Table of contents for Issue 88 in Prog

Hello and welcome to the new issue of Prog Magazine. This issue is always an exciting one for the editorial team, because it’s the issue where we announce the nominations for the Progressive Music Awards. If you turn to page 12, you can read all about the impending 2018 Awards and discover who’s been nominated. As always, it’s a pretty tough call. We start by going through the last 12 months of Prog magazines, listing down everyone who we think deserves a shout in each category. Then the hard work begins, trying to whittle those rather long lists down to just 10 final nominees. Then it’s over to you guys to vote for them and allow us to end up with one more than worthy winner. Every year the choice…

When I was a lad, the Eurovision Song Content was a must-watch TV special. That was when the top pop stars of the day from a small number of European countries mostly sang out of tune in front of a live audience. The winner was usually picked from the few who could sing in tune, and they were often British, such as Cliff Richard, Lulu, Bucks Fizz and Sandie Shaw. The songs were half-decent too, written by established songwriters with numerous hits under their belts, often making the winning song a huge hit all around the globe. Then it all changed. Loads of small European nations were invited to join in the fun and it finally got to the stage where there were more entries than ever and around 95…

Limelight IT’S NOT OFTEN an unknown, amateur musician whacks out a debut album featuring contributions and cameos from the likes of prog stalwarts Billy Sherwood, Oliver Wakeman and former Enid singer Joe Payne, but John Holden isn’t one to think small. The Cheshire-based multi-instrumentalist’s ‘don’t ask, don’t get’ motto paid off in style on his inaugural effort Capture Light, which blends together melodic, song-based prog rock with a total of 14 guest appearances spanning the likes of keyboards, drums, vocals and sax to mastering help from Cosmograf’s Robin Armstrong. “It was my wife’s fault, really,” smiles Holden. “I did a load of demos, and I thought they were sounding quite good, then I sent them to a chap called Rob Aubrey, who works a lot with Big Big Train, just…

Two thirds of people in Britain will suffer a mental health issue in their life and yet often the illness is hidden, the sufferer feels alone and the rest of the population can seem either dismissive, or wilfully ignorant. Birmingham symphonic prog collective IO Earth’s new album Solitude – a musical exploration of mental health and ability – was first born out of an encounter with an Alzheimer’s patient that was hard to ignore. “We did a video for a song called Insomnia [from 2015 album New World],” explains Dave Cureton, the band’s guitarist and, alongside pianist Adam Gough, its co-founder. “The video is about a daughter being killed, basically, but we needed a house where it could be set. Long story short, this guy lends us this old house…

L-1VE INSIDEOUT First live album (and DVD) from rising British proggers. Haken have held off from making a live album until now because the band were concerned about making sure the results were perfect. On the basis of L-1VE, they needn’t have worried – besides deft musicianship, theirs is an assured performance, and the audience clearly love it. Primarily showcasing tracks from 2016’s Affinity LP, the first two deviations from this are significant. In Memoriam from The Mountain has proven a live favourite for the band, with the dynamic transition between the opening piano motif and muscular lead riff one of the most exciting points of the set. Apart from anything else, it’s probably got the best single chorus hook, with the guitar parts providing atmospherics, downtuned riffs and frantic…

No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds COOKING VINYL A confusingly paced return for the ambient masters. Seventeen albums in and The Orb have invited the guests round. Joining Dr Alex Patterson at the controls are Youth, Roger Eno, bassists Jah Wobble and Guy Pratt, Holly Cook (daughter of Sex Pistol Paul) and more. And while the casual listener might assume this to be a bold ploy that will transport the listener to parts unknown, well, it isn’t. Keyboards wibble and squelch, motorcycles screech from speaker to speaker as if flying by at the Isle Of Man TT, trains rattle noisily over rails, water burbles, birds sing, gibbering voices fade in and out, and it’s very much back to business as usual. Great songtitles, plenty of sonic trickery, but business as…

The second album from Connecticut’s Mile Marker Zero justifies the buzz around singer Dave Alley and band in New England. Fitted with serious chops and a solid theme, The Fifth Row (Prog East) deals with the rise of artificial intelligence. It flicks Waters-like through TV news channels to set the mood and period, and it buzzes through dizzying, Berkeley-Set prog metal lines to push the message, with Spock’s Beard/Rush/Headspace song smarts in the mix too. It might run out of puff before the end of its 15-tracks, but it’s still a rich and engrossing concept album well worthy of your ears. Proggers Bram Stoker broke up in 1972 and reformed 30 years later, only to dissolve again like a vampire in sunlight. This left guitarist/songwriter Peter Ballam with a bunch…

