Table of contents for Issue 124 in Prog

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog. I’ve just returned from Summer’s End Festival in Chepstow; it was the first time the event had taken place since 2019. I’m delighted to report that not only was it a resounding success, but what a joy it was to re-engage with the prog community and watch a great collection of prog talent, young and old. Big thanks to organisers Stephen Lambe and Huw Lloyd-Jones, as well as their excellent support team. You can read a full report of the festival and how it all unfolded in the next issue of Prog. This issue we celebrate the legends that are Hawkwind. It’s 50 years since they released In Search Of Space, defining their own sound and that of space rock, the genre…

A big, big, thank you for the article on Nolan & Wakeman [Prog 122] (or is it Wakeman & Nolan?) and making it known about Tales By Gaslight. I, too, had given up some while ago trying to get hold of a copy of, in particular, The Hound Of The Baskerville, Jabberwocky, too. But an even bigger thank-you to them for doing the box set, art cards, booklets, picture discs and the remastered albums – awesome, well worth the wait. Also for the track on the cover CD from Dave Brons and his album Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost. Superb stuff. After furlough and working at home three days a week, I sit staring at a computer eight hours a day, but behind me is a rack, with…

Gong (right) are to reissue Live At The Gong Family Unconventional Gathering via G-Wave on November 5. It’s the 15th anniversary of the event, which took place at the Melkweg club in Amsterdam. Pre-order the two-CD/DVD from www.planetgong.co.uk. Magma will make a rare return to England in 2022. They’ll play at London’s The Garage on June 17 and June 18, and also at Manchester’s Hole In The Wall on June 19. Support comes from The Utopia Strong, featuring Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi. The Ocean’s Phanerozoic Live is out on November 26 via Pelagic. The triple vinyl + DVD and download set captures March’s livestream of their ninth studio album and is available in six colourways. For more, visit www.pelagic-records.com.…

In the mid-2000s Sydney proggers Super FLORENCE Jam were making headway on the scene with their Crimson-meets-Zeppelin sound, but whenever their drummer Michael Solo approached bookers for gigs, or press for coverage, he came upon a big problem. “No one in Australia cared about prog, or post-or math rock,” he tells Prog. “There were scenes for punk, metal and indie, but not prog – there was no infrastructure for it.” To address this, Solo set up the Bird’s Robe Collective in 2008 with his band’s bassist, Alex Tulett, initially to get a few like-minded bands playing club nights together to combine forces and fans. A community of artists bloomed, and Solo found himself evolving into a concert promoter, tour manager and, by 2011, a label owner. Now with around 120…

August 2021 Compiled by 1 MARILLION Fugazi (PARLOPHONE) 2 STEVE HACKETT Surrender Of Silence (INSIDEOUT) 3 GOAT Headsoup (ROCKET) 4 HAWKWIND Somnia (CHERRY RED) 5 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Welcome To The Other Side (SONY) 6 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR The Charisma Years – 1970-1978 (UMC/VIRGIN) 7 NMB Innocence And Danger (INSIDEOUT) 8 MOGWAI As The Love Continues (ROCK ACTION) 9 LEPROUS Aphelion (INSIDEOUT) 10 AURI II – Those We Don’t Speak Of (NUCLEAR BLAST) 11 TESSERACT Portals (KSCOPE) 12 CARAVAN Who Do You Think We Are? (MADFISH) 13 NIGHTWISH Once (NUCLEAR BLAST) 14 ANETTE OLZON Strong (FRONTIERS) 15 BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME Colors II (SUMERIAN) 16 BIG BIG TRAIN Common Ground (ENGLISH ELECTRIC RECORDINGS) 17 STEVEN WILSON The Future Bites (CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL) 18 BLACK MIDI Cavalcade (ROUGH TRADE) 19 JANE WEAVER…

CHRIS BAINBRIDGE, SINGER and guitarist of psych duo Man Of Moon, is remembering the impulsive and fateful moment that led to him meeting drummer Michael Reid. “We’d both left our respective schools to do sound engineering at college,” he says. “The class needed someone to play guitar and someone to play drums so the rest of the class could practise recording. We both put our hands up and started jamming together and almost immediately we went, ‘This sounds pretty good!’” Recognising something of each other in themselves, the pair hung out in Edinburgh after college hours and quickly bonded over a shared taste of post-rock, prog rock and 90s progressive house, as well as turning each other on to sounds that were low on their individual radars. And as their gigging…

In Search Of Space wasn’t just an album of revolutionary music – it was also an amazing piece of design and packaging courtesy of Barney Bubbles. Reflecting the band’s increasingly ambitious live shows, Bubbles forged a unique visual identity for Hawkwind based on his enthusiasm for cosmology, eastern spirituality, and both arts nouveau and deco. As the band’s ex-manager Doug Smith said, “Hawkwind would not have sounded the same with anybody else’s designs.” For In Search Of Space, Bubbles created a die-cut puzzle box of a sleeve that opened out to reveal a series of evocative shots of Hawkwind playing under the Westway arches. Not only that, it also contained a 24-page booklet entitled The Hawkwind Log, an assemblage of mystical images and sci-fi pulp illustrations that tell the fragmented,…

t’s amazing what music can do,” says Bryan Josh. “It lubricates any sort of stress or fear, things that are clogging up when you’re in a dark place. Music becomes like an exhaust pipe. There’s no two ways about it. It’s one of the best things in the world for that, actually.” Graveyard Star, the new album from Mostly Autumn, was born out of the fear and darkness of the pandemic and the loss of people close to Josh and his wife Olivia Sparnenn-Josh. Facing lockdown with their young daughter at home, music was a way to process the experience. “All the inspiration for doing normal things like songwriting just went really, because it was a crazy, strange time,” says Josh. “It left a vacuum. It strips away the normal…

