Table of contents for Issue 97 in Prog

Big Big Train are departing for a Grand Tour via English Electric on May 17. The new studio album from the Prog Award winners pulls away from the British folklore of their former releases and takes inspiration from other lands. Their new adventures draw parallels to their expanded reach and touring schedule. “For the last 10 years, our music has been focused on Britain, the British landscape and the people so we wanted this new album to look further afield for inspiration,” reveals founding bassist and songwriter Greg Spawton. “The album is inspired by the 17th and 18th century custom of the grand tour where young men and women travelled outside the UK to broaden the mind and find out more about art, culture, history and ideas. As a band,…

Gong vocalist and guitarist Kavus Torabi has described The Universe Also Collapses as “the ultimate psychedelic rock album.” Ideas for the new recording, out on Kscope on May 10, evolved during the band’s recent live shows. “We improvise a lot and each night we’d find new directions that seemed to work,” says Torabi. “You might happen upon an idea and talk about it afterwards, especially if you’ve got a run of gigs. The next night, you’re going to push it further. The sounds, colours and shapes would reveal themselves and you’d be like, ‘Wow, man! That was fucking far out!’ By the time we actually came to write the record, we’d already conceptualised what we wanted it to do.” The album, Gong’s second with the Knifeworld frontperson, explores the idea…

Popol Vuh are releasing expanded remasters of five of their most important albums via BMG on April 26. Affenstunde, Hosianna Mantra, Einsjäger & Siebenjäger, Aguirre, and Nosferatu will be available individually on CD, and as part of a six-LP box titled, The Essential Album Collection Vol 1. Popol Vuh disintegrated after founder Florian Fricke died in 2001, but former band members Guido Hieronymus and Frank Fiedler have revived the keyboard visionary’s original recordings. Fielder says, “I’ve been digitising the archive over the years and wanted to create new mix-downs of the albums using modern technology. There are some subtle differences, but we’ve done them in the spirit of Florian’s original mixes.” More reissues will follow later in the year with an electronic remix package in the pipeline too. Hieronymus and…

Human relationships are explored on Bjørn Riis’ A Storm Is Coming, out May 3 via Karisma. The album, mastered by White Willow’s Jacob Holm-Lupo, sees Airbag’s lead guitarist and songwriter return to his roots for musical inspiration. “There are lots of 70s prog elements on the album but I think I’ve gone deeper into my classic rock roots too. It’s always been a huge part of my music but perhaps it hasn’t come through on the Airbag albums and my earlier releases so I wanted to explore that a little bit more,” he says. “I have some very talented people with me and I think we’ve managed to do something very special.” The six-track recording, which also features his Airbag bandmate Henrik Bergan Fossum and a guest appearance from Wobbler…

My grandchildren (all 11 of them) call me Grandpa Grumpy for reasons I really don’t understand. One of my sons did try to explain it to me once. He told me, “It’s basically because you’re a miserable, grumbling old sod, Dad!” Well that certainly shut me up! Despite my nickname, I do love kids and, because I’ve always refused to grow up, I feel I can relate to them most of the time. Children enjoy life; they’ve not been tainted by adult stupidity, or the ludicrous rules and crap views that so many of us seem to develop as we get older. They also have a wonderful ability to be able to say what they think without giving a toss about how other people might react. For example, a few…

“The first time I heard Coheed And Cambria I was about 18 and they’d just released the album In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3. I remember hearing the song A Favor House Atlantic and being blown away by the melody. I’d grown up with a little Pink Floyd and King Crimson and I appreciated bands from that era but Coheed And Cambria was the first time that a band of my generation had done prog. I really liked the concept – it was a saga, a bit like Star Wars – and I liked the eccentric solos and Claudio Sanchez’ unique voice, it was exciting to hear. This opened the door to a sort of nu-prog thing for me; I started listened to Tool and Meshuggah, and heard prog…

“In Chile, everything comes 20 years later,” laughs Juan Quiroga, an architect of buildings by day and of music by night. “With prog, it’s very much the same. When we started out there were maybe two or three big prog bands here but there’s so many now and we’re really proud of that.” Formed in 2013, Walk The Rail released their crowdfunded debut, Embroidery five years later. Quiroga admits the turnaround time was frustrating but he’s glad they didn’t rush the writing process. “You’ve got to keep in mind that we all have full-time jobs and other lives outside the band,” he says, “so we took our time with the album, revisiting and questioning every song, its emotions and genre shifts, and making sure they felt right. In the end…

