Table of contents for Issue 125 in Prog

Ed’s Letter

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog. There have been many highlights in the 50-year career of prog legends Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Their second ever gig at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival, perhaps? Or their 1973 album, Brain Salad Surgery, which catapulted the band to new commercial highs. For many though, I suspect it’ll be 1971’s Tarkus, especially the bombastic sidelong title track, which set in stone the band’s uninhibited musical intentions in no uncertain terms. As Tarkus celebrates its 50th anniversary, we look at the making of the album, and discuss the new ELP book and box set with surviving member Carl Palmer. As the year end rapidly approaches, it’s time to take stock of the last 12 months. It was a strange hybrid of lockdown and easing of restrictions, but…

Ed’s Letter

LETTER

I find myself writing as I feel as if I’ve just discovered gold and need to tell someone. I’ve known of Rob Reed from Magenta for a while now and, while quite liking their stuff, never got over-excited. However, your Prog CD reviews introduced me to Chimpan A a while back and more recently the reworked Cyan For King And Country album which completely blew me away. From there I have discovered the spellbinding Kompendium album, Beneath The Waves, a musical tour de force composed by Reed. The man is a prolific prog genius and I thank you for facilitating such a wonderful discovery! As a silver-haired muso who’s played in several bands over the years, your publication has opened up many new doors of adventure as well as celebrating…

LETTER

MARILLION’S UPCOMING ALBUM GETS ARTWORK

Marillion have introduced their fans to the artwork for their upcoming new album, their 20th studio release. An Hour Before It’s Dark is due for release in late February/early March next year on earMUSIC, and its striking cover has been designed by Simon Ward. He’s worked with the band regularly on their artwork and design since 2007, and created the cover for – among others – 2012’s The Sounds That Can’t Be Made and their previous studio album, 2016’s FEAR. Marillion recently confirmed that the album will feature the songs Be Hard On Yourself, Murder Machines, Reprogram The Gene, The Crow And The Nightingale, Sierra Leone and Care. The band have been on their The Light At The End Of The Tunnel UK tour across November, during which they’ve been…

MARILLION’S UPCOMING ALBUM GETS ARTWORK

LAST FLIGHT TO PLUTO’S ‘ACCESSIBLE’ THIRD ALBUM

LAST FLIGHT TO PLUTO’S ‘ACCESSIBLE’ THIRD ALBUM

Last Flight To Pluto will release their third album, Random Karma, Fate And Destiny, in early 2022. The follow-up to 2019’s A Drop In The Ocean finds the band reining in their more epic approach. “There was a conscious decision to shorten the songs,” says drummer Darren Joseph, “because Alice [Freya, singer/guitarist] has such a great voice and in the past there’d be these sections where she was doing nothing. It’s still jam-packed with goodness, but condensed and more accessible.” The first single, Stay Out Of My Head, is due in January. “It’s basically a broken-hearted song rocked up,” says Freya, “for when you’ve had enough of someone being in your head, even though they’re not there.” Freya and Phillips are joined on the album by longtime guitarists Jack Parry…

MAGENTA PAY TRIBUTE TO LATE FAN WITH NEW EP

MAGENTA PAY TRIBUTE TO LATE FAN WITH NEW EP

Released on December 10, Magenta’s new EP, Songs From The Big Room, is dedicated to a loyal fan who remembered the band in his will. A regular presence at the Welsh proggers’ shows, Andy Goodall passed away in January 2020. “We were so sad when we heard Andy had died,” says singer Christina Booth. “Then a few months later we got a letter from his solicitors to say he had left us money ‘to allow Magenta to carry on making music’. It was a lovely thing for him to have done, it was really humbling.” Recorded over three days in August at Real World Studios, the six-track EP features three new songs – Too Many Voices, Because and Breaking Point, with two mixes of each. “We had rough demos,” Booth…

PROG IN BRIEF

Symphony X’s guitarist Michael Romeo (right) releases his new album, War Of The Worlds, Part II, on February 4. Featuring Croatian singer Dino Jelusick, the follow-up to 2018’s …Part I will be the first release under his new deal with InsideOut. Out now on the Panegyric label, Music Is Our Friend is the official bootleg of King Crimson’s September show at The Anthem in Washington DC. The double-CD set also includes four tracks recorded at their recent concert in Albany, New York. Krautrock pioneers Popol Vuh release a new vinyl box set on November 26 via BMG Records. Vol 2 – Acoustic & Ambient Spheres brings together the important works Seligpreisung, Coeur de Verre, Agape-Agape Love-Love and Cobra Verde.…

PROG IN BRIEF

NYTT LAND

NYTT LAND

Siberia is home to Anatoly ‘Shaman’ Pakhalenko and his wife Natasha ‘Baba Yaga’, who together make up heavy ambient folk duo Nytt Land. It’s also the place from which they take most inspiration. The multi-instrumentalists’ seventh album, Ritual, emerged in August. It’s the latest entry in a deep musical project that is, in part, an attempt to keep ancient Russian and Nordic culture alive. “In our music,” says Pakhalenko, “there are things that preserve its peculiarity and uniqueness, and if we abandon them, nothing will remain. But since Siberia is inhabited by people from all over the world, just imagine how rich our cultural traditions are!” The pair – who are joined by friends and session musicians when required – knew it would be a struggle to find their place…

US, THEM & YOU

US, THEM & YOU

The prog top 30 albums October 2021 Compiled by 1 YES The Quest (INSIDEOUT) 2 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING Bright Magic (PIAS) 3 GENESIS The Last Domino? – The Hits (UMC/VIRGIN) 4 DREAM THEATER A View From The Top Of The World (INSIDEOUT) 5 CARAVAN It’s None Of Your Business (MADFISH) 6 THE PINEAPPLE THIEF Nothing But The Truth (KSCOPE) 7 MOGWAI As The Love Continues (ROCK ACTION) 8 POND 9 (SPINNING TOP) 9 FAUST 1971-1974 (BUREAU B) 10 HAWKWIND Somnia (CHERRY RED) 11 STEVE HACKETT Surrender Of Silence (INSIDEOUT) 12 MOSTLY AUTUMN Graveyard Star (MOSTLY AUTUMN RECORDS) 13 VANGELIS Juno To Jupiter (DECCA) 14 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Welcome To The Other Side (SONY) 15 BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME Colors II (SUMERIAN) 16 PINK FLOYD A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (RHINO)…

MALCOLM DOME

MALCOLM DOME

Music writer Malcolm Dome passed away in October 2021, aged 66. He had been a contributor to Prog since the magazine’s inception in 2009, as well as a longtime friend of most of the writers on the magazine. Malcolm had an illustrious and celebrated career, which stretched back to working for Record Mirror in the late 70s and Metal Fury poster magazine in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981 and co-authored with Brian Harrigan, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Malcolm is also credited with inventing the term ‘thrash metal’ while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. He would also go on to…

Eruption! Tarkus In Their Own Words

Eruption! Tarkus In Their Own Words

“Tarkus is a challenging piece of music, but timeless.”Keith Emerson ELP’s journey to Tarkus was brief by many bands’ standards, but it was no less dramatic. Its creation was fraught with arguments that very nearly ended the trio’s career, yet it was through dedication and a shared vision that the ambitious work finally reached a rewarding end. Emerson, Lake & Palmer recall the making of an album that transformed them from one-hit wonders to leading lights of the progressive rock world, and set them on the path to super-stardom. KEITH: At first, Greg was not sure about the beginning of Tarkus. After all, it was weird, and it used a 5/4 time signature. Carl had wanted to record something in 5/4, so I had that in mind when I was…

One Summer Dream

One Summer Dream

“It’s been a ballache,” sighs Huw Lloyd-Jones, singer with Also Eden and one half of the longtime organisational team behind the UK’s much-loved prog festival, Summer’s End. “We lost every single overseas band, with the exception of one. We even lost UK-based bands who had members who lived overseas.” While the return of Summer’s End Progressive Rock Festival to the gig calendar has given its organisers some relief, it’s safe to say holding a festival against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic has also given them a whole new heap of organisational headaches. “I think the single biggest difficulty is we haven’t known what’s happening,” explains Lloyd-Jones. “Day to day, we haven’t known what the rules are going to be. Until a couple months ago we didn’t even know if…

Turning Grief To Medicine

Turning Grief To Medicine

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Mastodon have had the perfect rock’n’roll journey. By the time the Atlanta quartet released their debut album, 2002’s Remission, the underground music scene was already aflame with anticipation. Their prog-inspired twist on the sludge of High On Fire and Neurosis enthralled live audiences from the word go; it had even earned them a deal with Relapse Records, one-time home to avant-garde superstars Baroness, Amorphis and The Dillinger Escape Plan. When follow-up Leviathan splashed in 2004, the band were instantly made men. Its progressive metal rampage was as brutal as it was forward-thinking. For every pulse-pounding, bullheaded riff (see: Blood And Thunder and Iron Tusk), there was an incalculable risk: the 13-minute behemoth Hearts Alive, twanging guitars honouring Mastodon’s Deep South roots; an album-long theme…

Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper

“I sit around and I fiddle with sounds. Once I have a sound that I like, that will guide a progression or a melody, and from there it can go pretty quick.” What began as an exercise described as “noodling” by White Willow and The Opium Cartel mastermind Jacob Holm-Lupo is served up as something much more substantial on his mostly instrumental new album, Hesitant Light. He started using the title Donner – the German word for thunder, although he doesn’t mind if you think of late-night Greek food or the recently-passed American movie director – to release his noodlings as a form of synth sound sketches. Finding that each piece of new old gear brought with it a mercurial level of inspiration, however, the project quickly became something much…

