Country Joe & The Fish
Album: I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die
Label: Vanguard
Tracks: 22
Website: http://www.acerecords.com

Next up from the unsurpassably well-presented remastered expanded reissue of Electric Music For The Mind And Body comes its follow up, the comparably conceptual I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die, at the same time wilder and more musically diffuse and apparently (yet not in reality) more consciously cohesive - for "a thread of wilful non-conformity runs through the album", indeed.

The package closely mirrors that of its predecessor, with fulsome 40-page booklet containing copious photos, an authoritative and insightful Alec Palao essay and song notes and full lyrics. Oh, and there's also a repro of the board-game-poster insert, The Fish Game, that accompanied the LP on its original US release. As for the music, disc one presents the stereo mix, the second the original mono mix (previously unavailable on CD) plus two bonus cuts (an orchestral instrumental treatment of Janis that had first appeared on the B-side of that single, and a previously unissued alternate take of the title number, basic and shorn of its war noises and Fish Cheer).

As regards the album as a whole, the political content was in the nature of good-natured sarcasm, more overtly satirical than laboured invective, and the musical content at once more radical and more touchingly delicate, even sensitive. In the latter category belong the plaintive, melodic Who Am I? and the minimalist, almost Satie-like restraint of the closing "music for breathing" instrumental Colors For Susan, which even at that time was somewhat unclassifiable. The album's standout was almost certainly the episodic Pat's Song, a wondrous five-and-a-half-minute encapsulation of all that was most notable about the Country Joe & The Fish sound. I'm still not entirely convinced by the would-be-hard-edged posturing of Rock Coast Blues, nor by the uneasy juxtapositions within Thought Dream (the central song itself recorded at the same session that produced the band's first album, and here edited down to half its original length).

On the other hand, the thunder-soaked Magoo is rather frightening: this cryptic, moody and ominous piece is a kind of flip-side to Grace on the first album, that broods long after its side has run out its groove - and that Arthur Lee-like bossanova coda still comes as a shock. Eastern Jam is a fluid rambling instrumental showcase typical of comparable tracks on countless albums of the time but still perfectly respectable (even if its fade seems somewhat premature), while Janis is a simple and beautiful waltz-time love-ballad written for Ms. Joplin and Thursday's gentle drifting acoustica kinda prefigures Phase-2 Pink Floyd.

An interesting set altogether, and one which stands the test of time better than it sounds on paper - and sounding really good here on this reissue, by the way.

David Kidman