It all started with prog, of course. The pioneers of the digital model that collectors are familiar with today was our very own Marillion, who, in 1997, asked fans to help them cover the costs of a US tour. Then, in 1999, they returned to their supporters to subsidise album Anoraknophobia. The crowdfunder was born. Today there are hundreds of platforms, but one especially resonated with bands and fans; PledgeMusic. Begun in a London basement in 2009, Pledge became a go-to for acts wanting to create prestige products and/or unique experiences to sell direct to fans. It soon spread its offices worldwide. But last summer things went awry. Payments to artists for completed projects slowed, then stopped. By January this year, acts were being told they couldn’t be paid —…

IT SHOULD BE immediately clear from their name alone that Quantum Pig are cut from the prog cloth. The duo, formed of vocalist Mark Stevenson and multi-instrumentalist whizz Ian Faragher, sprung out of a friendship that was itself rooted in a mutual love of progressive music. Stevenson, who by day is an author, playwright and professional futurist of some renown, first met Faragher – a longtime devotee of experimental music – in their South London local. The two soon found themselves comparing notes. “When I met Ian it was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to pretend!’” says Stevenson, who was thrilled to meet another prog fan. “I can talk about Power Windows or Yes, or why I think Frost* are more important than Van der Graaf Generator.’” The ’Pig evolved…

“I STILL THINK SPIRIT OF EDEN IS THE MOST ADMIRABLE ‘FUCK-YOU’ TO THE POP MAINSTREAM EVER MADE.”Steven Wilson Few heard it coming in the early music of Talk Talk, whose 1982 debut album The Party’s Over, a slice of now-dated synth-pop sheen that wanted to be Roxy Music’s Avalon but landed on Midge Ure’s Ultravox, was described by critics as “a mess”, “airless” and “a laughable pomposity”. (To be fair, one spotted “a gothic, almost celestial majesty”.) Yet by the time the band’s “career” – for want of a better word – had ended 10 years later, they had transformed into something radically more exploratory and, to this day, quietly influential. Recent obituaries of Mark Hollis didn’t shy away from claiming that his passionate pursuit of an almost impossible ideal…

As their smiling faces pop up on jittery Skype screens, it is immediately apparent that O.R.k. members Colin Edwin and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (aka ‘LEF’) are very excited about the music they have just released. An eccentric and unpredictable collaboration between Edwin (Porcupine Tree/Obake), legendary drummer Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson), guitarist Carmelo Pipitone and multi-instrumentalist and frontman Fornasari (Berserk!/Obake), they have steadily shrugged off the side-project tag and evolved into one of modern prog’s most fascinating and original bands. For once, what could have easily been just another low-key prog supergroup has turned into a harmonious creative unit, somewhat against the odds. “I’ve always had a lot of confidence in the music,” states Edwin with a smile and a shrug. “But we set ourselves up on the first record [2015’s…

“Maybe there is something about Canterbury that makes you write songs that are 20 minutes long with an improvisation in the middle.”Jack Hues The question “What is prog?” will probably be debated until the crack of doom, without anyone being able to come up with an answer that is universally approved. Trying to define the Canterbury Scene of the late 60s and early 70s is almost as difficult, especially as most of its major figures reckon that it didn’t exist – although there must have been something there or we wouldn’t still be talking about it today. And if there was a Canterbury Scene, then what was the Canterbury Sound? What is certain is that a celebration of Canterbury’s musical legacy brought Jack Hues And The Quartet and Syd Arthur…

“I’ve been Mr Ozric more than 30 years and it’s quite nice to step aside from that and say, ‘This is what I do and I hope you enjoy it.’” Ed Wynne has been around. He has helmed Ozric Tentacles for 35 years, from spontaneous free festival happenings to chart success. In 1993 Jurassic Shift spent four weeks on the UK chart, peaking at No.11. An impressive zenith to reach for an album of instrumental counter-culture exotica housed in hemp packaging. There must have been something in the air. Recently he has put the band on hiatus, searching for the spark elsewhere, at least temporarily. He released his first solo record back in January. Its title, Shimmer Into Nature, could be another way of saying, “We come from stardust…”? “…and…