Fact And Fiction – The Definitive Edition F2/FESTIVAL MUSIC Signature neo-prog landmark gets the treatment it deserves. When the likes of Yes and Genesis selected a more mainstream direction, the early 1980s saw a flurry of so-called neo-progressive bands emerge in the UK. With the benefit of most of four decades of hindsight, ultimately it was only Marillion who truly broke through into the major leagues. Bands such as Pallas, IQ and Pendragon all enjoyed varying but lesser degrees of success. However, as misfortune would have it, it was perhaps one of the most intriguing bands of that era, Twelfth Night, whose promise ultimately proved the least rewarded commercially. So far, 2018 has heralded a comparative glut of product for followers of Twelfth Night. Earlier this year, multi-instrumentalist Clive Mitten…

Where’s home? I’ve just moved to an old school building in Oudemolen, a village in the middle of nowhere in the Netherlands. It’s great for a recluse like me. Your first prog memory? Listening to Radio Caroline on a little transistor radio as a kid. There was a show called Superclean Dreammachine in the 70s – they played electronic stuff like Tangerine Dream. The first prog record you bought? An Electric Storm by White Noise. Delia Derbyshire’s on there, it came out in 1969, and it’s really groundbreaking and way ahead of its time. The Visitation is an incredible song. First prog gig? Supersister, in the early 70s. They were a Dutch, Canterbury-style band in the vein of Frank Zappa – lots of organ, flute and humour. They were pupils…

Vote Online at: www.loudersound.com/prog/ Prog news updated daily online! progmagazine.com LIMELIGHT (Last year’s winner – Beatrix Players) Awooga The Blackheart Orchestra Blanket Golden Caves I Am The Manic Whale IT Midas Fall Myrkur VLMV When Mary EVENT OF THE YEAR (Last year’s winner – Be Prog! My Friend) ArcTanGent Be Prog! My Friend Big Big Train Cadogan Hall Shows HMS Prog Keith Emerson: A Musical Celebration Marillion Royal Albert Hall Show Space Rocks Steven Wilson Royal Albert Hall Shows Trinity III Yes Fans’ 50th Convention VIDEO OF THE YEAR (Last year’s winner – King Crimson – Heroes) Amplifier – Kosmos Gazpacho – Exit Suite Orphaned Land – Like Orpheus Perfect Beings – Vibrational: Mysteries, Not Answers PFM – The Lesson TesseracT – King The Paradox Twin – Planeta Toundra –…

Mike Vennart admits he doesn’t quite have a full explanation for calling his second Vennart album To Cure A Blizzard Upon A Plastic Sea, but he gives it a bash for Prog. “The overarching theme is madness,” he says. “To Cure A Blizzard… is about mindfulness, the fine line between controlling your agitation and the ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach. The second half comes from the song Immortal Soldiers. I thought it was an alluring set of images.” Vennart tells us that his obsession with the Cardiacs means Tim Smith’s “mucky paw prints are all over it”. Recommending the track Immortal Soldiers as a good summary, he says: “It’s been nice to break out of the traditional poppy trick. You don’t know what chord’s coming next, you don’t know where the…

Limelight “I REMEMBER LIFTING the coffin in the church and thinking, ‘This is just so wrong, to be carrying a young child like this,’ and it made me feel the need to write something to come to terms with that feeling,” explains heavy-hearted God Is An Astronaut frontman Torsten Kinsella. Irish three-piece God Is An Astronaut recently released their ninth album Epitaph. Upon hearing the tragic news of the passing of their seven-year-old cousin, brothers Torsten and Niels shelved all of the musical material they had been working on so far and used the tragic event as sole inspiration for the album. “Music began to make sense again, because music is something therapeutic for my brother and I,” Torsten explains. “To come to terms with an event like this, music…

May 2018 Compiled by 1 A PERFECT CIRCLE Eat The Elephant (BMG) 2 TESSERACT Sonder (KSCOPE) 3 RADIOHEAD OK Computer (XL RECORDINGS) 4 TAME IMPALA Currents (FICTION) 5 ROXY MUSIC Roxy Music (VIRGIN) 6 KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD Gumboot Soup (HEAVENLY) 7 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING Every Valley (PLAY IT AGAIN SAM) 8 JETHRO TULL Heavy Horses (RHINO) 9 IHSAHN Ámr (CANDLELIGHT) 10 BRIAN ENO Music For Installations (UMC) 11 SIGUR RÓS Route One (XL RECORDINGS) 12 GOAT Double Date – OST (ROCKET) 13 WIRE Nine Sevens (PINK FLAG) 14 MASTODON Emperor Of Sand (REPRISE) 15 THE MOODY BLUES Days Of Future Passed (DECCA) 16 ROGER WATERS Is This The Life We Really Want? (COLUMBIA) 17 JEFF LYNNE’S ELO Wembley Or Bust (RCA) 18 SIGUR RÓS Liminal Remixes (XL…

