Sommaire pour Issue 136 de Prog

Say “yes” to great Norwegian music! Jansen Records is a leading independent record label based in Oslo, Norway. The label was started by Erik Jansen in 2009, and he still runs it today, alongside his friends and colleagues, Andreas, Eivind and Maria. With a common background of working in different record stores in Oslo and collecting all sorts of records, the team’s musical bond is quite strong, which the roster at Jansen demonstrates. The label’s mix of genres runs from psychedelic rock to indie pop via Americana and country. They even hang with the metal crowd once in a while. Although the selection might seem quite eclectic looking at it from the outside, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. And there’s more! Check out their specialised imprints, Pekula Records…

A new book is on the way about Hipgnosis, the design group whose catalogue of classic album artwork includes Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and many, many more. Us And Them: The Authorised Story Of Hipgnosis will be published in hardback on February 2 by Nine Eight Books. It’s written by Mark Blake, veteran music journalist and author of authoritative 2008 biography, Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd. “[Hipgnosis co-founders] Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell had a fractious relationship,” Blake tells Prog, “a bit like that of David Gilmour and Roger Waters, both of whom talked to me for the book, along with Nick Mason, [Led Zeppelin’s] Jimmy Page and various members of 10cc, UFO and Genesis…

FOUR-DISC BOX SET DUE FROM THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT The Alan Parsons Project’s classic fifth album, 1980’s The Turn Of A Friendly Card, will be issued in a limited edition box set by Esoteric on February 24. It features three CDs and one Blu-ray, with the album remixed and remastered by Parsons from the original tapes, and enhanced by a whopping 42 bonus tracks, four promo videos, a new 5.1 surround sound mix, and an illustrated book. For more info and orders go to www.bit.ly/friendlycard.…

COMMODORDION Over the years, few might have looked at the keys on an accordion and considered their similarity to a computer keyboard. One person, however, held that thought, got hold of two Commodore 64 computers and assembled an 8-bit musical instrument that looks like an accordion and sounds like 80s game Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders. His name is Linus Åkesson, and the online outpouring of admiration and affection since he revealed the Commodordion on YouTube is entirely proportionate and correct. His version of The Blue Danube is possibly the best ever recorded, apologies to the Vienna Philharmonic. www.linusakesson.net ROLAND 50TH ANNIVERSARY CONCEPT MODEL PIANO This year marks the 50th birthday of Japanese gear-wizards Roland, creators of such world-beating instruments as the TR-808 drum machine, the Juno 106 and…

GAUPA WILL BE crashing onto UK shores in 2023, in part because there’s nowhere to play back home, according to singer Emma Näslund and bassist Erik Sävström. The sensational Swedish heavy art-rock five-piece hail from Falun, Sweden, an old mining city about three hours north of Stockholm. Falun has produced a glut of heavy rock acts in recent years – Sabaton, Twilight Force and Brothers Of Metal to name but several – though the irony is that there’s little outlet for all that ferocity. “Falun is not that good a town for the music scene because there aren’t a lot of places to play,” says Sävström on a Zoom call from his home in Sweden’s second largest city of Gothenburg. “And there are not a lot of rehearsal spaces, either,” adds…

“WE WANTED TIME signature changes, we wanted to take the listener on that journey that only prog really allows you to do,” says Grace And Fire vocalist André Saint. “But we wanted to always give them that chance to sing along to melody-driven choruses.” The ethos of his band stems right back to their name; there’s the lofty earworms, but snarling back are the fiery prog rock and metal chops. The history of English quintet Grace And Fire can be traced to 2019, when the rest of the group were hand-picked by Saint and his writing buddy, guitarist Aaron Gidney. “It wasn’t going to be five guys that fell out of school together and tried to learn instruments and play together,” he explains. “We were looking for specific people for the…

It’s that time of year again, folks! It’s been an interesting year too – reflected, I think, in the results of the Readers’ Poll. Some of progressive music’s big guns have slugged it out between themselves at one end and, at the other, one can see the arrival of artists who previously may not have featured in the poll, or who now find themselves rising higher. There’s an influx of up-and-coming artists making their presence felt, too. What it also shows is that we still enjoy a progressive music scene that’s in rude health. The diversity of acts voted for this year is broader than ever as well, which tends to back that up. As always, thanks to all of you who voted, congratulations to all nominees, and a very…

“I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and I knew everybody in the local scene because I worked at [community promoter] the Family Dog. People started asking me to dance for them. So I approached Jerry Garcia and said, ‘Can I dance onstage with the Grateful Dead?’ And he said, ‘Sure, just don’t cross the lines of energy.’ “A friend had a free ticket to London, and I ended up busking under the flyover near Portobello Road. A guy who worked for a London paper saw me dancing and wrote an article, which somebody from United Artists read. I then got a telegram from Doug Smith about auditioning for Hawkwind. They saw me dancing for about three minutes and hired me on the spot. They were very surprised…

