Table of contents for Issue 83 in Prog

NEXT ISSUE Jan 25 ON SALE So it was about this time last year, as we were finishing the issue that should have come out before Xmas (Prog 73), that things went a bit tits up (I believe that’s the technical term). Twelve months on, here we are, fighting fit again. Unfortunately, last year’s Xmas card went by the wayside as a more important editorial needed writing. This year, I’m glad to say, John Langton’s excellent work is back, with us riffing on Steven Wilson’s take on 80s prog and pop. I’d like to thank John for his excellent work once again. We can’t think of another magazine that would put Gentle Giant on the cover (well, Italian magazine Ciao 2001 did in 1973), but when we got news that…

GUITAR-JO I featured the Guitar-Jo in this column a few years back, and pointed out that inventor Jon Langberg had had trouble persuading enough people to back his “make your electric guitar sound like a banjo” projects on Kickstarter. Jon’s still trying, and if there’s one thing I admire it’s determination in the face of public indifference. The Guitar-Jo now has dampening pads for a more banjolike sound. I’m all for it, but evidently people still consider the act of making a Stratocaster sound like a banjo akin to putting ketchup on haute cuisine. Shame! www.guitarjo.com VENOVA Wind instruments made of plastic are not traditionally thought to be very classy. But you’ll increasingly see pro musicians turn to plastic for portability and durability. Yamaha have used something called Acrylonitrile butadiene…

“On January 1, 2016, mainly as a reaction to the methods of meat and dairy farming, I decided to explore veganism for the first time. I discovered that my physical health improved dramatically. Within the first six weeks, I had better skin and had lost about one-and-a-half stone in weight. The body transformation I’d been wishing for all these years finally happened with very little effort. Since then, I’ll admit to a few drunken slip-ups – honestly officer, the pizza fell into my mouth – but mostly, when eating at home, I’ve stuck to veganism. Nearly two years later, I still feel great, and although I’m a lot quieter these days about my ethics, I still get a thrill out of introducing vegan food to friends at dinner parties. I…

Inside (Harvest, 1973) Transformed from the rather workaday blues rock of their 1969 debut, Eloy blossomed into something special on their sprawling second effort. Worth hearing for gargantuan opener Land Of No Body alone. Power And The Passion (Electrola, 1975) A mind-bending concept album that tells the tale of a scientist’s son, his time-travelling exploits, penchant for marijuana and unexpected involvement in a peasants’ mutiny in 1358. The tunes are brilliant, too. Ocean (Electrola, 1977) Arguably Eloy’s masterpiece and their biggest success in Germany, Ocean both cemented the band’s distinctive sound and allowed them to expand into more wildly atmospheric territory. The Tides Return Forever (ACI, 1994) After drifting away from their trademark sound for a number of years, Eloy’s 16th album marked a welcome return to flat-out prog glory…

1. RADIOHEAD OK COMPUTER OKNOTOK 1997-2017 (XL) 2. MARILLION MISPLACED CHILDHOOD (PLG) 3. KING CRIMSON SAILORS’ TALES (PANEGYRIC) 4. GENTLE GIANT THREE PIECE SUITE (ALUCARD) 5. JETHRO TULL SONGS FROM THE WOOD (PARLOPHONE) GIGS 1. MARILLION ROYAL ALBERT HALL 2. BIG BIG TRAIN CADOGAN HALL 3. YES FEAT ANDERSON RABIN WAKEMAN EVENTIM HAMMERSMITH APOLLO 4. TEARS FOR FEARS ROYAL ALBERT HALL 5. PHIL COLLINS ROYAL ALBERT HALL MULTIMEDIA 1. PINK FLOYD THEIR MORTAL REMAINS V&A EXHIBITION 2. DAVID GILMOUR LIVE AT POMPEII (TRAFALGAR RELEASING) 3. AUBREY POWELL VINYL. ALBUM. COVER. ART: THE COMPLETE HIPGNOSIS CATALOGUE (THAMES & HUDSON) 4. MARILLION OUT OF THE BOX (RACKET) 5. ELO WEMBLEY OR BUST (COLUMBIA) THE BEST THING I’VE HEARD ALL YEAR... STEVE HACKETT “Orphaned Land’s Unsung Prophets And Dead Messiahs. It combines an…

IN///PARALLEL BMG Debut solo album from Grammy-winning son of George. In spite of the fact that we’ve encountered him before – emerging from the shadows to complete his father’s final album and to appear at 2002’s Concert For George, and as frontman and guitarist for Thenewno2 – it’s almost impossible to approach Dhani Harrison’s debut album under his own name without harbouring certain expectations. Up until now, Dhani’s modus operandi has been something of a dichotomy. On the one hand, by embracing the anonymity of Thenewno2, he appeared to be purposefully distancing himself from his cumbersome legacy. Yet to encounter his band, however briefly, it was impossible not to notice that Dhani not only sounded like his father, a situation Thenewno2’s guitar-based format only served to accentuate, but that –…

Third Eye DETROIT CAPRINE Celtic-prog shenanigans from Motor City. Folk has never been afraid to revisit old classics. This is a case in point with Bill Grogan’s Goat. Three albums in, this Detroit five-piece are confident, uncompromising and, well, rollicking fun. They take traditional shanties and songs like Haul Away Joe and Ye Jacobites By Name and work them inside out. To call this music ‘Celtic Rock’ is too safe. For newcomers, think ceilidh meets piratical roistering, hardcore punk, a pinch of Tool, and Irish balladeering, and you begin to get the picture. Frankly, it could be a hot mess, but Third Eye is marvellous. It’s held together by the skill of the personnel. Mindy Whalen and Gerry Smith have winsome voices, and the band deliver a delicious confection of…

Elevator Man RARENOISE Prolific bassist strikes again with album number three. Lorenzo Feliciati is fast becoming a man with a golden touch. From the delightfully demonic Berserk! to the Colin Edwin project Twinscapes and the jazztastic Naked Truth, there is little in the Italian bassist’s catalogue that feels like a dud. Feliciati’s latest musical outpouring is Elevator Man, his third solo album, and it’s a strong follow-up to his lauded 2015 effort KOI. As with most of his projects, there is a keen sense of collaboration here, with a cornucopia of notable prog-certified musicians – including Roy Powell, Chad Wackerman, Pat Mastelotto and Marco Sfogli – all involved in some guise, even just for a fleeting cameo. Try the opening title track for a slice of King Crimson inspired bite,…