MULTIMEDIA

1 ZAPPA ALEX WINTER (MAGNOLIA PICTURES) 2 MEDICAL GRADE MUSIC STEVE DAVIS & KAVUS TORABI (WHITE RABBIT) 3 ART OF RUSH HUGH SYME (IDW PUBLISHING) 4 IMAGES FROM A LIFE ON THE ROAD TONY LEVIN (TONYLEVIN.COM) 5 GENESIS 1975-2021: THE PHIL COLLINS YEARS MARIO GIAMMETTI (KINGMAKER) 6 JOURNEY OF THE PASSENGERS (BIG BIG TRAIN) PHILIP AND LARA BRIDDON (BIGBIGTRAIN.COM) 7 BABBLE ON AN’ TING: ALEX PATERSON’S INCREDIBLE JOURNEY BEYOND THE ULTRAWORLD WITH THE ORB ALEX PATERSON & KRIS NEEDS (OMNIBUS PRESS) 8 NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH THE PINEAPPLE THIEF (KSCOPE) 9 EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER (ROCKET 88) 10 PORTALS TESSERACT (KSCOPE)…

MULTIMEDIA

CYNIC

CYNIC

The arrival of a new, full-length album from Cynic should be a cause for unreserved celebration, yet Ascension Codes emerges from under a cloud of tragedy. While drummer and co-founder Sean Reinert left the band in 2015, his death in January 2020 was keenly felt by his former bandmates and fans alike. Less than a year later, the passing of bassist Sean Malone in December 2020 was a second heartbreaking loss for the Cynic camp. Guitarist and vocalist Paul Masvidal described his reaction to the news as feeling like he was sinking in quicksand. “I was unable to play my guitar for weeks, and found myself expending whatever energy I had cleaning and organising my home. Grief is the most powerful experience; it wipes everything else away,” he wrote on…

APPICE PERDOMO PROJECT

Energy Overload CLEOPATRA RECORDS Instrumental power duo’s feel-good debut. Onetime Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice has been pounding his kits for almost 60 years now. Teaming up here with multi-instrumentalist Fernando Perdomo, the all-instrumental Energy Overload started out as an experiment, the pair swapping ideas online during lockdown, and they clearly had fun with it. Crashing in with Blow Speaker Crashing in with Blow Speaker Boogie they set out their hard-blues-rock-meets-fusion stall early on with Appice’s double-bass shuffling propelling Perdomo’s funk-edged bass and fruity guitar soloing: Funky Jackson delivers the promised groove alongside some lovely guitar melodies. Highlights include the title track, with an appearance by Sons Of Apollo’s Derek Sherinian on keyboards, Rocket To The Sun’s soaring Beck-esque guitarlines, and The Triumph with its thunderous drum intro and Perdomo…

APPICE PERDOMO PROJECT

CHICK COREA AKOUSTIC BAND

Live CONCORD JAZZ The original Romantic Warrior’s posthumous swan song. Chick Corea’s death in February 2021 came as a shock not just because we tend to think of our musical heroes as being invincible but because even up until a few short months before his passing, he seemed such a vital and energetic individual. 2020’s Plays spotlighted his solo shows but Corea at his best was always found when he was in the company of others, sparring and trading his boundless energy with fellow musicians. This two-CD album, the first Akoustic Band release in two decades, was recorded at a 2018 concert and, as if making up for lost time, boy, are they on fire. In a smoking performance dominated by the pianist’s compositions alongside a few standards, the tightness…

CHICK COREA AKOUSTIC BAND

GLASS HAMMER

GLASS HAMMER

Skallagrim – Into The Breach GLASSHAMMER.COM Chattanooga’s prog veterans scale new heights. When Glass Hammer released their 20th studio album, Dreaming City, last year, it might as well have arrived adorned with a giant neon sign reading ‘milestone’. After a quarter of a century of active service, Steve Babb and Fred Schendel were well established as purveyors of a versatile but primarily traditional strain of symphonic prog. Keyboard-heavy and proudly indebted to the prog greats, albums like Chronomotree (2000) and If (2010) (featuring Yes’ Jon Davison on vocals) suggested that the duo’s vision, while malleable, was essentially set in stone. “They’re audibly having an absolutely fantastic time.” Dreaming City changed all that, with its thunderous, proto-metal riffing, gleefully nerd-friendly conceptual narrative and, for the first time, a sense that Glass…

GALAHAD ELECTRIC COMPANY

Soul Therapy AVALON Rock, electronica and catharsism. Last year, after a lengthy hiatus, this side-project from Galahad members Stu Nicholson and Dean Baker resurfaced with new album When The Battle Is Over. Now, the pair make a quick return under the GEC name with this follow-up. There’s an obviously personal reason driving the creation of Soul Therapy. For Nicholson, this is a cathartic exercise – hence the album title – as he deals with his mother’s death last November. Seven of the songs explore the subject, but although this could have ended up making the album miserable, the opposite is true, because the duo are in the mood to celebrate life through music. The style fits in what Galahad Electric Company have always done, principally using electronic music from Baker…

GALAHAD ELECTRIC COMPANY

LINDY-FEY HELLA & DEI FARNE

Hildring BY NORSE Stirring collaboration between Wardruna singer and Norwegian band. Lindy-Fay Hella’s 2019 album, Seafarer, evoked waves lashing jagged Scandinavian coasts. Hildring is Norse for ‘mirage’ and the Wardruna singer investigates the warping of reality here. The result is a kind of magic realism in song, informed by myth and the natural world. Shaped by piano and synths, and her multitracked vocal chorales, The Lake describes a particular location in the Lyderhorn mountains that fires her imagination. More tangible influences include the vocal tradition of the Sámi people – from whom she is descended – and her love of Depeche Mode, two seemingly incompatible worlds that coalesce on Otherworld with its sequencers, ominous drum beats and impassioned vocals. There’s an overlap between Hildring and the music of Dead Can…

LINDY-FEY HELLA & DEI FARNE

KOSMODOME

Kosmodome KARISMA Prog-psych exuberance from the frozen north. Righteously in thrall to the spirit and vibe of early prog and psychedelic rock, Kosmodome swiftly tick all desirable boxes on their debut album. What becomes apparent as this perfectly paced record progresses is that these Norwegians have a gently eccentric way about them. Strident opener Retrograde might initially seem like another meticulously constructed paean to the past, but there is a wonky, Gong-meets-Groundhogs feel to the riffs, and a strong sense of perpetual evolution that brings to mind Motorpsycho’s endless adaptability. More to the point, Kosmodome are ingenious songwriters and arrangers. Even at its most bullish, the album is awash with blissful harmonised vocals and bursts of esoteric instrumentation. It also rocks like a skilfully tiedyed bastard: Waver I is a…

KOSMODOME

PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI

PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI

I Dreamed Of Electric Sheep INSIDEOUT Something hot and tasty from prog’s premier Italian bakery. The first Italian band to enjoy international success in the 70s, Premiata Forneria Marconi (‘Award-Winning Marconi Bakery’ in English, lest we forget) are an institution in their home country, and remembered fondly in the UK for their time at Manticore Records. Founding vocalist and drummer Franz Di Cioccio and veteran bassist Patrick Djivas celebrate entering their sixth decade with PFM with I Dreamed Of Electric Sheep, their 20th album. “An act with a long past embracing the present with dignity.” Previous works have been inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, Josephine Baker and Dracula, but this time their concept is loosely based on Philip K Dick’s classic sci-fi novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? – the…

HEDVIG MOLLESTAD

Tempest Revisited RUNE GRAMMOFON Hardest-working woman in Norwegian jazz-rock returns with second solo outing. As leader of her eponymous Trio, Hedvig Mollestad has already proven herself to be a preternaturally talented guitarist, able to combine powerhouse riffing, jazz fusion shredding and ambient soundscaping with breathtaking pizazz. Now, as the leader of a larger ensemble, with keys and saxophones added into the mix, she’s also going out under her own name. Tempest Revisited follows last year’s acclaimed solo debut Ekhidna, and was partially inspired by the score to The Tempest by Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim. But an arthouse homage this isn’t. As with all of Mollestad’s work, this album is shot through with a desire to connect and communicate, her playing and arrangements making potentially ‘difficult’ music accessible in the best…

HEDVIG MOLLESTAD

OCTARINE SKY

Close To Nearby MRR Potter’s Daughter with added Simon Phillips and Guthrie Govan. Duo Dyanne Potter Voegtlin (piano, vocals) and Jan Christiana (bass, producer) released their self-financed debut album, The Blind Side, in 2018 under the name Potter’s Daughter. While working on this heavier follow-up, they opted to form a new band called Octarine Sky and enlist drumming legend Simon Phillips and guitar genius Guthrie Govan to guest on half the tracks. Voegtlin and Christiana are both classically trained and the album celebrates virtuosity, albeit never at the expense of emotion. The augmented band blend disparate elements to create a new whole, as in The Mask, which combines tender piano, driving keyboards and metal guitars. The spirit of ELP is evoked by both One (adapted, like Toccata from Brain Salad…