“Jace Lasek and company have produced some of the most beautiful progressive sounds of the 21st century. Most such bands ape Pink Floyd too accurately but the Pet Sounds vibes prevent that. Ultimately, The Besnard Lakes don’t sound like anyone else. Brilliant stuff!!!” Scot Lade “Won a ticket to see them once without having heard them previously. The venue was great, the band were great, the support act were great and the sound was great. A quality evening.” Dean Thom “Who?” Chas Sniding “Absolutely prog and a bloody good band to boot.” David Smith “Cool people who are not afraid of prog.” Remy Sträuli “I like ’em.” Steve Baughman “Yawn… More non-prog bollocks I suppose.” Mike Robertson “Wonderful mix of alternative, psychedelic, shoegaze and even space rock. Multi-layered and genuinely…

Sprawling comeback album from style-hopping west coast multi-instrumentalist. Since reactivating Anyone pursuing film-making, frontman and ‘creative’ Riz Story has pushed the boundaries of his selfdescribed “maximum acid” sound. A one-man production, In Humanity offers up a concept set in the future, where Earth has become uninhabitable. He says it’s been nearly 10 years in the making, so when he sniff you out of its mind,’ he might not be talking about recent events. Story’s improvisational approach to songwriting can make for some freewheeling jazz-rock passages, punctuated by speedshredding guitor and knotty polyrhythms on tracks like Misanthropist (on which his onetime bandmate and Davison guests on staccato current Yes singer Jon slap-bass duties), But he also has a striking talent for simple melodies when the mood takes him: the forlorn acoustic…

Hard, tasty, moreish – and not very cheesy at all. Dismissing Closet Disco Queen & The Flying Raclettes on the basis of their name and album title, which makes them sound like an OTT joke band, would be a mistake. They do have their lighthearted moments, but this is an otherwise substantial musical statement from the Switzerland-based instrumental outfit. It’s well-constructed fare that has much in common with both American jam bands and 70s blues and funk-tinged British heavy rock while drawing experimental and art rock influences from the likes of The Mars Volta and Goat. There’s some seriousattitude and swagger in the main guitar riff to opener Melolo-Aromatomat, with bass and drums kicking it further into heads-down boogie territory. Flugentaj Raketoj marries thick, dark jazz with explosions of frenetic…

Time to renew that membership to the Caravan club. The past few years have seen a steady stream of progressive icons enjoying late-career hot spells. Soft Machine, Steve Hackett, Peter Hammill and Jon Anderson have all released albums that wouldn’t have been out of place during their respective imperial phases. A typically lovely record that underlines their importance. After their recent 37-disc retrospective Who Do You Think We Are?, Caravan are the latest vintage band to find new wind in their sails. It’s None Of Your Business – their first new work since 2013’s Paradise Filter – is a typically lovely record, and one that underlines their importance. The Cantabrigians (constant Pye Hastings, longtimers brother Jimmy, Geoffrey Richardson and Jan Schelhaas, plus Lee Pomeroy on bass and Mark Walker on…

Accomplished third album from Hungarian alt-prog rockers. Sometimes conjuring the brow-furrowed riffing of New York’s Zevious or Black Midi’s galloping hybrid melodicism, avant-rock power trio JÜ conjure a fractious coalition of sounds that butts heads with free jazz, prog, heavy metal, garage, surf, musique concréte and just about anything that happens to be passing by. Their third album hurtles forward with a highly individual and idiosyncratic fusion of different, contrasting forms. Although largely instrumental, guest vocalist Dóra Gyórfi, who has worked with Gamelan ensembles in Indonesia, helps to push some of the sounds and feel in a non-western direction. Her lacerating performance, weaving between the metrical complexity of Minerva, detonates an already volatile mix. What could have been an interesting but incoherent messy tumble of ideas is instead untangled with…

Impressive debut from Steve Hackett collaborator and friends. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Amanda Lehmann has spent the last few years playing around the UK with various bands, including that of brother-inlaw Steve Hackett. It’s no surprise, then, that her first solo album is full of top-notch songwriting and musicianship, with support from Hackett collaborators Roger King, Nick Magnus and Rob Townsend. Opener Who Are The Heroes? sets the stage with ethereal instrumentation and melodies reminiscent of influences like Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell and David Gilmour. Memory Lane and We Are One offer jazzier and softer experiences that effectively contrast the Eloy-esque psychedelic rock hustle of The Watcher. Only Happy When It Rains is a commercial and catchy track that mixes equal parts swing, jazz, folk and blues. There’s some full-bodied spaciness via Forever…

Durable, indefinable art-pop mavericks Spearmint go all out on the brilliant, bittersweet concept album Holland Park (Hitback). It’s loosely the saga of the singer’s dad’s 70s band, who never quite made the big time, although it’s clearly also semiautobiographical. Jostling with sunny rhythms are philosophical musings on a post-Bowie world and a shape-shifting 12-minute title track which regrets ‘the third album that never came to be – they said it was lost in a fire, but I’m not sure that’s true’. The band in the story were ‘told we sounded too much like Pink Floyd’. Although Spearmint don’t sound like that, they do testify that ‘music isn’t a hobby, it’s a religion’. There are saints and sinners on the lush, lovely return of Cousteaux, whose Stray Gods (Salamander) remarries the…

Spellbinding fourth album from the Australian post-rockers. Led by multiinstrumentalist Simeon Bartholomew, these Australian experimentalists have built up a following on the post/math rock scene over the past nine years, with 2017’s 3 their callingcard achievement. Four outstrips even that – a 21stcentury mix of strong musicianship, compositional flair and sheer chutzpah, it’s a record of rare quality. Scene-setter The Mountain’s Lullaby moves from sweet piano to scarily tense strings over just two minutes. Here and elsewhere, violinists Kat Hunter and Susie Bishop and cellist Peter Hollo make a vital contribution, adding modern-classical elegance and a traditional, ‘organic’ facet to the post-rock tropes. Bartholomew ably handles keyboards, bass, guitar and occasional vocals himself, with Plini drummer Chris Allison adding smart, knotty beats. Along with compound rhythms these dynamic, cleverly constructed…