Long Way Back To The Moon MASCOT Time to dust off that spacesuit. The Galactic Cowboys were always an intriguing and hugely entertaining proposition. Formed in the early 90s, they made a breakthrough with 1993’s Space In Your Face. Yet by the end of that decade, after numerous personnel changes, they disbanded with the release of Let It Go. The key to their unquestionable appeal was an ability to seamlessly fuse heavy riffs with Beatles/Cheap Trick melodies, and thankfully, that knack hasn’t decayed over the last 17 years. Long Way Back To The Moon opens with In The Clouds. With a pseudo doom metal riff accompanied by sumptuous vocal harmonies, it’s a deliberate statement of intent. Zombies is similarly alluring and calls to mind The Wildhearts at their peak, with…

Gathering The Waters SELF-RELEASED Michael Whiteman’s Reading-based project gathers pace. After crowdfunding this follow-up to their 2015 debut set Everything Beautiful In Time, this Reading quartet have certainly given investors their money’s worth with the sheer volume of musical and lyrical ideas crammed into this hour and a bit. You know you’re in for quite a ride when the album’s first line tells us, ‘He’s got a 14-foot scarf, knows how to ride a giraffe, hear his maniacal laughter.’ The Man With Many Faces delivers it sandwiched between gutsy guitar riffs and fizzing Mark Kelly-ish keyboards, making for a strong opening gambit. Further in, chief songwriter Michael Whiteman gets a little more literal on The Lifeboatmen’s tribute to the titular lifesavers, and The Milgram Experiment’s musings on the infamous 1960s…

It’s been a busy couple of months in the experimental guitar world, but probably the most impressive release has been the new Human Pyramids album. The brainchild of composer Paul Russell from math poppers Axes, their contemporary orchestral pieces have seen the group perform everywhere from post-rock festival ArcTanGent to the West Holts stage at Glastonbury. With Home (self-released), Russell builds on the work of previous LP Planet Shh! with an invigorating and uplifting set of tracks that will surely cement his reputation as a genre-blending mastermind. There’s often more than a hint of electronic proggers North Atlantic Oscillation – for example, on opener Louise – but fans of Mike Oldfield, The Flaming Lips and Mogwai, should such an intersection be commonplace, should also take note. JYOCHO is the post-breakup…

The New Reality FRONTIERS Reality bites for Geoff Tate’s post-Queensrÿche project. Geoff Tate’s post- Queensrÿche releases haven’t generated the career momentum he was hoping for, and that’s clear by the bottom-ofthe- rung venues his band are set to perform in on their upcoming UK tour. Indeed, the two previous albums released under his Operation: Mindcrime moniker (essentially Tate with countless guest musicians) have been frustratingly lethargic. Perhaps predictably, the music on The New Reality is patchy. My Eyes hints at past triumphs, with assertive melodies and inventive vocal lines only hindered by a shackling production. There’s even a Kashmir vibe to All For What, which at least proves Operation: Mindcrime retain some ambition. Yet for all these relative, fleeting high points, the remainder of the album limps along painfully. The…

Transcendental Circus SELF-RELEASED All-encompassing prog madness from Sopranos country. Audacity is an underrated virtue, particularly in a genre that has flamboyancy and ambition etched into its DNA. Orpheus Nine are audacious to a fault, both in their gleeful and unapologetic plundering of 40-plus years of prog indulgence and in the levels of wideeyed invention that, somewhat against the odds, rescue Transcendental Circus from being a sustained game of ‘spot the influence’. In truth, it’s the joy that oozes from every one of this album’s myriad stylistic pores that seals the deal. Across 74 minutes of insanely elaborate and yet aggressively melodic symphonic prog, these virtuoso New Jerseyites salute everyone from Yes, ELP and Zappa through to Fish-era Marillion, 80s Rush and the warm-hearted splendour of Spock’s Beard and The Flower…

Sangue Càssia SEASON OF MIST Beauty in the darkness with the Lisbon doom crew. When there’s a mention of ‘female vocals’ and ‘doom’ in the same sentence, the word ‘kitsch’ may never be far behind. But this Lisbon-based band have far more to offer – and that’s mainly to do with their high priestess, Patricia Andrade, who is truly this record’s revelation. Allied more closely with the realms of sludge and post-metal than doom here, those scenes are often ugly, gnarly places, but Andrade’s voice is brighter than the rays of a thousand suns. No matter how crushing the guitars are – and they can be damn heavy – they never overshadow her performance, which is enhanced by the delicacy of the arrangements, twilit soundscapes and lysergic tempos. This almost…

New studio albums by Nick Garrie are as rare as original copies of The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas, his 1969 baroque-pop masterpiece. The Moon And The Village (Tapete) is only his third in nearly 50 years. A captivating set with a wistful air, it sees the Yorkshireman unpacking narratives about people undergoing their own private crises. Garrie verses it all in pastel tones, backed by sensitive arrangements on acoustic guitar, piano and strings. The ghost of Procol Harum looms over My Dear One, while the more kinetic Bacardi Samuel outlines the story of a drunken bum who suddenly vanishes. A similar bucolicism informs A Different Light (Paisley Parade), the debut from Dream Giant, also known as London-based musician/ producer Harry Dean. He tackles a variety of instruments – lead guitar,…

The Dark Element FRONTIERS Pop meets metal as Olzon and Liimatainen join forces. Three years after her solo album, ex-Nightwish vocalist Anette Olzon teams up with Jani Liimatainen, former guitarist of Sonata Arctica, in The Dark Element. The band’s sound is a blend of Scandinavian symphonic metal and a surprisingly strong pop sensibility. There’s heaviness here but the tunes are super catchy – Here’s To You and Someone You Used to Know are the sort of lightersin- the-air, arena-friendly anthems that made Desmond Child a wealthy man in the 80s. Olzon sounds in fine voice and unlike her fellow Nightwish alumni Tarja Turunen, she sings the melody rather than indulging in operatic vocal gymnastics. Dead To Me boasts some extra crunch in Liimatainen’s guitar riff, while the keyboards and programming…

Tainted SONICBOND Trude Eidtang keeps the smooth prog flag flying. When White Willow dared to steer away from the symphonic prog genre in 2006 with Signal To Noise in favour of a more pop-friendly and modern sound, to say that not all their fans were thrilled would be quite an understatement. Their then recently recruited vocalist Trude Eidtang became their primary target and by the time the band returned four years later, she’d been let go. A decade later, she’s sticking to her guns with the second album for her solo project, said to be inspired by both the tale of Faust and Franz Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade – hence its scattered lyrics in German. Musically, it’s inspired by trip-hop, classical music and even blues, even if sometimes it’s hard…

Eye In The Sky 35th Anniversary Box Set SONY Older, wiser and expanded. The argument as to where the dividing line lies between what might be pigeonholed as progressive or pop can occupy lots of time and energy, often causing grown men to weep. Just ask Prog’s long-suffering editor. Worrying about such distinctions is probably not something that troubled The Alan Parsons Project. “Positively revels in an unfettered, poppish pomp.” Their sixth album, released in 1982, positively revels in an unfettered, poppish pomp with its mix of uncluttered tonality, hooks and impeccable, frequently opulent production. Remaining largely fresh and undated, the halfspeed mastered vinyl copy and a Blu-ray 2017 surround sound mix, both of which are as impressive as you’d imagine, provide the main reason for grabbing this set, although…