OCTARINE SKY

ALAN PARSONS

The NeverEnding Show – Live In The Netherlands FRONTIERS Pre-Covid show captures the Live Project in fine voice(s). One of the defining characteristics of the original Alan Parsons Project was that the man with his name on the door always left it up to other vocalists and players to do the heavy lifting of bringing his and Eric Woolfson’s songs to life. So when five different singers front this 2019 live set at different points, it hardly feels like we’re getting fobbed off with any kind of substitute line-up. One notable newbie is Jordan Asher Huffman, introduced by Parsons as “my future son-in-law” (Huffman is engaged to his daughter Tabitha), who guests on I Can’t Get There From Here and then fronts new studio track, NeverEnding Show, a slow-building ballad…

ALAN PARSONS

SORDAL

Juno & Jupiter APOLLON Green Carnation singer pays tribute to “the magic 80s”. Norway’s Green Carnation are known for making tough, melodic metal with a nod to both prog and goth, but bassist Stein Roger Sordal has used his eponymous solo outfit to explore other sides of his musical personality. Juno & Jupiter is, Sordal himself says, “a tribute to the magic 80s, production-wise”. There’s a lot of that about in this synthwave/synthpop revival era. He’s in fine voice and has an unusually strong grasp on the material, adeptly choosing the right instruments to evoke the decade – Yamaha DX-7s, Roland Junos and various Oberheims underpin this big, bold, beautifully crafted pop record. You Make It So Damn Easy To Love You motors along like a sure-fire Eurovision winner; Should…

SORDAL

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 concept album Imaginos put the kibosh on their career for a while, but 30 years later their former drummer and co-founder Albert Bouchard hasn’t let this fantastical tale of alien conspiracy go. Last year he released Re Imaginos, a largely acoustic reworking of the record, and now he’s back with Imaginos II, Bombs Over Germany (Minus Zero And Counting) (Deko Entertainment). This is a grand, wacky concept album with plenty of ideas and a pretty solid throughline, and given that its lengthy credits feature BÖC members Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma and Joe Bouchard, it’s nothing if not a curio for fans of that band to explore. After their 2018 EP Oceans Of Time, Greek five-piece Within Progress stake their claim with their first LP, Inner (withinprogress.…

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

BILLY CURRIE

Reissues BURNING SHED Ultravox keyboard and viola player’s most recent trio revisited. Currie himself has curated these reissues of his most recent three solo albums through Burning Shed, all three offering a different side to his musical output. Of course, anyone doubting Currie’s own prog credentials and those who turn their nose up at the prog and pomp imbued across Ultravox’s Vienna, Rage In Eden, Quartet and Lament albums of the 80s, should give Currie’s 1988 debut solo effort Transportation, recorded with Yes guitarist Steve Howe, a listen! Although that doesn’t form part of these reissues, there’s still plenty here for the discerning music fan to enjoy. 2013’s Balletic Transcend kicks things off in possibly the most diverse fashion, mixing the electronica stylings of 80sera Ultravox with more energetic beats,…

BILLY CURRIE

JETHRO TULL

Benefit (50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition) UMC A new five-disc set boasting lots of fringe benefits. It might seem odd to describe an album as being underrated when it charted in the Top 10 in six countries, including No.3 in the UK, and subsequently went on to secure Gold disc status and a No.11 placing in the US charts. Yet positioned as it is between the rising brilliance of Stand Up and the glaring global success of Aqualung, there is a sense that Tull’s third album Benefit has felt somewhat overshadowed by the more celebrated ones that bookend it. “The seeds of Tull’s sound and identity are sown here.” Originally released in April 1970, just nine months after its predecessors, Benefit has already been given the Steven Wilson remix treatment in…

JETHRO TULL

PINK FLOYD

PINK FLOYD

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason PLG First Gilmour-led Floyd album remains reasonably good. It’s hard to hear Floyd’s 13th studio album in quite the same way since co-producer Bob Ezrin revealed, in 2013, that he’d advocated filling it with hip hop and rap. According to Ezrin, Dave Gilmour’s disbelieving response was, “Oh my God, that would be terrible.” While we’ll never know what Gilmour’s stately guitar-based rock would sound like blended with a dash of Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang thrown in, it was the right move at the time to stick to a template more in the vein of Comfortably Numb. As the ‘comeback’ album without Roger Waters, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason was under enough microscopes as it was. “All these years on, it’s stronger than one might…

MIDGE URE

In A Picture Frame CHRYSALIS A fascinating view through the lens of the Ultravox singer. In 1979, when Midge Ure replaced John Foxx as frontman in Ultravox, he was introduced by fellow ’Voxxers Warren Cann and Chris Cross to the 35mm SLR camera. After the release of Vienna in 1980, a Canon A-1 was his first purchase, thus beginning the journey he now, some 40 years later, takes us on with In A Picture Frame. It’s a journey that captures those early ’Vox days with Conny Plank, right through to his own solo tours of 1986, when he was covering Jethro Tull’s Living In The Past on his debut solo venture, The Gift. There’s a lot of grainy black and white – he clearly learned swiftly from working with Anton…

MIDGE URE

HAWKWIND

HAWKWIND

VENUE THE LONDON PALLADIUM DATE 28/10/2021 It’s fair to say that The London Palladium has rarely seen anything like it; the venue’s security certainly haven’t. Onstage Hawkwind are blasting their way through a rarely heard rendition of Uncle Sam’s On Mars from 1979’s PXR5, which also manages to include a snippet of The Iron Dream from 1977’s Quark, Strangeness And Charm, and it proves too much for the ’Wind faithful. They’re on high-spirited form, although, it should be noted, certainly not rancourous in any way. As a beaming Dave Brock looks down from his side of the stage, which is where Prog is seated, those who have ‘tuned in’ to tonight’s Hawkwind vibe from the off – and judging from a rather pungent odour, someone’s snuck some ‘reefer madness’ into…

THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

VENUE O2 RITZ, MANCHESTER DATE 07/10/2021 SUPPORT ALEX HENRY FOSTER & THE LONG SHADOWS Tonight, in front of a crowd starved of live music, and with both bands playing only their second show back, a sense of momentousness hangs in the air. The verve and vivacity with which every musician performs is infectious, their joy and relief to be back on stage palpable. Canada’s Alex Henry Foster and his band of instrument-swapping, post-rock-eschewing bandmates indulge in long but extremely dynamic compositions for a hugely impressive set. Their lows are tender and ambient, with Foster’s Placebo-esque, bruised vocals purring atop ethereal textures stitched together with clean electric guitars and gentle keyboard lines. Raconteuring bursts of metal form a powerful counterpoint, leaving the ground shaking and the audience eating out of Foster’s…

WOBBLER

VENUE SALT, OSLO, NORWAY DATE 01/10/2021 Tonight’s Wobbler show has been arranged by the team behind Bergen’s aptly named Close To The Rain festival, and the irony isn’t lost on this writer, who notices that not only is the wet stuff beating atmospherically against the rooftop but it’s leaking into the venue as well! Fortunately, the inclement weather doesn’t dampen the proceedings; so popular is the gig that it even sold out twice. When more tickets were released due to the relaxation of Covid-19 rules, they were snapped up by Norway’s fiercely loyal prog crowd, who weren’t about to miss the chance to see these symphonic proggers take the stage in their country’s capital for the first time since the pandemic began. Surprisingly the band, fronted by the silvery-voiced Andreas…

Bloody Well White

Bloody Well White

SUBLIME LISTENING Having purchased the recent reissue of Marillion’s Fugazi (what a brilliant remix), it was interesting to read the great article [in Prog 123] about the recording of this album. First, I must explain that while I love most of Marillion’s output I am very much a Fish-era fan. I have seen them on many occasions and do like Steve Hogarth but believe that Fish’s latest Weltschmerz [released in 2020] is better than anything Marillion have produced since he left. What I was surprised at though is how down the article was on Fugazi. If I think: “Let’s put a Marillion album on” it will be Fugazi. The opening of Assasing grabs your ears and says “listen to this”; Punch And Judy is a far better single than Garden…

PORCUPINE TREE CONTINUE AFTER 11-YEAR HIATUS

PORCUPINE TREE CONTINUE AFTER 11-YEAR HIATUS

Porcupine Tree ended their 11-year hiatus in late October with the release of a lyric video for a brand-new song Harridan and the news that they will finally issue a new studio album next year. CLOSURE/CONTINUATION will be out on Music For Nations on June 24, and the band will undertake a European tour in October and November, with the expectation that US dates will follow. “Harridan, and a few of the other new songs, have been in play since shortly after the release of [2009 album] The Incident,” the band announced. “They initially lived on a hard drive in a slowly growing computer file marked PT2012, later renamed PT2015, PT2018, and so on. There were times when we even forgot they were there, and times when they nagged us…

JETHRO TULL SHARE NEW MATERIAL

JETHRO TULL SHARE NEW MATERIAL

Jethro Tull’s 22nd studio album will land on January 28. Released on InsideOut, The Zealot Gene will be the first set of new material under their name since 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. As frontman Ian Anderson tells Prog, the new album takes inspiration from the Scriptures: “I think of drawing upon elements of the Bible in the same way as drawing on elements of society as subject material for songs. It’s taking something and turning it into something else. It’s what I do. I just feel that the good – the love, peace and care, particularly in the New Testament – should be shouted from the rooftops. But then the other stuff – vengeance, retaliation, anger and zeal – is not something we should push under the floorboards.…

OUTLANDERS ARE INCOMING!