“When I was 13, I was sent off to a boarding school in Berkshire called Wellington College, where I discovered prog. We all had record players and a record shop nearby, in Crowthorne. We’d be pondering which Sinclair amp to buy and spend hours going through hi-fi magazines trying to find the best deck. We listened to Elton John, Alice Cooper and everything else from the time, but for many of us, Genesis were the band. At first I got into Trespass – I loved the lyrics, and the references to classical mythology. Somehow it got a hook into me and caught my soul. But above all, Genesis were public schoolboys and I was a public schoolboy. This was a strong case of self-identification. I thought, ‘Wow, I can understand…

ROINE STOLT Guitarist/vocalist and keyboard player Stolt formed The Flower Kings in 1994, and has released 12 albums with that band. He’s also recognised for his work with the supergroup Transatlantic, in which he plays alongside Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse and Pete Trewavas. They have released four studio albums to date. His discography also includes work with Kaipa, The Tangent and, more recently, with Yes legend Jon Anderson on their well-received Anderson/Stolt project. JONAS REINGOLD One of Roine Stolt’s closest musical collaborators, Reingold worked with Stolt in Kaipa before the two reconnected when the bassist joined The Flower Kings in 2000. He’s also performed on countless albums, including working with Karmakanic, Agents Of Mercy and Nad Sylvan. His talents also extend to working as a producer, most recently on The…

“One great cliché about Finland is that there’s not a lot else to do during all those dark months. You can’t deny the effect of living somewhere where it’s really dark for six months and then really light and sunny for six months. It’s a schizophrenic existence. In winter, the weather is really shitty so all you can do is stay at home and write songs…” – Janne Perttilä Stranded in some godforsaken snowdrift in the middle of winter, Barren Earth were at least able to occupy themselves with the task of creating their fourth studio album. After celebrating their tenth anniversary last year, they hit the studio to compose the follow-up to 2015’s On Lonely Towers and, not entirely surprisingly, the now emerging results are a little downbeat. A Complex…

When Piotr Grudzin´ski died, Riverside’s future looked uncertain. The remaining members – Mariusz Duda, drummer Piotr Kozieradzki and keyboard player Michał Łapaj – cancelled their outstanding tour and took some time out to grieve. After months of deliberation, the Polish proggers decided they would continue as a trio and pushed ahead with plans to release the ‘complementary’ ambient album Eye Of The Soundscape in September 2016. After a string of live shows, they’re back in the studio working on the official follow-up to 2015’s Love, Fear And The Time Machine. “The theme is post-apocalyptic,” reveals Duda. “I thought it was a nice metaphor because in a way, Riverside’s world ended when Piotr died so now we’re rebuilding everything. It will be slower, darker, more intense and heavier than the previous…

FRIDAY JUNE 29 5.15pm – 6pm Persefone 6.30pm – 7.40pm Baroness 8.10pm – 9.50pm Pain Of Salvation 10.35pm – 12.20am A Perfect Circle 12.50am – 2am Oranssi Pazuzu SATURDAY JUNE 30 5.15pm – 6pm Plini 6.30pm – 7.50pm Gazpacho 8.20pm – 9.50pm Sons Of Apollo 10.30pm – 12.20am Steve Hackett 12.50pm – 2am Burst TICKETS: Weekend tickets cost €130 in advance or €140 on the door. Day tickets are available from €75 in advance. Bringing kids? Under-13s are eligible for discounted advance tickets and there’s free entry for children under five. LOCATION: The festival takes place in the central courtyard of Poble Espanyol, Av Francesc Ferrer i Guardia, 13, 08038, Barcelona, Spain. It’s about 30 minutes on foot from Las Ramblas and easy to access via public transport. TRAVEL: The…

