During the past few weeks the record review department has been confused as to what policy should be followed when reviewing records. Who should review and how? The fact that we haven't any clear ideas of student opinion as regards record reviews make these questions even harder to answer: should reviews concentrate on the relevency of rock music, is it saying anything of value? Does it have any social merit (or is it merely an opiate purveyed by the capitalist record companies?) Or should reviewers imitate the rock critics in attempting to establish what is essential, as art, in a particular piece of music (a task requiring consid-erable ability and talent)? Or finally (oh God no!) do we need reviews anyway?

Salient does of course welcome all student copy and the records column will continue to provide an outlet for reviews from students. But we want to maintain a high standard of reviews. Part of this will depend on the skills of the reviewer, the rest depends on what the readers need. If we don 't know what you all would tike then we can 't perform a useful reviewing service. One way of course is for you all to write and tell us. Another way was agreed on last week and will be discussed at the next meeting of the Rock Club. We are hoping to organise weekly or fortnightly music forums where people interested in rock music can listen to the latest releases. Hopefully we will be able to print general comment from these forums in the records column. It's a bold idea that will depend on the participation of followers of rock music for its success so watch for notices advertising the next Rock Club meeting. Otherwise if you have another idea drop it into Salient.

Brian King

Graeme Simpson

Ship Ahoy: the O'Jays.

Reviewed by Brian King.

Soul music, bless it's beautiful black ass, has always been an essential part of modern western country music: behind every rock star is a black brother scattin' in 3/4 and 4/4 time. After several decades of give-and-take with blues and gospel forms soul music has created for itself an enormous non-black, non-negro audience by assimilating elements from other varieties of popular music. The original beautiful people are still digging it all right — but so is whitey. 'Sweet soul' with the often lush orchestration and warm, simple melodies is the soul music of the seventies.

The new soul centre is Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. Producers Kenny Gamble and Lou Huff, and arranger Thom Bell are responsible for the high, warbling tenor and the very soulful falsetto that is characteristic of many of the Philadelphia vocal groups — you know, like the Delfonics, the Spinners, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. And of course the O'Jays.

Gamble and Huff turned out two big hits for the O'Jays, "Backstabbers" and "Love Train" in 1972, and this year have turned out two more: "Put Your Hands Together" and "For the Love of Money", both from their latest album 'Ship Ahoy'. If you were beginning to think soul music was becoming the food of teenage love then forget it baby. The O'Jaybadassjivebrother kind of soul music is for you too. On "Ship Ahoy" the voices are so-o strong and the music — from MFSB (mother, father, sister, brother) — is 24 carat excellence. On this album the O'Jays show they're the best of the lot: the three vocalists never miss a beat and the music is as smooth as silk.

There aint a bad track on the album but if you need to taste the soul food first then ask the nun to play "Put Your Hands Together" and "Now That We've Found Love" — it's all beautiful baby.

These Foolish Things: Bryan Ferry (Island).

Reviewed by Richard Best.

The immediate problem with this album is in its five shortest tracks and the stuff behind that. Truly, I have nothing against pop music '58/.62 where the totality of anyone tune added up to little more than a momentary hum, but I abhor having to note here that the release of "These Foolish Things" very nearly brings with it the rebirth of the 59-second buzz.

Bryan Ferry's best calculations have always been in his capacity for stretching what would normally sound better cut: a dozen piano trills where lesser stars would falter at playing the trill twice: a monosyllabic word spun gnashingly into polysyllabic nonsense — the fine line between tastefully affected eccentricity and ludicrousness.

Mostly, "These Foolish Things" is not like that. There are 13 tracks and five are squandered on self-indulgent nostalgia like "River of Salt" and "Baby, I Don't Care", both 1'46" in length and not famous for their succinctness. Further, Ferry successfully manipulates the climatic, chorus in "Piece of My Heart" into an unexpected low and leaves the Beatles' "You Won't See Me" as inoffensive as it was in 1962.

Business is only just taken care of and even then, I feel beat whenever Anne Murray's lovely rendition of "You Won't See Me" comes on the radio. Does it really matter that Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears" and "Sympathy For the Devil" almost salvage this album when Anne whips through last decade's sludge and pulls up a maypole delight?

"These Foolish Things" is one bad LP and you can take off ten points for thinking that Ferry first gay-ified "It's My Party" and another five for not caring that ex-public school-boy and 10cc guide, Jonathan King, resuscitated and put the pansy in that same tune two years ago.

Thoroughly D-minus and completely lacklustre to boot.