Masked post-djent ingénues come of age. The enigmatic entity known as Sleep Token must surely be destined for some form of major commercial breakthrough. As with the band’s debut, This Place Will Become Your Tomb is full of poignant and memorable songs, all exhibiting refined pop sensibilities and a fierce grasp of what the future of music, both progressive and otherwise, will probably sound like. Admittedly, these songs are all sodden with a somewhat dewy-eyed strain of angst that may grate on more cynical listeners, but the sheer melodic brilliance is hard to dispute, and the arrangements are never less than inspired. More importantly, Sleep Token’s mesmerising blend of James Blake-style torch songs and post-djent riffing has evolved into something more succinct. Grandiose opener Atlantic and recent single Alkaline all…

Genre-hopping wizard creates an emotional view of the Earth as if from space. Like Steven Wilson, Amon Tobin is a restless creature, reinventing himself and challenging listeners via different aliases and side projects – Two Fingers (dubstep and grime), Figueroa (psychedelic folk) and Only Child Tyrant (dark electronica). The Brazilian’s latest album is noise but often teasing gorgeous melodies and beautiful chord of his last two albums, How Do You Live explores “bigger scenery from a distance” as Tobin says, like an astronaut looking at the world from space. This electronic soundworld is endlessly inventive and deliciously joyful in its exuberant dissonances. The title track features an ethereal choir, Siren-like female voices and an impressionistic orchestra, while Rise To Ashes have distorted psychedelic vocals. This begins with the sound of…

Former Threshold man’s concept album ebbs and flows along the Thames path. Damian Wilson’s first full-length album in five years is an easy-feeling collection of songs that charts a musical and metaphorical route along the River Thames, from the bustle of east London to its closest navigable point to its source nearly 70 miles west in the Cotswolds. A set of largely bucolic songs interrupted by the occasional power evokes lush landscapes and the summer sky sliding by over rippling water and gently ebbing tides. As befits a man who once wowed crowds in the touring version of Les Misérables, Wilson has vocal power that hits the the kind of barnstorming back wall even when there’s no back wall to hit. It’s the kind of range he uses to full…

Acoustic guitar virtuoso’s 2013 breakthrough. In 2012 Jon Gomm’s performance video for his beautiful, ethereal song Passionflower went viral and online viewers were treated to a masterclass in 21stcentury fingerstyle guitar playing. The Blackpudlian’s startling technique – unusual tunings, deft double-handed fretting, battering his axe’s body to elicit various percussive sounds – earned him a growing fanbase, with Jon Anderson and David Crosby among his numerous celebrity admirers. He released Secrets Nobody Keeps, his third, breakthrough album, in 2013 in the wake of Passionflower’s success. With Gomm now touring current LP The Faintest Idea across the UK, this reissue’s a timely reminder of his extraordinary musical chops, and his frequently overlooked voice too. The jittery riff of the haunting, jazzy opener Telepathy has him knocking up beats, tapping out…

Lavish reissue of the debut album by the 90s nearly-weres. For a while in the late 90s Ultrasound were everywhere in the UK. These ‘indie’ rockers were touted as the next big thing on a music scene newly animated by – like it or not – Britpop. With the decade ending, the Oasises and Blurs had inadvertently paved the way for more forward-thinking bands to thrive, such as Radiohead and Mansun. Ultrasound were in the latter camp. The Londoners won a following on the strength of their live work, and among the demos, acoustic versions and B-sides littering half of this lavish four-CD deluxe reissue are songs from their sets at ’98’s Reading and Glastonbury festivals. Nude Records won the bidding war for them, and if Ultrasound shared some of…

Overview of Brit psychedelia yields numerous pre-prog treasures. Just as ‘progressive’, psychedelia began as an attitude and approach before quickly turning into a specific musical genre with its own tropes and signifiers, some may regard it as merely the nursery of prog. It’s here that the players and bands, who’d go on to become concept album titans of the 70s, first learnt their trade. But psychedelia lit the touchpaper for decades of creativity, innovation and weirdness in British music. It may have burnt brightly for a few short years, but it produced an astonishing amount of brilliant sonic artefacts that musicologists still pick over today. Which brings us to this fantastic five-CD box set of the period from renowned archivist David Wells. Psychedelia has been endlessly anthologised through the years,…

Gorgeous photos and deep thoughts from former Nightwish singer. Finland’s symphonic metal queen tells the story of her life on and offstage in this generously illustrated autobiography. In Singing In My Blood, Tarja Turunen talks about growing up in Finland, her lifelong quest to master her voice, and the struggles of launching her solo career without sacrificing her passion for both metal and classical music. Recollections from her time with Nightwish are noticeably absent – the band are covered almost in passing and there’s a brief mention of her dismissal from the group, but that’s largely the extent of it. In every other regard, Turunen is impressively forthright, even revealing that she suffered a stroke in 2018. Ever the trouper, she discharged herself from hospital to avoid cancelling a tour.…

plus FREE FINAL E2000 IN-EAR ISOLATING EARPHONES WORTH £39.00 Sharp, high-resolution sound in an uncomplicated design Tight low frequencies, sharp middle and high frequencies Comes with silicone eartips in five sizes, ear hooks and pouch Your special Christmas offer Upgrade to include digital for only £5 Order the gift that keeps on delivering www.magazinesdirect.com/PRG/xm21 or call 0330 333 1113 and quote XM21 Terms and conditions: Offercloses January 31, 2022. Offer open to new UK subscribers only. All gift subscriptions will start post-Christmas with the next available issue. Please allow upto 6 weeks for delivery. Your gift will be delivered separately within 60 days after your first payment has cleared. Gifts only available to subscribers on the UK mainland. In the unlikely…

