Table of contents for Issue 150 in Prog

The 50th anniversary of the sold-out gig at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London by the incredible line-up of Kevin Ayers of Soft Machine fame, former Velvet Underground members John Cale and Nico, and a newly solo Brian Eno, and the live album that it spawned – June 1, 1974 – is to be the subject of a special celebration taking place at The Social in London on June 1. Hosted by music writer Travis Elborough, the event includes a panel discussion featuring former journalist turned Island Records A&R Richard Williams, who organised and recorded the concert; Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, who would later work with all of the headliners; former Melody Maker Editor Allan Jones; saxophonist John Altman and Nico biographer Jennifer Otter Bickerdike. Musical entertainment will…

Justin Hayward has announced a run of seven additional UK dates this autumn as part of his ongoing The Blue World tour, which includes two shows in Scotland – his first dates north of the border in five years. Joining him on the tour are guitarist Mike Dawes, multi-instrumentalist and Moody Blues touring backing singer Julie Ragins and flautist Karmen Gould. The former Moody Blues frontman and songwriter behind the classics Nights In White Satin, Question and Tuesday Afternoon will play Halifax Victoria Theatre (October 7), Dunfermline Alhambra Theatre (9), Aberdeen Music Hall (10), Darlington Hippodrome (13), New Brighton Floral Pavilion (14), Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion (16) and Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall Theatre (17). Speaking of the tour, Hayward said, “It’s always a privilege and a joy to be…

THE TAPESTRY OF Lauri Porra’s musical identity has been sewn together by myriad threads. A fourth-generation musician raised in a classical household in Helsinki (he’s a direct descendant of composer Sibelius), he went in search of new musical horizons in his teens. Since then, he’s spent over two decades immersed in a dizzying variety of projects. “I stopped going to my cello lessons and bought an electric bass, more out of curiosity than rebellion,” he says. “At one point, I was playing in 25 bands, playing bluegrass, Argentinean tango, hip hop, electronic, metal. I just wanted to play and discover how these different styles worked.” Alongside playing bass in power metal band Stratovarius, Porra composes for orchestras and has scored for Finnish films and TV shows. His latest album, Matter…

CELEBRATED DOYENS OF progressive doom metal, Pallbearer became legendary almost immediately. Debut album Sorrow And Extinction emerged in 2012 to widespread acclaim, as this mysterious band from Little Rock, Arkansas, skilfully blended enormous, post-Sabbath riffing with strange, crestfallen melodies and tons of haunting atmosphere. Twelve years on, Pallbearer are certified legends in the cerebral metal underground, but their new album promises to draw in curious prog fans like never before. Despite many heavy moments, new release Mind Burns Alive is a fragile and minimalist affair, and by far the most adventurous thing they’ve ever created. The elegant flipside to 2020’s strident and riff-driven Forgotten Days, it perfectly encapsulates Pallbearer’s restless creative ambitions. “This band are still 100 per cent about what we’re interested in making,” says singer/guitarist Brett Campbell. “That’s…

The Editor Jerry Ewing BILL FISHER How To Think Like A Billionaire SEPTAPHONIC RECORDS The Art Guy Russell Fairbrother KEVIN KASTNING & MARK WINGFIELD Rubicon II GREYDISC RECORDS The Deputy Ed Natasha Scharf CALEB LANDRY JONES Hey Gary, Hey Dawn SACRED BONES The Musician Christopher Sampson JOHNNY CLEGG & SAVUKA Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World CAPITOL The Writer Jordan Blum OU II: Frailty INSIDEOUTMUSIC The Reader Janne Yliruusi SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM Of The Last Human Being AVANT NIGHT…

Since joining Ghost Of The Machine in 2022, Yorkshire-based vocalist Charlie Bramald has kept himself busy. He’s also released music with ambient proggers Nova Cascade, alt rock/prog hybrid Shadows On Mercury and Nine Skies, which has helped him leave an indelible imprint on the scene. Now he’s joined forces with former ex-This Winter Machine guitarist John Cook for Age Of Distraction, although he explains this was “in spite of myself, because I was already quite busy”. Originally intended to be a Cook solo project exploring the guitarist’s heavier side, it quickly evolved into an exciting new band that melds together melodic and progressive metal. He gives us the lowdown. How did the Age Of Distraction come to fruition and who’s in the band? John [Cook] founded it as an outlet…

