Table of contents for Issue 89 in Prog

So we’re back in the office after another great Be Prog! My Friend festival. In fact, we were back just in time to get down to the Borderline to catch a great show by Aussie prog rockers Voyager too. Both events highlight the diversity and talent on offer in the progressive scene at the moment, the former aligning it with two fine sets from headliners A Perfect Circle and Steve Hackett. And although the odd grumble is nothing new to our community, I look at events such as these and see little correlation with some suggestions that 2018 hasn’t been a good year for progressive music. It’s that sense of balance that we alway try to reflect in Prog magazine. This issue’s cover feature looks at what Peter Gabriel got…

“I got diverted through villages, swamps, cart tracks…” There is a conservative estimate that there are 1,300,000 traffic cones on UK roads. There is also a conservative estimate that I’ve seen most of them. If only I could insert them into the rear ends of those responsible for them. Travelling by road is the lifeblood of all musicians and much of that travelling is done at night or in the early hours of the morning. I will now relate a true story about my journey home from a show in the West Country last year that had a simple four-hour route of going up the A303, joining the M3, down to and around the M25 to the M11 then onto the A11, turning off at Bury St Edmunds to get…

A feature-length film about Sparks is in progress, helmed by Baby Driver/Shaun Of The Dead director Edgar Wright. “I’ve been a fan since I saw them on Top Of The Pops in 1979,” he told Indiewire. It will be Wright’s first music documentary. It’s the height of summer, so the perfect time to announce three Jethro Tull Christmas Cathedral concerts! Ian Anderson (left) and band will play: Chester, Dec 1, Birmingham, Dec 17 and Hereford, Dec 18. Find more solstice bell-ringing at www.jethrotull.com.…

“It’s not all about a direct line from here to there to make a commodity. It’s about enjoying the process along the way. For someone who wanted to be a veterinarian as a child, Loreena McKennitt has enjoyed a spectacular career in music. Since emerging from the Canadian folk scene in the mid-80s, McKennitt has captivated audiences with her blend of Celtic, flamenco and Middle Eastern influences and that hauntingly beautiful voice. Her gorgeous new album Lost Souls is her first collection of original material in 12 years. Prog finds out more… It’s been a long time since you released an album of your own music… In 2006 I released An Ancient Muse. We did the concert at the Alhambra, we toured for a couple of years, then from 2009…

Despite all the difficulty associated with its delivery, Peter Gabriel enjoyed the extended narrative and utilisation of visuals on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, forever seen as ‘his baby’. During this period, Gabriel considered the idea of Mozo, another multimedia concept. Mozo was a ‘mercurial stranger’, an outsider based obliquely on the character of Moses. Mozo was to be a fictional character that came from nowhere, made changes to people’s lives and then abruptly disappeared. His principal method of communication was through short-wave radio, something that had become an obsession for Gabriel during this period. Mozo was inspired by the Aurora Consurgens, a medieval work. Carl Jung, whom Gabriel had recently become infatuated with as a writer, had attributed the work to St. Thomas Aquinas. Gabriel discussed the idea…

Fates Warning – Awaken The Guardian (1986) The Connecticut pioneers’ third album was the one where they truly came into their own. “We reached a peak with that one,” says guitarist Jim Matheos. “It’s innovative and musical and somewhat commercial.” Queensrÿche – Rage For Order (1986) Operation: Mindcrime two years later was their magnum opus, but Rage For Order was arguably more revolutionary at the time: laser-tooled art rock that predicted a bleak digital future in which no one comes out on top. Voivod – Dimension Hatröss (1988) The one-time thrash savages reached full prog metal velocity on their fourth album, a dizzying, juddering behemoth as fearsome as the intergalactic warlord that gave the band their name. Metallica – …And Justice For All (1988) The metal giants’ fourth album tore…

“You don't know the meaning of the word 'progressive' if you don't consider something like Hamburger Lady to be progressive. That's exactly what prog should be – pushing boundaries. Not much music genuinely frightens me. Throbbing Gristle frighten me. And I like it.” Rich Goodall “He’s a really cool guy who’s done great music and who Cosey Fanni Tutti thinks looks like a stud in jeans. All good things!” Lachlan Lachlan “I love the first album (The Second Annual Report). Side one is as extreme as it gets! Amazing synth sounds.” Matt Baber “Loved TG, Chris & Cosey, CCI, X-TG etc… Industrial, electronica, experimental… Many things but not prog!” Rob Hurst “Not progressive prog, too intense.” Steve Harrison “Anyone who begins their career doing light shows and visual effects for…