YES! YES! YES! I found myself wandering around a branch of HMV (not the proggiest of shops, unlike the fabulous ST Records in Dudley) when I saw the new Yes album The Quest. Now, I’ve been a Yes fan since Time And A Word but have been a little disappointed since Fly From Here, however emboldened by the review in Prog [123], I bought it. So glad I did. It’s a Yes album for the past and the future. From the opening fanfare of Geoff Downes’ synths it sets the scene and the bar. Swirling melodies, interesting lyrics and Yes’ signature choral and vocal harmonies. Steve Howe, as last original man standing, leads the way but every player has the space and opportunity to contribute. Downes’ keyboard work supports the…

Hawkwind are to release the retrospective box set, Dust Of Time – An Anthology, via Atomhenge/Esoteric on December 10. This contains 77 tracks spread across six CDs, and not only spans the band’s 50-plus year career from debut album Hawkwind (1970) to All Aboard The Skylark (2019), but also features Dave Brock’s version of Willie Dixon’s Bring It On Home, which was on the 1969 compilation album The Buskers, and the Hawkwind Zoo demo track Sweet Mistress Of Pain (aka Kiss Of The Velvet Whip) from 1969. There will also be a two-CD Digipack version available. “I look at the tracklisting for this set and it emphasises just how many good songs we’ve done over the years,” confirms Brock. The only constant member of Hawkwind, the guitarist/vocalist admits that it…

Tennessee-based progressive rockers Glass Hammer have released a new studio album entitled Skallagrim – Into The Breach. It’s not only the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed Dreaming City, but also their first to feature new vocalist Hannah Pryor. Glass Hammer bassist Steve Babb reveals that the new recording represents the second part of a trilogy, which began with Dreaming City and will conclude with the band’s next album. “Nothing’s written,” he says, “but we have a loose idea of how we want to wrap up the story.” Inspired by books from the sword and sorcery genre, and with Babb scheduled to release his own novel, Skallagrim – In The Vales Of Pagarna, next year, …Into The Breach represents the mid-part of the story and follows the eponymous protagonist going to…

DONDA STEM PLAYER I wasn’t aware of this fact (on account of having a Kanye West-sized cultural blindspot) but Kanye West recently released an album entitled Donda. As well as being available digitally, you can buy it in this hand-sized hardware form for £200. It allows you to remix all the songs to your liking, adjusting volumes, tweaking samples and adding effects. As someone who sneers at graphic equalizers for putting too much control in the hands of the listener, I’m baffled as to why any artist would do this – but hey, Kanye and I have a track record of dissimilarity, not least him having 21 more Grammys than me. www.kanyewest.com REESE’S RP-FX The world of breakfast cereals hasn’t been rocked this hard since Cinnamon Grahams were renamed Curiously…

SINGER-SONGWRITERS LAURA J Martin and Lavinia Blackwall first bonded at 2017’s Moseley Folk Festival, but it wasn’t until lockdown that they finally hatched a plan. Martin had just added flute parts to Muggington Lane End, Blackwall’s first solo album since quitting acclaimed prog-folk types Trembling Bells. “Laura got back in touch, told me she’d been working on a Robert Wyatt track and asked if I fancied collaborating on it,” recalls Blackwall. “It worked really well, so we decided to do some more. Then it grew arms and legs into an album.” Billed as Wyndow – “It plays on old folk names with the ‘Y’ and was ambiguous enough to point at new dimensions, portals to new worlds, without sounding too pretentious,” explains Martin – the duo’s self-titled debut uses Wyatt’s Free…

Tool (right) will tour the UK and Europe next April and May. In the UK, they’ll play Manchester’s AO Arena on May 2, Birmingham’s UK Resorts World Arena on May 4, and London’s The O2 Arena on May 9 and 10. For more, see www.toolband.com. Renaissance are to reissue their classic 1975 album, Scheherazade & Other Stories via Esoteric on November 26. The expanded edition also includes a DVD with an unreleased live promotional film from 1976. For more, see www.renaissancetouring.com.…

Thirty years ago, Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström formed Katatonia as a studio-only project in which they could indulge their shared love of doom and death metal. The myriad twists and turns that followed have seen the Swedish band transform into one of the finest purveyors of dark and melancholic progressive rock. Their latest collection, Mnemosynean, celebrates their 30th anniversary with a selection of B-sides, rarities and remixes from their extreme metal early days to their polished and prestigious modern-day sound. As the band gear up towards touring their back catalogue in 2022, Renkse takes the opportunity to reflect on what was, and what still can be for Katatonia. Katatonia started out life as an extreme metal band before embracing a more progressive sound. Do you feel those early days…

French avant-gardists turn their attention to the classical world. Since forming in 2005, Aquaserge have immersed themselves in the waters of krautrock, chanson and Canterbury to uncategorisable effect. Recent albums Laisse Ça Être and Dejà Vous were experimental but listenable, yet they seem almost mainstream compared to their latest. Here, they interpret and take inspiration from iconoclastic 20th century composers including Zappa favourite, Edgar Varèse. His oldest known piece, Un Grand Sommeil Noir, is an atypically melodic, post-romantic setting of a Verlaine poem; here Aquaserge make it proggy and haunting through undulating woodwinds, deep percussion and the twin vocals of Audrey Ginestet and Julien Gasc. Dedicated to Varèse, 1768°C is a complex, wind-heavy piece that’s a tough listen, as is Hommage A Giacinto Scelsi, their clever if grating tribute to…