OUTLANDERS ARE INCOMING!

Finnish soprano Tarja Turunen has announced details of Outlanders, the new, slow-burn project she’s been working on over the past decade with German electronic music producer, Torsten Stenzel. “It’s something quite different to anything that I’ve done in my career so far,” the singer tells Prog. “The album includes a long list of progressive guitar players who I’m really happy to have involved. I wouldn’t call it a progressive record, but it’s definitely progressive in spirit. It’s very relaxed music, meant to give you good vibes.” Stenzel co-produced Mike Oldfield’s 2013 remix album Tubular Beats, and Oldfield is just one of the elite musicians contributing to the project, along with Steve Rothery, Al Di Meola, Joe Satriani, Marty Friedman and Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (Sons Of Apollo). Trevor Rabin guests on…

FAD GADGETS

THE BELEURA Most of the action on a piano happens around the middle of the keyboard. Sure, it has 88 notes, but the highest ones sound thin and unsatisfying, and the lowest are grumbling and indecipherable. Despite this, Aussie piano maker Wayne Stuart deemed 88 notes insufficient, and has added notes at the top and botom to create this 108-note monster that’s 3m long and 644kg. Why, you might ask? “We need new horizons,” says Wayne. “I could not sit at an 88-key piano. I would want to take an axe to it because it is too limiting.” Careful with that axe, Wayne… www.stuartandsons.com TUNE OUT PAIN The idea of ‘mind over body’ can be powerful, but it’s poorly understood. Ostensibly to explore holistic ways of managing pain (and possibly…

FAD GADGETS

THE MOOSE

THE STORY OF The Moose begins in high school in Kansas City, Missouri. Tyler Frey, Jake Hilger and Alex Huffman shared an enthusiasm for musical theatre and classic rock, forming their first band as 16-year-olds, while on a cabin trip with their school choir. A few months later, Emma Klein received a text from Huffman, asking if she fancied joining a psychedelic rock band. The Moose was born and things would never be the same. For proof, check out their latest album, Spature: a colossal 26-track, 117-minute psych-prog odyssey that makes most other bands’ efforts seem a little stingy and narrow. “After we formed, the four of us continued our journey into the vast realms of psychedelic music together through high school and college,” Klein tells Prog. “We’re forever expanding…

THE MOOSE

PROG IN BRIEF

London art-proggers Archive will release their 12th studio album on April 8. Out on their label Dangervisit, Call To Arms & Angels is set to be a 17-track, two-CD release, and will be accompanied by a new documentary about the band, entitled Super 8. Post-rock duo Nordic Giants (left) will play the UK next year. Their 13-date tour starts with a solo show in Cardiff on February 15, with Norwegian post-punk outfit Årabrot joining them on subsequent dates. Info and tickets at www.nordicgiants.co.uk/live.…

PROG IN BRIEF

THE OMNIFIC

THE OMNIFIC

SIX YEARS AGO Matt Fack and Toby Peterson-Stewart were teenage bassists playing in different metal bands on the Melbourne scene. Fack was in the thrall of his hero, Dream Theater’s John Myung, Peterson-Stewart admired Jaco Pastorius and Victor Wooten, and both loved Animals As Leaders and Periphery. When they finally met and started jamming, it was clear that they had a similarly high proficiency on their instrument, and there was musical chemistry too. “Matt wrote this track for two basses,” Peterson-Stewart recalls, “because we vaguely discussed it that first day. And when we heard it back we thought that this could actually work. We had a similar vision – this idea of just having two basses, then building songs and structures around that.” The pair earned online attention with two…

Q&A STEPHEN W TAYLER

Boasting a production and mixing CV that would make most backroom Johnnies blush, Stephen W Tayler is a man who refuses to stand still. Based in Real World Studios, just outside the historical city of Bath in south-west England, Tayler has, during the course of his long career, also turned his hand to multimedia artistry as well as the knob-twiddling that’s made his name. Working alongside the celebrated producer, the late Rupert Hine, his mixing skills have breathed life into a list of artists that reads like a Who’s Who of the prog world: Peter Gabriel, Bill Bruford and Brand X are among the many names who’ve benefitted from his touch, while more recently, Van der Graaf Generator and Be-Bop Deluxe have had their classic back catalogues remixed for the…

Q&A STEPHEN W TAYLER

THE PROG INTERVIEW CARL PALMER

THE PROG INTERVIEW CARL PALMER

Carl Palmer is in a very good mood when Prog catches up with him, having just signed off on November’s series of American gigs with his band. Like other groups around the world, Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy had seen dates wiped off the board due to the pandemic. Although the double-vaccinated Palmer is eager to get back on the road, he’s also mindful of how quickly things can change. “If it goes wrong at the end of this year in America it will be two years since we last played,” he says ruefully. However, Palmer isn’t one to dwell on setbacks. Though Covid and the lockdowns may have skewed his plans, he’s not been listlessly gazing out of the window. Blessed with a ‘can-do’ attitude, and an incredibly strong work…

The Old-Fashioned Way

The Old-Fashioned Way

“I brought It’s None Of Your Business to the band and they said, ‘Great, a long number at long last!’” says Caravan guitarist and vocalist Pye Hastings about their new album’s title track, which clocks in at nearly 10 minutes. “But it came out really well. It was the way to go in the early days, doing longer and longer tracks. To revisit that is a good experience. It works now as it used to work then.” “We rehearsed it and played it in real time as a long piece and enjoyed it,” says viola player and guitarist Geoffrey Richardson. “We were comparing it to Nine Feet Underground [from In The Land Of Grey And Pink], but that was edited together.” On It’s None Of Your Business Caravan sound reinvigorated.…

Tales From The Scenic City

Tales From The Scenic City

“It’s been a huge learning curve but probably the most exciting parts of my week have been Fridays when I can come in and do progressive rock.”Hannah Pryor Broadly equidistant from the considerably larger and better-known metropoles of Nashville and Atlanta lies Chattanooga. The history of the city in southeastern Tennessee includes a significant battle in the American Civil War in November 1863. More contemporarily, Chattanooga has always been home to Glass Hammer bassist Steve Babb. Keyboardist Fred Schendel moved to the so-called Scenic City in the mid-80s, meeting Babb at – where else? – a record store when the latter was on a break from a tour. And since the group’s formation almost 30 years ago, Babb and Schendel have served as the creative core around which Glass Hammer…

Structured Chaos

Structured Chaos

“Certainly for me, the very best type of music often comes from that tension between wanting to rein something in and be incredibly structured but [have] an improvisational element. I think there’s a real great sweet spot that you can hit somewhere in the middle there, getting the best of both worlds,” says Diagonal’s saxophonist Nicholas Whittaker. The British band have just released their fourth album, simply titled 4, which offers a mind-expanding mix of Canterbury-style prog, krautrock, space rock and jazz. 4 is the group’s second release of 2021 and follows their ‘official bootleg’, Live In Leeds 2012. The live album came about when a fan contacted the band to tell them he had some bootleg recordings of past gigs. The 2012 Leeds show was a pivotal moment in…

CRITICS’ LISTS 2021

JERRY EWING (Editor) 1 THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal (FSOLDIGITAL.COM) 2 SEL BALAMIR Swell (ROCKOSMOS) 3 ISILDURS BANE & PETER HAMMILL In Disequilibrium (ATARAXIA) 4 THE ANCHORESS The Art Of Losing (KSCOPE) 5 DREAM THEATER A View From The Top of The World (INSIDEOUT) 6 CARAVAN It’s None Of Your Business (MADFISH) 7 SILVER LAKE BY ESA HOLOPAINEN Silver Lake By Esa Holopainen (NUCLEAR BLAST) 8 LEPROUS Aphelion (INSIDEOUT) 9 MASTODON Hushed And Grim (REPRISE) 10 STEVE HACKETT Under A Mediterranean Sky (INSIDEOUT) 11 TRANSATLANTIC The Absolute Universe (INSIDEOUT) 12 BIG BIG TRAIN Common Ground (ENGLISH ELECTRIC RECORDINGS) 13 LIFESIGNS Altitude (LIFESIGNSMUSIC.CO.UK) 14 FROST* Day And Age (INSIDEOUT) 15 AURI II: Those We Don’t Speak Of (NUCLEAR BLAST) 16 NMB Innocence & Danger (INSIDEOUT) 17 SWALLOW…

CRITICS’ LISTS 2021

ELBOW

ELBOW

Flying Dream 1 POLYDOR Bury’s finest test the waters of self-reinvention. Elbow have always had it in them to create a sibling to what singer Guy Garvey calls the “patient, quiet” lodestars the Bury band grew up listening to: Talk Talk’s Spirit Of Eden, John Martyn’s Solid Air or The Blue Nile’s Hats. Moments on their previous nine albums have proven it, and even back on their debut, Asleep In The Back – released an implausible 20 years ago – they were tamping things down and breaking hearts with tracks like Powder Blue or Scattered Black And Whites. “It requires you to come up close and find your way in.” Now, nudged by writing during the pandemic, they’ve gone for it, with Garvey hinting that Flying Dream 1 essays “bruised…