Returning Jesus KSCOPE Wilson and Bowness’ 2001 spaced odyssey, resurrected. No-Man entered the 21st century with an album which, like most of their luscious, languid work, sounds like it could be from any time in their three decades of existence. Near the start of that period they were described by one reviewer as “conceivably the most important English band since The Smiths”; near the end of it as “the most underrated band of the last 25 years”. It’s been a rather unconventional, slow-burning journey, with Steven Wilson now a prog pop best seller and Tim Bowness making slyly delicious meta-albums. Returning Jesus was, in 2001, their fourth offering, and itself a product of many years of writing and honing. At the time they weren’t sure if the growing success of…

AN ALTERNATIVE REVIEW I thought Sid Smith’s review of the new PFM album [Prog 81] was harsh. I would rate it alongside their classic 70s releases – it’s highly crafted and while perhaps includes a little less musical and political rage than The World Became The World or Chocolate Kings, it’s recognisably cut from the same tree. To propose it as having an AOR style would only fit if you apply the same criteria to Selling England… or Foxtrot. Emotional Tattoos returns PFM to their best form. Marco Sfogli’s lead guitar is superb throughout and it alone should decry the AOR suggestion. A real quality album that deserves a listen or two and grows and grows and grows, it promises a great tour for the new year. Hopefully they’ll add…

I remember with fondness the days when letters would pop through the letterbox. You could open them while eating your boiled egg and, if there was one that needed a reply, you could digest its contents and think about it before putting pen to paper later that day. There was time to give a proper and considered answer, possibly followed up with a telephone call. Not anymore though. Now we have bloody emails that waste hours every day and, more often or not, lead to hostility. “Did you get the email I sent 10 minutes ago?” Picture this: It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and I open my first email of the day. “Hi Rick, Hope you don’t mind me contacting you but I was wondering if you could possibly…

Inspiring the wider music world… “I was introduced to Gong by some hippy friends when I was at school, and I started with Flying Teapot. Then I discovered Camembert Electrique: Pip Pyle played drums on that album and his playing absolutely shone through. I was completely transfixed by his breakbeats. A lot of people associate breakbeats with drum and bass, but you’ll find heaps of tough breaks if you go back to the fusion and prog bands of the early 70s. If you fast-forward Pyle’s career to Hatfield And The North and National Health, he played breaks with such elan that there was almost a danger in his playing: he lacked the reserve and precision of other jazz-influenced players of the time. It was that danger that really excited me.…

GOLD KEY MAY be newcomers to the UK music scene, but they’re already making waves, partly due to a brace of excellent singles at the end of last year and partly due to the track record of the musicians involved, who have been in the ranks of Blackhole, SikTh, Gallows and Krokodil. “First and foremost, we’re all friends,” explains frontman and guitarist Steve Sears. “Lags [Laurent Barnard] and I, and James [Leach], have known each other for, well, I don’t want to think about how long. Lags and I actually went to school together. We tend to write bittersweet, darker stuff, and I think it’s a band that was always going to happen. I’ve wanted to be in this band for ages…” Unsurprisingly given their credentials, Gold Key can be…

ALITHIA’S LIVE SHOWS are a thrilling ride. On their last European tour, supporting Leprous and Agent Fresco, they crammed their travelling entourage on stage and let their “weird astral space core” loose upon the crowd. Fusing tribal percussion with psychedelic vibes to a chaotic patchwork of punk attitude and heavy riffs, they mark a new chapter in the evolving prog scene coming out of Australia. On their recent stop-off in Amsterdam, the Melbourne-based outfit hammed up their Aussie roots for some life-on-the-road video fun. “We were sat outside a cafe calling each other dickheads and all sorts. We went full bogan,” laughs bassist Tibor Gede. “We got it all on camera. It was total cultural association satire and it was so horrible, but hey.” But Alithia are anything but your…

The very first proggy thing I ever heard was Rush. Of course it was, I’m Canadian. You cannot hear Tom Sawyer for the first time without realising that it will be played at every party you’ll go to from the age of 14 onwards. I’m from a South Park town called Quesnel, in Alberta, British Columbia, a tiny little logging community. There’s only about 20,000 of us living in the mountains. Our record shop was the department store, Zellers, so we were lucky to get Rush. Whatever was in stock came in through the approval of the store. My mum worked in radio so I knew that Canadian radio stations have to play a certain percentage of Canadian music. So we didn’t get King Crimson to listen to, we got…

MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT (OPETH) Favourite: Octopus “I stumbled upon Gentle Giant through my record collecting in the early 90s. To this day I’ve never heard a band that can compete with them. Not only were they technically amazing but they delivered every note with great feel. It’s quite rare to hear that within complex progressive rock. I think the full ‘classic’ line-up with John Weathers on drums was as close to prog perfection as you can get. The song Peel The Paint is a classic. There’s a section in that song where the violins change modes in a falling melody. That makes me seasick, irritated, amazed. How can you write stuff like that? It’s absolutely stunning! “I think they started going downhill on The Missing Piece, but prior to that, all…

Dragonfly (1970) Heralding an artistic turning point, this is Strawbs’ first melding of folk and progressive rock and sees the debut of Rick Wakeman, who would go on to join the band following his appearance as a session player. Cousins’ romantic inclinations are well to the fore on the swooning ballad Forever. From The Witchwood (1971) The glorious evocation of lovers in a pastoral English landscape on The Shepherd’s Song, with Wakeman’s autumnal Mellotron and dappled Minimoog, finds a stark contrast with the caustic The Hangman And The Papist. It’s a visionary classic. Grave New World (1972) Bombastic bursts of brass, eerie keyboards and a sense of foreboding stalk Cousins’ account of the growing troubles in Northern Ireland during New World. John Ford’s punchy bass adds a distinctive heft to…

I was aspiring to, not quite math rock, but more adventurous songs with key changes and time changes. This isn’t Hatherley’s first dalliance with an alias. Circa 2012, after a few years out of the indie spotlight, she re-emerged as Sylver Tongue. “I wanted to be a bit unknown and escape the ‘Charlotte from Ash’ thing,” she offers of a guise that had more of a garish 80s vibe, with, Hatherley notes, “lots of Mad Max fake fur and leather”. This Traveller incarnation is, by contrast, “less 80s revisited, more weird and arty, more [Soviet filmmaker] Tarkovsky and Roeg”. For the interview in a bar in London’s Barbican Centre, Hatherley, sad to report, doesn’t arrive in full Traveller regalia. Instead, she is wearing an electric blue shirt and corset which,…