Sax player Mel Collins – who had previously appeared on 1970’s In The Wake Of Poseidon, Lizard and 1971’s Islands – split from King Crimson, alongside bandmates Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace, after a long and often difficult US tour in early 1972. Quickly establishing himself as a go-to session player for numerous groups and artists during the rest of the 1970s and beyond, Collins’s skills as a player and arranger were in constant demand. “In those days I was doing so much work, and I was in the studio with Humble Pie in Olympic working on their album Thunderbox, and down the corridor was Crimson doing Red,” he recalls. “It wasn’t a case of bumping into Robert in the canteen or something like that. I think I got a…

It’s been 35 years since German post-punk pioneers Xmal Deutschland’s last album, but Codes (Sacred Bones), the comeback of singer/frontwoman Anja Huwe, is fresh and thrilling. Proudly dramatic, and often using bilingual spoken-word techniques, it couples the cinematic electronica of collaborator Mona Mur (which sometimes echoes compatriots Propaganda) with propulsive rock which, with fellow Xmal graduate Manuela Rickers on guitar, will gratify fans of that band. Huwe has worked as a visual artist for some time, and Codes, which demands full attention from start to finish, is a big bold personal statement about survival, colouring its canvas with passion and class. Michigan maverick John Grant’s solo albums, not to mention team-ups such as Creep Show, have been so consistently excellent that there’s a danger he might now be taken for…

VENUE THE CAMDEN CLUB, LONDON DATE 06/04/2024 SUPPORT STORM DEVA The last time John Mitchell played solo in London, last February at the Islington Assembly Hall, it probably wasn’t his best performance. Erroneously billed as ‘An Evening With John Mitchell’, it turned into a Lonely Robot show with a sub-standard band and attempts at humour sadly missing the mark. Tonight, however, in a show that really is ‘An Evening With…’, he wipes that evening from the memory banks with a show sparkling with side-splitting humour and musical adroitness. Before he takes the stage, London duo Storm Deva offer an acoustic set with a selection of material from their enjoyable self-titled debut album. Led by Carollyn Eden’s keyboards and classically pitched vocals, and a restrained prog-rocking astrophysicist Dr Stuart Clark on guitar, they warm…

VENUE THE 1865, SOUTHAMPTON DATE 24/03/2024 SUPPORT THE WOOD DEMONS Few bands would enlist a world-champion kickboxer to lead their pre-gig routine, but it’s all part of Spriggan Mist’s unique approach. As the headliners limber up backstage with Kloe Ward, it’s up to The Wood Demons to warm up the audience. Theirs is an understated psychedelic vibe, hinting at Caravan and Curved Air through the dominant, flowing violin runs of the ever-animate, expressive Naomi Belshaw. Compelling animations heighten the intensity of their long, thoughtful pieces. Tonight, they debut new numbers, including Underground Rivers and a section of Rick Startin’s keyboard-led Nothing Between Us And Heaven. Old favourites such as Arithmomania and Angels Of Peckham Rye also get an airing. Fine musicians they all are, but neither Startin nor guitarist Simon Carbery quite pack…

VENUE HEAVEN, LONDON DATE 02/04/2024 SUPPORT MAUD THE MOTH Chambered within old brick arches, Heaven resembles more of an ancient tomb than the setting for one of London’s most vibrant LGBTQ+ nightclubs, its shadowy structure befitting the ever-mysterious Chelsea Wolfe, who is here to showcase her best-received album to date, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. Excluding her outings as part of Converge’s Bloodmoon, it’s the Californian singer-songwriter’s first UK performance in nearly six years and it’s been a highly-anticipated wait. But first, adding to the haunted atmosphere is Maud The Moth, who bestows classical piano ballads sprinkled with soundbites of birdsong, a Kate Bushstyle whimsy and melodies so ethereal it feels as though she might summon a legion of sprites to join her at any minute. Maud (aka Amaya…

1 Find Yourself (Steven Wilson Remix) Taken from Silent Dance 2 Journey Taken from New Life 3 Sacred Run Taken from Circles 4 Solomon’s Bridge Taken from Spirit 5 Flight (Live) Taken from Kindred Spirits 6 Warriors Taken from Prophecy 7 A New Day Taken from Sia 8 Seven Dreams Taken from Sia 9 Shout Taken from Live In Veruno 10 Light Up Taken from Light Up 11 Firefly Taken from Return To Cropredy 12 Guardian Taken from The Stables Live 13 Bulbul Tarang Taken from The Stables Live 14 Wongle No9 Taken from The Stables Live 15 Sacred Run Taken from The Stables Live 16 Morning Light Taken from Live At MK11…

