That "Gentle Giant Thing:" Free Hands and Flow

Review and discussion on Gentle Giant's 1975 album Free Hand, in memory of bassist and multi-instrumentalist Ray Schulman. Special discussion on the 2021 Steven Wilson remix.

A text post on Octopus

A text post on The Power and the Glory

Paying Strict Attention: Syd Arthur Challenges the Epic

"Gentlemen, when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention." -Dale Cooper

And so it goes when it comes to new music. Finding new stuff is sometimes tricky because I practically never listen to the radio. As a usual matter of course, I troll a selection of music sites and take suggestions from friends, but even this short resource list produces an overwhelming amount of new and unheard music. I hardly have the time or the finance to give everything that catches my attention a serious listen, so there is an imperfect and informal vetting process that constrains what I let into rotation. Sometimes, things are left to time and chance, which usually lands me on the tail end of the “hipness” curve.

Clearly, though, I’m not overly concerned with what is hip.

I pay strict attention, however, when something new presents itself from two or three unrelated resources at the same time. This sometimes eerie phenomenon is what recently brought Syd Arthur into rotation. I initially discovered them through a review of their impending debut On and On posted on my usual progressive rock stop. The reviewer, who genuinely liked Syd Arthur’s proclivity towards asymmetrical time signatures and interlocking rhythms, spoke highly of their future potential, but, citing production issues, stopped short of unreservedly praising their debut album On and On.



He also seemed slightly perplexed by the band’s localized popularity in the Canturbury scene. Any band that plays with progressive tropes while dancing on the edge of accessibility is cause for confusion to the progressive rock purist, but almost always ends up being a long-term favorite with me. Knowing this, Syd Arthur was at the forefront of my consciousness two days later when, after playing at SXSW, several people contacted me independently of one another to tell me that I should check them out. Their enthusiasm put On and On at the top of my wish list, and within a few weeks I was putting in an order through their site.

I immediately liked their approach, so much so that I had a difficult time discerning whether I was drawn more to their sound or their songwriting. Like a lot of complex music, however, the best qualities of On and On revealed themselves after repeated listening. Syd Arthur’s superficially complex features provide the backdrop for hummable, well-structured songs which, with one exception, clock in at an easily digestible four minutes or less. Not all that is progressive has to be epic.


Prog should be adventurous, though, although the wider popularity of Gentle Giant, mid-70s King Crimson, and the vast sea of other unrecognized bands to which Syd Arthur refers was often hindered by placing complexity at the forefront of the art. In contrast, the songs from On and On are not unnaturally bridled to the shifting time signatures bucking underneath the surface, but instead weave their way through the album’s rhythmic intricacies with consummate, almost imperceptible ease. Despite its retrospective aura, however, On and On feels relevant and contemporary, at least to my ears - rather like the Decemberists ran aground and gave up their sea shantys for a little hipstery frolic.

I am looking forward to Syd Arthur’s progress, as well, but not because I hope that they will pen the next Close to the Edge or Foxtrot, with forced, multi-movement blockbusters that clock in at twenty minutes or more. Instead, I anticipate a further refinement of the succinct but engaging work that they have already displayed a mastery of on On and On.

A Gift to Myself: Gentle Giant's "The Power and the Glory"

When the internet started “breaking” relatively obscure progressive rock bands from the 70s in the 00s, there was a subtle sense of urgency. At that point, Gentle Giant albums had never had an adequate CD pressing in the US, and there was a feeling that their recordings, and those of other obscure bands like them, were like endangered species that would soon evaporate from existence. Very often rare imports were the only solution. There was quite a bit of debate about the quality of various pressings: i.e. one pressing had mistakes in the mix while another did not use original artwork, etc.  Devout Gentle Giant fans were often very opinionated about which one was ideal.

So when I got into Gentle Giant and found a resource for acquiring their albums, I got several of them in succession - too quickly, perhaps, to really appreciate each recording. By the time serious reissues of their work came out, I had already been through a feeding frenzy that put a good portion of their catalog in my collection and left me a little burned out. There was one album, though, that I did not obtain at the time, figuring that if I ever went on another Gentle Giant rampage, it would be a gift to my “future” self.

That gift was The Power and the Glory, and the future is now! Thanks, “past” me!