Suite For Piano And Electronics BAD ELEPHANT Solo debut from Sanguine Hum keyboards man. Marrying classical piano with murmuring electronica, Matt Baber’s solo sojourn is a world away from the panoramic landscapes of Sanguine Hum. His keyboard playing for that Oxford-based band has adorned epic, florid songs about a future Earth in which energy is created by fusing the power of cats always landing the right way up with the power of buttered toast always landing face down. (This was achieved, on their 2015 album Now We Have Light, by buttering cats.) It’s fair to say Suite For Piano And Electronics, which does what it says on the tin, is less spectacular. Instead it focuses on a sharp, minimal approach to merging the time-honoured with the contemporary. The results are subtle…

When an artist cites 1950s beat poetry, the Italian twilight movement Crepuscolari and Hermeticism philosophy among her influences, she’s likely to be building it into music of ethereal allure. So it is on Emma Tricca’s St. Peter (Dell’Orso), her first release since 2014’s Relic and the result of her wanderings in Europe and New York. The end result is heightened by her embrace of sounds both acoustic and electric, and her vulnerably real voice. It’s also an album with a notable guest list, including Howe Gelb, Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, the Dream Syndicate’s Jason Victor and, on the mystical, spoken-word Solomon Said, no less of a forebear than Judy Collins. The dramatic chords and cantering fuzz guitar of The Unbroken Circle, the opening track on All That Remains (Cardinal Fuzz)…

Further evidence that the UK is leading the way for mad-eyed, progressive doom, Brighton crew King Goat’s colossal second album Debt Of Aeons (Aural Music) is an absolute feast of skewed riffs, brooding heaviness and wild melodic ideas. Vocalist Trim has a commanding, hellfire preacher baritone that imbues even the most deranged moments with authority. The operatic crescendo midway through Eremite’s Rest is almost indecently thrilling, and closer On Dusty Avenues gives Boss Keloid a run for their money in the psycho-deli-doom stakes. Similarly inclined towards the business end of the artistic bong, Morag Tong are less precise and audibly more heavily medicated than King Goat: new album Last Knell Of Om (self-released) is a shimmering barrage of blitzed-out space blues, replete with persistent but ephemeral nods to Floyd and…

Grand Hotel ESOTERIC No reservations required with sixth studio album. One of the byproducts of Gary Brooker’s eclectic writing was that Procol Harum were never going to find it easy to meet the expectations that were set in motion following the phenomenal worldwide success of A Whiter Shade Of Pale. The further away the band drifted from that lachrymose vamp on Bach, the more their commercial star dimmed. That their albums were in fact filled with intriguing meditations and sparkling gems mattered little to the general public. The cohesion across the album’s entirety is tangible. Though adored by their hardcore fanbase, in the fast-changing world of the late 60s and early 70s they sometimes seemed like a band stranded, trapped in the cloying amber of their initial celebrity – too…

Live At Rockpalast MIG Superb live document of VdGG’s triumphant 2005 return. The announcement in 2005 that Van der Graaf Generator had reformed and were to both release a new album and perform live for the first time in 27 years was met by the faithful with a delirious combination of disbelief and wonderment. Any doubts about whether VdGG still ‘had it’ were blown away as soon as the classic line-up of Hammill, Jackson, Banton and Evans took to the stage of the Royal Festival Hall in May of that year – it was an intense and emotional experience for both band and audience. Van der Graaf Generator – Live At Rockpalast captures them in November 2005 (on the night of Peter Hammill’s 57th birthday, no less) playing the Jazzfestival…

It’s a celebratory situation here tonight, as Barclay James Harvest mark an amazing 50th anniversary. Only John Lees remains from the golden period of the 70s and 80s, when this band were unquestionably walking the line between progressive inclinations and melodic demands. And while the romantics among us might have wished to see Les Holroyd, the only other surviving member of that era, here tonight, in truth it was never going to happen – the bad blood still runs deep. However, there’s an exhibition staged at the venue to delight the diehards gathered, and the current incarnation of the band do a heroic job in capturing the spirit that has been prevalent across those five decades. The atmosphere is so laden with nostalgia and goodwill that everyone simply wants to…

There’s a nice irony here. When The Final Cut, the last album Nick Mason drummed on with Roger Waters, reached No.1 in the UK album charts in April 1983, Spandau Ballet were occupying the top spot in the singles chart with their hit ballad True. And yet you can probably imagine that neither Mason nor Spandau’s Gary Kemp would have thought back then that they’d ever share a stage in the same band, and certainly not 35 years down the line. It didn’t take long after the announcement of the line-up for Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets for fans to swiftly decry Kemp’s contribution before hearing a note. Speculation was also rife over what to expect at tonight’s concert at a packed and very hot Dingwalls – pre-Dark Side Of…