BENJAMIN CROFT

Far And Distant Things UBUNTU MUSIC Jazz/prog creations from British artist brought up close and personal. Keyboard maestro and composer Benjamin Croft’s second solo album sees him exploring similar ground to 2018’s 10 Reasons To…, developing the playing and production aspects of his craft. Smooth jazz explorations sit beside energetic fusion reminiscent of Chick Corea’s Electric Band and even Brand X in places, with occasional touches of Zappa-esque quirk. Croft also pulls in some impressive names to help out: S&R Video (a paean to Croft’s favourite video store as a child) features the gorgeous trumpet of Randy Brecker, while elsewhere Frank Gambale and Chad Wackerman make their presence felt. These high-profile guest artists shouldn’t detract from Croft’s own contributions, whether it’s the evocative electric piano of SAD (Spatial Awareness Disease),…

BENJAMIN CROFT

DAS RAD

Laik Tors DISCUS MUSIC Third album from Sheffield’s sonic explorers. Das Rad’s music defies any attempts at strict categorisation. There are nods in the various directions of dub, kosmiche, wyrd folk, psych rock and jazz that pull together a sound that’s wonderfully bright and free from any boundaries. On paper it seems like it should sound experimental in nature, yet Laik Tors remarkably manages to be eminently accessible. That’s an impressive feat that few artists convincingly achieve. Starting out from improvisations and jams, Martin Archer (woodwind, keyboards) Steve Dinsdale (drums, keyboards) and Nick Robinson (guitars, keyboards) have edited the results into tight, highly focused pieces. Kapow could double as an 1980s TV cop show theme tune, summoning images of cars ploughing through inconveniently placed cardboard boxes as widdly synths, punchy…

DAS RAD

DONNER

Hesitant Light APOLLON Synth-focused, vintage-clad outing from White Willow man. There’s something in prog’s DNA that encourages collaborations. Jacob Holm-Lupo has invited plenty of notable names to guest with both his art rock outfit White Willow and prog-pop project The Opium Cartel. He says that he originally intended Donner be a solo electronica experiment… until he couldn’t resist calling up a few friends to join. The invitational approach produces mixed results on Hesitant Light, at times luring the album’s focus away from the silvery analogue synthscapes of opener Melancholy City, and the wistful retro-futurist vistas of Andromeda Waltz into smoother 80s MOR territory. A cover of Steely Dan’s Night by Night doesn’t noticeably benefit from a squally guitar solo from Hedvig Mollestad. Elsewhere, Floating World’s flute-laced fare verges too close…

DONNER

JONNY GREENWOOD

Spencer OST MERCURY KX Radiohead’s composer extraordinaire soundtracks Princess Diana movie. With Radiohead currently in abeyance, Jonny Greenwood’s parallel career as a composer for both concert hall and film has bloomed, his music receiving serious acclaim and Oscar nominations. His latest commission is the soundtrack to Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, a biopic of Princess Diana that reportedly plays out more like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining than The Crown. Accordingly, Greenwood’s score mixes regal grandeur with barely restrained mania, producing arrangements that often sound in conflict with themselves. Arrival contains all the main elements: a stately processional that suddenly left-turns into a smoky plume of jazz trumpet, swinging drums and stabbing piano chords. The film is set during a claustrophobic three days at Sandringham in 1991 as the marriage between Diana and…

JONNY GREENWOOD

MAYBESHEWILL

MAYBESHEWILL

No Feeling is Final ROBOT NEEDS HOME First album in five years from reunited UK post-rockers. No Feeling Is Final could just as easily describe Maybeshewill themselves as the material here. The veteran Leicester post-rockers bowed out in 2016, two years after their supposedly final album, Fair Youth. They’ve played one-off shows in the interim, though, and as a result their parting has felt like more of a hiatus than a genuine break-up. So when the bandmembers started individually sketching out new ideas, it was inevitable that they would gravitate toward one another to flesh them out, ultimately resulting in a new Maybeshewill record. “Atmosphere and grandiosity are still the name of the game.” Informed by what they describe as “weary exasperation” with the current environmental and political crises, No…

M.A.N. AND THE MANIACS

M.A.N. And The MANiACS THE LAST MAN STANDING Socio-politically charged psychedelia. French singer-songwriter Marina Anne Nolles channels her righteous fury at the state of the world into impressively acerbic psychedelic rock on her first album under the banner of M.A.N. And The MANiACS. She’s joined by two members of Lazuli – Arnaud Beyney on guitar and bass, alongside Romain Thorel on keys and French horn – and Elodie Longuemart on drums. Many of the riffs have roots that reach into the blues, an influence heard in the groovy Change, the rolling pulse of Save You From This MFC and the punchy staccato of You Win. The band played live in the studio, and there’s strong chemistry between the musicians, an organic approach to dynamics and a natural warmth to the…

M.A.N. AND THE MANIACS

THE MENTULLS

Recipe for Change PROGBLUES MUSIC Former blues rockers embrace prog and a simpler life in the countryside. The third album by The Mentulls reflects a move away from the blues rock of their earlier material to a proggier sound, which can be heard in the very polished production influenced by early 1980s Genesis and Rush albums. Recorded in lockdown, Recipe For Change’s opening suite of songs is based on the concept of moving away from the pressure of the city to a simpler life in the countryside. The songs are instantly engaging, with hooky riffs and strong melodies, sparkling keyboards and soaring guitar solos that bear the influence of Toto and Journey alongside Rush. Brothers Andrew and Jamie Pipe (guitar and keyboards respectively) are joined by soulful new singer David…

THE MENTULLS

NEKTAR

Sounds Like Swiss THINK LIKE A KEY MUSIC Archive performances from oft-overlooked prog pioneers. Salvaged from long-lost tapes, Sounds Like Swiss provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of Nektar circa 1973, with an entire concert from the Pavilion des Sports in Lausanne and another filmed for Swiss TV show Kaléidospop (the latter included in its entirety on an accompanying DVD). Although they were three albums into their career by this point, there is a sense that they were still establishing exactly what they wanted to be, which was approximately very early Wishbone Ash with the organ ministrations of Procol Harum and a suggestion of the slightly manic touch of The Doors. Eschewing the more focused arrangements of their prog contemporaries, there are large sections of semi-improvised explorations and free…

NEKTAR

PROGRESSIVE FOLK

Lovers of blues-soul notables The Teskey Brothers, especially those with further appetite for dreamy folk-rock nostalgia, will already be digging guitarist Sam Teskey’s first album in his own name, Cycles (Decca). It’s a delightful solo flight, with banks of harmonies on the opening Love setting a fragrant tone. One of the more surprising creative shifts of the season, the record evokes echoes of 1960s and 70s experimentation and some distinctly far-out moments, such as the spacey guitar-and-drums instrumental intro to If The Dove Is Sold. Malcolm MacWatt’s Settler (Gokuhi/Singular Recordings) is a splendid addition to the Scottish singer-songwriter’s catalogue of elegantly turned alt-folk Americana releases. It’s rooted in acoustic tradition and decorated by some weighty guest appearances by genre heroes such as Laura Cantrell, Gretchen Peters, Eliza Carthy and Kris…

PROGRESSIVE FOLK

RED KITE

Apophenian Bliss RARENOISE Another dose of prog-jazz heaviosity from the land of the midnight sun. Red Kite are a Norwegian jazz-rock supergroup, with members drawn from bands including Elephant9, Shining, Bushman’s Revenge and Grand General. Given their pedigree, it comes as no surprise to report that Apophenian Bliss, their second album, is a rumbling monolith of jazz-referencing avant-prog, the forbidding black mountain and gloaming crimson sun of its sleeve art a perfect analogue for the music within. Astrology (The One True Science) defines their signature sound upfront, a terrific battery of drums and bass against which guitar and Rhodes growl and stab, before resolving into a curiously playful melody. The pace slows on the gloomy, sludgy This Immortal Coil, its primordial atmosphere tempered by twinkling keys. Apophenia is mellower still,…

RED KITE

SOUP

Visions CRISPIN GLOVER RECORDS Norwegians’ fine update on a classic prog sound. It doesn’t take long for the sound of early Genesis and The Moody Blues to take a hold on this Norwegian quintet’s most recent work. But what makes this all the more surprising is that Soup are often described as a post-rock act who have more in common with the likes of Sigur Rós and Mogwai. Any prog fan who wrinkles their nose in distaste at this would be advised to leave preconceptions by the door, because Visions is about as prog as you can get, albeit imbued with a modern slant that takes it out of the drawer marked ‘Plagiarism’. They open with the 15-minute tour de force of Burning Bridges, which sounds like a modern-day update…

SOUP

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER

Out Of This World: Live (1970–1997) BMG Spectacular live celebration of ELP’s career. Part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebrations for one of prog’s most illustrious and important bands, this 10-LP/seven-CD set provides a timely reminder of how scintillating and irresistible Emerson, Lake & Palmer always were onstage. “All five shows collected here display the band’s brilliance.” The first of the five concerts here is from the Isle Of Wight Festival in August 1970, where ELP played only their second ever show in front of a mere 600,000 people. It’s a thrilling performance, as these game-changing musicians make a momentous impact even in such a formative part of their story. It’s informative to hear how heavy the music sounds; many forget ELP were as powerful as they were creative. Four…

