From The story of Crass, As a swansong, Crass recorded the oddity 10 Notes On A Summers Day. The sleeve announced the band’s demise:“10 Notes represents Crass’s last formal recording.We shall continue to make statements both individu- ally and as a group, yet no longer feel obliged to be limited by the inward looking format of the ‘band’.”
10 Notes was written, appropriately enough, in the summer of 1984, while Penny Rimbaud was at Summerhill School, ‘working’ as the pool attendant. “It was written as a poem,” he says. “It describes where we’d ended up after all those years of frenzy and madness.You’ve put every- thing you’ve got into something, you’ve shouted and screamed; and then you suddenly find yourself on your own sitting under an oak tree, and you think, ‘Fucking hell, what was that about?’”
10 Notes was bereft of chainsaw guitars, shouting and swearing, again closer to Penny Rimbaud’s free jazz roots than anything remotely to do with punk rock.“I went in and said we’re going to do it completely the wrong way round.The drum track was put on last.The first track put down was the piano track, which I played. I can’t play piano but I just went in and played about 20 minutes worth of piano.The whole thing was based around that.”
