs, and he sings for the first time. The album raised eyebrows at the time in "progressive circles" for its apparent simplicity and departure from what was then regarded as "Fred Style" [1] However, Frith's exploration of song forms here was developed further with Tom Cora in Skeleton Crew where they played deceptively simple and catchy songs, often using melodies derived from Scandinavian and Eastern European music. One retrospective review of the album described it as "... very much part of the complex of musical activities Frith engaged in at the time, rather than a departure. More than that, he wove lots of those strands together into one coherent work. It bursts with inventiveness, and eradiates the irrepressible joy of playful creativity." [2]

The album cover artwork was done by Tina Curran, Frith's wife at the time. [3] A remastered version of the album was released on Fred Records in 2004.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

Side One

  1. "Some Clouds Don't" (Frith) – 3:12
  2. "Cap the Knife" (Frith) – 2:47
  3. "Evolution" (Frith) – 3:21
  4. "Too Much, Too Little" (Frith, Curran) – 2:09
  5. "The Welcome" (Frith) – 2:28
  6. "Same Old Me" (Frith) – 2:58
  7. "Some Clouds Do" (Frith) – 2:49

Side Two

  1. "Instant Party" (Frith) – 1:53
  2. "Walking Song" (Frith) – 3:13
  3. "Flying in the Face of Facts" (Frith) – 2:38
  4. "Heart Bares" (Frith) – 4:56
  5. "Absent Friends" (Frith/Trad. Swedish) – 3:58
  6. "The Great Healer" (Frith) – 2:07

[edit] Personnel

  • Fred Frith – guitar, 6-string bass, Casio-101, violin, xylophone, homemade instruments, voice
  • Frank Wuyts – drums
  • Fred Maher – drums
  • Paul Sears – drums
  • Hans Bruniusson – drum samples
  • Tina Curran – bass guitar ("Too Much, Too Little")
  • Bill Laswell – bass guitar ("Same Old Me")
  • Aksak Maboul – clapping ("Absent Friends")

[edit] Production

Recorded at home on a 4-track recorder by Fred Frith.

[edit] CD reissues

  • In 1991 East Side Digital and RecRec Music re-issued Cheap at Half the Price on CD with two additional tracks:
  1. "True Love" (Frith) – 2:58 (from The 20th Anniversary of the Summer of Love (1987) by various artists)
  2. "Person to Person" (Frith) – 2:20 (from North America (1985) by Curlew)
  • In 2004 Fred Records issued a remastered version of the original Cheap at Half the Price with no extra tracks.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cheap at Half the Price. ReR Megacorp. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.
  2. ^ van Peer, René. Frith in Retroperspective. Leonardo online. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.
  3. ^ Related Canterbury bands. The Canterbury Website. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.

[edit] External links


 v • d • e    Fred Frith
Bands
Art Bears • Henry Cow • Keep the Dog • Massacre • Skeleton Crew

Death Ambient • Fred Frith Guitar Quartet • French Frith Kaiser Thompson
Aksak Maboul • Material • Naked City
Solo discography
Guitar Solos (1974)  •  Gravity (1980)  •  Speechless (1981)  •  Live in Japan (1982)  •  Cheap at Half the Price (1983)  •  Quartets (1994)  •  Eye to Ear (1997)  •  Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire (1999)  •  Clearing (2001)  •  Prints (2002)  •  Eye to Ear II (2004)  •  Eleventh Hour (2005)
Music for Dance:  The Technology of Tears (1988)  •  Allies (1996)  •  The Previous Evening (1997)  •  Accidental (2002)  •  The Happy End Problem (2006)
Soundtracks:  The Top of His Head (1989)  •  Step Across the Border (1990)  •  Middle of the Moment (1995)  •  Rivers and Tides (2003)
Composer only:  Pacifica (1998)  •  Freedom in Fragments (2002)  •  Impur (2006)
Related articles
Fred Frith discography  •  Fred Records
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