Devin Townsend wants to get something off his chest. For the last hour, he has been talking to Prog about his life, his career, his mental state, his view of sex and countless other things. “Can I just say thank you for taking the time to listen to me,” he says without a trace of irony when we’re done. “This process is as helpful for me as I hope it is for you.” Where some musicians are guarded or inarticulate, the Vancouver-born singer, guitarist and leader of at least half a dozen bands over the last 25 years is the exact opposite. You get the sense that moments like this are as much a chance to work through his own thoughts and experiences as they are interviews. But then Devin…

PROG AIN’T NOISE POLLUTION After reading Prog 95 avidly and with the pleasure that I have done for many years, [I had to write] concerning the new Dream Theater album (Distance Over Time). As an intermittent fan of Dream Theater (mostly the prog songs), what I found, listening to the album, was… noise pollution! The only prog song is Out Of Reach. I am not too old to accept evolution in prog, but I can’t deal with this type of ‘prog music’. I learn lots about prog in ‘our’ magazine. Prog On… but don’t call a pig a cow. Paulo Vasconcelos, Lisbon, Portugal FROM AMERICA, WITH LOVE Here in the USA we are a little behind in receiving Prog magazine, but better late than never! For issue 94, all I…

“I think people will be very surprised,” TesseracT vocalist Daniel Tompkins reveals to Prog ahead of the release of his solo debut Castles, out via Kscope on May 31. “It’s very dark and very electronic. There are some big rock ballads, crushing symbols, distorted guitars, programmed beats, pulsating synths… The closest artists I can compare it to would be Nine Inch Nails or maybe Massive Attack. I’ve also been inspired by Björk, David Bowie, Enigma, and A Perfect Circle.” Tompkins began work on the project four years ago with US producer Eddie Head. He was looking for a dark electronic outlet that he had full creative control of. Musically, he’s brought in previous collaborators including Zeta’s Paul Ortiz, White Moth Black Butterfly producer Randy Slaugh and his TesseracT bandmate Acle…

Aeon Zen release Inveritas, their first album in five years, independently on May 10. It’s the first time all the members have written collectively, and the recording features a guest appearance from DragonForce keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov on the title track. The change of approach is partly due to leader Rich Hinks’ experiences since the release of 2014’s Ephemera. “In 2015, I joined [Canadian thrashers] Annihilator. I produced their last album and I produced lots of other bands,” he tells Prog. As a result, while previous albums were written almost entirely solo, he realised, “We’ve got a strong core of musicians who all know the direction we want to go in; we thought, ‘We’re going to do this as a band.’” While Ephemera and predecessor Enigma were concept albums, the decision was…

Lost In Kiev release Persona via Pelagic Records on April 26. The Mogwai fans describe the nine-track as their “most complex concept” to date. “The theme is artificial intelligence and how humanity interacts with it,” reveals bass and synth player Jean Christophe ‘JC’ Condette. “Persona is a reflection of AI in our life and how things can be, but it’s open to the listener’s interpretation.” The album has been greatly influenced by the four-piece’s passion for electronic music and sci-fi soundtracks, with particular reference to the work of Vangelis, Clint Mansell, Mogwai and 65daysofstatic. Says Condette, “We’re creating a reverse soundtrack; we thought about the music with images in our mind and then created a lot of visuals.” Lost In Kiev head out on tour in May. For all the dates…

There are few things more temperamental than the British weather, and it’s one of the reasons why Guildford’s inaugural Radar Festival will be held indoors. “Excluding the terrifying risk of doing an outdoor event, we really love the indoor format. It also avoids the problem of watching a band, who you know are immersive, in full daylight,” says Progressive Promotions’ Joe James, who’s also events and operations manager at Guildford’s Boileroom. He’s one half of the team behind the weekender; the other is fellow prog fan and tour manager Catherine Jackson, who’s been running Alton’s Lounge Bar for more than a decade. Separately, the pair have been promoting local prog shows for years but recently decided to pool their resources for a bigger event. Radar is the result with Animals…

