Sommaire pour Issue 132 de Prog

Launched in 1987, The Laser’s Edge Group is still an extremely active mail order specialist in progressive music. Beginning in 1990, we developed four in-house labels with a specific focus: The Laser’s Edge (progressive rock), Sensory (progressive metal) and Free Electric Sound (fusion). In 2012, Modulus was born as a deluxe limited edition reissue series focusing on rare progressive music. Notable artists we have collaborated with over the years include Riverside, White Willow, Eloy, Redemption, Zero Hour, Gordian Knot, Delain and Norwegian quintet Circus Maximus. We continue to seek out forward-thinking music as presented in this sampler of our current roster of artists. What’s on your free The Laser’s Edge digital album Download the 18-track sampler from www.bit.ly/lasers_sampler 1 Virtual Symmetry Come Alive Taken from the upcoming album Virtual Symmetry 2…

Jazz rock saxophonist and flautist Barbara Thompson MBE died on July 9 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. She was 77. Born on July 27, 1944 in Oxford, Thompson studied at the Royal College Of Music in the 1960s and began making her name on the UK jazz scene through her work with New Jazz Orchestra, Bill Le Sage Trio and John Dankworth. Later she worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber, and earned acclaim in the contemporary classical field. Her Saxophone Concerto was debuted by the Freiburg Festival Orchestra in 1988 and, in 1995, her Rhythm Of The Gods piece was performed by a group of musicians including modern percussion great, Evelyn Glennie. In prog circles Thompson was best known for her work with Colosseum, whose drummer Jon Hiseman she…

WHEN IANAI FIRST emerged into the world, the “band’s” members’ identities were secret. The enchanting, multi-instrumental, folky world music project was shrouded in mystery, led by an enigmatic figure named Trevenial, who was said to have come from “the other side of the veil”. But it’s hard to keep anything secret these days. “I’m done with the mystery!” laughs Jaani Peuhu, the real person behind IANAI. Peuhu is the vocalist of darkwave band Iconcrash, has played keyboards in Finnish heavy proggers Swallow The Sun, and is also a music producer. Initially it was said that he was just the producer of IANAI, but it wasn’t long before people connected the dots and realised that he was behind the music, too. “I don’t like publicity, so I felt excited for this…

THE OLD ADAGE goes that if you love someone, set them free and if they come back to you, it was meant to be. And as far as Maraton are concerned, it’s a saying that holds weight. In 2014, the Norwegian alt-proggers had just finished recording their debut, Meta, the album they hoped would introduce their prog metal to the world. But behind the scenes, the creation process had pushed founder, songwriter and guitarist, Simen Ruud, to the brink of burnout. “I was working 16 hours a day as a consultant for an IT company at the time,” he recalls. “When the mixing was done, I was like, ‘I never want to hear this thing again.’” Almost as soon as they had applied the record’s finishing touches, Ruud quit, leaving…

Multi-instrumentalist duo return with more ethereal odes. The Blackheart Orchestra’s Chrissy Mostyn and Rick Pilkington fuse indie-folk, art-rock, electronica, chamber pop, and other cultured styles into individualistically haunting ballads. Hotel Utopia carries that tradition on, evoking everyone from Anathema to Bat for Lashes. The intersecting guitar patterns and Mostyn and Pilkington’s vocal dualities on The Tide are hypnotic. Safe and Atlantic are equally reserved and vulnerable, yet their irregular melodies, plucked harp notes, and rich harmonies suggest the pastoral imagination of Kate Bush’s early work. It’s not all delicate and sparse, though, since The Warning juxtaposes its meditative verses with robust choruses that are bolstered by roaring percussion and strings. Even Under The Headlights, Casting Spells, and Translucent – which lean closest toward the anthemic accessibility of mainstream rock –…

Compelling second voyage by the Hackett-approved guitarist. Nick Fletcher’s best known as the guitarist for John Hackett, whose brother Steve has described as “probably the best jazz rock guitarist in the country, with a classical guitar technique to boot”. The follow-up to Fletcher’s 2021 debut Cycles Of Behaviour, The Cloud Of Unknowing shares its name with a written work of Christian mysticism, and is billed as a spiritual “voyage of our inner selves to take us from darkness to light”. Lifesigns/Iona member Dave Bainbridge is on keyboards here, with former Earthworks/Steeleye Span bassist Tim Harries in the band too. Cue some fleet-fingered instrumentals that broach sub-Holdsworth fusion (Out Of The Maelstrom) and get metal-heavy at times (Dance Of The Hydra). The nine-minute title track and 10-minute closer, The Paradox, feature…

John Mitchell solo project retains momentum on fifth album. As eye-catching birth names go, John Mitchell isn’t quite up there with Madonna Ciccone or Prince Nelson Rogers. So it makes sense for the erstwhile It Bites, Arena, Kino and Frost* musician and producer-to-the-prog-stars to adopt a more creative moniker for his solo projects. However, he has admitted that the Lonely Robot name was only initially intended for the initial trilogy of albums he made between 2015 and 2019. And on this fifth album under that name, familiar themes and lyrical preoccupations resurface: in particular, 21st-century alienation and the ongoing battle to keep mind and body together in trying times. “It’s a superior soft rock record with echoes of Gabriel and Waters.” The ‘Hello’ that starts Digital God Machine echoes Floyd’s…