“My life changed forever on the day I heard The Alan Parsons Project for the first time. At 13 years old I was into pop like Madonna and Howard Jones, and I went to the house of a mate whose parents had this massive hi-fi. When his mum put on Tales Of Mystery And Imagination it opened a door to a world I didn’t even know existed. I still remember the needle dropping onto the vinyl. This was rock music with orchestration and so many brilliant vocalists like John Miles and Colin Blunstone. At one point my mate turned off the light and I was absolutely terrified. From that point onwards I became a prog rock fan and an absolute Alan Parsons obsessive. With The Pineapple Thief I’ve lifted things…

The Stories We Are Afraid Of Vol.1 WILD THING Australia’s prog melody-makers tighten up their schedule – and their anthems. Going down the route of releasing an EP series is the best decision Circles have made in years. Since forming in 2010, the Aussie prog metal four-piece have only made two albums: Infinitas and the scarily titled The Last One. They’re far from the most prolific bunch, so if switching to short bursts of music makes their schedule more consistent, who can complain? Helping that transition is the fact that the first of Circles’ The Stories the best thing they’ve ever put their name to. The band have clearly realised that their two biggest strengths are their sledgehammer djent breakdowns and majestically sung melodies, since these six songs all push…

Force Form Free BLUES FUNERAL Please keep on the grass. Possessing one of the most visually evocative names within the stonerpunk-psych scene, Washington DC trio Dead Meadow return after a six-year gap with their eighth album, Force Form Free. Originated from a series of jams created for their label’s vinyl subscription service, PostWax, the record opens with the sleepy, cyclical dirge of Left-Hand Path, a calling to black shamanism that creeps gently towards its solve et coagula finale. The Lure Of The Next Peak is a frilly little Bo Hannson/Khruangbin number and where FFF is at its best, followed by the four-square frug of Valmont’s Pad. Jason Simon’s first vocals come in on second standout, the dreamy, acoustic To Let The Time Go By where hints of Syd Barrett…

Ruins FREIA MUSIC Dutch post-rock project’s third doubles down on the despondency. Since they debuted with 2015’s Tides, the addition of a guitarist has reinforced the potency of noise architects Downriver Dead Men Go. But on their third album they spend long periods on the more understated side of the quiet-loud axis. And that results in them leaving the listener waiting too long for the anticipated storm to break – if it does at all. On Ruins’ opening title track, they have fine-tuned their sound to the point where the crescendous moments resemble awesome sonic avalanches to envelop the ears. But if that gives the impression that more immersive sonic superstructures are likely to loom up, it’s not entirely the case. Songs such as Secret have an initially alluring minor…

Pocket Full Of Love Songs ARCHWAY MUSIC Veteran singer celebrates 50-plus years in the music biz When Claire Hamill recorded her debut album in 1971 as a teenage singer-songwriter and guitarist, she drew comparisons with Joni Mitchell. She also has prog pedigree, having recorded with Steve Howe, Jon and Vangelis, and recorded and played live with Wishbone Ash. Conceived in lockdown, A Pocket Full Of Love Songs finds Hamill taking stock of affairs of the heart in her own life and also letting her imagination off the leash. Her voice has a purity and distinctive tang yet still sounds youthful and limber. Lyrically she encompasses the witty, gritty depiction of alcohol-fuelled dissolution on This Woman Is A Mess and the complexities of the early stages of attraction in This Duet…

The Forest Sessions KSCOPE Maverick guitarist reinterprets his acclaimed solo work live. Jonathan Hultén made his name as the guitarist and songwriter with Tribulation, a hissing metal band caked in corpse paint. But then his first solo album, 2020’s Chants From Another Place, repositioned him entirely. This wasn’t some occult battering, but instead a progressive psych/folk detour that was almost entirely acoustic – a change he enjoyed so much that he quit Tribulation shortly afterwards. Recorded live and released on CD and DVD, The Forest Sessions is the audiovisual sibling of his studio debut and fully realises the gothic beauty of its predecessor. Cloaked in black and a widow-like veil, Hultén performs his ballads against the backdrop of Swedish woodland. If the humming of The Call To Adventure wasn’t hypnotic…

Fable CARBON MOON RECORDS Third album as a four-piece speaks volumes. Whether it’s on the bubbling funk intro to the title song, which sounds like a Gil Scott-Heron out-take, or the Eno-esque murmurings of Wake Up Call, The Little Unsaid’s third is a slippery fish, evading the nets of genres. With vocals alternating between songwriter/producer John Elliott and synth player Mariya Brachkova, it shifts moods and momentum with elusive guile. Born from long improvs, it catches the essence of today’s anxiety overload but rarely sacrifices innate warmth. Perhaps their nearest siblings would be Modern Studies, in that both outfits infuse rootsy folk with flickers of more glamorous art-rock tropes, marrying dramatics and functionality. Vibrant Life uses an avalanche of tumbling spoken-word as an assault on the senses; its closing cacophony…

Elements CUNEIFORM Veteran oddballs continue to oppose the norm. Reassuringly eccentric since 1980, Miriodor have weathered the death of founder François Émond in 2016 and re-emerged in mischievous mood. With one foot planted in Rock In Opposition territory and the other planted pretty much anywhere it likes, Elements is an unpredictable thing. Opener Boomerang starts in classic, band-falling-down-the-stairs mode, before developing into a blend of wonky jazz and Gentle Giant-like complexity. Alambic is a ghostly, meandering mood piece, with distant brass and earthy woodwind. Tour De Main offers eight supremely experimental minutes that take in bombastic prog punctuation, unhinged electronics and sepia-hued, lobotomised trip hop. For all its left-field indulgences, Elements is weirdly accessible while Embuscade is a beautifully odd sprawl that threatens to burst into something more straightforward but…