It’s been 12 years since Jerome Froese left the band his father founded. But since the death of Edgar Froese in 2015, he’s been less than happy with Tangerine Dream’s continued existence – despite Froese Sr giving the current line-up his blessing to continue his work. “When I was still in the band, many people asked me, ‘If Edgar quits one day, will you continue the band?’” says Jerome. “I always said, ‘No, Tangerine Dream is Edgar Froese, Edgar Froese is Tangerine Dream. Why should I continue with that?’ So why do they have to take the name? These are people who have so little impact in the whole history of Tangerine Dream. Eighty per cent of the music they are playing they haven’t composed. They’re like The Australian Pink…

Brummie folk proggers Quill first fledged in the early 70s, and over the years their line-up has included Diamond Head guitarist Brian Tatler and ELO/The Move’s Bev Bevan. Bevan’s back as their percussionist now, IQ/Frost’s Andy Edwards is on drums, and the band have taken flight again of late, recently playing Cropredy. Current EP Grey Goose Call (www.quilluk.com) sees them in moody, dark and sensual form, with Joy Strachan-Brain’s seasoned vocals on Little Affection and Skin On Skin nestled in a sweet spot between Sonja Kristina and Alison Goldfrapp. The Dame are a band from The Hague setting themselves the unenviable task of making prog ‘sexy’. As you can see from the leggy lovely adorning their debut LP Losing Sight Of What You Want (www.thedameband.com), their aesthetic is 1920s chic,…

VENUE GARAGE, BERGEN DATE 07-09/06/2018 It’s ironic that Bergen’s Close To The Rain festival, named after both the Yes album and the Norwegian city’s familiarity with the wet stuff, takes place in a heatwave, with not a drop falling from the sky over its three days. It’s hot inside the venue on the first night too, with Det Skandaløse Orkester juggling Zappa trickery with theatrics. It’s entertaining stuff, and by the end of the set, half the band are prancing about in their underwear. Kabaret Makaber are more reserved, channelling jazz vibes as Marita Vangen Bratteteig’s operatic voice shoots up to the Norse gods. Headliners Major Parkinson are playing their home city with stellar new album Blackbox in tow, and its kaleidoscopic tracks Isabel and Baseball are superb microcosms of…

VENUE MAX WATT’S HOUSE OF MUSIC, MELBOURNE DATE 31/05/2018 SUPPORT SIKTH This night is quite a momentous occasion. Although they formed almost two decades ago, British trailblazers SikTh have never made it to Australian shores – until now. And for fans Down Under, their first taste of this band’s polyrhythmic mayhem and ridiculously extroverted stage performance is one they’re keen to savour. That said, there’s a brief ‘feeling out’ period between band and audience. The wall-to-wall crowd, possibly not knowing quite what to expect from this unpredictable group, hold back just a touch for the first few tunes, a little tentative about giving their all. However, SikTh work overtime to win them over, especially trade-off frontmen Mikee Goodman and Joe Rosser, and by a third of the way into their…

VENUE PARK WEST, CHICAGO DATE 24/06/2018 Excitement fills the air as legendary guitarist Al Di Meola explains that the current tour may be his last, and that he’s “really pushing it”. The only thing Di Meola is pushing would be the limits of human ability, as no one has ever played a guitar faster than him, something he proves yet again at the age of 63. The set features new material alongside familiar songs of old. The crowd has an international vibe, with every continent represented, and the same can be said for the spices Di Meola gives to his music. From flares of Latin to the grooving of jazz fusion, Di Meola displays his versatility and how well rounded a player he is. Accompanying Di Meola are two percussionists,…