Bergen natives serve up dollops of reverb and jangly guitars aplenty. Long established Norwegian indie/alt-rockers Green Sky Accident’s first release for specialist Nordic prog label vivid artwork reminiscent of pulp 70s sci-fi novels, but while there are subtle hints of space rock here, this is some distance from Hawkwind territory. Instead, Daytime TV draws heavily on the UK’s ‘Madchester’ and shoegaze are strains of The Stone Roses, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine throughout, with singer/guitarist Tore Torgrimsen balancing his vocal delivery between wafting melancholy and cynical resignation. Highlights frenetic title track, which is include the sunny, slightly perfect for a drive in the country with the roof down; boasts spacy contemplative verses and wall-of-noise choruses, while While We Lasted has a post-rock epicness and inscrutable lyrical concoction. Elsewhere there are…

New York’s experimental metal enigmas double down on the density. Imperial Triumphant are arguably the weirdest band in progressive metal. A masked trio inspired as much by 1920s Art Deco and futurism as they are the usual suspects of heavy dystopian parties, using robotic voice-overs to narrate between songs, while frontman Zachary Ilya Ezrin has been known to drench audiences with champagne. Then there’s their actual music. Imperial Triumphant songs are twitching behemoths, each one darting between incomprehensible time signatures, growls and screeching guitars to create an avant-garde hellscape. Spirit Of Ecstasy – named after the classic Rolls-Royce hood ornament – is no different. Its 54 minutes are discordant and abrasive yet undeniably forward thinking. On Change, Ezrin’s chords grind ever higher towards a breakdown that never comes, while trumpets…

Quiet please! Norwegian art-rockers make noise in the library. Early in lockdown, Major Parkinson did what many bands deprived of a live audience would do: they streamed an acoustic live set from the public library in their hometown of Bergen. For many musicians, stripped of a layer of studio varnish, it was a time of understandably lowered standards. Major Parkinson? Not so much. A Night At The Library was a ragged triumph, and now it’s a raggedly triumphant live album. Shorn of guitars and bass yet not deprived of an iota of conviction, it’s a frenetic performance. By the end of the fourth song, Beaks Of Benevola, frontman Jon Ivar Kollbotn is already apologising for being out of breath, but there’s no slackening. Claudia Cox’s see-saw of epic violin introduces…

Keyboard giant travels through the looking glass to deliver a beast of an album. This is more than a solo album by the Spock’s Beard keyboardist; on the epic title track, it becomes a mirror universe of the parent group, featuring all current members plus on/off drummer/vocalist Nick D’Virgilio. The song is a twisty-turny monster as befits its storyline, with a ravenous creature rampaging across southern England. Every weapon in the prog arsenal is deployed in response, including the voices of the “good people of Basingstoke” and a climax that would give Jeff Wayne goosebumps. Elsewhere, Okomuto and co-writer Michael Whiteman are joined by an impressive cast to realise their vision, among them Steve Hackett and Saga’s Michael Sadler. Hackett is in evidence at several points, yet the most Genesis-y…

More hip psych from the I Monster/Cobalt Chapel man. Regal Worm is the one-man psych project from Cobalt Chapel/I Monster linchpin Jarrod Gosling, and it’s evolved considerably since 2013 debut Use And Ornament. Gosling has dug deeper of late, and his own vocals (harmonised and vocoded to within an inch of its life) sit at the centre of last year’s nutty The Hideous Goblink and this intoxicating follow-up. Worm! is fertile with mesmerising, 60s psych harmonies, propulsive post-90s rhythms and intriguingly weird structures. Gosling’s idiosyncratic style harks back to Barrett, Egg, Gentle Giant in parts, but from the frenetic opener Regal Wishbone to woozy lead single Bong Song he’s absolutely an artist of the Pro Tools era. He assumes the role of knob-twiddling mad professor (Dindy Super), cosmic fusion hippie…

Chicago post-rock trio delve deeper into prog metal’s quagmire. Russian Circles’ 2019 album Blood Year was hailed as the most overtly prog metal thing the instrumentalists had ever done. Inspired equally by experimental Italian bands from the 1970s and black metal, it maintained the Chicagoans’ formula of looping, escalating licks, but made them faster, heavier and grimier. Gnosis makes that album look weak by comparison. Guitar notes constantly thud as lead single Conduit opens, each one tuned low and produced to be as murky as possible. Then the rhythm section of drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook quickly joins in, adding a thunderous rumble and shattering snares. Vlastimil is similarly seismic; it commences with a crawling guitar lead before percussion crashes through the mix. That isn’t to say they’ve…