A new ELP vinyl box will be released on May 31 via BMG, and we have one set signed by Carl Palmer to give away. The 4LP collection titled Emerson, Lake & Palmer: The Anthology (1970-1998) will feature a carefully chosen selection of ELP’s finest moments alongside fan favourites. With tracks from all the original albums making up more than 3½ hours of music, the galaxy-effect coloured vinyl includes material digitally mastered from HD sources at half-speed for superior audio quality, and the box set includes a 12-page insert, complete with sleeve notes by Chris Welch and photographs of ELP. For your chance to win the box set signed by Carl Palmer, visit www.bit.ly/ELPComp and answer the following question: What was the name of ELP’s first single? A) From The…

“It was a good time to get back to the roots that I’d started in the 70s…”Jon Anderson 1988 wasn’t a vintage year for prog. In fact, at times it seemed as if the genre as we knew it was all but extinct, or at least in very poor health. The genre’s original leading lights certainly didn’t seem to be able or willing to arrest its decline. ELP were long gone, King Crimson were on indefinite hiatus. Genesis had never been more successful, yet at the same time never further away from their progressive roots as their polished pop rock formula continued to reap chart rewards. Pink Floyd still seemed to be approximating former glories but without Roger Waters, their intellectual, if not creative driving force, and with a slick,…

Last autumn, the prospect of attending the sixth Cruise To The Edge progressive rock floating festival was highly appealing. As 2019 dawns, the Cruise’s allure increases. However, a few weeks before Cruise’s scheduled departure on February 4 from Tampa, there’s a US government shutdown, as President Trump holds a Mexican standoff with the Democrats over his proposed southern border wall. Ultimately, to the relief of prog fans fearing disrupted air travel, Trump blinks first. For many Cruisers, a Florida trip represents an escape from the polar vortex that swept the US midwest. Meanwhile, February begins with parts of the UK at a pitiful standstill from light snow. Prog heads excitedly to London’s Gatwick airport on Sunday February 3, anticipating warm weather, a musical smorgasbord, and a week avoiding the Brexit…

German keyboardist/vocalist Yogi Lang first encountered guitarist Karlheinz ‘Kalle’ Wallner in 1988 when the latter was playing in a band called Incubus. Eventually renamed Violet District, the group released their sole album, Terminal Breath in 1992, with Lang producing. Based 40km north of Munich in Freising, that group met with only modest success, disbanding by the late 90s. “We did this thing together, and then we had contact and talked from time to time,” Lang recalls. “But I was [mostly] in the studio working, and Kalle was playing guitar. We met again in 1997 and talked about going back on stage.” An opportunity for a live gig came up, but the musicians found themselves short on time to prepare. “So we jammed over old Floyd songs, because this was what…

Even with a crystal ball you might not have seen The Secret coming. Alan Parsons’ last studio album, the electronica experiment A Valid Path, was released back in 2004 and, by his own admission, didn’t exactly set the world alight. But by then he didn’t need to be making records at all. His legacy and reputation had already been long assured, through his work with The Beatles and on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, and his pioneering raft of hit albums with Eric Woolfson as The Alan Parsons Project. His remains a marquee name, synonymous with immaculate production and high-end, hit concept albums. The Alan Parsons Live Project has been his bread and butter gig for the past two decades, and another album wasn’t on the cards until…

STEVE ROTHERY BAND VENUE THE JUNCTION, CAMBRIDGE DATE 24/02/19 SUPPORT SYLF, RICCARDO ROMANO, THE DAVE FOSTER BAND “It’s all rather uplifting: three-decade-old songs performed with a verve that belies their age, for an audience determined to savour every moment.” Last year Steve Rothery took his Collection Of Musical Curiosities shows to Uden in The Netherlands and Łód in Poland, and tonight it’s lucky Cambridge. It’s an event that gives the Marillion guitarist the opportunity to revisit two of the band’s most popular albums – Misplaced Childhood and Clutching At Straws – without involving either the singer who stamped his authority on those songs first time round, or the singer who’s done the same to everything they’ve released since. It’s also an event that allows Rothery to surround himself with musicians…

