avant-prog Archives - The Progressive Subway

Review: Lost Crowns – The Heart Is in the Body

Sam — Sat, 10 May 2025 14:00:00 +0000

No artist credited

Style¹: Avant-prog, art pop, neo-psychedelia (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cardiacs, Gentle Giant, Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: April Fools, 2025

Excuse my language, but what the fuck is this? Prog rock might have gotten stale with all the competent yet unimaginative 70s worship groups out there², but some bands take the concept of innovation to levels where you start wondering whether they even set out to create an enjoyable experience in the first place. In such a tradition do we find vaguely Cardiacs-adjacent³ British avant-prog ensemble Lost Crowns. Ensemble groups in prog aren’t exactly new—Meer has seen great underground success as of late—but Lost Crowns are a wholly different breed, and their latest offering The Heart Is in the Body is—ironically—possibly one of the purest intellectual constructs in music I’ve heard to date. Let’s dissect this bad boy, shall we?

How many different things can you play at once while keeping a coherent arrangement? If Lost Crowns are to be believed, the answer to that question is yes. Vocal harmonies, ever-shifting polyrhythmic drumming, percussive and melodic guitar lines, keyboards in sync with only the kick drum on the lower end while in counterpoint with the rhythm guitar on the higher end, wind instruments playing atonal melodies, often all at the same time define much of The Heart Is in the Body. If you get dizzy reading that, deciphering all the madness while listening is bound to make your brain explode. Lost Crowns bring nearly every Western European instrument under the sun into this album as well: saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, harmonium, flute, violin, bagpipe, dulcimer, and a whole lot more you can read in the credits below. These instruments are brought together in a crystal clear, cosy mix with just enough reverb to evoke a chamber feeling, meaning not a single note is Lost in Crown’s quest to overstimulate the listener.

“Try not to think, you need to feel the music!” my mom would often say while I was growing up, but jeez, Lost Crowns do not go for any easily recognizable feeling either. With how choppy and angular not just the rhythm section but also the vocal melodies and lead instruments are, listening to The Heart Is in the Body becomes rather akin to a solfège exercise than an emotional journey of any kind. “The Same Without”, for example, starts with a melancholic, serene atmosphere consisting of nothing but vocals, harmonium, and some strings. Chaos erupts when guitars, drums, and keyboard come in, and so little of the opening mood remains that we might as well have been in a different song. After that, only the chorus (?) provides some sense of recognizable catharsis; everything else is an overly well-designed labyrinth. Even though Lost Crowns usually maintain a sense of narrative in their songs, they also pull out the rug from under you at any given time with rhythmic switch-ups and unpleasant atonal melodies. It’s hard to care about where a song will go next if it switches things up fifteen times in the time it takes to form that thought. All the variety in instrumentation and layering cannot save The Heart Is in the Body from the monotony of its chaos.

The two major exceptions to the maximalist style on The Heart Is in the Body are “O Alexander” and closing epic “A Sailor and His True Love”, which are overwhelmingly atmospheric tracks. The former is a disorienting psychedelic piece while the latter ventures into folk territory, somewhat bringing Comus to mind in its estranging yet somehow cosy mix of genres. Both tracks lose themselves to off-kilter indulgence at points, but on the whole stand out for their relatively simple arrangements. Merely allowing some breathing room for the instruments instead of cramming in a dozen at once does wonders for the emotional connection that was lacking otherwise. These songs still aren’t easy to follow by any means, but considering how hard the rest of the album is to listen to, they are a blessing.

Safe to say, The Heart Is in the Body is an utterly bewildering album. At its best, you’ll find some of the most interesting, challenging music you’ll hear all year; at its worst, you’ll also find some of the most interesting, challenging music you’ll hear all year, but this time in a bewildering manner with a level of chaos that makes Between the Buried and Me seem tame in comparison. For the majority of the album’s duration, I fell in the latter camp; however, I do expect that our analytically inclined readers will have a field day with this album’s intense attention to detail and frighteningly complex narrative structure. Do proceed with caution, however, because The Heart Is in the Body is not for the faint of heart, nor the faint of body.

Recommended tracks: She Didn’t Want Me, A Sailor and His True Love
You may also like: Good NightOwl, Comus, Stars in Battledress, Eunuchs, Cime
Final verdict: 4/10

Alternatively, according to my colleague Tim: Canterbury prog on crack. ︎
We’re actually severely lacking in classic prog rock specialists on our staff so if you’re into that and like to write about music, please consider applying! ︎
Main man Richard Larcombe and his brother James were in Stars and Battledress who have played shows with Cardiacs. James also mixed The Garage Concerts. ︎

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Rate Your Music

Label: Independent

Lost Crowns is:
– Nicola Baigent (clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, recorder, flute)
– Charlie Cawood (bass guitar, double bass, handbells, sitar)
– Sharron Fortnam (vocals)
– Keepsie (drums, handbells)
– Richard Larcombe (lead vocal, guitar, harmonium, harp, tin whistle, violin, cello, concertina, English border bagpipe, dulcimer)
– Rhodri Marsden (piano, keyboards, bassoon, saw, recorder, tremelo guitar, percussion, theremin, vocals)
– Josh Perl (keyboards, vocals)