Where new age psychedelia meets post-minimalism class. The clue is in the title here as Stavanger’s Sleepyard unfurl their intoxicating sixth full-length album, after a near-30-year existence. Comprised of brothers Oliver and Svein Kersbergen, the duo are purported to have released Norway’s first post-rock album back in the late 90s, but for a long while now the musical focus has been cinematic, meditative psychedelia, often instrumental. They first came onto Prog’s radar with 2015’s Black Sails, featuring avant and astral input from Mike Garson, Judy Dyble and Nik Turner. This time, their heritage chanteuse is Sandy Dendrick from 60sbaroque pop act Free Design adding sweetness to Falling In Love, a Breathe-style Floydian track, while Spiritualized guitarist Mark Refoy and, surprisingly, former Mayhem drummer Kjetil Manheim bring occultish textures to standout…

A stunning record, Moonshine (Western Vinyl) marks the fourth album from Nightlands, the progressive project from David Hartley, bassist for Pennsylvania alt-rockers The War On Drugs. That band are forward-looking in their own field, but here he opens up his own exquisitely beautiful, neo-psych soundworld. Part Jonathan Wilson, part Dennis Wilson (with a dash of Tame Impala), the record’s drenched in vocal harmonies, hip retro keyboards and echoing sax. Hartley’s got soul and makes the dreamiest dreampop – Moonshine’s the must-hear sound of the summer. Composer Christopher Libertino studied music at Harvard and Berklee, and his fifth album, Cartography (Paradox Lost), puts him on the map as a writer and player of rare refinement. This music bursts with clever, globalista ideas and seriously high-tech production. Libertino approaches his instrument from…

Comprehensive concert footage from the electro prog metal masters. Last September, Voyager livestreamed a career-spanning 90-minute set of material chosen by fans and it’s captured in its entirety here. The Blu-ray is divided into two sets, with the first embodying the band’s initial four albums via classics such as the emotional To The Morning Light, the hooky White Shadow, and the impressively hectic and challenging wonderfully and, of course, the second half of the show fares just as well. Pulling from their last three records, and finale Runaway among the most invigorating segments. Throughout, Voyager lighting schemes, sparklers, are surrounded by flashy celestial projections and other visual enhancements. These accompaniments make their performance feel more epic, whereas the tongue-in-cheek ad breaks halfway in reveal some of the members’ humble and…

VENUE THE BARBICAN, LONDON DATE 22/06/2022 What becomes a legend most? Is it the company they keep? In the case of Herbie Hancock, the celebrated pianist, keyboardist and composer must boast one of the most enviable address books in jazz or any genre. Just flip the pages and there will be the names, numbers and domiciles of musical titans including trumpeters Donald Byrd and Miles Davis, as well as saxophonists Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy. And in the digital age, there’ll be contemporary trailblazers like Thundercat, Flying Lotus and the influential Kendrick Lamar. Or could it be Hancock’s seven decades of involvement in music that not only set the standards for generations to come, but also altered the course of music in ways previously unimaginable? To do so once is…

VENUE CITY WINERY, CHICAGO, USA DATE 08/07/2022 Dream Theater keyboard player Jordan Rudess has kept busy this summer. As his main band takes a brief pause from touring, he’s hit the road with a series of solo live dates. An evening with Rudess proves to be intimate and enjoyably diverse. In tonight’s Chicago show the musician takes the crowd on a journey, sharing stories from his days as a youth becoming classically trained but having an urge to improvise and play the blues. Rudess says his musical trajectory evolved as a teenager when he was exposed to progressive rock, a life-changing genre that blew his mind. To illustrate, the show starts with an impressive classical improvisation. Rudess then displays how intertwined progressive rock and classical music are when playing Bach’s…

VENUE THE 1865, SOUTHAMPTON DATE 26/06/2022 Antony Kalugin, founder of Karfagen and Sunchild, is a Ukrainian musical ambassador in Poland while Kharkiv, his home city, is under attack. Under these tragic circumstances, his video message recorded for this event, which includes the song Vil’na inspired by a Ukrainian hymn, is even more heart-wrenching. Filmed endorsements by other prog luminaries further underline the overriding purpose here: to raise funds for the Red Cross’ Ukraine Appeal. Organisers Graham Stead and Geoff Tucker have curated an eclectic gathering of musicians who are donating their time and talent for free. Most perform stripped-down versions of their songs to ensure swift turnarounds. Usually found fronting Ruby Dawn, Carola Baer opens with the intense Man, Where’s Your Heart and it has a resonance with today’s cause.…

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Stream the Prog 132 playlist at www.spoti.fi/3OuiCEN Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. As I write this page, the UK is sweltering under a heatwave – not the ideal time to go to press on a magazine! However, given the vagaries of the UK’s weather, the chances are we’ll be deluged by torrential rain by the time you read this! At the age of 76, our cover star Robert Fripp remains an enigma, rather like the British climate! Arguably one of the most talented musicians in the progressive world, he has steered the good ship King Crimson through 50-plus years of sometimes rather choppy waters. The band, in whatever incarnation, rightly remain one of the most revered and lauded in the music world. Yet at the…