MARJANA SEMKINA @marjanasemkina I’m going back to the UK tomorrow to record vocals for our album 4. Most of my tiny suitcase is filled with notebooks and books and recording equipment and I’m going for over a month… AMY BIRKS @Amy_l_Birks In the writing zone! Think I’ve just finished something quite special #newsongs DEVIN TOWNSEND @dvntownsend Got to check out the album again. It works. The idea was to make a multicoloured world to get lost in for awhile and feel purged when finished. I think the next thing I do is going to be super chill… CRAIG BLUNDELL @craigblundell In the studio today rehearsing on this gorgeous 24” @MapexDrums Saturn V Tour set up for tomorrow’s @MapexDrumsUSA masterclass at @Auvisa in Barcelona. It’s been a long time since I’ve…

Rick Wakeman stages two final UK performances of Journey To The Centre Of The Earth – and he’s returning to where it began in London 45 years ago. The dates are at the Royal Festival Hall on July 13 and 14, where Wakeman recorded the album live in 1974. “I wanted to celebrate my 70th birthday this year and my manager suggested taking Journey… back to the venue where I originally did it in ’74,” says Wakeman. “We do have offers to take this to other countries, but nothing’s confirmed, as it’s a very expensive production.” Wakeman will be joined by The Orion Orchestra, The English Chamber Choir and The English Rock Ensemble, with guest appearances from tenor Alfie Boe and actor Robert Powell. Further guests may be added closer…

Major Parkinson return to the UK in May to play their biggest show to date in the country. The Bergen group will perform at The Dome in north London on May 3, a day after hosting a secret warm-up show in the city exclusively for ticketholders. “The response last time round was just overwhelming,” recalls guitarist Øystein Bech-Eriksen of last year’s well-received UK headline tour. “By coincidence, we were contacted by the people at The Dome saying they wanted us to play there next time we were in London. The secret event is us wanting to do something extra special, something out-of-the-box for the die-hard fans in London.” The shows will be preceded by the release of a new single Jonah, as Major Parkinson look ahead to following up their…

“I began cooking properly during my first year of living on my own in London. Being a student, I was poor and didn’t have the money to eat out, at least not anything healthy. My interest grew from there. I wouldn’t say I’m an adventurous cook, but I do like to try to replicate dishes that I’ve experienced when touring around the globe. Here in Mexico, there’s plenty of cuisine to ease you from a head-shattering hangover to being a functional human once more. Chilaquiles is one such dish and, although it’s authentically Mexican, it contains ingredients that can be found anywhere in the world.” Ingredients (serves 6) 1 litre water, 4 medium plum tomatoes, ¼ white onion, 1-2 garlic cloves, 2 eggs, 500g tortilla chips, ½ hot pepper (optional),…

While best known for soul ballad Love And Affection and 80s pop hit Drop The Pilot, Joan Armatrading has always had a subtly subversive approach to songwriting that sets her slightly apart from the mainstream, and in her early years she surrounded herself with some proggy talent. Her first national radio appearances were on John Peel’s Radio 1 show, where she performed with Pete Zorn (Steeleye Span/The Albion Band) and guitarist Snowy White, and Fairport’s Jerry Donahue and Dave Mattacks were among the contributors to her formative albums. By the time she came to record The Key four of those had gone gold in the UK, with 1980’s Me Myself I hitting number five in the charts. Steve Lilywhite came on board to produce the follow-up, and he and Armatrading…

Leprous drummer Baard Kolstad releases his second album with Rendezvous Point on May 24. The nine-track Universal Chaos, out via Long Branch, builds on the emotive sounds the Norwegians developed on 2015’s Solar Storm. Wokingham Festival has teamed up with John Mitchell’s White Star Records to host their very first prog stage. Kepler Ten (left), The Paradox Twin and The Room are among the acts at the event in Cantley Park, Berkshire on August 26. Dur et Doux are to release PoiL’s Sus on April 26. The zany French proggers’ fourth album includes two 20-minute epics that transcend musical boundaries. The trio head out on tour this spring with shows planned until August. Snow Ghosts’ A Quiet Ritual is out via Houndstooth on May 3. The trio’s immersive third album…