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOSYSTEM 9000C Between 1996 and 2011, Danish highend firm Bang & Olufsen produced the Beosound 9000, a beautiful (and expensive) six-CD changer, which you could mount on the wall and show off proudly to your guests. With the growing enthusiasm for physical media and distaste for streaming, they’ve decided to revive it. A limited number of 9000s are current being refurbished by the firm and integrated with a pair of new Beolab 28 speakers to create a super-retro, super-modern digital music system. I can’t afford one, but I applaud it nonetheless. www.bang-olufsen.com BLIPBLOX MYTRACKS Growing up, the most advanced musical technology available to me was a battered four-track cassette recorder and a Yamaha Portasound keyboard. The new BlipBlox Mytracks, a fully-featured music production studio styled somewhere between…

The prog top 30 albums April 2024 Compiled by 1 HAWKWIND Stories From Time And Space (CHERRY RED) 2 JANE WEAVER Love In Constant Spectacle (FIRE) 3 PETER GABRIEL i/o (REAL WORLD RECORDS) 4 MIKE OLDFIELD Tubular Bells – 50th Anniversary Edition (UMC) 5 TAME IMPALA Lonerism (FICTION) 6 GENTLE GIANT The Missing Piece (CHRYSALIS) 7 STEVE HACKETT The Circus And The Nightwhale (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 8 BIG BIG TRAIN The Likes Of Us (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 9 STEVEN WILSON The Harmony Codex (VIRGIN/SW RECORDS) 10 WITHIN TEMPTATION Bleed Out (FORCE MUSIC) 11 CAMEL Mirage (UMC) 12 ROGER WATERS The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux (COOKING VINYL) 13 THE PINEAPPLE THIEF It Leads To This (KSCOPE) 14 EMERSON LAKE & POWELL The Complete Collection (SPIRIT OF UNICORN MUSIC) 15 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING This…

FINAL COIL WAS originally a solo project born from the mind of multi-instrumentalist Phil Stiles back in 2002, but it didn’t remain a one-man band for long. After meeting guitarist Richard Awdry through a mutual friend, the duo wrote and recorded some demos before Stiles headed off to Poland for four years to teach English. The pair remained in touch however, so upon Stiles’s return to Leicester in 2008 they decided to get together to see whether they could scratch a collective musical itch together again. Stiles’s wife, Jola, whom he fondly describes as a“very, very talented musician”, completed the trio on bass duties. Working on songs in 2008 that had existed since 2003 confirmed that the material the band had slowly written and even recorded during some of Awdry’s…

“In 1974 I was 16 years old and I briefly worked in the record department of WH Smith’s on Watford High Street. The albums arrived in large boxes and I used to unpack them. I knew the release dates of various records and so I knew that when those boxes came in that morning, King Crimson would be one of them. And so the first time I ever saw the cover of Red was after opening up the new stock that day. I remember being shocked by it because it was the first time there had been an image of the band on the front cover of any of their albums. I was excited when we played it in the shop. My first impression was that there was a more…

One of the most reliable and prolific prog bands of the 21st century, The Tangent are nothing if not adaptable. Two years on from Songs From The Hard Shoulder, these revered veterans are about to release a record with one significant difference. Defying the odds and proving himself to be an even more talented man than his many past achievements might suggest, founder and songwriter Andy Tillison has pulled off the impressive feat of creating an entire album without any help from his bandmates whatsoever. Dedicated fans shouldn’t panic, however, as this cherished keyboard wizard hasn’t fallen out with his fellow musicians. He just couldn’t get them all in the same room to bring his new songs to life, and so he did it all himself. As he explains to…

Alex Lifeson’s guitar contribution isn’t the only link to rock and fusion royalty on The New Normal. Soft Machine’s Theo Travis plays sax on Daddy Long Legs, while Sibling Rivalry features Beggs playing a vintage Chapman Stick that had previously belonged to John Paul Jones (right).“Last year I got a message from Hugh Manson, the guitar maker, who looks after all John’s stuff,” says Beggs. “He said, ‘Watch for the postman.’” In due course, a large box was delivered (with or without didgeridoo distraction is unclear). “I opened it, there was a message from John saying, ‘I was having a tidy up, wondered if you wanted this?’ It was a 1978 vintage Chapman Stick. I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to use that on something!’” Once Sibling Rivalry was finished, Beggs…

Winter McQuinn has a varied CV: Aussie psych pop soft rocker, double Bachelor of Music graduate, frontman of Melbourne area pop candy quintet Sunfruits, freelance publicist at Third Eye Stimuli Records or co-founder of environmental music organisation Green Your Noise. A man of many parts, then, and all of them working, as is all the more obvious on Move To The Trees (Third Eye Stimuli). It delivers just under half an hour of mellow and melodic, 1970s-channelling tuneage with soft rock vocals, something of a Laurel Canyon bouquet and titles like Daffodil and Honey. Back in Blighty, John Bramwell is well-known as the co-founder of erstwhile Manchester alt rockers and Mercury Prize nominees I Am Kloot. His latest solo work The Light Fantastic (Townsend Music) wafts into your senses with…