If you’re looking for an appropriate visual metaphor to sum up the magic of the inaugural Space Rocks festival, it comes right at the end. As Lonely Robot’s Sigma clambers towards a climax, someone wanders onstage in full spaceman clobber, holding a single red balloon. He stands next to frontman John Mitchell and releases it, and the pair watch as it climbs slowly towards the ceiling. It’s the final act of the night: the musician and the astronaut, side by side, gazing up towards the heavens. Organised in conjunction with the European Space Agency, Space Rocks’ stated aim is to celebrate “space exploration and the art, music and culture it inspires”, and The Indigo is dressed appropriately. There’s a quarter-scale model of the Rosetta space probe dangling from the ceiling,…

Camden Town might be thronging with bearded stoners – Desertfest is in full swing outside – but it’s a different story as Liverpudlian trio Exploring Birdsong take the stage at The Assembly, where there’s enough room in a sparse audience to swing several cats. For a band who’ve travelled 200 miles to be here (“Two toilet breaks!” says singer Lynsey Ward, helpfully), this must be something of a disappointment. They don’t let it show, though, and the real losers are those who don’t show up to support the support. Exploring Birdsong are superb. A trio with an enterprising bass/drums/twin keyboard configuration, they sit somewhere in between the neoclassical whimsy of iamthemorning and Steven Wilson’s more bombastic moments, and the closing The Downpour finds Ward’s excellent voice cartwheeling towards a climax.…

In January 2015, Edgar Froese “changed his cosmic address”. The founder and fulcrum of electronica empire Tangerine Dream gave his wife and manager Bianca his blessing to keep the torch burning, with Thorsten Quaeschning at the helm. Fifty-one years since they formed, and with a discography that lists over 150 albums, it’s quite a legacy. There’s a faction among long-term fans who think this incarnation should play under the name Tangerine Dream Legacy: that without Froese it’s not the real thing. The counter argument is that this project was never about personalities, and the 2017 album Quantum Gate, showcased tonight, was based on pieces written and conceived by Froese, who was keen for the current trio to bring it to fruition. If any reservations flicker early in the evening, they’re…

Their show may have been moved at the last minute from the larger neighbouring Dome, but after over 30 years at the prog coalface, Jadis aren’t about to let a minor inconvenience like that throw them off their stride. A threedate UK mini-tour, nominally in honour of the 25th anniversary of the More Than Meets The Eye album, is their first in “a long time”, and climaxes here in a two-hour show. Said album, produced by Marillion’s Steve Rothery, remains one of the minor classics of the neo-prog era, and selections from it tonight win raucous approval. The Southampton-based quartet are led by talented singer/guitarist Gary Chandler, whose playing is beyond impressive. His dexterity is matched by bassist Andy Marlow, drummer Steve Christey and, on keyboards, Martin Orford, who also…

follow us on twitter.com/progmagazineUK CHARLOTTE HATHERLEY @CHatherley79 Taken my OB-6 on holiday to Cannes. Gotta look after my little buddy. Rooftop gig with Nakhane tonight-ahhhhh! RICK WAKEMAN @GrumpyOldRick The news always seems so depressing in the morning. Hard to start the day with a smile on your face when there’s so much bad stuff going on in the world. The toilet’s blocked as well. NICK BEGGS @NickBeggs Steven and I enjoying a fruit fancy in Guadalajara MARIUSZ DUDA @Marivsz_Riv I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m playing the guitar on the new @riversidepl album :) “Waste7and” is going to be a really accomplished one. It combines the emotional character of the first two and the production maturity of the latest two releases. And yes – I love this game…

STYLOCARD A few years ago there was a fad among ultra-geeky types for business cards that doubled as printed circuit boards (or vice versa). However, as inventor and musician Tim Jacobs noted, most of them were pointless, so he endeavoured to create one that had “some kind of token utility”. The result was the StyloCard, a scaled-down, 1mm-thick version of the 1970s instrument which you play with a crocodile clip. Connect it via USB to a computer, fire up your favourite sound generating program and revel in your new-found technological miniaturism. www.mitxela.com CABOT We’ve all found ourselves in that awful scenario where our cajon player suddenly goes AWOL and we’re left with a cajon with no one to hit it. Nightmare, right? This device, conceived and built in Kyoto, solves…