Brighton-based sextet deliver Canterbury vibes via deep space. One of the young British bands responsible for kickstarting prog again in the 00s, Diagonal went on an extended hiatus before returning two years ago with the excellent Arc, which showcased a new Canterbury scene meets post-punk sound. 4 throws further elements into the pot – space rock in particular – but feels more cohesive than its predecessor. The multipart opener Amon is the closest to a classic prog track here, some nicely ragged guitar leading into a stridently melodic verse that could be VdGG battling it out with Camel, while Alex Crispin’s and Nicholas Whittaker’s choral vocals combine like a modern day Gilmour/Wright. The minor key chime and beefy sax of Chroma is similarly full in sound, but also nails the…

Norwegian jazz proggers are on winning form for fifth album. If prog rock seems to be slowly rehabilitated in critical circles, no such dispensation is awarded to jazz-rock, frequently said to be indulgent and lacking passion. However, in Scandinavian countries no such stigma or cultural baggage accompanies the term, with bands young and old eagerly embracing it. The grandiose descending fanfare of opening track Watcher Of The Fries also indicates Krokofant know and love their progressive rock as well. As with 2019’s Q, the core trio of Tom Hasslan (guitars), Axel Skalstad (drums) and Jørgen Mathisen (saxophones) are augmented by Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s bass and keyboards from Motorpsycho alumnus, Ståle Storløkken. It’s an arrangement that adds extra grit to a sound that’s articulate while sounding as heavy and as worryingly…

Inspiring post-krautrock electronica weaves a subtle spell. The second album by the Scottish/German group, part of the wider Mood Tæg Kollektiv, expands the ‘neo-krautrock’ of their debut, Exophora. Those motorik rhythms can still be heard, but this time they’re more subtle. The vocal textures of the first album are replaced by polemical spoken words from poets, cultural critics and trade union activists, sometimes buried deep in the mix and at other times making the broad anti-Capitalist message explicit. Diskonkordanz is the closest to pure krautrock with its simple repetitions and funky bass. But Pilomotor Reflex has cascading electronics that slowly crystalise, while the pulsing rhythmic structures of Tachistoscopic Interval are created by the juxtaposition of synth chords and patterns with sparse percussion. Many of the tracks have insistent interweaving patterns,…

Instrumental rockers add another string to their bow. One of Outrun The Sunlight’s guitarists produces ambient meditation music as a day job, while their keyboard player provides piano accompaniment for dances and the drummer indulges in genres such as big band jazz as an instructor. It’s little wonder, then, that the Chicago instrumental quintet are happy to flirt with the outer edges of the musical spectrum on their fourth album, A Vast Field Of Silence, a concept record with no lyrics. The vocal-free theme is a recurring musical motif, and the 10 tracks here are the band’s best-sounding yet. Dreamless Chaos is an intoxicating cocktail of intricate guitar flourishes and some rumbling metal chutzpah, but the ensuing Luminous Stillness marries acoustic, lustful piano and soundscapes with something akin to a…

Iamthemorning singer shines bright as she banishes the clouds. Quality trumps quantity in this five-track EP from Mariana Semkina as the Russian vocalist unveils her first independent release. Disillusioned contains three new tracks and two arrangements of existing pieces of music. The covers are Bela Bartok’s Ne Hagyj Itt, which Semkina sings in the original Hungarian, and Land Míns Föður (‘My Father’s Land’), based on a composition by the Icelandic poet Jóhannes úr Kötlum. Semkina builds both songs almost entirely around her voice, layering harmonies until she creates an ethereal choir. The other songs include a string quartet, although even then, there’s less of the classical chamber music usually found in Iamthemorning. Friend floats on an undercurrent of strings and ambient electronics, but it’s Semkina’s yearning performance that really captures…

Improvised instrumental set from former Police man. Andy Summers is still best known as one-third of The Police, but he’s long since proved himself a fully paid-up renaissance man. In recent years, he’s turned his hand to literature (publishing a collection of short stories) and photography. The third in a loosely linked trilogy of instrumental albums sees the one-time bleach boy literally riffing around a set of song ideas inspired by visiting a retrospective exhibition of his own photographic images and finding himself disappointed with the sounds the venue had juxtaposed with his art. With Harmonics Of The Night, Summershas created an album of guitar sketches and ambient sound that might have been created to help fill the eaves of an art space but translates to less grandiose interiors. As…

Time travel made simple through the power of neo-prog. Tamarisk were (sort of) contemporaries of Marillion, IQ and Pallas, and Suspended Animation is an intriguing combination of throwback and reimagining from one of the UK’s lesser known neo-prog bands. This album sees original keyboardist Steve Leigh and vocalist Andy Grant revisiting unreleased tunes from the mid-80s. Existing mainly in fragments of cassette recordings and thoughts on paper, they’ve set about assembling them into an album, which captures the textures of the early days of the neo-prog movement. Take, for example, PLUS! and It Was Never There, which contain lyrics that speak of the past from the perspective of the present. Marillion weren’t the only band to blend evocative synth sounds and ambitious arrangements with the edge of punk and new…

Wakeman Jr in classical mode. Adam Wakeman’s first album under his own name since 2003 is a true solo record – one man sitting at his piano, playing music inspired by memories of times with his family and on tour. It’s pared back by its very nature, with no enhancing effects – this is the sound of music at close quarters. But the compositions are so well constructed that while they’re very intimate and personal, they’re nonetheless inviting and do give the sense of what he’s feeling – there’s an inestimable elegance to The Winter Palace and a brooding darkness about Iceland. Throughout, Wakeman feels genuinely connected to what he’s playing, as he delivers each piece with such resonance and emotion. Gateway To The Sun has an underlying poignancy and…