After I revisited Octopus last fall, I finally ordered The Power and the Glory, slapped it on a pair of headphones and, on a temperate January afternoon, took a walk around Zilker Park with the Little One strapped to my chest. It represents Gentle Giant near the peak of their creative powers. Their towering abilities were a bit alienating for a significant portion of the general public, which is a bit of a shame. The band’s incredible musicianship wasn’t necessarily employed for the sake of mere flash, but for the satisfying challenge of creating and executing fiendishly complex music.  For a person like me, who finds rewards in unraveling the mystery of musical performance, The Power and the Glory is simply stunning.



When I discovered Gentle Giant in the early 00s, all of the amazing video footage that is now readily available today was nowhere to be found, and it has enhanced my admiration for the band tremendously.  Despite their somewhat cringeworthy “baroque and roll” costuming, they were obviously committed to pushing rock music to its very limits without ever quite crossing over into 70s jazz fusion. Their unique and distinctive style was reified in live performance, and for the curious, there are many clips out there that seem to have captured them well.



The Power and the Glory, as a “time capsule” gift to myself, was made even sweeter by the 2009 remaster. The album sound clear as a bell, much more so than the version of Three Friends that I have. It transcends the time period in which it was recorded. I always knew that neo-prog fav Spock’s Beard was significantly influenced by Gentle Giant, but I did not realize to what degree until listening to The Power and the Glory. The clarity of the remaster updates the album’s sound and reveals the extent of Spock’s Beard admiration.



Sadly, The Power and the Glory will most likely be the last album by Gentle Giant that will make it into my library. Past a certain point in their career, their albums became a bit painful to digest. Pressured by the advent of punk and the success of Genesis’ increasing commercial popularity, they tried to sell out and they just did not have it in them. The Power and the Glory, however, is doubtlessly a high point in an incredible creative arc that they traced across an adventurous musical period.

Gentle Giant's "Octopus:" Lonely Listening

It’s not rocket science to see that I am an advocate of progressive rock. Caught up in the mediated narrative of MTV during my formative teenage years, though, caused my exposure to progressive rock to be relatively limited. I was only aware of the most visible artists. In the late 90s, however, the internet’s increasing resources opened up a whole new prog world, with an endless supply of obscure bands that I had never heard, both old and new. One such band was Gentle Giant, a 70s group that never reached the level of visibility and influence of Yes and Genesis, but were unequalled in terms of overall virtuosity and musicianship.

I recently noticed that my Gentle Giant collection was unjustly dusty, so I put their 1972 release Octopus in rotation. Listening to it now, I find that I remembered (and liked) it better than I thought.

Most fans cite Octopus as the beginning of Gentle Giant’s “classic” period. The album doesn’t mark a major shift in the band’s sound from their previous work, but in comparison Octopus has a noticeable focus. Some distinctive stylistic features emerged on the album that would come to characterize the band for the next few years. Most impressive of these emergent characteristics was their impressive use of vocal polyphony.



Yes always considered themselves to be a vocal group, but they never did anything that could touch Knots - at least not live.  Gentle Giant continued to refine the technique, however, and, along with being multi-instrumental, it became one of their things.

When I first got into Gentle Giant, their music seemed like gibberish.  It took quite a bit of focused listening to disentangle all of their ideas into an intelligible structure. There is, however, a passion and beauty to their work that is borne of a devoted conviction to musical experimentation. I think if I ever had to write a school song, I would steal some of the melodic material from the beautiful Think of Me With Kindness.



Up until this point, I operated under the assumption that good music should be shared, but Gentle Giant presented the the possibility that some music, no matter how good, might be best held close to the chest. When I was listening to them I was not surrounded by musicians as I had been during my college years.  I was ridiculed a bit by the people around me who didn’t get what I saw in the band. I admit that from a certain perspective Gentle Giant represents a kind of indulgent inaccessibility that Spinal Tap was poking fun at.  I strongly felt, however, that their musicianship warranted respect at the very least.  They certainly deserved better than to carry the label "that crap you listen to."  As a result, my memories of the band are cloistered – huddled up in private listenings in a short-ceilinged upstairs loft where I lived in Krum.

But, times have changed.  I am in a better place overall these days, and I intentionally expend less energy trying to win the approval of others.  Additionally, the anonymity granted by the internet allows me to shamelessly plug  this obscure and inspiring band without too much fear of peer ridicule.  The people who like them will, and the people that don't won't.  Regardless, I feel like I am getting even more out of Octopus now than I did then, so if you are curious about Gentle Giant I think it would be an excellent starting point.