“I started cooking very young, making simple stuff for my parents on the weekends. They let me experiment and I really got into it when I left home. Then I’d have friends over and I’d cook for them. Now I love cooking for my family – I do it a lot.” Ingredients (makes 2 big pizzas) 1.5kg plum tomatoes, handful of parsley and basil, ½ garlic bulb, 1 small carrot, olive oil, 1 celery stalk, 1 semi-hot chilli, 50g dry yeast, 3 cups flour, 3 cups water, 3 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, rocket, 500g mozzarella balls, 200g Parma ham, white truffle oil to taste. Preparation “Put the flour in a bowl with 2 tsp salt and the yeast. Mix lightly. Combine 1 cup of freshly boiled water with 2…

In 1973, Alan Aldridge and William Plomer published a picture book titled The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper’s Feast that was based on a 19th-century poem of the same name by William Roscoe. On the surface, it seemed unlikely to stir any conceptual inspiration from a former Deep Purple member but, as Roger Glover now recalls, it did just that. “I’d seen a four- or five-page spread from the book in the colour supplement of a Sunday newspaper and thought then it looked a bit lively. Then in 1973, after I had left Purple, I went into our management’s office one day and saw the book on a table there. And at that point I was asked if I fancied doing an album based on it!” Although the initial idea…

With several children, I spend considerable time providing a taxi service: school runs, activities, parties etc. Predictably this entails regular battles over control of the car stereo. Frequently the wonders of progressive rock lose out to London’s Capital and Kiss radio stations. Much of commercial radio revolves principally around the pop singles du jour. As such – and readily acknowledging that beauty is in the ear of the beholder – while driving I’m treated to a diet of monotonous dross, a bland musical formula with endlessly banal lyrics. So is there a place for singles in prog? Historically in the 1970s there were some hugely successful prog singles. Greg Lake reached number two in the UK singles chart in 1975 with the timeless, bittersweet ballad I Believe In Father Christmas.…

Best known for his time in Miles Davis’ Tutu-era band, Adam Holzman has also been Steven Wilson’s keyboard player of choice since 2012. He’s just released a new solo album, Truth Decay, that mixes songs and instrumental music, and features contributions from Nick Beggs, Craig Blundell, Theo Travis and others. Holzman is a prodigious talent who feels equally at home with jazz, prog, psychedelic pop and electronic music. “That’s where I live, man. I grew up loving rock and progressive rock when I was in high school.” When Prog caught up with Holzman to talk about his latest release, he was in Toronto, Canada, on the latest leg of Wilson’s To The Bone tour. What would you normally be doing right now on tour if you weren’t talking to Prog? Because…

“Great band. I enjoy their stuff and have seen them live a couple of times. Varied instrumentation and lyrically intelligent. Not old school prog, but definitely more complex than most mainstream bands.” Chris Walters “I can take or leave most of their works, but I can't go past The Mariner's Revenge Song and The Crane Wife: All Parts.” Cheyny Tacos McGee “Great band who touched on prog a couple times earlier in their career, most notably their 2009 concept album release The Hazards Of Love. Unfortunately they’ve abandoned any experimental song structure and have gone more towards traditional indie pop.” Paul Franzosa “Decemberists are great. And, for a while at least, they were quite prog, especially The Tain and The Island. And then there’s Hazards Of Love, one of the…

Curse Of The Red River (Curse Of The Red River, 2010) Slithering from the shadows like some lost King Crimson ritual, the opening track on the first Barren Earth album sets out the Finns’ stall with lashings of imperious menace. Although rooted in the growling crunch of death metal, the influence of prog’s darker exponents (not to mention Opeth and Led Zeppelin) is hearteningly apparent. As It Is Written (The Devil’s Resolve, 2012) Grandiose, muscular and fuelled by the spiralling melodies of Finnish folk music, this glacial paean to the dark side wears its debt to traditional heavy metal with pride, but there’s a Katatonia-like level of melodic and structural invention going on too. Extra prog points for that mellifluous mid-song piano breakdown. The Vault (On Lonely Towers, 2015) The…

Having contributed their musical talents to some of the most revered and groundbreaking prog albums of them all, David Cross and David Jackson will require little introduction to most Prog readers. The violinist’s membership of King Crimson during the Larks’ Tongues In Aspic and Starless And Bible Black era and the saxophonist’s integral position within arguably the classic Van der Graaf Generator line-up mean that both are highly significant figures with legacies and reputations to match. As a result, the release of new collaborative album Another Day is certain to pique the interest of the prog hordes. A rambling but subtly focused exercise in semi-improvised prog abandon, it teams the duo with bassist Mick Paul (David Cross Band) and drummer Craig Blundell (Steven Wilson) across 57 minutes of vibrant but…