They may be called Men Without Qualities, but this Swedish trio are anything but. Their self-titled debut album (Nastrokevert) is a muscular and listenable piece of modern rock. PJ Harvey, Radiohead and Peter Gabriel are among their influences, but MWQ’s tough, power-trio riffs and three-part harmonies (led by bassist/singer Stone) mean they’d be at home sharing a bill with the Von Hertzens, or Royal Blood, or maybe even Tool. An exciting, promising debut. Signed to the proudly promiscuous label Bad Elephant, Dutch band Fractal Mirror proffer more smart, ambitious music on their fifth album, Beyond Borders. Compared with 2018’s upbeat and tuneful Close To Vapour, it’s a pretty melancholy listen (the acoustic Slip Away is a real downer), and Leo Koperdraat’s low, sometimes monotone vocals remain an acquired taste, yet…

Irish-French group are revolting on their much-vaunted second album. Molybaron’s singer and co-guitarist Gary Kelly has observed that critics do find it hard to decide whether the band’s music is rock or metal, and then if it’s prog or groove metal. “I believe it’s all of the above,” he says. He might have a point. Dublin-born Kelly formed the group in Paris in 2014 with Sébastien de Saint-Angel and drummer Camille Greneron – came to notice with their self-titled debut LP in 2017. With Mastodon, Tool and Gojira among their influences they’re now signed to InsideOut, and their towering second album (originally released digitally in May, now reissued on CD) marks them out as a serious prospect. The riffs are djent-tough and melodic, thick with twin-attack guitars and punctuated by…

Modern prog’s greatest icons, under the microscope. It’s a format that gleefully feeds the hysterical, info-hungry prog nerd in all of us: every last song from every last album that Porcupine Tree released during their many years of activity, dissected and appraised by one of Prog’s own, Nick Holmes. Eminently more worthy of such scrutiny than most, Steven Wilson’s pioneering crew made music that invites vivid description, but Holmes’ brisk, unpretentious prose consistently transmits the necessary facts at the same time. It’s also more than apparent that he has fully immersed himself in the PT catalogue, and that he knows rather more about it than anyone outside of the musicians concerned. Naturally, there will be many fans who already know that Signify, from the album of the same name, grew…

STEVE HACKETT @HackettOfficial Amazing crowd in Manchester last night and exciting to be filmed for the next live release… Now heading for Edinburgh! NICK MASON’S SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS (OFFICIAL) @NMSOSOfficial 2019: “Avengers assemble!” 2021: “Saucers assemble!” #SaucerfulOfSecrets #rehearsals #missedthis #beentoolong AL MURRAY – DKMS.ORG.UK @almurray Accordion player in Birmingham city centre is playing extracts from The Godfather. As usual. JANE WEAVER @JanelWeaver Off to the gym, I think it’s the instructor who has the Stan Bush motivational music playlist. J. WILLGOOSE, ESQ. @JWillgoose_Esq A week-and-a-bit out from (possibly) playing it live for the first time and it’s just beginning to dawn on me that playing People, Let’s Dance might be rather difficult. RICK WAKEMAN CBE @GrumpyOldRick Due to lots of roadworks in Norwich and having to detour drastically in order…

California multi-instrumentalist and composer Rachel Flowers has just released her brand new studio album, Bigger On The Inside. The nine-track recording is Flowers’ third solo album and the follow-up to 2018’s Going Somewhere. “I was inspired by composers and bands like Ambrosia, Frank Zappa and Keith Emerson while writing the songs on Bigger On The Inside,” says Flowers. “Some songs were inspired by or even heard in dreams. Others were improvised during the recording process. Sometimes just hearing a new piano sound can lead to inspiration. Some of my lyrics just come from my imagination and others come from real experience. “The message is that there will be darkness, but you can fly, you can love, you can be loved, and the darkness is only temporary.” See www.rachelflowersmusic.com for more.…

“I used to play in a band called Iwrestledabearonce and we were on tour when TesseracT’s Altered State came out [in 2013]. Our drummer had already been a fan from the Concealing Fate EP days. We had an eight-hour drive so he put on Altered State [with then-vocalist Ashe O’Hara] and immediately, from the first song, I was like, ‘What is this?’ I was hooked. “I had never heard a band sound so heavy with a singer before, and also be so rhythmically complex. It was the opposite style of music to what I was doing at the time, and it was completely original to me. As a guitar player, hearing something more minimalist in the riffs but more extreme in the rhythmic passages – that’s what really intrigued me.…

(RINSE, 2007) Formed in 2005, Klaxons burst onto the UK music scene in a flurry of glow sticks, airhorns, eye-watering fluorescent fashions and bass-driven high-energy sounds. Flagbearers for what quickly became known as ‘new rave’, casual observers might have assumed that Klaxons and their similarly attired contemporaries were just faux naïve revivalists of the smiley face dance phenomenon of the late 80s and early 90s. Yet what was actually happening was a lot more interesting than that. As Jamie Reynolds, Klaxons’ bassist, singer and primary conceptualist, recently described it, the idea behind the band was to marry alt-guitar rock with a “rave element and pepper it with mysticism and esoterica. But first and foremost, we wanted to be a successful pop band.” But what’s that got to do with prog?…

FOR DEDICATED SURFERS of the cosmic highway, few bands in recent memory struck a chord like Astra. Led by vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Conor Riley, the San Diego quintet released two extraordinary albums – 2009’s The Weirding and 2012’s The Black Chord – before vanishing mysteriously into the ether, seemingly forever. But Riley’s urge to create magical progressive rock records persists, and now he’s back with Birth. Another spellbinding exploration of prog’s haziest outer limits, the band have recently unveiled their first demo, which is rather generously available for free download from their Bandcamp page. “Some of the ideas for Birth were songs I was working on for Astra in some form,” Riley tells Prog. “But Birth is a little different, because with Astra we would rehearse multiple times a week…