Take a trip with Rob Hughes as he seeks out the latest mind-expanding music. Followers of the Californian underground may already be familiar with Hannah Skelton and Chris Niles from respective projects Cassiopeia and Maus Haus. Now they’ve teamed up as Abracadabra, whose Shapes And Colours (Melodic) is a delicious blend of dubby psych, experimental pop and percussive funk. Field recordings and effects are expertly deployed too, though chief ingredients are a handful of vintage synths that often make these songs sound like cosmic cousins of Tom Tom Club or Studio One’s blissed-up answer to ESG. Altogether more pagan in feel, Misneach (Glitterbeat) is the captivating third effort from Ireland/Berlin ensemble Tau And The Drones Of Praise. The core quartet, led by singer and multi instrumentalist Seán Mulrooney, examine mystery,…

Pace LOVERS & LOLLYPOPS Portuguese riff explorers risk getting lost in space. For Solar Corona’s third full-length album, the trio of Rodrigo Carvalho on guitar and synths, drummer Peter Carvalho and bassist José Roberto Gomes are joined by Nuno Loureiro, whose role is described as ‘dubmechanic’. The result is an uneven affair. At its best, Pace serves up vigorous space rock jams, but it’s punctuated by abstract pieces lacking form and structure. Heavy Metal Salts begins with an unadorned drumbeat, before Gomes’ growling bass and Carvalho’s angry buzzing guitar enter the frame. They’re in no hurry, happy to loop around the same idea, but once they start to dig into the groove they soon gather weight and momentum. By contrast, the album’s title track is a shapeless soundscape of droning…

Conundrum BAD ELEPHANT MUSIC Greek symphonic proggers’ ebullient fourth outing. It’s refreshing when confronted with artists that take audible influence from acts outside the prog pantheon, and so it proves on these Greek mavericks’ first long-player since 2016. Sure, familiar echoes of Gilmourian guitar soar overhead at times and Fripp-ish angularities are woven into the structure of several songs. But then the jerky staccato attack of the title track seems to reveal the mischievous madness of Cardiacs or Ukrainian folkpunk of Gogol Bordello either side of a penchant for sweeping, slightly showtuney romps that channel the Queen of Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy or the Muse of Sing For Absolution. More seductive still is the sense of fun about this album, as if the band are really having a blast…

Trevor Horn NINE EIGHT BOOKS Relaxed autobiography from peerless producer. An unpretentious man who’s made some of the most brilliantly pretentious records in history, Trevor Horn offers a thoroughly entertaining memoir, which loosely bases each chapter on one of those records. Or, in the early stages, records that changed his life. Of course, each chapter spins off into other recollections, so the sections on, say, Tempus Fugit by Yes or Dr Mabuse by Propaganda veer into insights on the era, the personalities involved and music-making in general. For many, he’ll always be the man who “invented the sound of the 80s”, and the magic tricks he brought to ABC, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones and Dollar (Videotheque is a stunning production) are revealed (partially) here. After those epochal creations,…

Tom Doyle NINE EIGHT BOOKS quixotic trip through the career of the iconic singer. Few artists have impacted the collective consciousness like East Wickham’s 19-year-old Kate Bush, who got a whole nation talking when her spine-tingling debut single Wuthering Heights reached No.1 in the UK singles chart in 1978. The subsequent years have shown her to be a true one-off, a maverick who has rarely, if ever, compromised her vision, bending the world and her record company alike to her will, and never the other way round. We’re never in any doubt of her vision or bloody-mindedness. Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions Of Kate Bush by veteran music journalist Tom Doyle explores her uniqueness chronologically from many different angles, structured like one of Julian Barnes’ nonlinear works across 50…

VENUE THE THEATRE AT ACE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES, USA DATE 04/11/2022 After the messy, public 2010 divorce between progressive metal titans Dream Theater and their co-founder drummer Mike Portnoy, the prospect of a detente seemed like little more than, well, a dream. Time heals all wounds, however, and after initially documenting his reconciliation with guitarist John Petrucci via social media, Portnoy proceeded to rejoin his longtime bandmate in the studio twice in 2020 – first to record the third album by the instrumental supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment, and then to man the throne for Petrucci’s second solo LP, Terminal Velocity. Two years later, as Petrucci embarks on his first-ever solo headlining tour, Portnoy sits behind the kit. It’s one thing to reconnect in the studio, but it’s another thing entirely…

VENUE GEORGE IV, LONDON DATE 21/11/2022 Gig appearances by Dave Cousins, mainman and founder member of The Strawbs, are rare nowadays – he reminds us more than once, it’s over two years since he last performed live at all. Tonight, though, in what proves to be an affecting evening, he’s motivated not by any personal aggrandisement or new product promotion, but by his desire to raise money for charity to provide water tanks to communities in remote areas of the world. Debbie Manners, Chair of SafeHands, a charity partner in the projects benefitting from tonight, interviews Cousins about his childhood in Chiswick and growing up in Twickenham and Hounslow. This prompts many memories – sadness that his childhood home has long since disappeared beneath tarmac, shovelling horse manure for the…