Jethro Tull’s classic Thick As A Brick was released 50 years ago, on March 3, 1972. To commemorate this anniversary, Warner Music is reissuing the album on vinyl, complete with the original St Cleve Chronicle & Linwell Advertiser newspaper packaging (pictured right). While the record and its iconic cover are now part of prog lore, Ian Anderson recalls that, back in the day, the band’s label, Chrysalis, took some convincing about it. “The label weren’t exactly sure about the cover…” “I think it scared the proverbial out of them,” he tells Prog, “because of the music, and the album cover that I came up. They weren’t exactly sure about the wisdom of it. Happily, it was proven to be instrumental in the success of the record. The presentation of the album in…

PATHFINDER IEMS There are earbuds, and then there are earbuds. It’s hard to say what degree of care went into manufacturing the ones that came free with your mobile phone, but you can be sure that much more love went into these Pathfinder in-ear monitors, made by absurdly priced high-end audio firm, Astell & Kern. These babies boast a ‘Radial Venting Acoustic Chamber’, a precision-milled aluminium shell and Beryllium Copper MMCX connectors, and while it’s hard to say precisely what effect these might have on the sound, Astell & Kern reckon it’s all rather special and have priced the product accordingly: £1,899 to you, mate. www.astellnkern.com MAVIS Meanwhile, back in the real world, we have a modular synth from Moog that’s actually affordable, although you have to build it yourself.…

What got us all grooving this month… Porcupine Tree’s reunion was one of this year’s biggest surprises and the quality of music on their comeback album, Closure/Continuation, went far beyond what anyone could have imagined. You can enjoy it for yourself with this month’s competition prize, which celebrates the unexpected release. Up for grabs is a copy of the deluxe CD/Blu-ray, promo poster and T-shirt (available in sizes small to XXL). The album set, which is presented in an exclusive art book, also includes three bonus tracks, instrumental versions and high-resolution mixes of the album. The limited-edition poster, designed to accompany Porcupine Tree’s recent instore appearances, is signed by all three members of the current band. To be in with a chance of winning this brilliant prize, visit www.bit.ly/PROG132 and…

Emerging from the mid-60s homegrown R&B/soul scene, rubbing shoulders with Pink Floyd along the way, Dave Terry (aka Elmer Gantry) and his Velvet Opera embraced the shackle-freeing ‘Summer of Love’ with both arms, transforming Willie Dixon-fixated chops into an undervalued psychedelic gem: Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera. Following on from an overdue three disc retrospective, we caught up with Gantry in reflective form – musing on a storied career. What was it like being at the centre of a musical awakening? There was a sense we could do anything. We’d come from a blues background – Willie Dixon had written everything – but there was something in the air, and we wanted to burst out of that. It was so enjoyable. We started adding extended solos, smoked loads of dope, and…

Wigan’s progressive metal champions double down live on a superb set. There’s always been something a bit different about Boss Keloid. Emerging from a murky scene of sludge, doom and stoner rock in 2010, the Wigan-based band took and jazz time sig touches, and have been consistently moving forward into a field of their own, with LPs such as Angular Beef and Herb Your Enthusiasm. With 2021’s Family The Smiling Thrush, the quartet throw even more experimentation into the pot, from medieval folk to highlife, with their signature phat-bottomed foundation ever-present. They loved the studio experience so much they’ve revisited it for this live record, giving extra bite to the hey-nonny nine-minute epic Orang Of Noyn, the powerful Gentle Clovis and the monstrous Succulent, tracks that Devin Townsend, Mastodon and…

Graphic horror from Italy’s movie maestro. The Eyes Of The Cat was a 1978 graphic novel created by cult Chilean author Alejandro Jodorowsky and French artist Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud. The mastermind behind multiple classic Italian horror movie soundtracks, Fabio Frizzi has taken on the challenge of creating a fitting soundtrack. Fans of Frizzi’s past works – 1981’s astonishing score for Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, in particular – will find plenty to be disarmed and then slightly disturbed by here. Opener The City is the sound of the Italian composer in his element; awash with synths and strings, and anchored by a foggy, electronic throb, it conjures an atmosphere of urban claustrophobia. In contrast, The Cat mixes juddering slap bass and ghostly tribal percussion with waves of simmering tension and a…

One-time 4AD star now soaring in Hollywood and higher. Last year saw revered Dead Can Dance vocalist and Golden Globe-winning Hans Zimmer collaborator Lisa Gerrard finding the sweet spot between lofty and accessible on an album with Jules Maxwell and James Chapman. Here she partners with an LA-based Argentinian producer/musician she met while working on film scores. Exaudia works because both know how far they can take the airy, neo-classical elements without losing the attention of a rock-trained audience. So while it sits happily in hymnal, almost operatic spaces for spells of time, it kicks in with a dark dynamic groove at just the right times. In a strange way, Gerrard’s music is now more 4AD-like than it has been for decades. Not that it’s backward-looking: this is inventive, ambitious…

‘Amplified history’ proponents return with more music from The Ancients. With Viking blockbuster The Northman pulling in $70 million at the box office, it’s clear there’s a growing appetite for pagan ritual, glistening flesh and all things ancient. And as anyone who’s seen Heilung live can attest, the band check all those boxes. They’re a hypnotic, hallucinatory, occasionally bewildering experience. Third studio album Drif is a more muted affair, and less easy to get lost in, but the live set’s slow creep towards climax is effectively captured on Tenet, and Buslas Bann, with chanted, throat-sung vocals and primitive, churning rhythms providing an almost maddening lift. Less patient listeners might struggle with Keltentrauer (‘Celtic mourning’), eight minutes of spoken German set over the backdrop of what sounds like a berserker training…

