Western Culture

Western Culture came out of disagreement over the next record. Recording had begun at Sunrise Studios in January 1978, and there was disagreement over how song-based the next record should be. As a compromise two albums were made, one of songs, released soon after as Hopes and Fears by the new group Art Bears, and one of purely instrumental compositions. The band returned to Sunrise in July to record the instrumentals, except 1/2 the Sky, which dated from the January sessions. Henry Cow split up shortly afterwards.

Side one, History and Prospects, is three pieces by Tim Hodgkinson, and side two, Day by Day, is by Lindsay Cooper, with 1/2 the Sky credited to Cooper and Hodgkinson. Cooper named 1/2 the Sky after Mao's saying that women hold up half the sky. Cutler designed the cover. Don Martin of MAD magazine was first asked and declined, and Ray Smith's unused design showed an industrial city seen from above with the words Henry Cow in its streets.

The outtake Viva Pa Ubu, written by Hodgkinson as the start of a musical production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi and sung by the whole group, and Slice were first released on the Recommended Records Sampler in 1982. Another piece from the sessions, Frith's Waking Against Sleep, had been played live as The Herring People; Curlew recorded it as Time and a Half on North America in 1985. Recommended Records and East Side Digital reissued the album in 2001 and 2002 with Viva Pa Ubu, Slice and an alternate Look Back as bonus tracks. Reviewing it for Pitchfork in 2002, Dominique Leone wrote that it was probably the most overtly influenced by modern classical composition of their records, and ended by calling Henry Cow as original an act as ever played rock.