VENUE ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL, LONDON DATE 01/12/2022 SUPPORT QUANTUM PIG Quantum Pig frontman Mark Stevenson has clearly decided self-deprecation is the way to win over a prog crowd who are eagerly awaiting the live return of Frost* to a London stage for the first time in five years. Having been supporting the headliners on what amounts to a lengthy (for them) tour, he’s well placed to know if this will work, although on occasion you feel he’s overdoing things a tad. In his favour, the band go down well with the ever-swelling crowd, even if the music isn’t the easiest to get into if you’re coming at it cold (and it is a chilly night). That said, any band who namechecks Carl Sagan are fine by Prog, and a very…

VENUE NEW CROSS INN, LONDON DATE 27/11/2022 SUPPORT THE SITAR SERVICE, THE HIGHER PLANES It’s well accepted that the mark of a good song is one that can be transposed from its electric incarnation to an acoustic delivery, the theory being that, stripped of additional musical embellishments and arrangements, the core material will be strong enough to stand on its own terms. And so, with her 16-date UK tour with her full band done and dusted, Rosalie Cunningham heads south of the Thames on a rainy Sunday evening for an additional one-off show in intimate surroundings to put this concept to the test. A bold move, not least as her music draws on a high degree of instrumental interplay as well as varying stylistic flourishes that can be found on…

VENUE O2 FORUM, LONDON DATE 25/11/2022 SUPPORT ELUVEITIE When filmmakers are producing a sequel to a blockbuster, the old adage declares that the audience want to see “the same thing, but different”. An identical principle applies when curating a line-up with two headliners. On paper, Amorphis and Eluveitie both fall into a microgenre that mixes progressive music, folk and metal, yet the ways they go about their goals are a hemisphere apart. For Eluveitie, there’s no line-up too giant, no instrument too esoteric and no melody too bombastic for them to use during their style-smashing mission. That overindulgence has obviously resonated, since Kentish Town’s O2 Forum is crammed to the rafters by the time the band seize the stage at 8pm. The scope of what’s about to unfold becomes apparent…

Stream the Prog 136 playlist at https://spoti.fi/3iF2Ooh SCAN HERE TO GET OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTERH Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. Always a strange issue, this one. It’s officially out in 2022, but already we’re looking to 2023. A celebration of the 12 months passed, if you will, and the building of excitement for what the next 12 months will bring. We have the results of the Readers’ Poll in this issue to reward those artists that have found favour with so many of you over the last year. There’s some expected and some very unexpected results, so thank you to the masses of you all who voted. You can see wh0 has won what on p28. Hawkwind grace this month’s cover and we tell the story…

“I THINK WE started in 2010?” laughs Ted Furuhashi, guitarist, backing vocalist and main songwriter for Australian prog metallers Circles, newly slimmed to a trio following the departure of bassist Drew Patton. The Compass, the band’s debut EP, was released in 2011 on Basick Records and since that time, Furuhashi doesn’t think the core foundation of Circles has shifted all that much. “We’re noticeably older,” he acknowledges with a smile. “Musically? I don’t think we’ve ever changed, to be honest.” As the songwriter for the band, Furuhashi has focused a lot of his time on working on himself as a creative, as well as learning how to let the rest of the band have ownership over the music. “The seeds of the idea are coming from more of a personal experience…

ASTROSAUR. IT SOUNDS like it should be the name of some bottom-of-the-barrel stoner rock band that you’d catch opening for Sleep at 7pm. However, the moniker in fact belongs to one of the most truly progressive and original rock trios around right now. Guitarist Eirik Kråkenes, bassist Steinar Glas and drummer Jonatan Eikum co-founded this instrumental project in the mid-2010s, while they were studying at the Conservatory of Music in Kristiansand, Norway. Since then they’ve released three albums, the most recent of which, November’s Portals, pulls listeners through a universe of off-the-wall songwriting, jazz-level musicianship and heavy metal exhilaration. Portals’ first song, aptly entitled Opening, gradually introduces the album’s soundscape of grinding guitars and avant-garde rhythm work. After that, single Black Hole Earth ups the ante to mind-altering levels. The…

“When I joined Mike Hart and Alan Day, I had an up-and-running light show complete with artwork, animated slides, projectors, liquids, things like that… I just had to adapt the artwork. We used lots of spacey backgrounds which I had bought from the Planetarium gift shop in London! “We did stuff in certain sequences. It got very sophisticated. And the band had a good dynamic through the show; it had a beginning, a middle and an end. There were places where you drifted off and places where you paid attention… It never really stopped, either, or paused for people to applaud. It just went on and on! It was a long show, but very hypnotic in its own way. “We had an array of five slide projectors; they had a…

Empty Airports JANSEN Icy, quarantine-inspired escapade from maverick Oslo electronic duo. Brian Eno intended his landmark 1976 album Airports as the first of a “small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres.” Aiming For Enrike’s Simen Følstad Nilsen and Tobias Ørnes Andersen have tipped a hat to Eno with Empty made during the pandemic when flights were grounded and people were required to stay in their homes. That ghostliness pervades the Norwegian duo’s fifth album, as well as underpinned the (dis)quiet. Forgoing the sharp-edged dance maelstrom of 2020’s Music not so much a change of gear, but more a switch to cruising in neutral and surveying the glassy landscape with the engine off. There’s a deliberate lack of urgency and a sense…