NIK TURNER Nik Turner is a man for whom the phrase “force of nature” could have been invented. He might now be in his late 70s, but he shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Prog catches up with him as he travels to the Space Mountain festival in Granada, Spain, before then flying to the US to begin a tour in support of his latest album, Life In Space. It’s clear that he still lives for the opportunity to play music to a crowd, with a question about Erich von Daniken leading to a lengthy anecdote about falling in with a troupe of Chick Corea-loving jazz musicians in Mexico City, and finding himself playing romantic Latin music in a transvestite strip joint. It’s also clear that he’s…

Syndenes Magi APOLLON Norse time travellers at the zenith of their powers. Norway’s prog scene seems to be flourishing more than ever right now, so Arabs In Aspic’s time to be more widely appreciated must surely have come. Syndenes Magi will not bamboozle long-time fans of the band: this is very much more of the same immaculately constructed retro prog with strong Sabbath-saluting undercurrents and a big, sepia-tinted analogue grin on its face. For the thus far uninitiated, the band’s sixth album simply denotes the moment that you all fall in love with them too, because from the opening slow-build crescendos and Hammond tsunamis of the title track to the euphoric, Floydian sweep of sleepy-eyed closing epic Mörket 3, this is a stunning, multidirectional trip. The fact that vocalist Jostein…

To Wake A Dream In Moving Water SELF Ambient master explores Celtic grooves. It’s twenty years since multi-instrumentalist Ethan J Matthews began making music with prog metal outfit Greyhaven. Wake, Matthews’ fifth solo album in the guise of Echo Us, hones those years of experience and represents his most complete offering yet. Fans will find oodles of ambient goodness on tracks such as Awakening Current, and Matthews’ guitar virtuosity shimmers on May Morning Dew. However, it’s the exploration of Celtic themes which adds illuminating new dimensions to his work. Wake includes reworked traditional Irish and Breton tunes like Doina. The stand-out track, however, is new. At 14 minutes, From The Highlands is as epic as it’s beautiful. As Matthews’ sings ‘running from the violence’, he conjures misty valleys and snow-capped…

17 INSIDEOUT Resilient Dutch durables refuse to lie down. One of Holland’s biggest bands in the 70s, Hilversumformed Kayak have closed shop then re-opened more than once, exercising a belief that the music matters beyond the personnel. Ton Scherpenzeel is now the carrier of the torch, the writer, keyboardist and all-rounder reviving the name and assembling a fresh line-up after a three-year break brought on by sudden departures. Bart Schwertmann is his new vocalist, Marcel Singor the guitarist. A rhythm section well known to fans of the Neal Morse Band joined as this album was already nearly finished. Guesting on the instrumental Ripples On The Water is Andy Latimer, Scherpenzeel having written the track with him in mind after working with him in Camel. “The extended tracks push upstream with…

Soundings DISKO GECKO A seductive ambient blend of instruments and field recordings. Soundings is a collection of pieces that work on different levels of activity. Wanderlust starts with someone typing followed by footsteps slowly walking away, as if embarking on a journey. Heath’s synth and piano then begin a laconic conversation joined by background voices. The reverbed notes hang in space like unanswered questions, reminiscent of Morton Feldman or Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon. But rather than the pristine environment that Eno presents to the listener, Heath invites them to enter an inhabited space. After about eight minutes of its 14-minute length, Heath and guest guitarist Anne Chris Bakker play a sparse melody over bells and background crackles. Each piece has a distinct character. On Winter On Noorederhaaven, the chill outside…

The Way Forward INTERVALS MUSIC Irresistibly upbeat instrumental guitar fun. Canadian guitar virtuoso Aaron Marshall, better known by his project name Intervals, has been travelling along a parallel path to his djent brothersin- amps for some time now. Employing many of the same techniques as technical progressive metal but in a major-key, upbeat framework has been Intervals’ calling card, and on their last album, The Shape Of Colour, Marshall nigh on perfected the sound he was trying to achieve. Throughout The Way Forward, the influence of Steve Vai and other guitar heroes is written large across effervescent, legato runs on tracks like Impulsively Responsible but it’s the other influences that are often more interesting, from video game soundtracks to jazz. There’s a trace of the dearly missed Brits The Safety Fire…

Hypersomniac RARE NOISE RECORDS Why not dream big? Prog is a genre that’s no stranger to bold, multimedia projects. Nevertheless, LEF’s Hypersomniac is an ambitious project. Singer and composer Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, or LEF, has created a dark and cinematic prog concept epic to bring his and co-writer Pier Luigi Rocca’s dystopian story to life. There’s an enviable supporting cast of musicians, including Rebecca Sneddon of Free Nelson Mandoomjazz; Kenneth Kapstad of Motorpsycho; and Norwegian organist Ståle Storløkken from Supersilent, Motorpsycho and Reflections In Cosmos. Though the album is meant to be experienced as a whole, there are standout moments: for example Aran Has Changed, where vocal acrobatics and deliberate screeches create a dramatic, Great Gig In The Sky vibe, offset against muscular guitars. In general, the feel is very…

Protocol 4 PHANTOM RECORDINGS Phillips and his new friends add some heavy funk to their fusion. There are some new faces in the line-up for Simon Phillips’ fourth album under the Protocol banner as the veteran session drummer and former Toto member continues his impressive run of releases as a bandleader. This time around, Greg Howe takes over the guitar duties from Andy Timmons, while Dennis Hamm steps into Steve Weingart’s spot behind the keyboards. The other constant besides the drummer himself is the dependable pulse that Ernest Tibbs brings on the bass. “The musicianship can be knotty, but there are still hooks here.” Despite the changing roster, Protocol 4 is not a marked departure from its predecessors. Instead, the music builds and expands on Phillips’ singular vision. This is…

Life Is Good AFL MUSIC Russian actor-director-producer reveals a handsome nu-prog contender. Forgive this loose collective their awful moniker, Russian native Yuri Volodarsky’s debut album is a loving throwback to 70s prog in all its guises: it’s grandiose, genteel and star-studded, inasmuch as music fans will recognise at least a half a dozen names of the cameos here (Nad Sylvan, Will Champlin, Oz Noy). Volodarsky even manages to rope in one-time Journey singer Jeff Scott Soto to add mellifluous vocal lines to the mix. It’s an odd choice given that the musical references here are pointedly old school – Gentle Giant, Yes, ELP – but Volodarsky’s clearly not afraid to add some pop notes. Case in point, the six-minute Money In My Pocket, which hints at classic mid-period Saga with…