Klaus Schulze is one of the chief architects of electronic music. Having been an early member of two of Germany’s most influential avant-gardists – Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel – he embarked on a solo career that’s since yielded dozens of albums and a dizzying array of collaborations. His meandering soundscapes and ambient drones have helped shape the course of experimental music over five decades, his restless creativity showing few signs of letting up. Born in post-war Berlin, Schulze began as a guitarist switching to drums in Psy Free before bumping into fellow traveller Edgar Froese at the Zodiac Free Arts Lab in 1969. Froese duly invited him to join Tangerine Dream, forming the nucleus of the line-up (along with Conrad Schnitzler) that released debut LP Electronic Meditation a…

What We Did On Our Saturday MATTY GROVES Double CD of the 50th-anniversary show at Cropredy 2017. Fairport Convention are still making new albums – 2017’s 50:50@50 is a fine set – but if they spend a bit more time curating their legacy at the annual Cropredy Festival and repackaging it via live albums and DVDs, rather than knocking out new releases, no one’s going to begrudge them that. Especially when their anniversary present to the world is a career-spanning set of this quality. Much welling up, waving of arms and singing along. The group’s mix of folk and folk-influenced originals now sounds oddly timeless and ageless. A cast of guests, and Fairporters past and present, sing and play with great brio throughout. A cover of Richard Farina’s Reno Nevada…

No Need To Reason SEASON OF MIST Third instalment of heavy mood music from Reykjavik Funny old things, genres. While prog is one of relatively few genres whose musicians regard it as a community and a proud tradition rather than a restricting pigeonhole, such labels are always going to be in the ear of the beholder. So if you listened blind to this Icelandic quintet’s third album, didn’t look at the iTunes category describing it as ‘prog, black post-metal’, you could quite naturally respond with different descriptions, such as ‘stadium goth’, ‘post-punk noir’, and even ‘Interpol on steroids’. It thumps you in the gut on an instinctive, emotional level. Whatever musical camp you think Kontinuum are coming from, the title No Need To Reason rings true: the opening bars thump…

The Sea Within INSIDEOUT Supergroup is sum of its parts and then some. Listening back to this double disc extravaganza, you quickly realise that there probably wasn’t a single moment when someone wandered into the rehearsal room or recording studio and suggested that perhaps it was all a bit much. Two discs and a band line-up that reads like the festival headline bill of some esoteric gig in the French countryside means that The Sea Within was never going to be an exercise in restraint. Any sort of real constraint was probably never an option for a band that features members of The Aristocrats, Karmakanic, The Flower Kings, Pain Of Salvation and Flying Colors. The Sea Within is the sound of a band getting carried away. It’s an unlikely phrase…

Rainbow Chaser: The 1960s Recordings (The Island Years) UMC/ISLAND 60s outfit’s first two proto-prog albums, now vastly expanded. In the closing months of 1967, it was a close race between The Moody Blues and the Pretty Things as both looked to release rock’s first fully fledged concept album. Coming up on the outside, unknown Island Records songwriting duo Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos, trading as Nirvana, pipped everyone to the post that October with The Story Of Simon Simopath after releasing just one earlier single. It boasts obvious songwriting chops and prog elements. Although the luscious gatefold sleeve and liner story about a bullied boy who wished he could fly promised an escapism masterpiece, the Science Fiction Pantomime subtitle betrayed the childlike confections within: more West End musical than anything…

FRIDAY A good indication of any music scene’s health is to see how things are faring at a grass-roots level. There is an argument to be had that Summer’s End and Winter’s End founders Stephen Lambe and Huw Lloyd-Jones are more movers and shakers in the prog world than that. However, the fact that this is only the second Winter’s End festival (the original, much smaller event took place in Stroud in 2010) yet it still manages to draw an internationally acclaimed line-up and healthy crowds suggests that prog remains a flourishing genre. There’s plenty flourishing about the bands on display over the three days as well. And there’s plenty of zip about openers HeKz, especially after they play their opener, new song Quetzalcoatl, and you half expect singer/bassist Matt…

There are those singing, songwriterly types for whom one persistent and onerous task is to persuade audiences to shut their collective pie-traps during a show. The debate about whether or not people should be conducting boisterous conversations when quiet music is being played will probably go on forever, of course, but judging by tonight’s performance – or indeed, any of his shows – Peter Hammill has no such worries. After an initial rush of applause as he takes his seat at the piano, the entire gig is conducted in a haze of awed reverence. Maybe it’s the sheer emotional might of these wild, wayward songs, or perhaps it’s the self-evident truth that Hammill is plainly and truly possessed by his music (or it could be vice versa). Either way, as…