THE FIERCE AND THE DEAD

THE FIERCE AND THE DEAD

Part 1/On VHS THEFIERCEANDTHEDEAD.BANDCAMP.COM The ‘pronk’ rockers’ first two EPs, remastered and repackaged. Straddling the genres – post-rock, psych, punk, stoner rock – instrumental quartet The Fierce And The Dead have added value to the line-ups of everything from ArcTanGent to Ramblin’ Man Fair, and given fresh-blood support to old-school acts such as Hawkwind. They’re currently recording the followup to their name-making 2018 album The Euphoric (with bassist Kev Feazey rumoured to be stepping up to the mic), and in the meantime they’ve repackaged their first two EPs together, complete with a crisp remastering job. Released in 2010, Part 1 stemmed from a jam instigated by rising solo guitarist Matt Stevens with friends Feazey and drummer Stuart Marshall (future co-guitarist Steve Cleaton’s credited as adding ‘moral support’). The music was…

POPOL VUH

Vol. 2: Acoustic & Ambient Spheres BMG/ADA More vinyl reissue box set action from one of Germany’s most singular groups. A perpetually hip descriptor to drop, ‘krautrock’ has become a shorthand for propulsive, repetitive music with integrity and a certain mystery and otherness. Formed in 1970, Popol Vuh were in the vanguard of that new German music, but like Faust, they sounded nothing like that description, nor like anyone else at the time. After their early Moog-based explorations, leading light Florian Fricke began to take a more acoustic approach, concentrating on piano. The compositions had a baroque poise but with relatively simple repeated elements, which gave rise to music of a luminous clarity. While the four albums – spanning a period of 14 years – collected in this second volume…

POPOL VUH

PETER GABRIEL: A LIFE IN VISION

Alan Hewitt WYMER PUBLISHING Flotsam and jetsam career-covering photo set. Peter Gabriel’s been through a fair few image changes and persona switches in his career of over half a century, as this reissued book confirms. Alan Hewitt provides a straightforward narrative and timeline to accompany the collection of photos drawn from every decade, following Gabriel from the camp, theatrical, flowery Genesis days through his leather-jacketed proto-punk phase and on to his all-conquering solo artist 80s. By 1989 he’s attending the Cannes Film Festival with Rosanna Arquette, and as we move into this century he’s the elder statesman of Womad, activism, Real World and technological advances. There’s a dip towards the end where one photo has Gabriel and Sting resembling Steptoe and Son, and another of him watching Andy Murray play…

PETER GABRIEL: A LIFE IN VISION

YES IN THE 1980s

Stephen Lambe With David Watkinson SONICBOND The highs, the lows and all the side-projects. Oft overlooked? Much maligned? Not even ‘proper’ prog? Stephen Lambe aims to rehabilitate Yes in the era of big hair, floor-length coats and shoulder pads with this romp through a decade where the band experienced its greatest commercial success while constantly teetering on the brink of falling apart. “Written from a fan’s perspective, but not afraid to be critical.” With just three Yes studio albums to cover – Drama, 90125 and Big Generator – Lambe broadens his remit to include The Buggles, Asia, the solo adventures of Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin and Jon Anderson, plus the latter’s highly successful collaborations with Vangelis. These aren’t treated as footnotes either; instead, they’re discussed with the same…

YES IN THE 1980s

CARAVAN

VENUE UNION CHAPEL, LONDON DATE 07/10/2021 Early in the first of their two sets tonight, there’s a moment that sums up the joy of Caravan’s performance. Having started with the classic couplet of Memory Lain, Hugh and Headloss (from Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night), the band prepare to play In The Land Of Grey And Pink. As an introduction, the versatile Geoffrey Richardson (“Shove a broom up his arse and he’d sweep the stage!” quips Pye Hastings later on) explains that when recording the song bassist Richard Sinclair was so bored that he started to make gibberish vocal noises, which you can still hear in the background on the album of the same title. Now, Richardson asks the crowd to mimic those sounds. And when this happens, there’s…

ENSLAVED

VENUE UNION SCENE, DRAMMEN, NORWAY DATE 21/10/2021 When prog metal masters Enslaved announced they’d be teaming up with the psychedelic rockers Shaman Elephant for a special Norwegian Big Band Tour 2021, Prog wondered how the augmented line-up might work. Just a few weeks after the release of Enslaved’s Caravans To The Outer Worlds EP, we get to find out when the supergroup come to Drammen. The gig opens with Ruun II – The Epitaph permeating through the darkness. Ivar Bjørnson’s electric guitar joins the rhythmic sound of a pair of acoustics, while keyboards and drums add to the ambience. Given there are nine musicians cramped together on a small stage, it’s impressive how coordinated they are and there’s no compromise on quality of the sound. By the time the ethereal…

JETHRO TULL

JETHRO TULL

VENUE O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON DATE 24/09/2021 It might seem redundant to bill a Jethro Tull gig under the banner of ‘The Prog Years’, but perhaps it’s just Ian Anderson acknowledging what brings the punters out. And it’s a sold-out house tonight at Shepherd’s Bush. The evening begins with a montage of the good and the great of British prog projected onto the backdrop before Anderson and the band jump into Nothing Is Easy. The stage is sparse, and the band all wear black, grey and white, a rather utilitarian look with nary a trace of tartan. Perhaps it’s rust from the enforced break from touring, but it takes much of the first set for Anderson’s voice to warm up properly. He seems to be stretching for the higher…

TWEET TALK

TWEET TALK

PETER HAMMILL @Sofa_sound Well. Wow. What a tour. Thanks to everyone who was involved and everyone who was present. Yeah, Elvis has left the building… for the moment. Kavus Torabi @Knifeworld The final obsessive tweaks to the new @StrongUtopia album with @RobKellymusic MIKE VENNART @Vennart Alright so I played this Tokai Les Paul the other day, and got excited until the shop owner told me it was far more expensive than the tag claimed it was. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. MARJANA (MARIANA) SEMKINA @marjanasemkina I’ve just spent a couple of very productive weeks in Switzerland working on something exciting with @annamurphymusic. Can’t wait to tell you all about our new band THAT JOE PAYNE @thatjoepayne I have the best social life, but damn… Last night I had…

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD RETURN

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD RETURN

London art rock collective Black Country, New Road will release their second album, Ants From Up There, on Ninja Tune on February 4. The follow-up to 2021’s Mercury Prize-nominated debut, For The First Time, finds the seven-piece band honing their sprawling, genre-hopping sound into something more personal to them. “The first album was a representation of what we were capable of at that point,” says bassist Tyler Hyde, “but it wasn’t necessarily what we wanted to do. This album is something that’s more true to ourselves rather than just throwing together ideas.” The 10-track album retains the same genre-straddling musical approach as its predecessor, weaving together everything from Canterbury-style experimentalism and Jewish klezmer music to anthemic, Arcade Fire-inspired indie rock and slow-burning 10-minute epics. “We listen to such different kinds…

THE UTOPIA STRONG PSYCHED BY NEW LP!

THE UTOPIA STRONG PSYCHED BY NEW LP!

Psych rock trio The Utopia Strong have completed recording on their second album for Rocket Recordings. The LP – still untitled as Prog went to press – is the follow-up to their self-titled 2019 debut for the label, although the group – snooker legend turned prog artist Steve Davis, Michael J York and Gong’s Kavus Torabi – have made three self-released albums since. “We couldn’t be happier with our second studio album for Rocket,” Torabi tells Prog. “Our debut was very much us finding our feet, mapping out our territory and serving the music as best we could. Since then we have had a year or so of touring, and we put out three other albums, which journeyed much deeper into that realm.” Work began on the new nine-track set…

BIG BIG TRAIN’S ‘QUIRKY’ NEW LP

BIG BIG TRAIN’S ‘QUIRKY’ NEW LP

Big Big Train will unveil their 14th studio album on January 28. Released on their English Electric label, Welcome To The Planet arrives just six months after their last release, Common Ground, which hit the UK Top 40 in August. “These days there’s an assumption bands can only do an album every two or three years,” bassist Greg Spawton tells Prog. “But if you go back to Genesis, or The Beatles, they were putting out albums regularly, at least one a year. We have a lot of songwriters in the band now and the line we take is, ‘We’ve got the songs, let’s get them out there.’” The album was recorded primarily at longtime engineer Rob Aubrey’s Aubitt Studios in Southampton, and the title track features lead vocals from its…

ANDY WHITE

ANDY WHITE

“At the beginning of my adolescence, my brother [Edwin, Tonstartssbandht’s drummer and co-vocalist] and I fell into a group of people in Orlando who were finding themselves at the same time as they were finding music. We soon realised we liked more experimental forms of rock’n’roll and pop and I first became familiar with the members of Soft Machine through their solo work. “This guy called Calvin, who worked in a record store, would give me cool music when I was younger. He dug out the Robert Wyatt album The End Of An Ear, and was like, ‘This is an incredible record, you should get this’. I was probably 14 or 15 at the time. “I loved that record, and I was really into Gong’s Angel’s Egg before I realised…

ABC

ABC

Some readers of Prog may well feel that, even for this column, The Lexicon Of Love by ABC is stretching things far too far. And yet, the album has an overture, a loose concept, an ex-member of Yes as producer, a richly designed sleeve, at least one five-and-half-minute track with thundering drums, and an orchestral reprise at its end. Surely that gives it some pretty strong credentials? Surely, it is an example of ‘what prog did next’ as the 80s unfolded. Right from the get-go, ABC were clearly a different kettle of fish from other bands emerging in that futurist autumn of 1981. “We wanted to create our own world, definitely,” lead vocalist Martin Fry told this writer in 2004. “We wanted to create a stage play, a movie.” Their…