With guests:
– Mark Cawthra (vocals on 2, 5 and 6)
– Susannah Henry (vocals on 3)
– James Larcombe (hurdy gurdy on 8)
– Sarah Nash (vocals on 3 and 7)

The post Review: Lost Crowns – The Heart Is in the Body appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Lost in Time: Begnagrad – Begnagrad

Tim — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Photography by: Peter Kosmač

Style: Avant-Prog, Progressive Folk, Balkan folk (mostly instrumental, with the exception of anomalies of the human voice)
Recommended for fans of: Samla Mammas Manna, Stormy Six, Frank Zappa
Review by: Tim
Country: Yugoslavia
Release date: 1982

As western rock music commercialized in the second half of the 1970s, an international movement called “Rock in Opposition” arose. Founded by the British outfit Henry Cow and soon joined by bands such as the Belgian Univers Zero, the Swedish Samla Mammas Manna, and the Italian Stormy Six, they crusaded against the banalities of commercial rock with a relentless avant-garde approach. Traits are an unserious and absurd style, and the use of non-conventional rock instruments. The iconic electric guitar was not seldomly omitted from their compositions as well. In 1982, by the time Begnagrad was released in Yugoslavia, RIO had already folded as a movement, but the similarities are striking nevertheless. Avoiding early 70s guitar shredding, the Slovenian Begnagrad used a wide selection of folk instruments instead on their debut LP. Unlike any RIO band, however, their undeniably avant-garde approach was peppered with a blend of some alpine but mostly Balkan folk influences.

In Balkan folk music time signature changes are relatively common. Sequences such as 5/8, 7/8 and 9/8 are not a rarity. However, already within the first minute of the album Begnagrad takes this to a level of madness. As soon as the drums kick in the listener gets treated with – and/or confused by, which is up to the listener – a sequence of 7/8, 15/8, 7/8, 10/8 and 12/8, then a drumless part of 12/8, followed by a section of 5/8, 5/8, 6/8, 9/8, 5/8, 6/8 and 9/8. All of this happens in the span of nineteen seconds. Then, after more technical virtuoso shenanigans – I’ll spare you the rest of the time signature dynamics – barely a minute in the woodwind section sounds like a flock of wild geese. The music continues to vary several times per minute, including a yodel section (because why not). When the opener “Pjan Ska” (The Drinking One) ends in just over three minutes, more has already happened than in many full-lengths.

However, even more puzzling than the music itself is that an album with such a free-spirited and sometimes humorous sound was released on one of communist Yugoslavia’s state-owned record labels. How this passed censorship is a mystery (although the absence of lyrics might have helped), but luckily it happened.

In the second A-side song, “Romantična”, the accordion plays a major role. It is accompanied by a mix of several other traditional instruments and some modern ones. Contrary to the meaning of the song name (The Romantic One), the atmosphere does not really reminisce of candle-lit quality time. After several complexities in the song structure, the self-mockery of the band is further displayed by a brief part with a sound akin to bird whistle. After that “Bo Že (Če Bo)” [All’s Good (Maybe)] picks up in a relatively normal and traditional manner, only to completely throw that out of the window one minute in. The focus shifts to unusual sounds such as mad screaming, instruments sounding like wood is being sawn, and distorted gargling. Then Begnagrad switch back to the pseudo-traditional sound for the rest of the song like nothing happened. Subsequently, the last A-side track “Cosa Nostra (Waltz)” (Our Thing) is actually a waltz for the majority of the song, albeit in Begnagrad style. Halfway through the song the structure fades away, leaving room for whistles, toy sounds and other absurdities, to continue the waltz later on. The waltz’ drop in pace is a welcome variation to the usual madness of the album.

Once arrived on the B-side “Narodka / Kmetska” (Folk / Peasant) the listener gets immediately plunged face-forward into something that could perhaps be best described as free jazz with folk instruments. Although some song structure is apparent, chaos is still a very apt way to describe what is happening here. With the groove indicated by a mellotron played in 7/8, a large variety of instruments gets the spotlight (even a toy piano for a brief moment) within these six minutes of playful absurdism. Thereafter, in the bass-driven high-octane “Coc’n Rolla (Ljubljana Ponoči)” [Coc’n Rolla (Ljubljana By Night)] an at this point unexpected instrument has its first appearance on Begnagrad: the electric guitar. It doesn’t clash with the rest of the album; rather on the contrary, it adds to the album’s energy formidably, whilst offering variety simultaneously. Finally, the last song of the album is “Žvižgovska Urška” (Whistling Urška), a happy piece that pivots around skillful whistling, and later on also crazy humming. It closes the album in a satisfying way.

All in all, Begnagrad is a really wild album that might still be overwhelming at the tenth listen. It’s very energetic, playful, totally absurd, stylistically unique (in the good way!), and offers plenty of variation throughout the album. Despite a length of barely 35 minutes, one could feel ten years older after a single listen. However, it is completely worth it. There is so much to discover within the seeming chaos. It’s nonsense at its best!

Recommended tracks: Pjan Ska, Bo Že (Če Bo), Coc’N Rolla (Ljubljana Ponoči)
You may also like: Univers Zero, Von Zamla, Alamaailman Vasarat