Dynamotive MARSHALL RECORDS How to shred without sacrificing the songs. It’s tempting to compare Japanese instrumentalists D_Drive to US guitar hero Joe Satriani. Like Satriani, Yuki and Seiji of D_Drive use the instrument in place of the human voice to express the melody and emotion of their music. However, where Satriani is all about that lead guitar, Dynamotive – tellingly released on the label set up by amp company Marshall – is more egalitarian. Bassist Toshi has moments in the spotlight, bringing some funk to Wings, and keeping pace with the guitars for the fast syncopated runs of Thumbs Up. Similarly, drummer Chiiko does much more than just hold down the backbeat, creating interesting parts rather than constantly interact with the guitar riffs and melodies. While Yuki and Seiji can…

Being Of Sound Mind BAD ELEPHANT MUSIC Keen creative methods shape musical madness. Knifeworld keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Emmett Elvin has steadfastly managed to avoid any easy labelling over his first three solo albums. Shaped by Covid lockdowns and personal upheavals, the varied songs and instrumentals that make up his fourth aren’t going to change this. Come What May begins a dreamy yet slightly dark slice of psychedelic pop, before it gets all loud and angry for a minute or so. Artificial Guitar is possibly the nearest thing to “hit” material, marrying strains of 60s pop with a spiky, new wave-leaning refrain. Beatles parallels can be discerned in multiple tracks here – Faithless Star and the Eleanor Rigby-evoking strings of End Of Days (Tiny Reprise) being examples. Few people do…

Love In The Void HAMMOCK MUSIC/SECRETLY Powerful new album from the genre-defying Nashville duo. In the 18 years since their debut album Kenotic, this hip Nashville duo’s sweeping, swirling, reverbsoaked blend of post-rock, shoegaze and ambient music has justly earned them the endorsement of Sigur Rós’ Jónsi and Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne. Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson’s 12th studio record as Hammock follows their lush lockdown album Elsewhere, and while it’s not a drastic swing for the stylistic fences, Love In The Void features some of their most brash and abrasive guitar tones. The title track comes with some properly jagged squalls amid the echoing guitarscapes. Release is ironically named – it builds into a tsunami of sound and then cuts off, absolutely release-free. It’s OK To Be Afraid Of…

Live At Kozfest 2022 HAWKLORDS/SHELLSHOCK DISTRIBUTION Mixed bag from a band in their natural environment. With the reductive view of Hawklords being a cut-price version of Hawkwind, some credit is at least due for pursuing a path that, while not wholly their own, makes good on the explorations of the original pioneers. Be that as it may, releasing their second live album in two years would suggest that Hawklords are fast running out of ideas – and that includes their own as much as anybody else’s. And yet, when taken on its own terms, Live At Kozfest 2022 finds Hawklords in a party mood that’s reflected in a headline set that veers from the exuberant to the ersatz. The band work best when delivering straight-ahead boogie, which seems to be…

Sid Smith rounds up the best releases from prog’s jazzier reaches. Chemistry is key when it comes to musicians being able to bounce ideas off each other. On Bleed (MoonJune) the debut album from the trio billed as Reuter Motzer Grohowski (Stick Men’s Markus Reuter, Orion Tango’s Tim Motzer and ex-Brand X drummer Kenny Grohowski), the ideas come thick and fast. A fiery truculence underpins these head-on collisions of processed FX-laden guitars, bass and tumultuous rhythms, as though they couldn’t wait to get started. Think King Crimson’s Requiem but minus the passive-aggressive grudge match. Gifted and respected players in their respective fields, together they generate some truly formidable sounds and energy that’s nothing short of phenomenal. Cellist/composer Janel Leppin’s Ensemble Volcanic Ash (Cuneiform) explores a thoughtful brand of chamber jazz that…

The Lost Vision Of The Chandoo Priest Bold neo-psychedelic vision from collaborative Milano superduo. Multi-instrumentalists Francesca Zanetta and Niccolò Gallani have merged from their respective Milan-based progressive rock bands Quel Che Disse Il Tuono and Cellar Noise for this enjoyably mystical and noodly debut. Italy’s second city boasts a fine prog tradition, and The Lost Vision Of The Chandoo Priest have secured the guiding hand of Claudio Falcone of classic Italian progressive rockers Alphataurus to oversee production, a respectful nod to that lineage. Their labyrinthine sonic tapestries are all held together by some delightfully elongated Rhodes chord shapes, not to mention Mellotrons and Moogs. The sense of unity that pervades The Lost Vision Of The Chandoo Priest comes largely from the fact the pair are involved in every inch of…