VENUE THE DOME, LONDON DATE 28/05/2018 “A cathedral of Radiohead-style indie prog noise.” There are few things as predictable on a British bank holiday Monday as weather more suited to waterfowl and planned engineering works on London’s transport network. Norway’s premier conceptual art-rockers have been paying attention, and thoughtfully issued a notification that tonight’s show will forego its customary interval to allow punters to get home safely at a reasonable hour. As latecomers shake off the last of the thunderstorm, the house lights dim, the artwork of Antonio Seijas illuminates the stage and the melancholic beats of Soyuz One enter the atmosphere. As the song builds, it soon becomes apparent that Jon-Arne Vilbo’s guitar is very high in the mix. Whether by accident or design, it adds a metallic edge…

Send your letters to us at: Prog, Future Publishing, 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY, or email prog@futurenet.com. We regret that we cannot reply to phone calls. For more comment and prog news and views, find us on facebook.com under Prog. PROG THAT SUCKS I was fascinated by Rhodri Marsden’s piece in Fad Gadgets [Prog 88] about the cyclophone, an instrument incorporating 48 flue pipes from Dyson vacuum cleaners and featured in a composition by David Roche. A musician colleague said that Dyson seemed to be the perfect machine for such compositions, which is a good point as it’s both efficient and contemporary. However, though Dyson may be the current go-to for works featuring vacuum cleaners, Malcolm Arnold’s A Grand Grand Overture (written for a Hoffnung Festival and incorporating three…

“We have so many people who have been in the band over the years and the original band had so many musical tastes, which is why we can play a jazz festival one day and a blues festival another,” The Marshall Tucker Band’s frontman Doug Gray told The Sarasota Post in 2014. “Our music fits in just about anywhere.” Released in April 1973, the first Marshall Tucker Band album emerged at the perfect moment, as the phenomenon known as southern rock began to widely exert its charms. Superficially at least, MTB weren’t radically different from their more prominent peers in Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band. But in reality, founder Gray (vocals) and Toy Caldwell (guitar/vocals) had taken a circuitous route to the genre. In the late 60s, Gray…

The Wetton Downes iCon trilogy of albums is available now, with bonus tracks. Geoff Downes has overseen the re-releases, saying, “All of these recordings mark special periods in our personal and creative lives.” A new documentary about former Can frontman Damo Suzuki (left) is in production. Titled Energy, it spotlights his past career and sees Suzuki battle colon cancer, while still performing. Find out more at www.damosuzuki.com. There’s a new label and a new album for Dream Theater. Now signed to InsideOut, they’re working on their as-yet untitled 14th. Guitarist John Petrucci said: “So far the music is heavy, progressive, melodic, shredding and it’s epic.” Claudio Simonneti’s Goblin celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Dawn Of The Dead score with four live dates and screenings, at Edinburgh’s Summerhall (August 5…

“He was a relentless driving force behind the band and although he was very rarely credited as a composer of any of the music, somehow he was always directing it.”Clem Clempson “What makes it all the more shocking is we were working together as normal and looking forward to the future, making lots of plans,” says Clem Clempson. By his own reckoning, the Colosseum and Humble Pie guitarist has spent the best part of 50 years working with Jon Hiseman, who died in June this year following his diagnosis of a brain tumour. Clempson’s voice frequently chokes with emotion as he recalls the man he was proud to call his friend. The pair had kept in touch after Colosseum played their farewell concert in 2015, and it was Hiseman who…

One of the paragraphs in Peter Gabriel’s leaving letter that gained the most attention was: “Even the hidden delights of vegetable growing and community living are beginning to reveal their secrets. I could not expect the band to tie in their schedules with my bondage to cabbages.” Gabriel remained proud of this period in his life. He was to say as late as 2012 that he took “two years off, growing cabbages and children”. Richard Macphail says: “Yes, Peter had a vegetable garden. His mother, Irene, had always had one, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue. He loved growing his veg and feeding his family. He had part of the garden turned over to veg. It wasn’t a big area by any means, but it’s surprising, if you’re…

August 31 will see the release of Unattended Luggage, a box set containing three of Mason’s solo releases. Joining Fictitious Sports, which saw him working with free jazz pianist Carla Bley, will be two of his collaborations with 10cc’s Rick Fenn: Profiles and White Of The Eye. “The thing I really enjoyed was listening to the Carla Bley stuff, which is nearly 40 years old,” says Mason. “I just love the brass sections on that. Did we do that? It’s really good! We were finishing The Wall and there was a hiatus while overdubs were being done in America. I think Carla loved the idea of doing something a little bit more rock’n’roll than jazzy, and I thought I’d like to go jazzy, so it was one of those really…

