Born in the titular Kent city in the late 60s, the Canterbury scene spawned some of prog’s most creative and quirky acts. From The Wilde Flowers and Soft Machine to Caravan and Gong, each had a distinctive sound and, in many cases, image that captured the hearts and minds of their followers.
But the scene’s impact didn’t end in the 70s. Phil Howitt, Facelift editor and Hugh Hopper’s biographer, explores the new breed of progressive acts inspired by it – both consciously and unwittingly – and unearths the secret of the “Canterbury chord.”
The consensus regarding the semi-mythical Canterbury scene is that it comprises a loose connection of musicians and music emanating from The Wilde Flowers. The band gigged between 1965 and 1968, and the members went on to form not just the classic Caravan line-up, but also the nucleus of Soft Machine alongside Mike Ratledge and Daevid Allen (later of Gong).
The Canterbury scene would come to encompass Gong, Robert Wyatt’s Matching Mole, Kevin Ayers And The Whole World, Hatfield And The North and National Health, while taking in members from Egg and Delivery.
A number of rock family trees have expanded the definition to capture any loosely affiliated bands – most remarkably one formed by Osamu Sakamoto of Japanese ‘Canterbury’ band Soft Weed Factor – incorporating Henry Cow, Camel, Curved Air, Roxy Music and even The Police. As one might expect, debate continues to rage as to how far to push the concept.
There’s a parallel argument as to what constitutes the Canterbury sound. A recent fan-based survey conducted for Canterbury Christ Church University drew almost as many ideas as respondents; but a number of common denominators emerged.
One was that it encompassed the city itself, its religious traditions and pastoral setting. Another was that it was the jazzy straddling of other genres, or as one fan put it: “You can get heavy, dark, psychedelic, spacey, zany, cosmic, hymn-esque, groovy, the absurd, the catchy and the comforting. What other subgenre manages to incorporate all that?”
The scene’s musicians tended to be open-minded, and despite apparent virtuosity, often self-taught. They were more likely to play keyboards and wind instruments than guitar, with added effects such as fuzz bass. Unique English voices (including Wyatt, Ayers and Richard Sinclair) are associated with the scene, augmented by lyrics that are often daft (Gong), saucy (Caravan) or throwaway (Hatfield And The North).
The music is complex but not flashy, and often contradictory in mood – intricate yet catchy; light yet complex; mellow then intense. As one fan said: “Peering into hidden corners.”
Gong and Soft Machine have enjoyed renewed leases of life in the last decade. Caravan put in the odd appearance and have recently launched a trio based around Pye Hastings (the only original member within any of the three bands), Geoffrey Richardson and Mark Walker.
As time has gone on, the Canterbury sound has continued to spread further beyond the city’s boundaries. Some of the best modern music, it’s argued, has no geographical or personnel connection to the original scene. International bands, including Supersister from the Netherlands and Moving Gelatine Plates from France, started the ball rolling in the early 1970s by incorporating key components into their own music. Americans The Muffins and French drummer Patrick Forgas took the baton shortly afterwards.
A cursory search of tags on Bandcamp reveals a whole host of bands around the world who claim – or have had thrust upon them – a “Canterbury sound.”Dave Newhouse of The Muffins and Diratz claimed in the documentary Romantic Warriors III to have unearthed a “Canterbury chord,” which is a suspended fourth of sorts, as used in the coda to Robert Wyatt’s Sea Song.
I’m fascinated by music and mechanical things. Imagine my excitement when I discovered some keyboards blend those aspects!
Tom Penaguin
Newhouse has embraced the tag by releasing songs with titles such as Canterbury Bells and Mini Hugh (a reference to Soft Machine bass player Hugh Hopper) on his solo Manna/Mirage albums. Andy Tillison of The Tangent references the entire movement with The Canterbury Sequence on his band’s 2003 debut, The Music That Died Alone. and Milkbone (actor-musician Matt Berry, Maypoles drummer James Sedge and Cobalt Chapel’s Phil Scragg) simply call the opening track from their self-titled debut Canterbury.