Breathing Space SONDER HOUSE Tense, tired, stressed? Be more Quist. Best known for his YouTube “guitar jams and lo-fi beats”, Jacob Quistgaard is also Bryan Ferry’s touring guitarist. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the sometime Roxy Music leader will know that only those that rise to his exacting standards get to keep the gig. Quist, as he is known, has held the position for the best part of a decade and that, indeed, speaks volumes. Whereas Quist’s last full-length album, Trigger from 2017, was all a bit Jeff Beck Blow By Blow by numbers, Breathing Space, shorn of backing musicians, offers exactly that: a charming, nimble interval from the blur of modern life. Recorded at Quistgaard’s home studio in North Hollywood during the pandemic, the album is…

Pyramids, Stars And Other Stories INSIDEOUT Three-LP live compendium documents durable outfit. A triple live album from Andy Tillison’s hardy prog perennials, this is every bit as exuberant, melodramatic and committed as might be expected. The Tangent have, in their 20-year existence, been both unselfconscious exponents of prog and affectionately knowing commentators on the genre. The easiest thing is to pick out clear reference points, but the most enjoyable is to just go with their flow, letting Tillison’s streams of fantasy and sociology lend detail to the galloping surges or floaty lulls. The 2004 German concert, Pyramids And Stars, features in full, including the singer’s links in fluent German. With Roine Stolt and Jonas Reingold among the players, it’s highly involving, especially on the peaks and valleys of The Canterbury…

Virtual Symmetry SENSORY Prog metallers stick to their comfort zone. The fourth album from guitarist Valerio Villa’s Swiss-Italian quintet opens with a bang. Virtual Symmetry, the name of the band, the album and, in this instance, the opening track, is a big, bold prog metal workout, full of sweeping keyboards, Villa’s guitarhero flexes and the impassioned vocals of Marco Pastorino. The rest of the album never quite matches that initial high. Thereafter, there’s a tendency towards the formulaic in the song construction of tracks like Butterfly Effect and The Paradise Of Lies, with Mark Bravi’s tinkling piano giving way to Villa’s riffing and Pastorino’s fulltilt emoting. Technically, it’s beyond reproach, the sound situating them between the prog metal of Dream Theater and the symphonic metal of Kamelot, but it veers…

Robert Berry & JC Baez KINGMAKER Inessential graphic partner to one of 2022’s most promising prog albums. Designed to accompany this year’s eponymous debut from the Robert Berry-led prog trio Six By Six, The Journey Internal uses the album’s track titles as its “chapters” and weaves a hit-and-miss sci-fi/fantasy yarn around them. Berry provides plotting and scripting input with the art previously with people as diverse as Jon Anderson and Star Trek’s Walter ‘Mr Chekov’ Koenig. Different styles and colour palettes emphasise different parts of the tale with, for instance, the China section being predominantly reds and blacks, while the later Casino chapter is much more Pop Art/early 60s-influenced. However, since the album wasn’t originally written to a fixed narrative, there is a certain amount of shoe-horning going on here…

KARNIVOOL’S RESCHEDULED UK/EUROPE TOUR STARTS SOON Australian prog metal champions Karnivool have moved the European and UK dates of their Regeneration Tour again, having already rescheduled them due to the pandemic. They will now play across January and February, opening the European leg in Frankfurt on January 16. The six UK dates begin in Bristol on February 3, with shows in Glasgow (5), Manchester (7), Leeds (8), London (9) with the last night in Birmingham on February 10. Updates and tickets at www.karnivool.com.…

John Martyn’s 1990 album The Apprentice is the subject of a three-disc box set, just out on Esoteric. The box includes a CD/DVD of The Apprentice In Concert, which features a guest appearance from David Gilmour. More at www.bit.ly/martynapp. Leprous singer Einar Solberg (left) has been added to the UK leg of the Prognosis festival, taking place at the London’s Indigo At The O2 on April 22-23. Sweden’s pg.lost and US proggers Astronoid have been added too. More at www.bit.ly/prognosisinfo. Pagan folk collective Heilung have been confirmed for this August’s ArcTanGent Festival. The band, who released their album Drif in August, will share the bill with Russian Circles, ASIWYFA, Vola and more. Updates at arctangent.co.uk.…

Official Progressive Albums Chart The prog top 30 albums November 2022 Compiled by 1 MUSE Will Of The People (WARNER/HELIUM-3) 2 PINK FLOYD Animals (2018 Remix) (PINK FLOYD RECORDS/PARLOPHONE) 3 DEVIN TOWNSEND Lightwork (INSIDEOUT) 4 POLYPHIA Remember That You Will Die (RISE) 5 RADIOHEAD Kid A Mnesia (XL RECORDINGS) 6 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Oxymore (RCA) 7 10CC The Things We Do For Love: The Ultimate Hits and Beyond (XPLODED MUSIC) 8 BRIAN ENO Foreverandevernomore (UNIVERSAL) 9 GOAT Oh Death (ROCKET RECORDINGS) 10 BLACK MIDI Live Fire (ROUGH TRADE) 11 PINK FLOYD A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (PARLOPHONE) 12 THRESHOLD Dividing Lines (NUCLEAR BLAST) 13 KING GIZZARD & LIZARD WIZARD Changes (KGLW) 14 PORCUPINE TREE Closure/Continuation (MUSIC FOR NATIONS) 15 TAME IMPALA The Slow Rush – B Sides & Remixes(FICTION) 16 BLACK…