Genesis The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Seconds Out was the big discovery for me, but I used to lose myself in this. The sound world and piano techniques and sense of otherness have stuck with me. I listened to it and began to figure out what Tony Banks was doing. There’s probably a lot of Tony Banks in my new record, in that he would do that intricate thing that wasn’t necessarily flashy, but then you try to figure it out and you go, “Wow!” ELP Pictures At An Exhibition The first ELP thing I got was a VHS tape of Pictures At An Exhibition playing at the Lyceum and covered in awful special effects. Not long after, I got the sheet music for the piano score, just to…

Gordon Beck: Jubilation (Turtle) is a beautifully packaged three-disc set crammed with previously unreleased performances and voluminous, authoritative liner notes. Gordon Beck, who died in 2011 and worked with John McLaughlin and Nucleus, among others, is heard in a variety of line-ups between 1964 and 1984, featuring some of British jazz’s finest. Be it dreamy introspection or melodically deft interventions, Beck’s work on acoustic and electric piano acts as an accelerant on these priceless live and studio recordings. A brilliant tribute to a gifted player. Mike Gibbs’ work as an arranger and composer has always been a rallying point for some of the best players on the planet. Symphony Hall, Birmingham 1991 (Dusk Fire) captures him in charge of a 12-piece band, with guitarist John Scofield adding his trademark finesse.…

VENUE 02 ARENA, LONDON DATE 18/06/2018 Providing a mix of hard rock, metal and prog, Stone Free takes place at London’s O2 Arena and its more intimate satellite the IndigO2 over two days. Sunday is traditionally the prog rock day at the Arena, with past headliners including Rick Wakeman. 2018 marks the third year of the festival, but despite the positive things that could be written about it – and there are many – poor ticket sales suggest that only a brave man would bet upon it happening again. “Hodgson is in fine voice and Dreamer, one of the all-time great pop-pomp-prog anthems, gets the crowd on its feet.” Stone Free won’t be the first festival to struggle with ticket sales this summer, and neither will it be the last.…

VENUE BOOT & SADDLE, PHILADELPHIA DATE 08/06/2018 SUPPORT IN THE PRESENCE OF WOLVES, GATHERERS Boston’s Bent Knee are a band unlike any other. Formed in 2009, the sextet quickly earned a stellar reputation for their inventive and eccentric blends of rock, pop, minimalist and avant-garde sounds. As such, their live renditions are always fascinating and endearing, and this headlining show at Boot & Saddle in Philadelphia is no different. New Jersey quartet In The Presence Of Wolves waste no time blowing away the crowd with their impassioned songwriting and intricate arrangements. Influenced by genre icons such as Between The Buried And Me and Coheed And Cambria, they merge complexity and catchiness, while replicating tracks from both 2014’s Thalassas (Palladium, Thalassas II) and last year’s Of Two Minds EP (White Noise,…

VENUE BOSTON MUSIC ROOM, LONDON DATE 22/06/2018 “Morse isn’t shy about proclaiming his faith, but proselytising and rock music aren’t comfortable bedfellows: the devil has always had the best music.” For a Friday night at the Boston Music Room in Tufnell Park, tonight’s gig feels an awful lot like the Sunday service at an evangelical church. Relocated at the last minute from the larger space of The Dome, the venue is filled with rows of chairs for the seated faithful to give their fullest attention to Neal Morse on this solo acoustic tour. It’s a significantly smaller crowd than the ones that turn out for the full Neal Morse Band – perhaps that’s due to the absence of Mike Portnoy, who always brings out his own legion of air-drumming fans.…

VENUE THE TALKING HEADS, SOUTHAMPTON DATE 08/06/2018 SUPPORT THE GIFT, UNREAL CITY “We may yet witness something special from Kaprekar’s Constant, but for now, their live show remains a work in progress.” More than 6,000 people are otherwise engaged in Southampton tonight. Over half of them set sail on board the cruise ship Ventura and the other segment enjoy West End smash War Horse at the Mayflower Theatre. Just a quick canter away at the less crowded Talking Heads, the aggregate of musicians onstage outnumbers the audience – a statistic that’s disappointing at best, tragic at worst. Given this startling ratio, the extant atmosphere is like a final rehearsal. And without introduction, Kaprekar’s Constant end their soundcheck and launch straight into their time-limited set. Their pastoral pleasantness instils a benign…