There’s a suggestion that “Canterbury” has become a shorthand for the innovative and uncategorisable; and while some label bosses are happy to be associated with it, one told me he thought the whole concept was “bullshit.”
Christ Church University’s research has enabled a number of international musicians to discuss their own connections to Canterbury music. Tom Penaguin, a young multi-instrumentalist from France, recently released his second solo album, Beginnings, featuring complex compositions that evoke Egg or Hatfield And The North. His calling cards are split-screen YouTube videos recorded in his attic bedroom, resonant of the insular creativity of lockdown – all meandering bass, fluid guitar and intense drumming.
One of his pieces, Galaxy On Tape, has a time-lapsed introduction showing him splicing tapes in the grand tradition of Soft Machinists Allen, Hopper and Ratledge, before breaking out into a sun-kissed Steve Hillage-esque solo. “I think I became aware through the gear they used,” says Penaguin.
“The first thing that pops up is the fuzzy organ and fuzzy bass sound. I’ve always been fascinated by music and mechanical things, so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered that some keyboards blended both of those aspects!”
Daevid Allen was surprised that a young couple from Barcelona had travelled here. He said, ‘You’re crazy, but we love crazy people!’
Eva Muntada
For bass player Alberto Villarroya of Amoeba Split, an ambitious instrumental eight-piece from A Coruña in Spain, the initial influence was early Soft Machine. “The impact was very strong: the sound universe that opened before me was almost unfathomable,” he says. “It was a revelation, a kind of musical epiphany.” Currently recording their fourth studio album, Amoeba Split take influence from the 1986-72 Soft Machine line-ups from, complete with organic instrumentation such as violin and vibraphone.
Last year they invited Richard Sinclair – “the voice par excellence of Canterbury,” according to Villarroya – to record a single and perform a series of gigs with them. “The concerts were a resounding success, with a full house at every venue,” says the Spanish bassist.
Magick Brother & Mystic Sister’s connection with the scene is more allegorical. Hailing from Barcelona, they centre around singer/ keyboard player Eva Muntada and guitarist/bassist Xavi Sandoval. Their self-titled debut album arrived in 2020 as a gloriously anachronistic project. They give an obvious namecheck to Gong’s first album; but bossa-nova rhythms, vibrato organ and Maya Fernandez’s cascading flute are as much an homage to classic early Caravan.
Last year saw the release of an ambitious follow-up project based on the tarot, which stretched across two separate albums. More reflective, it heavily featured Tony Jagwal on sitar.
Muntada recalls travelling to the Canterbury Sound Festival in 2000: “The line-up was irresistible. We took a plane from Barcelona to London and then a train to a hill near Canterbury... the concert was held in a huge English garden [Mount Ephraim in Faversham] surrounded by fields of fruit trees and statues. Caravan’s Nine Feet Underground sounded incredible in that environment.
I was on a beach and the radio played Steve Hillage. I recorded it on cassette, but couldn’t hear the name of the artist
Fabio Golfetti
“The Gong performance was fantastic. They wore their space-glam outfits, Gilli Smyth in a blue dress and a silver cape representing the spirit of Selene. We were able to speak to Daevid Allen – he was surprised that a young couple from Barcelona had travelled here. He told us, ‘You’re crazy, but we love crazy people. We’re all crazy!’”
Muntada and Sandoval also recall their role in unearthing a curious artefact. “One day a musician friend, Francesc, recounted an anecdote from his youth when he was a monk at the Montserrat Monastery. A girl called Maggie knocked on the door and talked to him about a band interested in the Goddess and the Black Virgin, and discovering the theurgic and mystical centre of Montserrat. They really wanted to play at the monastery.” That band was Gong – and a film of this extraordinary performance from 1973 at the height of their trilogy manifestation, was released in 2006.