VENUE BARBICAN HALL, LONDON DATE 03/04/2024 Rock bands playing with orchestras isn’t always an idea which works. Sometimes the two elements can pull against each other or sit awkwardly, as if on a mismatched blind date. And sometimes the strategy just comes across as an ego-trip from a band wanting to look fancy, as if they reckon their songs deserve something more grandiose than “mere” rock music. This absolutely isn’t the case tonight, as the emotive proggy spacepop of Mew enjoys a blissful marriage with their tuxedoed compatriots’ strings and horns. The two powerful forces mesh and gel with almost telepathic shrewdness, and the already lofty material of the band is lifted sky high. For newcomers, it’s a revelation. For longterm believers, it’s cause for happy tears. Since forming in Copenhagen in…

VENUE SCHUBAS TAVERN, CHICAGO, IL, USA DATE 05/04/2024 Schubas Tavern is an intimate venue in the Lakeview neighborhood that’s built around the ideal connection between the performer and the audience. From time to time, that means nearly blowing said audience out the back door during a live performance. Such is the case when Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania duo Zombi take the stage tonight. The synth-prog pair are in town to support their latest release, Direct Inject, their first full-length studio album in four years. The anticipation is readily apparent from the minute they take the stage and let loose. There’s certainly a great deal of pent-up energy being unleashed onstage tonight. A big sound in a small venue is far from unusual, but Prog can’t help but marvel at the huge noise that fills…

VENUE RONNIE SCOTT’S JAZZ CLUB, LONDON DATE 10/04/2024 In an onstage announcement, Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge dedicates tonight’s concert to drummer John Marshall, who first played in the Softs in 1972 and died in 2023, proclaiming him as one of the best drummers of the second half of the 20th century. No pressure, then, for his replacement, Israeli composer and percussionist Asaf Sirkis, whom Etheridge wryly informs us was chosen because he “told the best jokes”. But on a more serious matter, Sirkis has played with guitarists as widely spaced on the musical spectrum as John Abercrombie and Wilko Johnson, and his style encompasses formidable jazz chops and rock propulsion. He’s partnered in the rhythm section by relative newcomer and In Cahoots alumnus Fred Baker’s supple, sonorous bass. Since their inception…

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of Prog. So then, issue 150! And little over 15 years since we launched this title back in 2009. Some of you have been with us since that very first issue with Pink Floyd on the front cover; some have joined in along the way. And I have to say that without you, the readers, none of this would have been possible. Along with the musicians who create this wonderful music that we write about, I say a hearty thank you from the team and myself, while not forgetting all those who have worked with us along the way to bring you Prog magazine. We dedicate this issue to all of you. It’s King Crimson’s barnstorming 1974 album Red that graces the cover,…

“It was their guitarist, Tony MacAlpine, who first drew me in, although Brett Garsed, who was the guitarist on their last album, Quantum, is a player that I’ve loved as well. From about the age of 15 and into my early 20s, I had this thing where I got heavily into guitar players. I grew up listening to the standard classic rock, bluesy stuff like Deep Purple, Gary Moore and that kind of thing because that’s what was brought down to me from my dad and that’s what I started off playing. Once I got into my teens, I started to discover my own stuff like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. My introduction to Planet X was through Tony MacAlpine and the Universe album, which was the first one he…

Zaher Zorgati and Kevin Codfert – the singer and the keyboardist producer respectively of Tunisian prog metellars Myrath – are laughing loud and long, incredulous at the cliché that bands make music for themselves and if anyone else likes it then“it’s a bonus.” Myrath, they stress, “compose for the people.” “It’s greedy of bands to say the opposite,” says Zorgati as he regains his composure. “Music always comes from the musician, it’s obvious for them to say, ‘Yes, I play music for myself’, but for us, the music comes from the bottom of our hearts, our sensations, our experiences, and our souls to the people directly. I don’t do this for myself. It’s about creating a sense of community and communication. It’s very important because when I sing a song and…

IT TOOK PLANTOID three moves around the UK – from Lincoln to London to Brighton – for roots to form, to find a supportive record label, and for their career to blossom further. Although the bandmembers are still young in age, theirs is certainly not an overnight success. “We’ve probably been going for about eight or nine years,” fresh-faced co-founder and guitarist Tom Coyne tells us, recalling the time when the band were called Mangö. “We’d been doing all the same London pub gigs, and then Covid happened… we were on the verge of splitting up.” A new city and a new name brought opportunities. They played a New Year’s Eve show in Brighton in 2022, when a rep from Bella Union happened to be in the audience. Label founder…