VENUE THE TALKING HEADS, SOUTHAMPTON DATE 24/06/2018 A scorching hot evening on the south coast greets Haze, one of prog’s great enigmas. Once regular visitors to Southampton, they’re now seldom seen in the southern shires. However, this historical connection is one reason why they’re back on their 40th anniversary weekend for the second of two special celebration shows. A cluster of diehard fans make this a highly personal, intimate night for the performing McMahons. The clan comprises founders and brothers Paul and Chris, joined by Paul’s son Danny on drums, along with Chris’ significant other, goth-booted flautist Ceri Ashton. Haze are always entertaining, eccentric and, as tonight reveals, unpredictable. In his cloak and crooked hat, barefooted bassist and keyboard player Chris McMahon resembles the love child of Merlin and Catweasel.…

JUDY DYBLE @judydyble Singing at a house concert near Ely last night.. I think I should stand on a box in future :-) RICK WAKEMAN @GrumpyOldRick Had a fabulous time last night with son Adam at the charity event who asked some embarrassing questions and I squirmed accordingly! Thanks son for flying in that day, getting no sleep, driving back last night, having little sleep and flying off at the crack of dawn. Proud of you. MIKE PORTNOY @MikePortnoy Good times at @ hellfestopenair #hellfest @ StevenWilsonHQ MARJANA SEMKINA @marjanasemkina Moscow show was fun. Which you can clearly tell from joyous expression on my face. JAKKO M JAKSZYK @JakkoJ Ah. Vienna and an evening off. I decide to immerse myself in the indigenous culture. I watch Nigeria v Iceland in…

Skyharbor release the long-awaited Sunshine Dust on September 7 via eOne/Good Fight Music. The Indian/American collective have spent the best part of four years working on the album and ended up completely re-recording it in Australia. “The producers [Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus) and DLC’s Luke Williams] helped us take the songs apart and almost rewrite a bunch on them,” explains founding guitarist Keshav Dhar, “but we felt like we were in good hands from the beginning.” The 13-tracker is the first full-length recording to feature singer Eric Emery and drummer Aditya Ashok who both joined the band in 2015. “The sound of the band now is a lot more edgy and bi-polar,” says Dhar. “There’s some really pretty stuff but there’s also stuff that’s way more dark and…

Brisbane’s Dead Letter Circus are back with their fourth studio album, which is out via Rise/BMG on September 7. Titled Dead Letter Circus, it’s their first album of new material since 2015’s Aesthesis and follows on from last year’s acoustic reworking, The Endless Mile. “It’s very hard to rewrite your songs in a different format and at the very end of that process, the ideas for this one started coming out like an epic download from the ether!” says frontman Kim Benzie. The new 10-tracker takes lyrical inspiration from self-reflection. “Being a musician in this day and age throws you different challenges; it’s not a very supported path,” he says. “But the ultimate compliment is when fans tell us our music has helped them get their life back on track.…

ELECTROSPIT Much effort has been made over the history of rock to make people sound like robots. There’s the vocoder, where the sound of the voice combines with a synth to get that Mr Blue Sky effect, and the talkbox, which traditionally involves sticking a special rubber tube into the mouth of Peter Frampton or Roger Troutman. Here’s a way of getting that talkbox effect with a fraction of the saliva: the ESX1, which pops around your neck, rests against your vocal chords, takes a guitar cable in the back and, yes, makes you sound like a robot. www.electrospit.com SLEEPBUDS I hereby reach out to fellow insomniacs who worry about the state of the planet (or even the kitchen) at four am. Bose have designed some earbuds to be worn…

“I was born in Bologna, a city famous for its food and in particular for its wonderful pasta dishes. My mother, my grandmothers, all aunts and even my mother-in-law have always been great pasta makers. My wife spoils me every day with extraordinary dishes. But I also inherited this passion – I often cook for the family and some of the best memories of my tours with Frizzi 2 Fulci are the pasta binges after the concerts. I remember one in Wales, and one incredible time in Los Angeles, always with the help of my musicians. This recipe is probably the pasta I prefer, a pleasure for the body and for the spirit. I hope you love it too!” Ingredients For the sauce: a stalk of celery, a carrot, an…