A spirited debut full of prog rock goodness. Drawing from the influence of Rush, Genesis and Pink Floyd, All Secrets Known is a familiar-sounding yet delightful introduction to Welsh quartet The Mighty Ra. Guitarist Andy Edwards sings with an uncanny resemblance to David Gilmour, lending mellow warmth to the multifaceted spaciness of the opening title track. There’s a lot of dynamic instrumentation throughout the tune, too, with gentle synths, piano arpeggios and acoustic guitar fingerpicking steadily giving way to fiery guitar solos and percussion. It’s a sublime balance of appealing songwriting and adventurous playing that’s achieved equally well on tracks such as Nothing Comes Too Easy and the dramatic Seven Days. Songs such as Freedom and weighty closer Bigger Lie highlight the group’s knack for striking harmonies, while Will We…

Norwegian veterans scale dizzying highs once again. With more than 30 years of playing music under their collective belt and almost as many studio albums to their name, Motorpsycho’s ongoing purple patch shows no signs of abating. Indeed, based on the evidence of Ancient Astronauts, this venerable Norwegian institution are unlikely to be blown off course any time, not least as they’re going further into the reaches of the cosmos. Moreover, the album demands nothing less than total attention. Taken in a single sitting, the four-song Ancient Astronauts is an immersive experience that moves seamlessly through a variety of musical directions that alternately beguile, thrill and startle. That it does so without jarring is testament to the talent that beats at the trio’s heart. Opener The Ladder is the closest…

German duo create a desert-inspired soundtrack for the mind. Pretty Lightning are a psych/blues/prairie rock duo from Saarbrücken, Germany. Dust Moves is their fifth full-length album, and their first that’s entirely instrumental. This might not sound like a recipe for progressive delights, but Pretty Lightning also take inspiration from their krautrock forebears, fashioning a sound that’s head-nodding and mysterious, with the application of Mellotron and synth creating a dream-like atmosphere. Glide Gently (Into The Chasm) is the first of many titles that encapsulate their music: waves of keening guitar give way to a trotting rhythm and cowboy slide, a kind of Monument Valley motorik. There’s a similar sense of space on the dubby, skittering Gewgaw For Beginners. The Morriconeesque minimalism of The Secret Is Locked Inside, its fairground keys floating…

With current and former members of Mekong Delta, Pain Of Salvation and Kamelot on board, Philosophobia have plenty of prog pedigree. Their self-titled debut album (Sensory) is an ambitious affair that deftly combines the precise thunder of traditional prog metal with plenty of ingenious, left-field diversions. The contrast between intricate opener Thorn In Your Pride and glowering piano ballad Between The Pines sums up the depth and diversity on offer, while Voices Unheard delivers a supremely satisfying dose of crunching, technical metal. A very modern kind of prog metal band, Mycelia have exhibited scant regard for genre boundaries over their 12-year existence. On their second album, In A Late Country (Eclipse), the Swiss quartet shrug off any lingering attachment to the djent movement and let their imagination run riot. A…

Artful gallery atmospherics from Norse blackhearts. As its title suggests, this is a collaboration between the Norwegian black metal legends and Oslo’s Munch Museet, home to many of revered artist Edvard Munch’s greatest works. Composed as an accompaniment to viewings of selected paintings by the great man, it comprises a single, constantly evolving 60-minute piece that only bears occasional resemblance to the scabrous heaviness that Satyricon are known for. It begins with a sinister, viscous drone, which sets a dark tone for what follows. Creative mastermind Satyr Wongraven has long expressed a liking for Klaus Schulze, and that debt is repaid here. Emerging from waves of mournful cello and subsonic bubbling come clanging crescendos of reverb-fogged electric guitar, enchanting acoustic detours and even a burst of disembodied clarinet. Impressively, it…

Stirring second outing from genre-weaving Helsinki quartet. For many musicians, being pigeonholed equals creative death, which may be why this Finnish four-piece identify under the broad banner of ‘alternative rock’. What this follow-up to 2018’s Inspiral clearly shows is an affinity for the kind of tuneful choruses and ear-catching riff motifs that would work in any genre. There’s an emo-redolent despair about Jules Naveri’s imploring vocal howl on Invisible Enemies, while Quipu and Stream are rousing anthems to positivity against the odds. Throughout, more neurotic passages of moody contemplation and labyrinthine guitar soloing add dynamics to the proceedings, while juddering time signatures and heavy riffing on Fearism sees toes dipped squarely into prog metal waters. It makes for a winning combination of simple, cathartic solutions that don’t stop complex, unsettling…