Jovial instrumentalists The Fierce And The Dead have enjoyed some landmark gigs, including slots at Ramblin’ Man, Summer’s End and RosFest, but while the sweaty climes of Camden’s The Black Heart barely leave room for a leg stretch, this celebratory big splash for their third album The Euphoric feels like a very big deal. The expectation of watching the live unveiling of tracks that, on record, signal the brilliant maturation of this Northampton four-piece has put their followers in the best of moods. Comic book artist Mark Buckingham, the talent behind The Euphoric’s stunning retro-futuristic artwork, warms up the crowd with a theatrical amuse-bouche, trailing twinkling lights over his suit, which is decorated by jigsaw puzzle shapes. “This is my first ever gig,” he grins, before ending his show with…

The prog charity event of the year, Trinity has moved from the Leamington Assembly Hall to Islington for its final stand. Last-minute replacements Jennifer Rothery and Riccardo Romano are low-key openers but fill the hall with soaring vocals and stately keyboards on a collection of songs from the former’s forthcoming EP and the latter’s B612 album. Last Flight To Pluto are working on their second album of commercial rock stretched to prog-friendly lengths by superlative soloing, and today’s set shows they’re on the right track if the people dancing in the crowd are the judge. Once their frontman has finished starching his cuffs, Ghost Community take us back to the heyday of neo prog. In an exuberant set finishing with a singalong, NWOBHM-tinged riffs are backed by keyboards guaranteed to…

They don’t say much, but then again, they don’t have to. This Spanish instrumental quartet don’t even bother with vocal mics on stage, and with the support band having dropped out, they get down to business nice and early with a stage lit blue, with a star cloth behind them. It’s all they need, because within moments they’ve claimed the room’s attention with blistering overview-introductory piece Cobra and follow-up Tuareg, both from latest album Vortex. They’ve moved on from calling their albums I, II, III and IV, and have also (it’s relieving to report) moved on from spinning complex concepts about foxes escaping from forest fires to try to explain their music. Instead, they sell you their ideas with a new confidence and an open-handed attitude. They appear more comfortable…

The three-day Desertfest comes to a close tonight with Monster Magnet headlining The Roundhouse. Before them, Hawkwind perform a festival set in front of a mainly stoner rock and metal crowd. There are plenty of Hawkwind T-shirts on display, of course. Many wearers will have been at the band’s 2017 headline show in this venue, but seeing the pioneers of space rock wow a nonpartisan audience is an intriguing prospect. They begin well with the evergreen Sonic Attack. Bassist-turned-vocalist Mr. Dibs terrorises the throng with Michael Moorcock’s nightmarish public service announcement, which is delivered through a megaphone while apocalyptic visuals thrust the warning home. This seamlessly segues into the similarly prescient Damnation Alley and the juggernaut sets off. That relentless riff and driving groove reveal a leaner, meaner machine than…

After a year off, the ‘IO EARTH Extravaganza’ once again hits the band’s home turf of Birmingham. The programme this time includes a ‘by request’ set, followed later by the first public performance of their latest album Solitude in its entirety. It’s a tempting menu, but first we have a starter to deal with, in the shape of singer/raconteur Dave Onions, following the withdrawal of original support Telescope Road. While his rootsy, blues-influenced style is far from prog, the crowd nonetheless respond favourably to his highly entertaining and dextrous set. After a short break, it is time for the first instalment of this IO Earth double show. Selected by fans, the set opens with the title track of the New World album, and two things are immediately evident. Firstly, there’s…

TesseracT’s 2011 debut album One saw the British quintet establishing themselves as a leading force in modern atmospheric djent. Melding soaring melodies, pensive wording and angelic singing with fierce guitar riffs and abrasive rhythms, the band consistently create dynamic and emotional aural journeys that few contemporaries can rival. Intrinsically, then, their live performances are even more engrossing, as this show promoting their fourth studio LP, Sonder, demonstrates. Boston’s self-described ‘dream thrash’ five-piece Astronoid are the opening act, and channel the aggressive falsettos and/or transcendental intricacies of Circa Survive, Coheed And Cambria, Alcest, Devin Townsend and Cynic. Tracks like Up And Atom and Tin Foil Hats certainly provide plenty of sophisticated compositional shifts and wistful timbres. That said, their selections bleed together quickly and grow tiresome because they’re so unvaried, making…