Murder And Parliament BIG ELEPHANT MUSIC Tom Slatter’s instrumental project is an admirably unpredictable affair. It’s a bold move for this British progger to make an instrumental album, because part of the charm of the handful of albums he’s released under his own name are his eccentric yarns and streaks of lyrical humour. But Tom Slatter clearly loves challenging himself and his audience. If there are hints of Slint and their post-rock guitar tangles in the lo-fi opening bars of A Scattering, that represents relative calm before a storm of anxious jazz rock that somehow manages to coagulate into something satisfyingly hook-laden. Crookedness is bookended by indie punk thrash, either side of more contemplative puddles of noise. Inevitably, it can be hit and miss. The angular, shredding metal guitar on…

The Depths Of Winter WHITE KNIGHT Pete Jones’ wintry tales bring comfort and joy. Ah, winter! Season of ice, snow and fairy lights. A time to wrap up warm, drink comforting beverages and listen to cheering music. Prog has produced many wintry offerings over the decades, not least from the likes of Tull, and Genesis in Trespass mode. Now Pete Jones, also known as Tiger Moth Tales, has brought his burgeoning talent to prog’s frostier reaches. “Jones’ capacity to channel classic prog exceeds expectations.” 2013’s debut Cocoon set the bar high for Jones. The Depths Of Winter not only develops Tiger Moth Tales’ Genesisinfluenced sound, but works its hibernal themes to the fullest. Not only do we get references to Game Of Thrones’ most famous catchphrase, but there’s a cutesy…

The Music Of William Arkle And Other Recordings INNER SANCTUM Mystic-inspired classical ambience. William Arkle’s easily overlooked. Born in 1924, he gravitated from public school to naval war service to painting, specialising in spiritual subjects. After hanging with Colin Wilson, Arkle wrote The Geography Of Consciousness. It described eight levels, with Higher Man, a God-like state, at the pinnacle. Henceforth, to a small faction, Arkle was considered a mystic, philosopher and theologian, as well as an artist – though some might say he was always more bloke than Blake. Arkle composed the opening trio of tracks here in ’68, but they were only arranged and performed in ’86 by The Enid’s Robert John Godfrey – two years before, Arkle’s painting The Father And The Mother was used as the cover…

Lighthouse MOONJUNE Surfing the improv-rock wave. Some albums say hello with a gentle introduction while others grab you by the lapels. Lighthouse, born from a single improvised session without overdubs and only the most minimal post-production editing, sits in the latter category. Hailing from the UK, Germany and Israel respectively, the unwavering velocity and momentum generated by this international trio within the album’s opening seconds remain irresistible. Although entirely spontaneous, each of the seven tracks possesses the structure and dynamic foundations of composed material. Throughout, Mark Wingfield coaxes unorthodox textures and long, snaking melodic lines from his guitar. Capable of moving between a luminous beauty to snarling, barbed ferocity within a moment means he’s well-equipped to respond to the variegated backdrops fashioned by Asaf Sirkis’ driving rhythm and Markus Reuter’s…

Suits CHOCOLATE FROG Lavish reissue of Fish’s fourth solo album. There’s an argument, which we’re about to make, that Fish’s solo career was cooling by the time he came to make 1994’s Suits album. Polydor had ditched him, record sales were becoming something of a diminishing return and he’d recorded a covers album in the shape of Songs From The Mirror. A nod to Bowie’s Pin Ups it might have been, but a covers album always gives off the faint whiff of an artist casting around for ideas when there are none. Argue that all you like, but Suits is the sound of a singer coming out swinging: he sounds like he’s actually squaring up to fight in the lyrics to Emperor’s Song. Little surprise then that it went Top…

Union Café ERASED TAPES The group’s final album from 1994, released for the first time on vinyl. The brainchild of composer and multi-instrumentalist Simon Jeffes, the Penguin Café Orchestra’s music was first released on Music From The Penguin Café on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1976, a haven for the era’s avant garde oddities. Jeffes was disillusioned with both rock and classical music, but the group’s music wasn’t really avant garde either. His vision was, though, both largely undemonstrative and highly original and Union Café was the culmination of his career, which was cruelly curtailed by his death in 1997. It’s full of tunes that you can whistle, but they are typically framed in idiosyncratic arrangements that border on the eccentric. A puckish wit was also involved. Scherzo And Trio…

Seven MUSIC ON VINYL Seventh heaven vinyl for Softs fans. As with any long-lived band, fan opinions as to what counts as the best line-up will often be sharply split. In Soft Machine’s case, the most common divide usually starts with Robert Wyatt’s departure in 1971 and the arrival of Karl Jenkins in 1972. Aside from sentiment and personal taste, as with any group with an evolving line-up, the truth is that one is not inherently better than another but simply different. Originally released in the winter of 1974, Seven finds a group far removed from their psychedelic origins. The tessellated rows of interlocking compositions are cosily homogenous when compared to some of its free-flowing predecessors. However, even within the album’s compact delivery, the fire and passion within the soloing…

A Farewell To Kings UMC/MERCURY The crown slips a little on a patchy 40th-anniversary package. Gods and astronauts, savants and seers. Never let it be said that Rush ducked the epic subjects during their grandiose 70s peak. And they were never more grandiose than on A Farewell To Kings, the album that ushered in phase two of their career. “When it’s good, it’s phenomenal; when it’s not, it’s frustrating.” Originally released in 1977, AFTK gets a 40th-anniversary reissue. Like last year’s souped-up 2112, it comes with added bells and whistles in the form of a full live set and a quartet of covers from contemporary artists (let’s gloss over the appalling 21st-century ‘reimagining’ of the cover artwork). The original album remains a flawed masterpiece. It starts with the never-bettered one-two…

Colin Harper MARKET SQUARE Words of fire. If you thought Bathed In Lightning, Colin Harper’s 2014 authoritative biography of John McLaughlin was the last word on the guitarist’s work, then think again. Harper’s back and his forensic and exhaustive research adds an extra 176,000 words on top of the previous title. This limited edition companion provides yet more depth to McLaughlin’s passage through trad jazz, blues, jazz and his eventual elevation to Tony Williams, Miles and beyond. It reminds us that McLaughlin’s phenomenal talent wasn’t enough on its own to take him to his goal. Being prepared to sacrifice and do whatever was necessary to get there was hardwired into his psyche as much as any spiritual aspirations. The inclusion of numerous small ads and article cuttings culled from the…

Revolution Of Sound TAG/TAUM Essential viewing for Krautrock and electronic music fans alike. Aman in black motorcycle gear and helmet walks alone through a desert landscape. He scrambles up sand dunes, his breathing laboured and his heart pounding, before finally he reaches the sea shore. Flinging the helmet aside with relief, he surrenders himself to the waves and is quickly submerged. “Wonderfully meditative — no wild parties here.” This astonishing sequence opens Revolution Of Sound, a fascinating feature-length documentary on electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream. The man in black is group founder and leader Edgar Froese, one of the most important figures in progressive music, something which this film by Margarete Kreuzer (and co-produced by his widow Bianca Froese-Acquaye) seeks to make abundantly clear. Following Froese from his early years…