Pretzel Logic: Steely Dan (Probe)

Reviewed by Richard Best.

A certain acquaintance in Wellington says this album is "cold".

Which merely goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison since "Pretzel Logic" is really this year's craftiest skib of smash-hit after The Raspberries' "Side 3".

For those unsure, Steely Dan have always been "cold" — just like electric heaters are "very drying" and eggburgers "expensive" at 65 cents. Theirs has never been an exacting science of involvement a la Black Oak Arkansas of simplicity and one wonders — as one is prone to wonder in times of muddle — if this showy preference for circuitous egomania might spell eventual doom for this most literate of rock combos.

So says the I.Q. in me which bids to laugh knowingly as Steely Dan now dance quickly through 11 new white upper-middle-class tunes and words, all nicely melodic and lots better than their second LP outing, the sometimes tedious "Countdown To Ecstasy".

In three weeks though, I still haven't struck one concrete solution to the problem posed in side one, track one's "Rikki, Don't Lose that Number" where "number" is (a) a marijuana joint, (b) a telephone number or, more likely, (c) a loosely-spun reference to some of Rikki's positivism, specifically what I don't know.

Nor have I worked out where "Barrytown" is or who "Charlie Freak" is. But then I never understand Time's "Letters to the Editor", someone has yet to explain Zionism to me in less than 500 words and I still marvel at the rolling mechanism in the Hygenic Towel Dispenser.

A lovely LP worth all of five stars but I now feel compelled to roll up and die with Simon and Garfunkel where the sentiments are strictly middle-class.

And what in God's name is pretzel logic anyway?

Between Nothingness and Eternity: Mahavishnu Orchestra. CBS Recording.

Reviewed by Murray McEwen.

Mark — "for special tastes only"; folkies and heavy-metal kids need read no further.

Mahavishnu John is back — the man with the shortest hair-cut in rock, leads his five-piece orchestra through forty-two minutes of action-packed concert material.

This album, recorded live in Central Park, New York, in August 1973. marks the demise of the orchestra as such. In fighting between McLaughlin and Jerry Goodman, together with the former's desire to get into "more complex music" necessitated their separation in February of this year. McLaughlin plans to return, however with violinist Jean Luc Ponty, and a ten-piece string and brass orchestra,

By now, everyone will be familiar with the Mahavishnu approach. The ritualistic sixty-second medicative silence to begin with, is followed by a rippling guitar/violin introduction and Jan Hammer's wandering moog patterns. The music here, builds to a loud and intensely complex climax, and then subsides into a subdued and mellow period of reflection.

Side One is a Trilogy, executed at a blistering pace (both Billy Cobham and Jerry Goodman footing it ably with their lightning fast guitars) McLaughlin uses the other players as springboards to bounce his improvisations off.

Side Two is rounded out by a series of solos. Time signatures run amok, and the Orc blaze into a cacophony of highspeed musical tricks, seemingly irreconcilable with the title of the pice; "Dream".

The album is considerably rockier than "Birds of Fire", "Sister Andrea" has a strange, haunting blues introduction, Bassist Rick Laird gets lost in the mix, and Jam Hammer struggles to make his organ heard. Billy Cobham's rim-shots crack like lightning though, and his power and rhythmic skill punctuate every section of the album.

Sure Mahavishnu Orchestra are fast, furious, and innovative, but the group pose a real dilemma. There is no denying that McLaughlin's spiritual enlightenment in Sri Chinmoy, health foods, and white clothes, has benefitted the man himself immensely (witness a hopelessly wasted McLaughlin leaning for support against the amps on the Tony Williams Life-time gigs). Has it benefitted his music though?

Critical reaction to Mahavishnu has been as extreme as their music itself. Three schools of thought here: firstly those who think the anguish of his spiritualism produce musical joy, rather than pain; secondly, those who concede that the musicians are technically brilliant, but find the loud onslaught disjointed and boring; thirdly those who greet it with a blank stare of ignorant disapproval.

Whichever way, Mahavishnu have set a new standard in rock music. The spiritual heat McLaughlin channels into his music, provides an alternative to the decadent trend currently associated with other rock groups (Blue Oyster Cult, New York Dolls etc). Already Carlos Santana, Mike Shrieve, and Rick Laird have caught the karmic bug.

Does the Mahavishnu-Hare Krishna-Jesus revival signify the birth of a new spiritual standard in rock music, or will we continue with the heathen materialism of the decadent cult?

Between nothingness and....eternity?