Classy 2019 live set from Six By Six star’s previous high-calibre project. Californian vocalist, instrumentalist and songwriter Robert Berry is currently helming supertrio Six By Six, but his prog credentials stretch back further. This classy, enjoyable concert film captures his band 3.2’s set at the ProgStock Festival in New Jersey in October 2019. Bass in hand, he’s relaxed and voluble, whether introducing himself and his superb symphonic prog band – Spock’s Beard drummer Jimmy Keegan, 3 guitarist Paul Keller and Circuline keyboardist Andrew Colyer – or cuing each song with a leisurely anecdote. The setlist’s a two-hour tour of his CV. Opener Life Beyond LA is from Ambrosia, whose ranks he briefly joined in the mid-2000s; No One Else dates back to his stint in GTR, while Desde La Vida,…

VENUE THE GARAGE, LONDON DATE 17-18/06/2022 SUPPORT THE UTOPIA STRONG Magma return to the UK for the first time since 2019. Prior to a trip to Manchester they stop for a two-night residency at Highbury’s The Garage. Support comes from The Utopia Strong featuring the Zeuhl collective’s most famous fan Steve Davis, Zeuhl-adjacent Guapo guitarist and Gong/Knifeworld frontman Kavus Torabi, and multi-instrumentalist Michael J York. The psychedelic trio tease electronic atmospheres from the beyond. Torabi seems to be conducting the energy as he pins his guitar headstock against the ceiling to feel the frequencies resonate through his body, although a meandering ambient section is better suited to more intimate club venues as it’s in danger of being drowned out by crowd noise tonight. Of the three improvised pieces the beat-driven…

VENUE ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL, LONDON DATE 11/06/2022 It’s been nine months since this show – to mark the 40th anniversary of IQ’s formation in Southampton – was originally scheduled to take place. But the best things do come to those who wait. Over the course of 12 critically acclaimed albums IQ have attracted a devoted following, constant and unwavering amid fundamental shifts in line-up, and today’s configuration has been steady since 2011. The classic quartet who recorded the 1985 album The Wake is augmented by keyboardist Neil Durant, subbing for founder member Martin Orford, who departed in 2007. After the obligatory IQ video montage, the audience are transported to 1993 by The Darkest Hour, the lead track from the much-loved Ever. It’s an upbeat major key opener that gets the…

Send your letters to us at: Prog, Future Publishing, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London, W2 6JR, or email prog@futurenet.com. Letters may be edited for length. We regret that we cannot reply to phone calls. For more comment and prog news and views, find us on facebook.com under Prog. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Regarding the discussion prompted by the piece by Ralph Greco, Jn (Paperlate, Prog 130): classical music has coped pretty well with ‘tribute acts’ for generations. There can’t be many people still around who ever saw Edward Elgar live, let alone Beethoven or Mozart and my view is that the best prog (and rock) music will survive this way long after the original musicians are gone. In the meantime let’s make the most of the bands that still tour, even…

“When I was 15, I was at the convent school in Kidderminster and my friend Neville Farmer was at the boys’ school around the corner. We’d meet up at lunchtime, go for coffee, talk about music and swap albums. I was listening to a lot of Gong – I thought I was Shakti Yoni for years – and I had Camembert Electrique and Flying Teapot in my bag. Neville gave me Selling England By The Pound and Foxtrot. I went home, put on Selling England, and from the first track I was blown away. I loved all of Genesis as writers but particularly Peter Gabriel. On albums like The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway he created this fantasy world, but there was always some sort of message or reality about…

“We’re at the point where we can’t sign any more bands,” says Apollon Records co-founder Robin Mortensen, with a slightly nervous laugh. “We have so many now, and they’re all really active.” Based in Bergen, Norway, Apollon’s a dynamic, all-embracing label. One of their biggest sellers is the city’s rising stoner rock band Slomosa, and hopes are high for Kryptograf, a young Bergen band who Mortensen says, “are proggy but more inspired by stuff like Black Sabbath. There’s three singers and four songwriters in the band, and I think they’re going to be big.” Mortensen has a proven ear for this stuff. An avid music collector and record store owner to this day, he co-founded the Karisma label back in 2003, signing inventive bands such as synthpoppers Casiokids and, later, acclaimed…

In 1973, Al Stewart was a man at a creative crossroads. His fourth album, Orange, had described the end of a relationship whose happier days he had earlier documented, and he couldn’t face the idea of writing love songs anymore. A bold and fresh direction was required. That commitment led him to one of his most enduring albums, Past, Present & Future, and a place as perhaps the foremost writer of historically based material in acoustic music. Now the record sits at the centre of Stewart’s gargantuan, 50-disc box set, The Admiralty Lights, as one of 21 remastered studio albums in a collection also featuring 18 discs of live recordings, three of BBC sessions, a collector’s book, posters… the proverbial nine yards. It’s surely the definitive word on a distinctive,…