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For Gong’s Brazilian guitarist Fabio Golfetti, a connection to Canterbury and its related music runs deep. He’s been observing the scene avidly since the 1970s. “I was on holiday with my family, in a place very far away from everything – a beach between São Paolo and Rio,” he remembers.
“The radio played Fish Rising [the first Steve Hillage album]. I recorded it on cassette, but couldn’t hear the name of the artist – it was amazing music. I didn’t know Gong at that time; it was 1975.”
Golfetti built his Canterbury collection through his father’s trips to Europe, and by contacting record companies, such as Charly, directly. In 1984 he launched the Brazilian band Violeta De Outono. “We were in the right place at the right time,” he says. Their punchy, riffy tracks, sung in Portuguese, are eerily familiar, influenced by Gong and Caravan as well as Pink Floyd and The Beatles.
I remember the amused astonishment of my companions when, at every rehearsal, I brought an extra section to attach to the previous ones
Dario D’Alessandro
Tempered with Golfetti’s sweet, melancholic voice, they’re also laced with glissando guitar, an ethereal, textural sound associated with Daevid Allen, but originally inspired by Syd Barrett. “It’s similar to a slide guitar but played with the right hand,” he says. “I started using a screwdriver, but you can start with any metal bar just to hear the sound.”
Golfetti approached Allen in 1989 for permission to use the Gong-related name The Invisible Opera Company Of Tibet (other versions existed in Australia, the United Kingdom and USA) and eventually found himself leading the Glissando Guitar Orchestra at the Gong Unconvention in Amsterdam in 2006, then playing with the Gong Global Family in Brazil in 2007, before joining Gong themselves in 2012. How do these Canterbury influences manifest within his music? “We’re musical encyclopaedias in everything we play,” he says.
Sicily’s Homunculus Res reference Canterbury differently. In producing some of the most enduring and endearing music of the last decade, their oeuvre is short, sharp and convoluted songform: think Hatfield And The North in terms of lightness of touch and musical humour.
Bandleader Dario D’Alessandro, who possesses an almost demonic voice, thinks nothing of throwing in half a dozen time changes within a four-minute piece. Occasionally the band stretch out, as in their 18-minute opus Ospedale Civico from 2015’s Come Si Diventa Ciò Che Si Era.
“There are obvious references to National Health and Egg’s A Visit To Newport Hospital – my brain exploded when I first heard that,” says D’Alessandro. “Ospedale Civico is definitely a statement of intent and revelation of influences; it’s the most ambitious and complex piece we’ve done.
A friend said, ‘the French people will resonate with your music,’ and she was right. There’s something in the water
Ryan Stevenson
“I remember the amused astonishment of my companions when, at every rehearsal, I brought an extra section to attach to the previous ones. It had to be big and full of environments, like a hospital in which to get lost, or a Dantean purgatory.”
There are Canterbury-esque markers, for sure: a central keyboard motif, high-pitched scat singing à la Robert Wyatt, and bass clarinet (maxed out by guest Dave Newhouse). However, the piece centres – like all five of the band’s albums – around the homunculus: a mythical figure associated with 16th-century alchemy, a perfectly-preserved miniature man contained within human sperm.
D’Alessandro uses this theme as a conduit to portray the vicissitudes of human experiences: illness, dreams, consumerism and death. Delve beyond and you’ll find pieces scored backwards, or containing time signatures generated by mathematical concepts such as the Fibonacci sequence.
“Drummer Daniele Di Giovanni and I fantasised about golden sections, complex geometries, palindromes, paradoxes, Möbius strips,” says the bandleader. All of which probably hides the fact that Homunculus Res’ music is, despite everything, delightfully playful – the whimsy for which the Canterbury scene is so renowned.
Canterbury hasn’t had any impact on Spanish bands – perhaps because the questions this music asks haven’t penetrated
Alberto Villarroya
Meanwhile, Nottingham-based Zopp bring neo-Canterbury a little closer to home. They’ve evolved from their studio roots (Ryan Stevenson plays all instruments bar drums, which are tackled by Italian Andrea Moneta) to full-blown live band performances incorporating bass, guitar and saxophone. They’ve released two highly-polished studio albums: 2020’s instrumental self-titled debut delved into National Health complexity (Mont Campbell is an influence) while the second, Dominion, showcases Stevenson as a clear-voiced frontman, particularly on the epic You.