IN THE 70s, bands left the big city to get it together in the country, seeking inspiration in a Welsh studio or manor. As chance would have it, The Mentulls already live in the North Yorkshire countryside and they had been due to go into the studio to record their new album Recipe For Change. However lockdown forced them to record remotely, even though they actually live near each other. The core of the band is brothers Andrew and Jamie Pipe, who play guitar and keyboards respectively. They formed the group as teenagers, and chose the name The Mentulls without thinking about its meaning. “People think that we’re the heaviest metal band on the planet,” Andrew laughs, “and then they hear our music and can’t believe how melodic it is.” They…

“People can compare us to Hawkwind all they like. Both of our bands operate in the same time stream, but they’re in a cross-connected multiverse. There’s a wormhole that connects us both.” The Hawklords were born in 1978 when three Hawkwind members – guitarist Dave Brock, frontman Robert Calvert and drummer Simon King – broke away for the album 25 Years On. When Hawkwind rebooted, to all intents and purposes the Hawklords appeared dead. This wasn’t so, although it took 30 years to prove the theory. In 2008, saxophonist Nik Turner rallied a group of Hawkwind alumni for a tribute gig to Calvert, who had passed two decades earlier. When, the following year, a similar memorial show for artist and designer Barney Bubbles took place, it became evident that this…

Horror maestro soundtracks the latest instalment in his famed slasher franchise. John Carpenter’s scores have always been an important part of his Halloween series, and there franchise who are looking forward to this soundtrack almost as much as seeing Halloween Kills itself. And Carpenter plus his two longtime collaborators don’t disappoint. Carpenter’s style in 2021 bridges dark modern synthwave and the classically evocative approach of legendary Hitchcock composer Bernard Hermann. There are references to the iconic Halloween Appears, and there are plenty of other captivating moments elsewhere. The stark piano motif of is unsettling, Cruel Intentions suggests menace lurking n the shadows, and Stand Off has the stench of uncontrollable nastiness. This album was recorded simultaneously with this year’s Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. There are similarities, but Halloween…

Atmospheric new soundtrack from Texas experimentalists. Taking the soundtrack they were commissioned to write for recent PBS documentary Big Bend: The Wild Frontier Of Texas and reshaping it into more structured form, Explosions In The Sky’s first new material in five years sits somewhere between score and traditional album. Much of Big Bend is light on driving percussion, heavy on atmosphere and closer to soundtrack work, but there are some arresting moments. Chief among these is lead single Climbing Bear, a masterclass in understated, emotive post-rock, driven by a gentle percussion loop and spiralling acoustic guitar arpeggios. Big Bend is generally most successful in this warmer, more organic mode, with slide guitars and acoustic instruments operating on a sparse canvas. The tracks that have less interesting percussion parts are ultimately…

Adventures in prog metal from British warhorses. Recorded in 2019 but delayed by Covid, Iron Maiden’s 17th studio album is one of their most fervently progressive and adventurous yet. Die-hard fans will be expecting a handful of punchy anthems, and Stratego, Days Of Future Past and blues-infused single The Writing On The Wall plainly fit the bill. But this is an album dominated by monumental, dramatic epics – something Iron Maiden have been doing throughout their 40-year history, but seldom with more power or precision than here. Lost In A Lost World is an early shot across the temporal bows; its simmering, verbose sprawl showcasing the ageless might of Bruce Dickinson’s voice. But it’s a closing trilogy of profoundly proggy behemoths, all penned by bassist Steve Harris, that pushes Senjutsu…

Thirty-one-year-old Texan thespian confirms his versatility. Caleb Landry Jones’ bestknown movies – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Get Out and The Outpost – showcase his commitment to the art of acting. He’s equally committed to his music, his first love, and this second album is even more eccentric than his 2020 debut, The Mother Stone, which Prog compared to Zappa, Rundgren and Syd Barrett. Those references hold, but this – written at night while he was shooting a film with Tom Hanks during the day – sounds even more theatrical, therapeutic and mad-artist-in-an-attic. You just hope Tom wasn’t too perturbed. Presenting as a kind of fairground psychedelia leaping from Lennon at his darkest to Robyn Hitchcock at his most surreal, is a flood of mantras and sonic jigsaws that are…

Explorations of difference and the power of connection. Following up 2018’s wellreceived debut, The Importance Of Mr Bedlam, The Paradox Twin return with an expanded line-up. Based on experiences with his autistic son, mainman Danny Sorrell journeys through a series of linked musical vignettes. Attempting both to describe an autistic person’s struggles to reconcile internal and external realities, and to explore their relationship with a neurotypical sister as voiced by new co-lead vocalist Nicole Johnson, this album covers aspects of the confusion, isolation and rejection faced by many neurodiverse people. Musically, the band further refine their take on contemporary prog. Single Wake Vortex epitomises their crafted mix of gentle balladeering, emotive hooks, grown-up pop music and modern hard rock. Sea Of Tranquility goes for a more uniformly laid-back vibe akin…

Prog folk singer-songwriter’s feast for the ears. Infused and enthused by the British folk movements of the late 60s and early 70s, Henry Parker wears his love of that era proudly on his sleeve. As with his sparkling 2019 debut Silent Spring, echoes of the young John Martyn in Parker’s vocals are discernible, as are suggestions of Bert Jansch and Nick Drake in his guitar’s glistening arpeggios and ruminative chords. However, such references are transcended as the collection unfurls. Original material and two traditional songs create an immersive, mellifluous world in which both the peace and isolation of nature are evoked through subtle arrangements. Tumbling percussion, lithesome string bass, electric piano, alongside searching contributions from Richard Curran’s cello and Theo Travis’s gliding flute provide understated yet enthralling support. Another high…