I remember receiving the announcement that Apple were discontinuing their iconic iPod Classic in 2014 like a punch in the gut. My knee-jerk reaction was to go deep survivalist, stockpiling iPods like my life was dependent on it, which at the time it felt like it was: as a painfully awkward early 20-something that hadn’t long since lost a parent, the Classic gave me permission to tune in and space out in the chaotic maelstrom of London. While it’s easy to get misty-eyed about the simple pleasure of the clicky iPod wheel or the fact it was built like an armoured personnel carrier, it was the glorious, forgiving amount of space I cherished – which fellow prog fans will appreciate, I’m sure. In hindsight, I actually think the untimely demise…

“On And You And I God made contact with Yes and something wonderful happened.” “I have all of this to blame on my proggy school friend, Nicholas Abbott. We were 13, living in Sheffield, and he was richer and more sophisticated than me. He sat me down to listen to Tarkus by ELP and I was struck by the cover. I listened, quite bemused. Musically, my background had been hymns – I loved singing hymns in junior school – so I was influenced by John Wesley, the pop chart, The Sound Of Music and Oklahoma!, which were regulars on my dad’s hi-fi. Tarkus sounded very adult and rather cold, but I knew I was having to leave the world of The Monkees and Sweet behind me for a new horizon.…

“We wanted to take the music as far as it would go, take the instruments as far as they would go, take the composition to extremes.”Mike Portnoy Voivod drummer Michel ‘Away’ Langevin remembers the first night his band opened for Rush. It was March 20, 1990, in Edmonton, Alberta, and the iconic Canadian trio were touring their home country in support of Presto, a record that found them gently rowing back from the synth-heavy furrow they’d been pursuing during the previous decade. By contrast, Voivod were heading in the opposite direction, relatively speaking. The Quebec quartet had begun life as a primitive thrash metal band, all white hi-top sneakers and flailing hair. But their recent albums had seen them introducing more complex musical and lyrical themes into their music. Their…

“Without doubt one of my biggest influences, one of the main reasons I’m doing this, is Dream Theater.” Yes – Yessongs (1973) “This is Yes at the height of their golden era. I think it’s so nice that it captures that raw essence of them playing live, rather than being too perfect. That’s something Haken can learn from in future – we’re perfectionists whereas sometimes it’s the imperfections that add something. “The rawness of the quality is one of the things I like about Yessongs, but you can still hear the nuances of the performance and I find the mix well done. Considering it’s an analogue mix, everything is separated and clear. There’s young muscle behind the performance which, understandably, you wouldn’t get from Yes these days, and the album…

“The 1979 Out Of The Blue tour was amazing and a lot of people have said it was the best show they’ve ever seen – it was spectacular.” In 1965, Birmingham-based guitarist Trevor Burton and bass guitarist Ace Kefford were putting together a group. They went to see a young David Jones – who seemed on the verge of success and was just about to change his stage name to Bowie – and after the show they asked him for some advice on how to crack the music business. He told them: “Find the best people in Birmingham and rehearse like crazy. Then move to London and get yourself a manager.” They recruited Bev Bevan on drums and Carl Wayne on vocals – Bevan had played in local bands since…

The return of Cobalt Chapel can only be a good thing. While we await a follow-up to last year’s sublime debut album (the new full-length is due in early 2019), Jarrod Gosling and Cecilia Fage offer up a tantalising EP, Mountain (Klove). There’s a greater emphasis on electronica in the scuttling title track, but it’s the combustible psych noise of the epic Canticle that really catches the breath. Not content with issuing one of this year’s best psychedelic offerings in Freedom’s Goblin, Ty Segall has now reunited with fellow Californian Tim Presley, aka White Fence, for their second album together. Joy (Drag City) sees the duo experiment with form, shifting moods with elastic frequency on trippy folk prog songs that dash between Syd-ish reverie (Good Boy; Do Your Hair) to…

