The complete studio works of one of the most uncompromising groups in the history of European avant-rock. Born from the ashes of Henry Cow in 1978, Art Bears distilled the political fury and musical adventurism of their parent band into three albums of dark, brilliant songs that remain as bracing and relevant today as when they were recorded.

The story begins with a schism. During sessions for what was intended as a Henry Cow album, disagreements arose over content - Fred Frith and Chris Cutler favoured song-oriented material, while others wanted instrumental compositions. The compromise: Frith, Cutler and vocalist Dagmar Krause would release the songs under a new name, with Henry Cow members credited as guests. The instrumental pieces became Henry Cow's Western Culture; the songs became Hopes and Fears (1978).

Opening with Brecht/Eisler's "On Suicide" - a statement of intent if ever there was one - Hopes and Fears established the Art Bears template: Frith's shape-shifting guitars and stark arrangements, Cutler's oblique, politically-charged lyrics, and Krause's extraordinary voice - that confounding instrument of crestfallen strength, desperate yet never missing a note, cold with too much emotion rather than devoid of it. With contributions from Lindsay Cooper, Tim Hodgkinson and Georgie Born, this is the most "Cow-like" of the three albums, yet already something distinctly new.

Winter Songs (1979) was the first album recorded entirely as Art Bears. Fourteen short songs composed by Frith around Cutler's texts based on medieval carvings from the stylobate of Amiens Cathedral - allegories of labour, seasons, mortality. The trio pared down to its essence: guitar, drums, voice, with Frith overdubbing bass, violin, piano, keyboards. A solemn, stunning work that found American distribution through Ralph Records, who released "Rats & Monkeys" as a single. The band toured Europe in 1979 with Peter Blegvad (Slapp Happy) and Marc Hollander (Aksak Maboul) expanding the lineup.

The World as It Is Today (1981) is their masterpiece and their farewell - a plainspoken depiction of capitalism's nightmare rendered in music of gut-wrenching beauty. Where Winter Songs operated through allegory, here Cutler's lyrics confront modern alienation directly. The "Song of the Monopolists"/"Song of the Martyrs" sequence towards the album's end is devastating - Krause inhabiting the despair as no one else could, yet somehow leaving the listener re-empowered. From the resigned trudge of "Song of the Dignity of Labour Under Capital" to the bleak hope of "Albion Awake", this is political art-rock at its most powerful.

The BBC described their sound as "carefully wrought dissonances, angular folk tunes, sudden shifts in dynamics, dense layers of spectral drones, slabs of noise, topped off with Dagmar's strange, elastic Sprechstimme." More song-oriented than Henry Cow yet no less challenging, Art Bears created a template for intelligent, politically-engaged rock that influenced generations - from This Heat to Cardiacs to countless RIO descendants.

Essential for admirers of Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, Univers Zero, Aksak Maboul, or anyone seeking rock music that refuses compromise. Japanese mini-LP sleeve editions on high-fidelity SHM-CD, remastered, with liner notes and Japanese translations.