THURSDAY Deserving of its status as one of the biggest progressive rock festivals in Europe, the second HRH Prog of 2017 gets underway with a low-key evening for the early birds in the sizeable main arena. The tasteful guitar of Dave Cureton provides the main highlights of IO Earth’s opening slot, with entertaining Hawkwindinfluenced trio Krankschaft bringing the comedy and Mostly Autumn delivering the classy, beautiful show that we’ve come to expect from them. FRIDAY The first day proper is a dash to catch snippets of newer bands on Stage Two between the more established bands on the main stage. London-based prog metallers Kyros (formerly Synaesthesia) are all good players, but fail to hit their stride until late in the set, by which time Edgar Broughton is delivering his familiar…

GANDALF’S FIST @gandalfsfist Xmas single: the song is back from being mastered at @AbbeyRoad – you’re all in for a festive treat! CRAIG BLUNDELL @craigblundell Dragged out the SW 15/16 touring rig for tonight’s final Frost show of the year. Nice to be behind this setup again. NICK BEGGS @NickBeggs The writing of the third Mute Gods album feels like knitting a patchwork quilt using lobsters for knitting needles. CARL PALMER @ELP_carl I was very sad to hear of the death of David Cassidy who I met in the late 1970s. We became good friends. A sad loss to his family, friends and fans. My thoughts go out to all. MATT STEVENS @mattstevensloop Looking at inflatables for our gig in May. RICK WAKEMAN @GrumpyOldRick Last Piano Portraits show at Cadogan…

Touchstone are looking for a new vocalist after parting with Aggie Figurska. The singer, who replaced Kim Seviour in 2015, performed her final show with them in December. “It’s kind of been on the cards for a while,” admits guitarist Adam Hodgson. “She hasn’t been entirely happy and I don’t think she feels that things have progressed as they should have done. It was good to do the Christmas gig, draw a line under it, and we’ll be looking at things again in 2018.” Touchstone have already written the best part of their fifth album, which they hope to record with a new singer next year. “I’m quite positive really, and everyone is on board,” says Hodgson. “I’ve put 14 years into this and I don’t want to see the…

Long Distance Calling are returning to their trademark instrumental sound on their sixth album. Boundless, out via InsideOut on February 2, sees them move away from the commercial sound of 2016’s TRIPS. “[TRIPS vocalist] Petter Carlsen is one of my best friends and he’s a great singer,” says bassist Jan Hoffman, “but with this album, we wanted something easier for us, so it was just four guys in the room like in the early days.” It’s the first time since 2011’s Long Distance Calling that the band have worked exclusively as a four-piece, which awarded them more creative freedom. “From the first rehearsal, we realised there was something special going on, and within about six months, the whole album was ready,” Hoffman says. “It’s definitely a bit heavier than the…

Umphrey’s McGee are unleashing their eleventh studio album It’s Not Us on January 12 via Nothing Too Fancy. It will see the genre-juggling band compress just about every facet of their sound, while maintaining their knack for melody. “There’s a little bit of everything,” says guitarist/vocalist Jake Cinninger. “What’s nice about being in a band like Umphrey’s is that we can kind of get away with anything and still sell the record at the end of the day.” The group are taking their shape-shifting show around North America from January to late March, with dates in Europe hoped for later in the year. “The biggest problem with a band like us is that it’s hard to invest time overseas because it costs so much money,” Cinninger says. “If we can…

Trumpeter Don Cherry had already secured lasting recognition as a member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, with whom he recorded 1959’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come and This Is Our Music in 1961, before turning his attention to world fusion music in the latter half of the 60s. With the release of Organic Music Society in 1972, he began to fine tune those ambitions and found even more purposeful expression in Relativity Suite. Assisted musically and financially by the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association – led by pianist Carla Bley – and supported by the likes of Charlie Haden (bass), Ed Blackwell (drums) and Dewey Redman (tenor sax), Cherry sought a communal jazz union that defied glib categorisation. Drawing on myriad traditional sources, from the musicians of Joujouka to Vasant…

Brexit – the ever-rolling blob of uncertainty that continues to confound the public and politicians alike. Regardless of which side you fall – and you’d be forgiven for having changed your mind since putting pencil to paper in June 2016 – the impact of the UK’s decision to leave the EU is less clear than ever. This uncertainty, particularly around freedom of movement, is turning out to be a real issue for the music industry. Proggers, who by their very nature are whimsically souled but hard-heeled tourers, face the very real prospect of having their touring lives up-ended within the next couple of years. Countless bands are now staring down the barrel of this particular gun. The Fierce And The Dead are one such act. They had planned a two-year…

He plays bass in Knifeworld, took over from Kavus Torabi as the multiinstrumentalist for the Mediaeval Baebes, teaches music and has plenty else on besides. At 29, Charlie Cawood is treading a fascinating path, blending classical Western music with Asian and Oriental styles, all with an avant-garde, psych sensibility. His first solo album, The Divine Abstract, is a transcendent work of art, an erudite instrumental exploration of both culture and spirit. It’s been seven years in the making and has seen him bravely confront the depression that has dogged him for years. How did you become so well versed in non-Western music? I started learning classical music in school, did my grades, sight reading, theory. I was living in Ilford, which is a great cosmopolitan part of London, and I…

So here we are at the end of 2017. A year that began with a big question mark over the future of the magazine, and ends with another 12 months of great releases, memorable gigs and 10 issues of your favourite magazine. Along the way, we’ve lost some good friends and amazing musicians. But now is your chance to take stock of 2017, the year in prog, by voting in the Prog magazine Readers’ Poll. There are a couple of new categories this year. Person Of The Year is for, in your opinion, the prog musician who has truly stood out from the pack this year. The Unsung Hero category is there to honour those who work tirelessly behind the scenes when it comes to supporting progressive music, be it…

"On a scale of one to Yes?" Palmer Eldritch "Eleven. And then some!" Mark McCaughrean "The Charlotte Hatherley? I’ve never heard of her, has she featured in Prog? Should I investigate?" [Yes, you most certainly should.– Ed] Mike Sargent "Erm… Who?" Steve Harrison "How about Clear Blue Sky?" Paul McHugh "Sorry, it's cloudy here…" Steve Harrison "Funny!" Paul McHugh "Some of her stuff is, though not all. Songs based on SF and fantasy (eg Dawn Treader). The Deep Blue is a great album." Andy Hall "An artist with a proper prog ethos who has truly progressed from catchy, raw punk pop to extensive electronic sci-fi atmospherics and Gabriel-esque images and theatrics. Prog in my book!" Kevin Braithwaite "Never having been an Ash fan, I'd never paid any heed to her…