HENRY PARKER

HENRY PARKER

LESS THAN A DECADE ago, Henry Parker was playing guitar in ear-mangling heavy metal bands. Today, he’s steadily building a reputation as one of the UK’s most intriguing singer-songwriters, with a sound rooted in folk but infused with psychedelic flair and frequent prog-friendly embellishments. As he explains to Prog, the transition from massive, foot-on-the-monitor riffs to elegiac, acoustic introspection was surprisingly smooth. “I’ve always been obsessed with guitar playing. When I got to about 20, I was at university, studying music, and surrounded by a lot of other musicians and just had my ears a bit more wide open to other things. The reason it was folk music rather than any other genre, was its earthiness, that historic and ancient feel to it. I also found out about Martin Simpson…

BENJAMIN CROFT

BENJAMIN CROFT

BENJAMIN CROFT GREW up in Sheffield in the 80s, and took piano and trumpet lessons from the age of seven. He would soon fall under the spell of Mahler, Bartók and Stravinsky. But then, when he was 16, he found his true calling thanks to a certain progressive rock icon. “I saw Rick Wakeman playing on a TV show called Home Truths,” he tells Prog. “This was the 90s, I’d never heard of him, and I was like, ‘Wow!’ My mother said, ‘Well, if you like that then you might want to listen to this.’” He brandishes his beloved vinyl copy of Close To The Edge. “And that literally changed my life. Wakeman was my hero. I’d hated piano until then, but from that moment on I practised eight hours…

The Rise of Tarkus

The Rise of Tarkus

Greg Lake could never be described as someone who was slow in coming forward, especially if he felt he needed to give you the benefit of his opinion. “If you want to play that kind of music, you should play it on your solo album. I’m not really interested in that sort of thing” is what Keith Emerson remembered Lake saying to him immediately after hearing the opening motifs of a brand new piece intended for their second album. Having invited Lake over to his apartment to play him the composition, he hadn’t expected such a stony-faced negative reaction. Already taken aback by Lake’s brusque dismissal of his work, Emerson was astonished further still as the bassist and vocalist got up and promptly left the building. That astonishment very quickly…

The Art Of Rush

The Art Of Rush

Hugh Syme is, not for the first time, lost in a reverie. We are, essentially, talking about the updated version of his 2015 book, Art Of Rush: Serving A Life Sentence. The latest edition comes complete with the work he’s done for the anniversary reissues of 2112, A Farewell To Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and the forthcoming Moving Pictures. Or we were. Talk turns to the work he did on the latter-day revamp of 2112, but within minutes we’re back in the 1970s and the initial meeting for the record and the matter of some accidental iconography. “There was definitely a conversation,” says Syme, off on a tangent, “where I was told the arc of that epic story about defiance and individualistic artists and someone who was determined to express…

Lifting Shadows

“I think it took a lot for me to find that sort of self-worth,” Haken singer Ross Jennings answers when asked if he feels vulnerable going solo. “And it took a lot of balls for me to pick up a guitar.” Those who have watched Jennings lord the stage while performing live with his Haken comrades, though, wouldn’t have expected confidence to be an issue. But without the prog metal gusto blowing out behind him, releasing a solo album – on which Jennings provides all of the acoustic and electric guitar as well as vocals – is a very different affair. Musically, A Shadow Of My Future Self twists off a tangent from the day job. While Haken are melodic, this is next level: pop hooks are picked over, plunging…

Lifting Shadows

Lightbulb Moment

Lightbulb Moment

If there’s one city in Europe where art, industry and society feel most progressive and free, it’s Berlin. A creative crucible through the 19th, 20th – and, so far, 21st – century, its allure has drawn musicians of a more left-of-field and experimental mindset from across the world for the last 50-plus years. Among the latest has been London’s Public Service Broadcasting, or more specifically, frontman and founder J Willgoose Esq, when he relocated there to put together their latest album, Bright Magic. For Willgoose, the idea of Berlin as a “seductive and enticing place to go” was already in his mind’s eye before PSB first played there in 2013, when touring debut album Inform-Educate-Entertain. “It sounded so cool,” he tells Prog on the phone from his London home, “Everything…

PROG CRITICS’ CHOICE 2021

It’s time again for the Prog Magazine writers’ albums of the year. The criteria for the main list? As usual, the album had to be a new studio release and it had to have been reviewed in the magazine over the last 12 months. These then, are the results. As always we look forward to reading your thoughts… “I’m overwhelmed that The Art of Losing has been voted Album Of The Year by the writers of Prog. As a record that was steeped in synth nostalgia for the music of Talk Talk, Pink Floyd and Depeche Mode, while navigating some pretty personal trauma, never could I have imagined how many people it would resonate with. Stitched together during one of the darkest times of my life but released in the…

PROG CRITICS’ CHOICE 2021

THE BEST THING I’VE HEARD ALL YEAR…

GEOFF DOWNES (DBA/YES) “Lifesigns’ Altitude is fabulous. It’s full of carefully crafted, soul-searching melodies and musical dynamics that are the hallmark of any great prog album. John [Young] and Dave [Bainbridge] excel here, and it’s all rounded off nicely with Steve Rispin’s production finesse.” STEVE HACKETT “Amanda Lehmann’s album, Innocence And Illusion, gets my vote for Progressive Album Of The Year. Not only is it a stunning debut, but it’s the breadth of styles undertaken that shine under the spotlight through complete emotional resonance twinned with great energy.” SCOTT KAY (VOYAGER) “Witness by VOLA is a baller [impressive] record with a ton of melody that the guys are known for, but also comes with some slapping riffs too. Napalm is a highlight for me – that chorus!” THE ANCHORESS “My…

THE BEST THING I’VE HEARD ALL YEAR…

A FORMAL HORSE

Meat Mallet AFORMALHORSE.BANDCAMP.COM Another winner from Southampton avant-rockers. What do Batman’s Adam West, footballer Adam Lallana, Lowestoft, malted milk biscuits, and the atomic bomb have in common? They, and many other things, all make cameo appearances on A Formal Horse’s second full-length album. To say there’s a lot going on here would be a colossal understatement. Frenzied songs about our species’ capacity for self-delusion and destructive instincts hurtle past the ears, often with abrupt but exquisitely executed balletic handbrake turns. That head-spinning blend of complexity and brute force conjures up a high-speed collision between The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Cardiacs, with Hayley McDonnell’s vocals cutting through the roaring storm surges of metal-edged guitars, bass, and drums with power and clarity. That all of these heart-stopping dynamic leaps and lurches come festooned…

A FORMAL HORSE

BURNT BELIEF

Mutual Isolation ALCHEMY Colin Edwin and Jon Durant’s remarkable fourth collaboration. What immediately grabs the attention on the opening Where It All Began (For TR) is Vinnie Sabatino’s high-velocity ride cymbal and snare playing around the ‘one’. But the track is made up of planes of activity at different speeds. There are unruffled trumpet lines by Aleksei Saks and clumps of sonorous double bass notes from Colin Edwin – known for his work with Porcupine Tree, Twinscapes and O.R.k. – then Jon Durant introduces his keening fretless guitar halfway through. Here, as on the rest of the album, the combination gives the music a warm, rounded feel, while electronics and sparse keyboards add translucency and depth. The complex, animated Perilous Terrain develops into a funky swagger and the duo’s sense…

BURNT BELIEF

RACHEL FLOWERS

RACHEL FLOWERS

Bigger On The Inside RACHEL FLOWERS MUSIC Is this the brightest new star in the prog firmament? Quite possibly. On her first two solo albums, 2016’s Listen and Going Somewhere in 2018, Rachel Flowers distinguished herself as an artist able to traverse genres and styles apparently at will – an approach that saw her performing with everyone from Rick Wakeman to Burt Bacharach. While the 27-year-old California native has long expressed her admiration for Keith Emerson, it’s with her third solo release, Bigger On The Inside, that her love for progressive rock really surges to the fore with dazzling effect. “One of the most exciting young artists in the prog scene.” ‘Multi-instrumentalist’ seems too small a phrase here. It’s not just that Flowers – who has been blind since shortly…

DYNATRON

Origins BLOOD MUSIC Danish synth lord delivers a master class. Now that synthwave has officially conquered the mainstream via pop stars like The Weeknd, it’s left to the genre’s underground masters to reassert as a progressive force. Dynatron has been exploring the evocative potential of old-school synths and 80s electronics since 2012, and Origins has plenty of depth and substance. Although peppered with digitised metal guitars, these are instrumental pieces with a debt to the cosmic voyaging of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Vangelis’ Blade Runner. Where Dynatron trounces the majority of his peers is in his use of sonic space and insidious melody: in particular, the title track enchants with nourishing waves of rhythm-less synth, before mutating into pulsing but tangibly widescreen electropop with spectral shades of Vienna-era Ultravox. Elsewhere,…

DYNATRON

HAMMOCK

Elsewhere HAMMOCKMUSIC.COM Overwhelmingly evocative new LP from ambient veterans. Across a large discography, Hammock have continually evolved their emotionally resonant sound while retaining the essential elements. Cascades of spectral echo, and gauzy melodies that could be guitar, synthesiser, piano or samples are the US duo’s calling card. On some releases, like 2006’s breakthrough Raising Your Voice… Trying To Stop An Echo, they leaned into more driving instrumentation and arrangements, including percussion and vocals. Elsewhere sits at the opposite, more abstract end of their repertoire – no surprise given that it was written and recorded individually by Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson at home during the pandemic. They aimed to evoke feelings of separation and loss, and very much succeeded. Besides the fact it’s minimalist almost to a fault, the main…