Canterbury artist Jack Hues has returned with six tracks shaped by the intensity of live performance and band chemistry, featuring material by Robert Wyatt, Radio head, Talk Talk and Soft Machine alongside a brilliantly titled instrumental original, Non-Locality In A Sea Of Electrons. It’s 13 years since the guitarist – also of 80s new wavers Wang Chung – joined forces with members of Syd Arthur for “one night only” and almost four years since he officially emerged onto the prog-jazz scene thanks to the support of Syd Arthur co-founder Joel Magill (who also put Hues’ first EP out through his Dawn Chorus label). Backed by other members of Syd Arthur and avant-jazzers Led Bib as The Quartet, the collective debuted with a dazzling extended take on Beck’s Nobody’s Fault But…

Bold Reynold TALKING ELEPHANT Folk veteran releases belated solo debut. In the late 70s when punk broke, interest in folk rock was in decline and multi-instrumentalist and singer David Carroll left his band Spinning Wheel to concentrate on making instruments and playing sessions. But some things come at their appointed time and, on his debut solo album, Carroll has assembled a stellar cast, including Fairport Convention bassist Dave Pegg and fiddle player Chris Leslie, plus Gryphon members Brian Gulland on winds and keyboards, Dave Oberlé on drums and vocals, and Graeme Taylor on guitar production. It’s as good as all thatmight imply, a brilliantly played, arranged and sung collection with a feel of the halcyon days of 70s folk rock, and echoes of the folk rock collective Albion Band. Like…

Making Shore GIANT ELECTRIC Eclectic social commentaries from prog rock collective. Founded by UK prog veteran Guy Manning, Damanek’s third album sees them perfecting their majestic arrangements and catchy melodies. A Mountain Of Sky’s big choruses and energetic instrumentation evokes both mid-70s Jethro Tull, and Manning’s former eponymous band. The same holds true for the aptly named Americana, which makes great use of backing vocalists and quirky timbres. Both the jazzy, environmentally conscious Back2Back and the tropical In Deep Blue (Sea Songs Pt.1) showcase the group’s knack for spirited, wide-ranging instrumentation as well, yet it’s the lengthy five-part suite Oculus that impresses most. From the sophisticated textures of Overture to the feisty The Corridor and contemplative A Welcoming Hand, it’s an adventurous and affective closing journey. Making Shore isn’t perfect.…

Myriad NUCLEAR BLAST Cosmic mood music from Swedish psych revivalists. Their second album finds Sweden’s Gaupa in unbridled, raucous form. Singer Emma Näslund’s swooping, fluttering voice is bound to invite some comparisons with Björk, but musically her band bear no resemblance to the Icelandic pop maverick. Instead, Myriad is a heavy psychedelic trip, with music to inspire uninhibited dancing around a fire beneath a clear night sky. Näslund can yowl and wail like a banshee, something she employs to great effect in Moloken, but she’s not limited to one style. In the excellent Ra, she keeps pace with the rest of the band as the song traverses through valleys of rumbling bass leading into a riff that threatens to bend time and space. For all their cosmic energy, Gaupa can…

Haavard PROPHECY Longtime Ulver collaborator reunites with one of his earliest loves: folk. Håvard Jørgensen emerged as part of the early 90s Norwegian black metal scene, initially as a member of Satyricon then as part of Ulver as they gradually transformed from snarling malcontents into one of music’s most ambitious and experimental bands. With the latter, he’s journeyed through metal, folk, industrial, post-rock and synthpop as both a full-time guitarist and, more latterly, an on-off auxiliary member. On his debut albumas Haavard, Haavard sequel Jørgensen has returned to the sparse folk soundscape of Ulver’s second album, Kveldssanger. It’s a medieval time capsule powered by acoustic guitars and gentle percussion, with the hypnotic Printemps quickly seducing with its soft arpeggios. Yet Jørgensen still finds plenty of spaces to warp the boundaries…

Entire Of Itself APOLLON Collage of music and field recordings by the White Willow guitarist. Entire Of Itself is built from sounds recorded by Jacob Holm-Lupo in and around his home on the tiny Norwegian island of Sandøya. His methodology involves a number of recordings in the same location, which are then edited and overdubbed to convey a concentrated sonic atmosphere of the place. And so here one gets the sound of waves, wind and weather, machinery and bird song, which are punctuated by wintry keyboard fantasias and compelling guitar-based instrumentals in short snippets as if heard by a passer-by. It’s a single 51-minute piece, at timesambient, at times actively engaging. The overheard conversations do rather break the spell, but since many are in Norwegian, they become another sound source…

Hic Sunt Moundrages DIONYSIAC RECORDS/MODULOR Demons and chickens and crimson kings – these are a few of their favourite things. Keyboard and drum-playing French brothers Colin and Camille Goellaen Duvivier file a guitar-free but muscular debut, drawing on cusp-of-the-70s psych rock and the work of prog’s founding fathers. Sonically, Hic Sunt Moundrages is dominated by Camille’s searing Hammond organ, driving the music forward with a Jon Lord-ly dynamism. Both brothers sing, often bringing to mind the ringing enunciation of a young Greg Lake, with the higher tones occasionally summoning Sparks’ Russell Mael and the plaintive, soaring harmonies of the fledgling Yes. Hangmen sets the controls Punchy opener The for the heart of the Marquee Club circa 1969. Equally thrilling is Demon Race, a breathless rocker with the brothers at their…