“Even when I make a big flirty tart of a record you guys still vote it top of the progs, haha! That’s amazing, thank you so much!” 1 STEVE WILSON TO THE BONE (CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL) WE SAID: “What could have been a selfconscious paean to the wide-eyed 80s sounds more like a fervent and meticulous tribute to the very notion of the song itself.” Dom Lawson, Prog 79 2 ANATHEMA THE OPTIMIST (KSCOPE) WE SAID: “The album of their career thus far. A delightfully conceived, emotional yet uplifting masterpiece.” Jerry Ewing, Prog 77 3 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING EVERY VALLEY (PIAS) WE SAID: “PSB’s latest epic, technicolour testament to the human spirit and heroic endeavour.” Paul Lester, Prog 78 4 ROGER WATERS IS THIS THE LIFE WE REALLY WANT? (COLUMBIA) WE…

Utopia ONE LITTLE INDIAN Iceland’s force of nature now cheerful but challenging. Nobody could deny that this is the work of a wilfully progressive artist, untethered by musical convention. It floats through shifting electronic soundscapes, drones, warped beats and treated samples, blending harps, synths and birdsong until you feel as if the ground beneath you is melting. Whether you’ll feel emotionally moved – rather than just bewildered – is another matter. Björk clearly never read the old ad which claimed tunes help you breathe more easily. She’s now disinterested in melodies, choruses or anything resembling a structure, so her voice is the only thing taking us by the hand and leading us on a vaguely linear path through it. Luckily it’s one of the great voices: huge, oceanic and still…

IV: The Dark Age of the Dragon THE RIGHT HONOURABLE RECORDING COMPANY A fourth, star-studded pull at the sword for the French showman. Alan Simon’s 1999 album Excalibur featured Fairport Convention, Roger Hodgson and other prog notables, and morphed into a live musical extravaganza of Trans-Siberian proportions. Its two spinoffs attracted Jon Anderson, John Wetton and Justin Hayward among others, and now that trilogy (all 60 tracks of it) has become a tetralogy. The French composer found fresh creative relish for his Arthurian theme, and the resultant Excalibur IV was played to rapt audiences on tour in Germany in 2016. Once again, there’s no denying the grandiose ambition and sheer scale. Prague’s Bohemian Symphony Orchestra and a wealth of soloists weave a West End quality sound that’s both live and…

Intersonic LAZY BONES When Dream Theater wizard and electronic boffin unite. It sometimes feels that Jordan Rudess has a volcano of inspiration brewing up inside him that day-job band Dream Theater never truly tap into. The prog metallers’ sound is well defined, with the keyboard player’s vital role a cog in a vast, well-oiled album-tour machine. It’s in his extramarital musical affairs that it seems the keys maestro can truly indulge himself, from his many solo albums and the wacky Levin Rudess Minnemann project to his Wizdom software company, which has devised a number of apps to allow people to make music on their mobiles and tablets. “A blank canvas gradually filled with reactionary creativity.” Rudess’ latest project hidden up his velvety wizard sleeve is a collaborative record with composer…

The Animal Spirits BORDER COMMUNITY Restless album of pagan trance electronica recorded live in a room. Lauded as a key player in electronic trance during the 00s, James Holden took a left turn on his brilliant 2013 album The Inheritors, incorporating live instrumentation and creating a head-spinning blend of pagan psychedelic rave music. The Animal Spirits sees him push this aesthetic further, producing an intense 50 minutes of ecstatic folk trance informed by the experimental jazz of Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry, and the systems music of Terry Riley and Philip Glass. Recorded live in single takes with no overdubs, the cyclical patterns made by Holden’s self-built modular synths are burnished by brass and woodwind, while the sequencing software follows the complex flow of drummer Tom Page. The title and…

Off The Radar ATRAXIA Sweden’s best-kept prog secret fly high. Following their acclaimed 2017 collaboration with Marillion’s Steve Hogarth, Colours Not Found In Nature, the Swedish ensemble have returned to the international stage with an entirely instrumental album. Directed by Mats Johansson, keyboardist and the band’s musical director of nearly 40 years, Off The Radar showcases the group’s near orchestral reach. Given the band have tuned percussion, keys, guitar, woodwind, strings and a doubledrum set-up at their disposal, they produce a richly textured, versatile sound that knits electronic, rock, jazz and contemporary classical elements into a highly nuanced force. Compositions move from the anthemic Drive 1-3, with its pounding rock beats, fat analogue synth timbre and luscious folds of elastic brass through to the more menacing, amorphous clouds of Endless…

Memory Of A Cut Off Head CASTLE FACE Back to the garden for the relentless San Fran heads. Last August, idiosyncratic San Francisco-based garage band Thee Oh Sees dropped the first word in their name and released Orc, their 19th album since forming in 1997. If Orc was an electric psychedelic monolith, this, their 20th album in those 20 years (and 10th on Castle Face) sees mainstay John Dwyer and long-time collaborator Brigid Dawson reaching back to the acoustic OCS roots, then coating the results in magic mushroom twists and luminescence. Dawson’s opening gambit on the scuttling title track – ‘Oh what a day, I think I lost my body’ – ignites a hallucinogenic feast where The Baron Sleeps And Dreams can start with Heather Lockie’s autumnal strings before its pizzicato…

Snow Live RADIANT Time to get the band back together… Released in 2002, Snow marked Neal Morse’s first foray into the full-blown concept album with Spock’s Beard. Unfortunately, once the record was done, he promptly left the band and went solo (at the risk of sounding facetious, because he thought God wanted him to). Fourteen years later, Morse reunited with his former bandmates to perform Snow from top to bottom at MorseFest 2016, recorded for posterity in this CD/DVD set. “Neal Morse’s musical approach is to craft a rock opera.” The gang’s all here – Nick D’Virgilio shares drum duties with Jimmy Keegan, although they generally switch off from song to song, rarely going for the double-drummer approach. Even current Spock’s Beard frontman Ted Leonard gets a song, Devil’s Got…

Cromlech Chronicles II STRANGE FISH Two evocative pieces of improvised inner space exploration. After last year’s Cromlech Chronicles comes this, its companion album. It was recorded near the same ancient burial sites in Wales, but this is very much yang to its predecessor’s yin. Whereas that album approached a sort of Hawkwind-like sonic attack, this meditative acoustic offering is space rock without the rock. The group’s guitarist, Pete Bingham, has said that Sendelica’s approach here is close in spirit to the loose improvisations of Japanese collective Taj Mahal Travellers, and one could add to that the ritualistic feeling of their compatriots Ghost. And with the guest musicians on violin and cello, those pioneers of quasi-medieval acid raga the Third Ear Band also spring to mind. Cheryl Beer features on all…