HAMMOCK

ROSS JENNINGS

A Shadow Of My Future Self GRAPHITE RECORDS Haken singer’s eclectic solo debut. There are many reasons why Haken are considered among today’s best progressive metal bands, and the songwriting of frontman Ross Jennings is near the top of the list. His first solo LP, A Shadow Of My Future Self, marries that craftsmanship with a wider stylistic palette that shows a different aspect to his musical DNA. Opener Better Times is a country rock ballad comprising only vocals, acoustic strums and light pedal steel accompaniment. Some later tracks – Since That Day and Third Degree – build upon that template with added energy and strings, whereas Words We Can’t Unsay, Young At Heart and Rocket Science showcase Jennings’ penchant for Bon Jovi and Journey-esque pop-rock. While not completely removed…

ROSS JENNINGS

JAZZ PROG

Keith Tippett and Matthew Bourne’s Aeolian (Discus Records) captures the two pianists in studio sessions and a 2019 gig on this superb two-CD set. Tippett, who died in 2020, produces a typically sensitive and powerful performance despite illness. The obvious empathy and respect he and Bourne have for each other comes through loud and clear. Listening as much as playing they’re utterly committed and fearless. Their improvisations are sometimes fragile and tender, while at other points Bourne’s percussive chords accrue in mountainous piles, spilling into Tippett’s rolling bass-end spirals like tectonic plates, lurching in a hectic, unsettling fashion. Recorded in 1994, Eberhard Weber’s Once Upon A Time – Live In Avignon (ECM), is a reminder of the bassist’s remarkable fluency and his influence on the European jazz scene and beyond.…

JAZZ PROG

MODERN NATURE

Island Of Noise BELLA UNION Shakespeare-themed second LP from jazz-dabbling art rock outfit. In the two years since their 2019 debut How To Live, Jack Cooper’s avant-rock project Modern Nature have increasingly dabbled in jazz textures on the collaborative EP Cycles and mini-album Annual. This second full-length studio set, though, steps firmly into prog territory with a concept album inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. While initial bursts of a cacophonous woodwind maelstrom evoke the storm and shipwreck that begins the story, the free jazz clouds soon part to reveal yearning guitar figures, before Dunes blinks its eyes open with breathy closeup vocals, strings, subtle horns and gentler percussion, evoking a tentative sense of awe at the first glimpse of the desert island setting. Strong echoes of Sufjan Stevens’ off-kilter chamber…

MODERN NATURE

THE OCEAN

Phanerozoic Live METAL BLADE Live-in-lockdown album from German prog metallers recorded. Like many of their peers, Berlin prog metal heavyweights The Ocean decided to make the best of ongoing circumstances and perform their most recent Phanerozoic albums as livestreams earlier this year. The first volume was held in a Bremen hall, with a full-stage production and watched by about 1,500 fans online. The second was recorded the next day in a rehearsal room, with the band running through several takes, the best of which aired as part of the Roadburn Redux event. The result suffers from the same handicaps as every livestream. The Ocean are high-grade musicians, and this is musically of a high standard, but without the benefit of an audience present, there’s no atmosphere. They recreate both albums…

THE OCEAN

SWALLOW THE SUN

SWALLOW THE SUN

Moonflowers CENTURY MEDIA Hauntingly beautiful prog doom from Finnish masters. Just how far will someone go in pursuit of artistic expression? In the case of Juha Raivio, the answer is ‘pretty far’. Swallow The Sun’s guitarist, lyricist and mastermind literally spilled his own blood to incorporate it into the image that adorns the Finnish prog doom maestros’ eighth album, Moonflowers. “A deeply passionate work of art and a triumph on all levels.” Raivio takes an equally extreme approach to the music here. This an emotionally dark descent into his subconscious as he reveals things about himself that others might have kept hidden. ‘Will the dark side of your heart make amends in the light?’ run his lyrics on Enemy, while Woven Into Sorrow features the harrowing line: ‘I swore I…

ROBERT REED

The Ringmaster: Part One TIGERMOTH Roll up, roll up for the fourth in the Magenta man’s Sanctuary series. Robert Reed’s first three Sanctuary albums saw him air his inner Mike Oldfield, but there was a snag. They were uninterrupted two-part suites with no meaningful track titles, so Reed’s fans had trouble telling him the moments they particularly enjoyed. He’s fixed that on this fourth instalment, and it’s all the better for it. Produced once again by Tom ‘Tubular Bells’ Newman and with a story conceived/narrated by regular collaborator, Les Penning, The Ringmaster: Part One tells the tale of the titular muse, who can give or withdraw an artist’s creative inspiration on a whim. It’s a trip into the proggy, folky and melodic region of Reed’s musical imagination. Storytown is jaunty…

ROBERT REED

VIRIDITAS

Green Mars DARKPLACE Expansive second instalment of Brit-proggers’ novel-inspired trilogy. The job of following up Viriditas’ 2018 debut album Red Mars was made that more challenging by the pandemic, but the enforced change of circumstances evidently allowed Mike Bridge’s concept-focused act more room to roam on Green Mars, which once more takes inspiration from Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1990s sci-fi trilogy. A lot of room, in fact – the result is an album clocking in at a shelve-your-plans-for-the-rest-of-the-evening 160 minutes in length. Green Mars is proudly prog in tooth and claw. Overarching concept? Tick. Several songs clocking in at over 10 minutes? Tick. Rarely use 4/4 rhythms if you can find a way to complicate things a little? Tick. But anyone willing to invest their attention in this record will find…

VIRIDITAS

MATT BERRY

MATT BERRY

Gather Up ACID JAZZ Toast of the town: Matt’s music earns respect. It’s becoming easier all the time to disassociate Matt Berry the comedic actor from Matt Berry the musician, which is quite an accolade given how good he is at the first job. Somewhere along the line – perhaps when he supported Steven Wilson at the Albert Hall in 2015 – people started taking his records seriously. Now his 10 years with Acid Jazz are celebrated with a box set which serves as either an appetite-whetting beginner’s guide or a best of, with generous add-ons. There’s a two-LP/one-CD, 21-track selection of cuts from his nine albums, or the full five-LP/four-CD box, 55 tracks, offering outtakes, demos, live sets and the Catch Me In Time recording he made with R&B…

PENTANGLE

PENTANGLE

Reissues RENAISSANCE Three of Pentangle’s first four, and a compilation, on heavyweight vinyl. Pioneering US-based label Renaissance Records have managed to snare three of the first four Pentangle albums (inexplicably, 1968’s part-live double album, Sweet Child, is missing) plus the 1973 collection Pentangling, and reissued them all on heavyweight 180 gram deluxe vinyl, complete with lavish gatefold sleeves festooned with photos, and even mock trading cards (if that sort of thing floats your boat). But it’s the music that matters, and Pentangle’s sound was quite wonderful. They may not have boasted a keyboard player during their original incarnation, although Bert Jansch came closest with a concertina on Cruel Sister’s Lord Franklin, but the band’s melding of folk music, jazz, a dash of blues, rock and classical was certainly progressive in…

FRANK ZAPPA

FRANK ZAPPA

200 Motels ZAPPA RECORDS/UME/MGM Zappa gets stuck in the smut. Based on this six-disc CD set, there can’t be anything left in the Zappa vault relating to 200 Motels. Frank Zappa’s bizarre 1971 film about life on tour attracted controversy from the outset – the Royal Albert Hall cancelled a sold-out performance of the material citing the obscene lyrics with the venue’s manager calling it “filth for filth’s sake”, while the lead trumpeter walked out in disgust. Like the film itself, much of the material has not aged well. The obsession with dick jokes and misogynistic sex gags seem like the product of an overheated adolescent mind. ‘I did a wee-wee in your hair,’ is the stuff of sniggering schoolboys. Alongside the remastered original soundtrack, the set includes demo versions…

FIFTY SHADES OF CRIMSON

Pete Tomsett BACKBEAT BOOKS Fripp and friends’ genre-defining tale diligently retold. It’s not easy to come up with a new angle on the story of King Crimson after Sid Smith’s 2002 book, In The Court Of The Crimson King, and its expanded 2019 sequel made a strong claim to being a definitive tome on the band, while Eric Tamm’s 2003 book Robert Fripp: From King Crimson To Guitar Craft served more muso-focused devotees. Yet longtime follower Pete Tomsett produces a strong complementary account here, whose strength is its exhaustively researched details (complete with footnotes representing a comprehensive reading list for any Crimson scholar) allied to a fan’s contemporary ear for how the band kickstarted then outgrew the prog scene they pioneered. Although he warns us early on that this is…

FIFTY SHADES OF CRIMSON

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JACK HUES

VENUE ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH, LONDON DATE 23/09/2021 It’s probably been said before within these pages, but watching Jack Hues perform, one is always left with the impression of a man who is playing music for the music’s sake. That might not possibly be the case when he fronts Wang Chung at any 80s revival event, but since he invested in his jazz outfit The Jack Hues Quartet, reworked Beck’s Nobody’s Fault But My Own into a lengthy prog workout with members of Syd Arthur or finally set out on a solo career with 2020’s Primitif, one gets the sense of a man loving music but caring not for the spotlight. That was certainly the case when Prog caught Hues at this venue a couple of years ago, and it’s…