VENUE BRIXTON ACADEMY, LONDON DATE 13/06/18 “A Perfect Circle are a band who make few concessions – their music is frequently dense and oppressive.” Given the level of agonizing that goes into his work – Eat The Elephant is A Perfect Circle’s first album in 14 years, and Tool’s last effort surfaced 12 years ago – frontman Maynard James Keenan is clearly the kind of man who begins deliberating over his Christmas card salutations in July. And even then, you can be sure that you’ll be warned off from wasting your time on anything as trite as organised religion or the concept of a supernatural power greater than yourself. And so it proves tonight, as A Perfect Circle’s disciples, here gathered at the first of two sold-out shows at this…

VENUE CASTLE DONINGTON DATE 08-10/06/2018 “TesseracT fill the tent to tinned sardine capacity and appear to have spent an entire year’s tour budget on a spectacular, occasionally disorientating light show.” While Download 2018 will be remembered for an entire festival line-up playing sideshow to a Guns N’ Roses set dotted with unexpected cover versions (an instrumental Wish You Were Here, anyone?), there’s plenty to enjoy in Donington’s murkier corners. Friday’s adventures kick off with Gold Key, who belong to that modern breed of angular alt-rock acts whose sound is heavy on the atmospherics, with ringing chords and choruses not designed for shows under canvas. Steve Sears’ vocals tend to wobble dangerously off-key, but Creep In Slowly lurches along with malevolent intent. Later, on the same stage, TesseracT fill the tent…

VENUE ST. JOHN ON BETHNAL GREEN, LONDON DATE 09/06/2018 SUPPORT ROCHE MAN “If Kate Bush had stumbled into an avant-jazz jam night, it might’ve sounded like this.” Forget bars, raves, revamped warehouses or actual designated gig venues – avant-garde electronic music should always be performed in churches. There’s something about the combination of brilliant acoustics, high ceilings and aged, reverential atmosphere that welcomes strange echoes, unconventional chord structures and otherworldly vocal lines. And it’s perhaps particularly fitting for tonight’s headliner. Jenny Hval has never claimed to be a conventional performer, and her strange, highly conceptual brand of progressive noise makes sense in this visually arresting setting, one designed for reflection, rather than rocking. St John On Bethnal Green – a fully functioning house of God by day – is no…

VENUE THE TALKING HEADS, SOUTHAMPTON DATE 23/06/2018 After opening their own concert under the pseudonym of R2 – a Rush tribute that perform everything from The Temples of Syrinx to Subdivisions – Steve Hales, James Durand and Mike Tillotson return to The Talking Heads’ stage as Kepler Ten. After providing a collection of magnificently executed cover renditions, the Southampton-based power trio now switch gears to entirely original material for their headline slot, delivering a showcase of progressive perfection that mixes the compositions and technicality of the previously mentioned Rush with the heavy, muscular proficiency of Dream Theater. The band kick-start their set with the 10-minute Ultraviolet. The opening track of their recent debut album Delta-v (which is tonight played in its entirety), this actually begins Kepler Ten’s display with a…

VENUE ISLINGTON O2 ACADEMY, LONDON DATE 08/06/2018 “Questioning Eyes is the high-water mark of the set, an arena-friendly power ballad with a scorcher of a solo.” The last time Mostly Autumn played a headline show in London, one uncommonly chilly and drizzly night last September, they performed their most recent album Sight Of Day in its entirety. Perhaps it was the relative unfamiliarity of the material, but they seemed just a little stiff on that occasion. Tonight, however, there’s a fresh face behind the drum kit, with Touchstone’s Henry Rogers taking over from Alex Cromarty, and there’s a new energy onstage as they deliver a pumped-up performance that refuses to be derailed, even when beset by some early technical gremlins. There’s an odd crackle in Bryan Josh’s guitar in the…

VENUE 100 CLUB, LONDON DATE 06/06/2018 SUPPORT THE OSCILLATION As Bardo Pond themselves acknowledged on the title of their fourth album, the psychedelic experience has always been reliant on set and setting. No strangers to third-eye-opening allusions, the Philadelphian sonic astronauts have made little secret of laying bare their mind-altering intentions with barely disguised album names and side projects. Yet for all that, tonight’s performance feels like a doobie rolled from roaches and one that fails to truly hit home. But first up are openers The Oscillation. Trimmed to a trio with the adept Jeremy Doulton replacing the idiosyncratic drumming skills of Valentina Magaletti, their variant of psychedelia is fuelled by a desire to mine all possibilities for all that they’re worth. So it is that Take Us To The…