Terran INITIATIVE MUSIK Debut from Canadian shredder and man of many talents. Toronto-born, Germanbased guitar ace Morgan Reid appears to have quite the range of talents. It’s hard to fathom how he finds the time for the practice required to be a professional dancer, choreographer and martial artist as well as a supreme six-string shredder. Like many an outstanding technician, he seems to regard songs as platforms for displaying his skills. That results in some exhilarating moments: the pummelling assault of Goliath Online is overlaid by web-like soloing that reels you in effectively, and the quasi-classical flourishes of A Formless Icon are fleetingly seductive. But the pace across the whole album is relentlessly breakneck and too few of the riffs form into anything punchy enough to stick in the memory,…

One Man’s Man… FRUITS DE MER Welsh space cadets tackle evolution on concept double. In theory, it’s hard to propound detailed theories about anything without lyrics, but prolific Cardigan Bay psychedelicists Sendelica haven’t let that hold them back. The double album One Man’s Man claims to explore mankind’s evolution and just how far the species has really come. For fans of hallucinogenic space rock, they can claim as many lofty concepts as they like as long as the music is as all-consuming as these four side-long pieces, three of which are two-parters that flow seamlessly into each other. Hawkwind-like fuzz riffs and spiralling sax spin a hypnotic spell on The Dawn Of Man – Homo Habilis before the woozy, dub-tinged Homo Erectus creates calmer lysergic pools of exotica to swim…

A Visit To Oxfordshire WHITE KNIGHT Esteemed prog polymath steps out in style. Masterfully helmed by Tiger Moth Tales’ singer and multi-instrumentalist Peter Jones, this live set was recorded in Abingdon, Oxfordshire last July at Prog For Peart, a boutique festival set up to raise money for research into glioblastoma multiforme, the form of brain cancer that claimed Rush drummer Neil Peart. It finds Jones playing creamy, Steve Hackett-like leads on a horizontal trajectory guitar, and delivering his complex, escapist songs in a voice somewhat reminiscent of Phil Collins. As fine prog/fusion opener The Mighty Fallen attests, Jones is no slouch on keyboards, either, which is why Camel recruited him on that instrument for their 2016 Japanese tour. Yet for all his prog royalty connections, these live renditions of songs…

Grant Moon has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away… Clive Mitten has given the (virtual) orchestral treatment to his former group Twelfth Night (on Suite Cryptique) and his favourite prog bands (Suite Sixteen), but Transcriptions (twelfthnight. info) is his first pure classical album. Over two discs he interprets the work of some major composers, in an innovative compositional style. The grander pieces (Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis) show the limits of even the best sample software, but smaller moments (Bach’s Concerto For 2 Harpsichords And Strings) are more convincing, and they all showcase Mitten’s musicality, intelligence and focus. West Yorkshire prog metallers Knim announced their presence on the scene in early 2022 with first single A…

Steve Pilkington SONICBOND PUBLISHING Perceptive dip into uncalm waters. Van der Graaf Generator In The 70s is an accomplished accompaniment to this most discrete, dense band. Steve Pilkington has a great depth of knowledge, clearly acquired across many years: he’s ready and willing to share this at some length. For example, the book has one of the best précises this writer has encountered of the knotty and fractured story of how the group formed. Anyone who has followed their on-off-on again career will be aware that VDGG were not commercially successful (charts are rarely ‘troubled’) and at times blighted by circumstance. Pilkington’s desire to underline this tends to grate at points. “Typically Van der Graaf”, “Van der Graaf demonstrated they were not like other bands”, “This being Van der Graaf…

VENUE LONDON QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL DATE 26/11/2022 SUPPORT ANNA B SAVAGE, ALBERTINE SARGES Glancing at the ticket, Prog realises something has gone slightly awry. Timings on it say 7.30pm doors and yet it’s 7.20pm and tonight’s first support act, Albertine Sarges, is already in full flow. Thankfully we hear most of the set from this engaging post-punk artist from Berlin, appearing solo (“unfortunately I couldn’t bring the band”) accompanied by backing tracks and her own guitar playing. Sarges – expressive Betty Boop eyes, grey striped suit and chunky black Chelsea boots – is naturally comedic in her between-song chat and Prog detects Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson in her work; clever, peppy and poppy in its own way, but with emotional depth. Londoner Anna B Savage gets a cheer as…

VENUE OVOARENA, WEMBLEY DATE 21/11/2022 You can almost hear 12,500 people heaving out a sigh of relief as they walk into Wembley Arena. Rarely has a gig been threatened from as many angles as this one. Nightwish first announced that they’d be returning to the Big Smoke in October 2019 – only for that show to be postponed during the pandemic. It got postponed again. Then support band Amorphis dropped out, citing scheduling conflicts. Then Floor Jansen was diagnosed with breast cancer. That tonight’s even happening – let alone to a sold-out congregation – is no less than miraculous. Immediately, Finland’s symphonic prog maximalists answer the hype with an extravaganza of pomp. A slideshow depicting nothing less than the evolution of all life fills the three screens above the stage,…