Zopp’s trademark sound, however, remains his heavily-saturated keyboards: on their international debut at last year’s Crescendo Festival in France, one fan enthused about seeing “Mike Ratledge, Dave Stewart and Dave Sinclair rolled into one.”
Stevenson recalls: “I felt the engagement. Before I went, a friend said, ‘I think the French people will resonate with your music,’ and she was right. There’s something in the water, so to speak.”
There’s an argument that Canterbury music has always been better received outside the UK. The French press were the quickest to spot the connections in the early 1970s; and even today subscriptions to Canterbury scene fanzine Facelift and membership of fan clubs and social media groups have at least 50% of their readership overseas. But Tom Penaguin is dubious about whether there’s a Canterbury enclave in France.
“I think RIO [Rock In Opposition, associated with Henry Cow] and Zeuhl [associated with Magma] scenes are more prevalent here in France than the Canterbury scene, with labels like Dur Et Doux, Baboon Fish and Soleil Zeuhl.”
Several modern prog bands are trying to sound like their role models, but in doing so they might miss their true personality. We don’t need copies
Bjørn Klakegg
Alberto Villarroya is equally dubious about its reach in Spain. “Access to these types of albums is complicated. In Spain there’s no coverage of any type of minimally innovative music. Historically, Canterbury hasn’t had any impact on Spanish bands – perhaps because the questions this music asks haven’t penetrated, or because it hasn’t adequately adapted to the idiosyncrasy of our country.”
Dario D’Alessandro finds a similar situation in Italy. “The Canterbury scene or sound is perceived benevolently in Italy, but as something for connoisseurs. The Italian press have shown maximum contempt for progressive rock, but the most enlightened have distinguished the Canterbury sound as something precious and refined.”
Not all bands associated with the neo-Canterbury tag do so knowingly. Take Norwegians Needlepoint, who recently released Remnants Of Light. After a couple of bluesy albums, they unwittingly hit gold with 2015’s Aimless Mary: seven flawless songs, underpinned by alternately driving rhythms and subtle atmospherics. The band are led by gifted guitarist Bjørn Klakegg, whose dreamy, pastoral voice conjures up caricatured images of lost souls and the gentle sounds of nature.
“Caravan is often mentioned as an influence, but I’m sorry to say I never listened to their music,” he admits. “Not because I didn’t like it, just because no one ever played it for me! I have many influences – Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, ELP, old Irish songs or Norwegian folk tunes – but if we’d made music like them I think you wouldn’t have liked us so much.”
He observes: “There are several modern prog bands that are clearly trying to sound like their role models, but in doing so they might miss their true personality. We don’t need copies.”
Proud wearers of the Canterbury badge include Belgian guitarist Michel Delville of The Wrong Object, who has a long association with its musicians, not least Elton Dean and Richard Sinclair. Then there’s Big Hogg, who produce delightful brassy fare from Scotland; while Actionfredag from Norway gained plaudits for 2024’s Lys Fremtid I Mørke. Henrytennis fly the flag in Japan, and back in France there’s Alco Frisbass. They all have their own slant, they’re all undefinable and they all exhibit at least some of the key Canterbury facets.
So, does neo-Canterbury exist? “It’s a movement in one sense, yes; in another sense, no,” says Ryan Stevenson. “The DNA of some of these bands are being carried forward by Tom Penaguin, with my music and with bands such as Amoeba Split. But when I’m making music I’m not thinking, ‘I’ve got to be a part of a scene.’
“I don’t want to be boxed in or make the same album forever. Those elements are always going to be in Zopp – weird melodies, the fuzz organ, some scatting like Wyatt will always be in there somehow. But I’m going to try and shake it up.”
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