Distinctive session stalwart/Crimson alumnus on the up. A side from high-profile, career-defining stints with Zappa, Bowie, Talking Heads and, most notably, King Crimson, Adrian Belew has steadily racked up an impressive catalogue of invariably engaging solo albums. Elevator, his 25th, finds the Kentuckian operating at the peak of his form. From its opening shimmer A13, which is immediately reminiscent of Discipline-era Crimson, producer/sole instrumentalist Belew’s broad and idiosyncratic stunt guitar sound palette is as instantly recognisable as his ageless voice. He can be forgiven odd detours into the twee (The Power Of The Natural World, the decidedly McCartney-esque Good Morning Sun), because when he’s good – Attitude’s skewed collage of abstruse tones, Taking My Shoes Out For A Walk’s eccentric wordplay – he’s excellent. Back To Love’s mellifluous ingenuity could…

Seasoned duo concoct fiery new brew. After the success of Tim Finn and Phil Manzanera’s lockdown collaboration, Caught By The Heart, the pair continue their long-distance creative relationship with The Ghost Of Santiago. For fans of the commercial end of both artists’ work, look no further than Our Love; it shuffles with a fine late Roxy Music rhythm, with some truly splendid echo-heavy Manzanera guitars floating in and out of the mix, and a catchy, affecting vocal hook. Rosemullion Head, the instrumental centrepiece of Manzanera’s 2015 album The Sound Of Blue is turned into a touching song by Finn about Manzanera’s favourite location in Cornwall. The cumbia flavoured Costeno continues on from the Latin homage on Caught By The Heart’s Mambo! Salsa!. Finn’s voice has developed into a beguiling whisper-croak,…

Radical reimagining of Irish post-rockers’ debut LP. God Is An Astronaut’s second album, All Is Violent, All Is Bright, was their breakthrough, but their debut The End Of The Beginning was more biographically significant. Intended as a goodbye in the face of failure, it instead garnered them a cult following. Now, 20 years later, they’ve reworked it as a live-in-the-studio album. The original leaned into electronic music out of necessity: GIAA were a duo sampling keys and drums with an AKAI S3000 sampler, and at the time, the influence of drum’n’bass and trip hop was writ large. The Beginning Of The End, by contrast, is a rock record played by a full band, meaning the textures and instrumentation are completely different. This can clearly be heard on Lost Symphony; where…

Philadelphia post-rock quintet’s lockdown-spawned debut. Led by American guitarist and noisescaper Eric Kusanagi, Hiroe tap into that the feelings of isolation and escapism engendered by the last two-and-a-half-years on their debut five-track mini-album. Yet, while the trio of guitars they employ often builds a fearsomely claustrophobic sonic wall that seems to slowly close in on the cerebral cortex, they also like to gaze through the skylight towards the stars. So although short, shattering opening salvo Irusu pushes into cacophonous territory, threatening an intense experience, elsewhere Everything Is Fine offers a chance to catch breath with an acoustic opening, before it builds up to a chiming vista of sonic fireworks that appear custom-made to soundtrack a documentary about the Northern Lights. There’s a sense that Hiroe’s influences have hard rock in…

Avant-garde Jakarta veterans won’t stop the madness. Legends of the Indonesian metal underground, Kekal’s fearlessness enables them to assimilate anything and everything into their deeply peculiar, avowedly avant-garde sound. The trio’s 13th full-length album, Envisaged is as ‘out there’ as any of its predecessors. Opener Anthropos Rising begins as a choral mantra before erupting into an incendiary blur of jagged, Crimson-like riffs, eerie, psychedelic post-punk and pulsing, modular synths. The remaining eight tracks each harbour multiple startling surprises: Born Anew begins at full, psych metal throttle, before mutating into stuttering, Germanic electro; The Ascending Collective switches from lo-fi prog metal to noirish, jazzy post-rock and back again; Conduit Of Light is a perverse electronic free-for-all, with a demented digital space rock coda; Zero Point sounds like 80s Simple Minds performing…

The appeal of Oiseaux-Tempête’s new album What On Earth (Sub Rosa & NAHAL Recordings) isn’t complex. It’s a ripping combination of psychedelia, classic progressive layers and electronic experiments. Ahead of release, the dense, 12-minute psych workout A Man Alone (In A One Man Poem) is available via their Bandcamp page. Lo-Fi Ambient Works by Bing Satellites (bingsatellites.bandcamp.com) couldn’t be more different. It’s a pensive collection of ambient soundscapes, which sees the cult Mancunian depart from his usual approach. Instead of pads or sparse piano figures, the album leans on grainy reverbs, distortion and the push and pull you’d expect from a tape machine motor failing. The result is a beguiling, lush and unexpected set of tracks. Collisions is a trio formed of neoclassical composer Tom Hodge, Ciaran Morahan from VLMV…

A welcome return as raw power is tempered by lysergic emanations. A 13-year gap between albums may suggest an overly relaxed approach to their art, but the music contained within Indian Ocean’s grooves is evidence that some things really are worth waiting for. Moreover, in keeping with their roots as a band with an international mix – members hail from Poland, the UK and Australia – Obiat aren’t afraid to cast their net wide create a seamless entity of their own. Held together by heaviness of intent and delivery, Obiat paint from the broadest of palettes to offer as much light as they do shade. Acid Wake offers moments of almost delicate respite before plunging back in with riffs designed to crush cities in their wake. Elsewhere, Ad Meliora comes…