Virginia post-metal quartet find new dimensions of heavy. With their fifth album, Shy, Low have come up with something bordering on the scary – a cinematically loud instrumental post-rock set that blends shoegazing aesthetics, canyon-ringing resonance and a seriously heavy blend of riffs and rhythm. The juddering thrash barrages punctuating Fata Morgana show Shy, Low’s metal influences, but they’ve found room to incorporate ear-pricking new sounds into the mix, such as the trumpets that float across the final passages of Umbra, first beatifically and then chaotically as they spiral into cacophony. Sometimes they pound away as if digging a road, but then touch hypnotic drone rock territory as they ride apocalyptic crescendos and fall off into despair, as when opener When The Light Bends sputters out in a mess of…

When it comes to inspired collaborations, Limiñanas and Laurent Garnier win hands down. The Gallic garage-psych duo and French techno DJ/producer have teamed up for De Película (Because Music), a thoroughly engaging concept piece about two teenagers on the lam, making for the Spanish frontier. Tremolo guitars, driving synths and turbo beats rule, with helpings of desert trippiness, best served by the unsettling Juliette and Tu Tournes En Boucle, which sounds like a modern-day analogue to the El Topo soundtrack. After a period of burnout that led him down “a very dark path”, singer-guitarist Chad Ubovich is back at the helm of Californian freak rockers Meatbodies. Third effort 333 (In The Red) finds him and drummer Dylan Fujioka forking out spades of heavy fuzz, from Reach For The Sunn to…

Aussie proggers score a lockdown hat-trick. Plenty of artists have used the enforced break from touring to make new music and Australia’s Teramaze seem to be enjoying a purple patch of creativity. And The Beauty They Perceive is their third full-length release in 18 months but following on from the concept album of Sorella Minore, this time they focus on standalone songs. The sound is unmistakably modern and firmly on the metal side of the progressive spectrum, with no Mellotrons anywhere in earshot, yet the songs are highly melodic although the guitars are drop-tuned, while frontman Dean Wells has a powerful, clear voice. Untide and Waves are showcases for his range both musically and emotionally, touching on power ballad territory. Jackie Seth is an album standout, laden with a surprisingly…

Grammy-winning rockers turn up the tenderness. The War On Drugs’ earlier albums had a twist of exploratory psych; a krautrock rhythm, a shiver of shoegaze. Yet since 2014’s Lost In The Dream broke big they’ve hugged the heartland, drawing comparisons to Springsteen and Petty. The lovely first track on their fifth is a stripped-down acoustic tease, so stark that the delayed entry of the inevitable guitar solo is almost eroticised. It suggests new avenues for frontman Adam Granduciel, reminiscent of when Dire Straits detoured into Private Investigations. After that, the music reverts, in the main, to the centre of things. They’ve now mastered their genre to a stupendous degree, and the levels of yearning and melancholy are irresistible. Lines like ‘When I think about the old days, you’re always on…

Canadian veterans’ late 80s/early 90s output revisited. These three albums kick off a massive vinyl reissues programme of the celebrated Canadians’ catalogue, starting with 1987’s Wildest Dreams. By this time, both keyboard player Jim Gilmour and drummer Steve Negus had left, and now signed to Atlantic, Saga went for a more pop-oriented approach under the misguided approach of producer Kevin Elson. While the single Only Time Will Tell is an intelligent melodic song, much of the album suffers from a surfeit of synthesisers. At times, the tracks are drowned in technology, and Wildest Dreams sounds very much of its time. Two years later, The Beginner’s Guide To Throwing Shapes thankfully brought the band slightly back towards their prog roots. Now away from the influence of Atlantic, this was more in…

Intimate live set from Bruce Soord’s art rock quartet. It’s a story as old as the pandemic: band releases album, only to find themselves unable to tour in support and opt to instead recreate it in a studio with just a film crew for company. So it was for The Pineapple Thief, whose December 2020 livestream show was captured for posterity by director George Laycock and gets the full multidisc Blu-ray/CD treatment here. Laycock filmed the band in an empty room and used large lamps and dynamic camera angles to achieve a cinematic atmosphere. While the absence of crowd interactions is understandable, that sense of intimacy is the film’s biggest strength. The 17-track set leans heavily on their then-recent album, Versions Of The Truth. Demons, Our Mire and the title…

Rush’s visual wing gets the coffee table book he deserves. Rush wouldn’t have been Rush without Hugh Syme. He was more than just the guy who designed every cover from 1975’s Caress Of Steel through to 2012’s swansong Clockwork Angels; more, even, than an ancillary ‘fourth’ member. His protean yet instantly recognisable imagery was as integral to the band as the music they made or the lyrics Neil Peart wrote. Try listening to Xanadu without seeing a puppet king draped limply on a throne in a crumbling building, or hearing Subdivisions without catching a faint whiff of whatever the Dalmatian on the cover of Signals was smelling on that fire hydrant all those years ago. It’s impossible. “It’s part-visual history, part-slideshow, part-catnip for Rush fans.” Syme’s work has been celebrated…

VENUE THE MANN CENTER, PHILADELPHIA, USA DATE 07/09/2021 SUPPORT THE ZAPPA BAND The modern incarnation of King Crimson are best known for playing wildly complex and caustic compositions in classy attire and with ceremonial demeanours. That’s precisely what they do tonight, recreating many iconic tunes with absolute focus and no banter or theatrics. Aided by opener The Zappa Band, the septet demonstrate why their Music Is Our Friend tour – ostensibly their last US tour – is an essential experience for fans. The Zappa Band deliver as much technical prowess and endearing personality as virtually any other Zappa incarnation. They run through their 50-minute set with few pauses, segueing fluidly between charming songs (Zomby Woof, City Of Tiny Lites, Florentine Pogen and I Ain’t Got No Heart) and virtuosic instrumentals…