Filthy Apes And Lions ST AUGUST Killers bassist’s third solo outing is a joyously derivative psychedelic trip. If you’re one of those people who likes to listen to new artists and sneeringly point out where they’ve ‘ripped off’ various elements of their sound from, you’ll have a high old time with Mark Stoermer’s latest offering. Bearing little relation to his alma mater’s melodramatic indie rock, it sometimes sounds like a man cherrypicking the sounds of his favourite late-60s psychedelic records and lovingly recreating them. However, with a sprinkling of his own mischievous, stoned humour, engagingly weird instrumental touches, barking lyrics and catchy tunes thrown into the mix, he pulls it off in style. You won’t need a musicologist to help trace the Helter Skelter-ish grindings that punctuate Beautiful Deformities, nor…

Swedish Death Candy HASSLE Sweet-toothed London psych stoners erupt. Understanding the impact of a good name, Swedish Death Candy actually hail from London, but that should have nothing to do with their debut album’s exhilarating blitzkrieg of stoner doom riffage and snaking flights mixed with transcendent vocal harmonies. They cut a stellar dash and boast influences as diverse as Black Sabbath, The Beatles and Can. Lead single Last Dream and Living Your Life Away bend trusty riffs to their own devices, with Hendrix-style dual guitar and soaring chorale, all doused in spangled widescreen production. Broken Engrams is a scorching example of how they can suddenly turn an express train Motörhead rampage (with motorik undertow) on its heel and lurch into slow-mo log todger heave before flicking a switch and going…

GOOD SELF- RELEASED Manic world of Michael Mills impresses again. You might think that for a band that have unleashed a seemingly never-ending tidal wave of releases in the last decade, and at one point 12 EPs in as many months, the creative juices might be running bone dry. Not Toehider. Led by octave-spanning vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Mills, the Australian prog rockers’ latest full-lengther GOOD shows that things can still be kept fresh. The title track opener evokes comedy rockers Tenacious D, the following funnythings nods to the off-kilter prog-punk of Cardiacs and Millions Of Musketeers sounds at times like the pumped-up metal chops of Protest The Hero doing the tango with Queen. And then there’s the peculiar storytelling in the lyrics amid the phantasmagoric music. ‘Dan VS. egg, it’s…

Good to hear from Looking-Glass Lantern again. Versatile musician Graham Dunnington follows his brace of Sherlock Holmes-themed albums with Candlelight And Empire (Looking Glass Recordings), which portrays a day in the life of a middle-class Victorian household through his trademark strong storytelling and neo-prog palette. Again, the homemade production doesn’t do justice to his ambitious, high-grade music, which will appeal to fans of literate, Genesisinformed prog. If Tame Impala, Mogwai and Radiohead are more your thing then seek out Klangstof, the Dutch-Norwegian band making waves at the indie end of things. Their 2016 debut Close Eyes To Exit saw them play Coachella and tour with the likes of Flaming Lips, and new fourtrack EP Everest (Mind Of A Genius) is a strong slice of imaginative, wonky synth pop music. They’re…

Retrospektïw SOUTHERN LORD Lush vinyl package of 1981 live albums. It was interesting to read that Christian Vander does not regard Magma as a prog act (The Prog Interview, issue 81). The French outfit’s place in music history as creators of zeuhl goes without saying. But like many who enjoy the music of Christian Vander and co, this writer has always been tempted to view zeuhl as a sub-genre of progressive music. Not that it matters, unless you subscribe to the “If he says it’s not prog, then I won’t listen to it” school of thought. Because Magma sound pretty damn proggy to us on these reissues. And my, have Southern Lord done a particularly grand job, releasing Retrospetïw on vinyl for the first time since its 1981 release on…

44½: Live And Unreleased Works CUNEIFORM RIO icons’ opulent Holy Grail. While the musical evolution of legendary bands like Genesis and Pink Floyd can be roughly divided into album-sized chunks, the music of Art Zoyd has long felt like an ongoing and remorseless process: music made to evolve in real time, within and beyond its apparent initial potential. Ostensibly part of the Rock In Opposition movement, the amorphous French crew share very little with Henry Cow beyond a fearless, intrepid spirit: something that will come in very handy if you take the plunge into this frankly mind-boggling box set. “Extraordinary, genredefying… a monolithic challenge.” Apparently designed to plug the gaps between the band’s studio records, thus illuminating a greater degree of detail in Art Zoyd’s relentless shape-shifting, 44½ is simply…

Black Sea PANEGYRIC XTC expansion series enters deep dark ocean. It’s no secret – in fact it’s a point of pride for the band – that XTC never quite fitted in. Whatever the prevailing breezes, they resisted them or blew along in an awkward marriage of convenience. In 1980 they were roped in with New Wave, pushed as an English Talking Heads because they used ‘jagged’ rhythms somewhere between punk and pop and blurted wilfully smart lyrics. Black Sea, their fourth album, kept up the hefty – often overbearing – drum sounds of Drums And Wires, consolidated the twin guitars and upped the sociopolitical snark. Yet while critics flocked to call their work “perfect pop”, it was, despite frequent catchy melodies and hooks, just too dark at heart to pass…

At The Roundhouse CHERRY RED No rust on Hawkwind’s glistening machine. “We know you like a bit of quiet acoustic music,” quips Dave Brock at the start of this live CD/DVD captured at London’s Roundhouse last May. True to his word, Brock and the band start with three unplugged numbers of which The Watcher works particularly well in the format. But once they turn electric for Born To Go, it’s a plunge through a wormhole straight to the outer limits. The set flits back and forth between their classic 70s output and their last two studio albums, Into The Woods and The Machine Stops, with no nods to their 80s albums or 90s electronica period at all. The band sound fired up and guest saxophonist Michal Sosna’s improvisations are superb…

by Peter Rogers and Conor Boyle EARMUSIC The visual companion to a gothic yuletide. The battle between darkness and light has been a popular storytelling trope for centuries, but it’s given a new spin with Finnish soprano Tarja’s official festive comic. Released to complement her haunting new LP From Spirits And Ghosts, this limited edition, glossycovered graphic novel has been inspired by the melancholic album track Together and is best viewed while listening to the song itself. ‘Novel’ is the wrong word to describe it though – the 40-pager has no text but comprises illustrated panels that could be a storyboard for one of the singer’s videos. Featuring a sinister (dark) and angelic (light) Tarja, the story follows those who find Christmas a less joyous occasion: the homeless, the elderly,…

Paul Auster, the celebrated American novelist, hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.” Tonight his observation seems especially true considering Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a band sometimes described as being ‘industrial’, are performing in a building that once played a key part in the Industrial Revolution. It once resounded to the clang and clatter of metal, and that cacophonous assault previously pounded into the brickwork finds a modern echo in the Canadian collective’s slow, chugging start that builds pace, volume and intensity with incremental movements. With Sophie Trudeau’s eerie, sustained violin notes shimmering like a skein of rising smoke against the smouldering distortion of the guitars and bass, drummers Timothy Herzog and Aidan Girt lock into a sombre,…