Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, September 25, 1970- Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, September 25, 1970 I records r Peari By FARGO BERMAN To the best of ny knowledge, Pearls Before Swine has never given a live performance. They started out by sending tapes in, to the recording company to be. pressed and distributed. The Use of Ashes (Reprise R§ 6405) is a soothing and mildly nie- lancholic album, incorporating a wide range of instruments such as electric and acoustic guitar, as electric and acoustic guitar, harpsichord, violin, oboe, and piano into a traditional lyrical sound. There is often an un- usually adept poetry within the simple wording. "The Jeweler" is about a jeweler who. lovingly, with an almost tragic involve- ment, polishes old coins: he uses spit and cloth and ashes he makes them shine with ashes he knows the useof ashes he worships god with ashes and from "Song About A Rose": this is a song about a rose of lonely caravans whispering to God to chain the world in prose but people are not singers and life is not a song and even God can only guess why or where or when or if the answers all belong and you and I we sing our song about a rose or- perhaps the shadow of a rose All words and music were writ- ten by. Tom Rapp, who sings with a noticeable lisp, which, after the oddity of hearing this on a .record, wears off and be- comes a mannerism rather than a defect of speech. Rarely does he strain to achieve the wide sadness his voice encompasses, just as the lyrics cover a wealth of concept without grasping for pedantic complexity. The Use of Ashes bears a con- stant tone of unhappiness; how, much music is not essentially of this vein? Symphonies encom-