Norwegian instrumentalists keep it nice and light on album seven. Over 13 years and six albums Oslo’s Pymlico have developed a light, melodic and benign style of instrumental music all their own. They may not be the most exciting group in these pages but Supermassive is a listenable 45 minutes of music, and a worthy follow-up to 2020’s On This Day. The band are consummate musicians: Øyvind Brøter’s sumptuous keyboard lines add to the symphonic palette, Arild Brøter’s effective drums keep the pulse, but it’s Robin Havem Løvøy’s saxophone that sets the tone. Opener Breaking Protocol comes across like Moby meets Chicago – bright fusion with a big-beat rhythm, Løvøy’s bright melodic lines doubled by lead guitar from Stephan Hvinden and Andreas Sjo Engen. One of the latter channels their…

The quirky Bristol quartet are back for more ‘bother’ on album seven. From their first album proper, 2013’s Where Business Meets Fashion up to 2017’s Irritant, Bristol’s wonkiest pop-proggers Schnauser have carved a niche all their own, with a brand of caustic, catchy, avant-garde music that sucks in everything from Cardiacs to Jellyfish to XTC. Seventh time out, the quartet bring the melodies, rhythmic handbrake turns and the nutty élan that makes them so special. There’s so much vigour and with the pressures of daily life (the bright, horn-heavy Obligations) or just getting spacey (Twisted Solar). Much of the charm is down to bassist/guitarist/vocalist Alan Strawbridge’s likeably unforced delivery. Dino Christodoulou’s sax adds a Canterbury vibe (the chiaroscuro pop of Daddy; the 5/4 tune Positive), Duncan Gammon brings 60s-inflected organs…

The expansive return of cult Cali prog metallers. Unsung heroes of 21st-century prog metal, Zero Hour released several stunning albums before a nerve injury put paid to bassist Troy Tipton’s future involvement. Sibling guitarist Jasun Tipton eventually disbanded the Californian crew in 2013, but a rush of creativity has tempted him back for another round. Fans of Zero Hour classics Dark Deceiver and The Towers Of Avarice will be more than happy with how heavy the band remain, but it’s the progressive side of Tipton’s songwriting that really shines, and Agenda 21 feels like a wholesale rebirth as a result. Opening epic Democide is a master class in ebb, flow and the use of sonic space. From brutish, showboating opening and a mellifluous, star gazing mid-section, to a final, metallic…

Another treasure trove of detail from the veteran writer’s back pages. In the age before the internet revolution, back when prog was a four-letter word, lifelong fan Kev Rowland helmed Feedback, one of the must-read fanzines dedicated to the genre. The first three volumes of The Progressive Underground comprised Rowland’s writings for Feedback up to 2006, when he moved to New Zealand and tried to put this music malarkey behind him. He couldn’t. He continued to write for various print and online outlets. Over some 300 pages, Vol 4 together his reviews and interviews from 2008 to 2013, presented in an A-to-Z by artist format, from Acid Rain’s 2009 LP The Descending Line to Zlye Kukly’s Strange Tomorrow. The interviews section is scant (just Roger Chapman, Carmen’s David Allen, and…

VENUE THE HALF MOON, LONDON DATE 14/07/2022 A thankfully cool The Half Moon tonight hosts the first of four double-headline shows for ESP and Landmarq. Landmarq are up first and are accompanied by the atmospheric keyboard intro of Turbulence (Paradigm Shift). It’s a mid-paced, driving stomp of a tune and, despite some initial hesitancy from vocalist Wolf Campen – who sports a rather dapper fluorescent paint-flecked top hat – the band successfully navigate almost 12 minutes of it to a warm audience response. Half of the set is taken from the band’s last studio release, 2012’s Entertaining Angels – including the first time Campen has sung Walking On Eggshells – but nods to the past include Pinewood Avenue, which goes peak neo-prog with its sequenced keyboard intro, shift into a…

VENUE O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON DATE 04/07/2022 Tears For Fears are just five songs into their set when it dawns on Prog that they’ve already played Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Sowing The Seeds Of Love. Two of the very biggest songs of the 80s, and neither are being held back for the encore. It gives you an indication of the depth of material this duo, who were originally from Bath, have in their canon, much of which we get to enjoy as this evening plays out. It must be a while since Tears For Fears played a venue as small as Shepherd’s Bush Empire – The London date of their 2019 Rule For The World Tour took place at the O2 Arena – but as one…

VENUE SIGNATURE BREW, LONDON DATE 18/06/2022 SUPPORT MOUNTAIN CALLER, CODICES It’s a novel spot for a post-rock gig. And So I Watch You From Afar’s return to the capital is, apparently, a last-minute affair, so the Irish idols find themselves playing between titanic steel drums in the warehouse of a brewery tonight. The sun’s still seeping in when Codices start the show. The four-piece are fighting an uphill battle from the first note. Not only does their half-hour slot have to warm up London for one of their genre’s most beloved forces; it has to do so with guitarist Asher Kenton sitting down due to an ankle injury. Fortunately, the music ensnares all the same, marrying post-rock with math and jazz cues. So invested are Signature Brew that this local…