In 2023 the David Cross Band released Ice Blue, Silver Sky, which aside from a collection of original material also featured two King Crimson numbers the violinist had a hand in writing, Exiles from Larks’ Tongues In Aspic and Starless. The latter track is something of an obsession for him, Cross admits, and comes after a 2015 collaboration with Robert Fripp, Starless Starlight, which expanded the track’s principal melody into a full-length ambient suite featuring Cross’s looping violin and Fripp’s soundscapes. What were his reasons for returning to the track he last performed with King Crimson in 1974? “It’s odd, isn’t it? I really thought I had finished with it when I did the Starless Starlight album, that it was well and truly sorted. I suppose there are two reasons:…

“I first saw King Crimson at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in June 1974. They opened for Ten Years After. They played a short set, but they played Starless. I know because I left with the bass riff and the coda going through my head for weeks after. I remember thinking, ‘What is this thing?’ It was indecipherable to my brain. Bruford would stand while he played the percussion over the two-note guitar solo, I remember. Then with that fast section of the coda, I couldn’t count fast enough to understand what was happening. And then the show was over but that tune haunted me from then on. About two weeks later they played at the Shrine in LA. That’s a big part of why I moved to LA,…

Multifaceted Argentinian artist Gabriel Agudo has sung regularly for The Steve Rothery Band, and the favour’s returned on his ambitious second solo album. Tales & Thunders (bit.ly/GabrielAgudo) is an engaging selection of modern prog songs embracing everything from the moon landings to the pandemic. Rothery plays lead guitar, bass and drums on Even To The Edge Of Doom; Dave Foster and keyboard whiz Derek Sherinian are among the other high-calibre stars on this rewarding, gleamingly produced record, delivered with Agudo’s signature gusto. Led by versatile guitarist/vocalist Emil Moen, Norwegian quartet Sykofant bring together fusion’s jazzy vocabulary, odd/funky grooves, early-Floyd psych and much more on their edgy and eclectic self-titled debut (on Sycophantastic Records). From fiddly opener Pavement Of Color to chewy 14-minuter Forgotten Paths, they straddle surf-, noise- and post-rock…

VENUE O2 CITY HALL, NEWCASTLE DATE 05/04/2024 The warriors on the edge of time (or maybe borrowed time, of which more later) breeze into the toon on a Friday night and land at a respectably attended but not heaving City Hall, on the very day their new album also touches down on Planet Earth. Three select cuts from Stories From Time And Space have been inserted into the set, as Hawkwind further burnish their current incarnation’s reputation for running a tight live ship. An upbeat Dave Brock also reveals that it was here in “Noocarsoo”, back in 1979, that he first met his wife, Kris. She briefly appears and gives this story a confirmatory wave from the wings. Proceedings lift off with a fast-boogieing, rip-roaring Brainbox Pollution, lasers firing on just…

VENUE ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER DATE 09/04/2024 SUPPORT JONATHAN HULTÉN Like some fey guardian peering from the eaves of a primaeval forest, Myrkur straddles different worlds. The onewoman project of Danish multi-instrumentalist Amalie Bruun was initially rooted in the Scandinavian black metal scene. If all you know about this scene is the murder and mayhem dramatised in the Lords Of Chaos book and subsequent film, you might be surprised to learn that acts like Ihsahn, Enslaved and Myrkur have taken that starting point and added their own richly progressive musical strokes. Myrkur in particular (the name can apply to both the artist and project) has carved out her own niche, mixing measured volume and aggression with complex layers and fragile, haunting folk themes. She’s gradually moved ever further from that raw…

VENUE OSLO HACKNEY, LONDON DATE 25/04/2024 SUPPORT AZURE, LEONI JANE KENNEDY Well, this is a turn-up for the books. We’re at a prog gig (obviously) not exclusively populated by people of, er, (cough) a certain age. And there’s an outbreak of dancing as Kyros rattle their way through a downright funky Ghosts Of You at the end of their set. Within minutes, that’s actually turned into a conga that snakes its way around the venue as the party atmosphere continues. It’s a pleasing, if somewhat surprising, end to a night that highlights three young, up-and-coming UK artists of various proggish hues. All credit should go to the London Prog Gigs Facebook group, who are turning into a real bastion of support to bands who often pass under the radar of bigger promoters, and…