“KING… CRIMSON?” CHRISTINE Goodwyne, singer and chief songwriter for Tallahassee four-piece Pool Kids, sounds faintly non-plussed. “I’ve heard of King Krule, but… that’s about the closest I’ve come.” Such gaps in her listening back catalogue hasn’t stopped 24-year-old Goodwyne making a debut album with her band Pool Kids (motto: “not cool kids”) that seems to arrive at many of the same multi-layered musical conclusions as prog’s finest, but approaching from a different, more angular indie rock background. “I tend to write a song and then I have this urge to chop it up and make it more interesting,” she tells Prog. But while the term ‘math rock’ has regularly been applied to Pool Kids’ music since their 2017 formation, this is far from austere, coldly calculating fare prizing technical complexity…

When Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe returned to work in the summer of 1990, at Miraval studios in the South of France, some momentum had clearly been lost. Anderson’s insistence on calling the shots was causing the same frictions it had in the past, but he argues that he was actually keen to compromise and let them contribute more to the writing stage of the process. “I just wanted to do a similar kind of work [to the first album] together, more closely knit. So I said, ‘OK, we’ll just try some ideas.’ I let them get more involved in the direction, saying to myself, ‘Well I don’t want to cramp their style, I just want to let them do it.’ But we really didn’t get very far.” Meanwhile, Jonathan Elias…

“CONCEPT ALBUMS ARE, OF COURSE, CONSIDERED OLD HAT THESE DAYS, BUT I MADE A CAREER OUT OF IT AND I DON’T SEE WHY I SHOULD STOP NOW.” It’s the morning after Alan Parsons has just returned home to Santa Barbara, California, from being out on the road with the Alan Parsons Live Project and he’s understandably a little husky talking to Prog. Yet the road weariness can’t mask his enthusiasm to have new music to talk about. A decade and a half after his last studio release, A Valid Path from 2004, Parsons is poised to release a brand-new album, The Secret. The long gap between releases stems from “no better reason than not having a record deal”, says Parsons, who was approached by Serafino Perugino of Frontiers Music to…

“We are our thoughts, our perceptions control our moods. We have so many ‘choices’ now, but in reality we’re all doing the same thing. We’re very good at being told what to like.” “Jaws is probably my favourite film ever,” says Robin Armstrong. “I saw it first in about 1980 when it came on TV, and I was truly freaked out by that head coming out of the bottom of the boat. It’s been a constant in my life, I watch it every time it’s on, and I always pick up something that I miss before. Nothing’s hit me in the same way since.” The cover of the new Cosmograf album, Mind Over Depth, is an echo of that movie’s truly iconic poster: a great white shark charges out of…

Dave Foster turned 48 in January. He spent his birthday in the air, flying out to Mexico with the Steve Rothery Band for some shows. British Airways saw his date of birth in his passport and kindly presented him with a card and a bottle of champagne. A few weeks later and he’s home in St Helens and talking to Prog. The winter cold is aggravating the chronic bone condition he’s suffered all his life, but he’s still sparky, full of enthusiasm and gratitude. “Steve’s my best mate, and also one of my heroes. He’s a remarkable musician, generous and he’s got a good moral compass. He is correct. The Rothery Band has enabled me to experience all the things I wanted to as a musician. I feel more like…

“We can’t seem to do anything today without our laptops or our phones. If you have a problem, you’re straight on Facebook about it!”Alice Freya Progressive rock and science fiction have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for almost half a century. Whether it’s 2112, Coheed And Cambria’s ‘Amory Wars’ saga or even Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds, experimental music has long been fascinated with the cosmic and the fantastical. Last Flight To Pluto are no exception to this long-standing tradition. On their brand new sophomore album, A Drop In The Ocean, the Welsh quintet explore the realms of technology and artificial intelligence. They endeavour to revitalise sci-fi-tinged prog, taking the style away from the stars and pulling it closer to contemporary realities with an eye-opening crash. “Songs like Masheena are…

Where’s home? Finchley, North London. Earliest prog memory? I was about six, listening to my parents’ copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They’d put the needle down, and it was amazing – the layers, the depth. It all started there for me. First prog record you bought? Yes, Going For The One, from Reddingtons Rare Records in Birmingham. Awaken blew my mind. And the latest? John McLaughlin and Jimmy Herring – Live in San Francisco. They play a lot of the classic Mahavishnu Orchestra material and sound fabulous. First prog gig? UK at the Mayfair Ballroom in Birmingham, June 1979. Turned out not to be Bill Bruford but the Terry Bozzio trio, which I knew nothing about, but they blew me away. Last prog gig? Soft Machine just…