Table of contents for Issue 103 in Prog

Van der Graaf Generator have announced a series of UK dates for May 2020, with more European dates in the pipeline. The group have been dormant since releasing their 13th album Do Not Disturb in 2016 and have not played live for seven years. Vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player Peter Hammill has been particularly active this year, collaborating with Tim Bowness and Isildur’s Bane and releasing a solo eight-CD live box set Not Yet Not Now, but he sees the revival of Van der Graaf as a separate issue. “We’ve been hovering around since Do Not Disturb and we meet for band lunches, but for various reasons we’ve not been in a position to crack on and do something,” he tells Prog. “And so at our lunch this year we…

Gentle Giant fans will need to get into training when it comes to lifting the forthcoming Unburied Treasure boxed set due for release in December, bulging with 30 discs, including a brand new surround sound mix for the self-titled 1970 debut by Steven Wilson as well as newly remastered versions of their entire studio and live output. Aimed at the collectors market the £250 big box is limited to 2,000 copies worldwide and comes with a 136-page hardback book chronicling the band’s life and times, signed photo, items of memorabilia and no less than a whopping 15 previously unreleased live shows. One reason for including so many live discs that run from 1972 through to the band’s demise in 1980 is a recognition of how different the band were when…

Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness’s No-Man will close a 25-year circle with the release of seventh album Love You To Bits, which arrives on November 22 via Caroline International. It’s been 11 years since previous record Schoolyard Ghosts appeared, but Bowness tells Prog the wait could have been even longer. “We tried a few recording sessions in between 2008 and 2018,” he says. “We came up with the core of the first song in 1994. It was going to be the start of the follow-up to our second album, Flowermouth.” When the duo changed tack, the proposed material no longer worked, and lay mainly dormant through several album cycles until Wilson told Bowness in 2017: “I’ve just found this on my hard drive – why on Earth aren’t we working…

NW-A100TPS WALKMAN In 1979, the first Sony Walkman was launched. It was a humble machine that introduced the world to fully portable music and allowed us to isolate ourselves on buses and trains in order to avoid dull conversations. This 40th anniversary model looks just like the original but refrains from any attempt to revitalise the cassette as a format. Instead, it plays MP3s, but also has a touchscreen with an image of a slowly revolving cassette. All the aesthetic appeal of the Walkman, but less tinny. And there are no orange headphones. www.bit.ly/SonyWalkman40 STANDING GRAND Do you have a burning desire to have a grand piano in your home, but can’t fulfil your dream because your family deems it more important to use that space for frivolous things like…

“I grew up in a musical house, but as my father was a chef in the Armed Forces and my mother comes from the spice island of Zanzibar, I was subjected to a lot of culinary experiments too! Our meals were either straight-up African or Indian dishes, but sometimes we’d have an unusual take on classic British dishes with onion bhajis in place of chips, or we’d mix curries with roast dinner elements. It didn’t always work for me! I got into cooking purely by chance when I was at university. I occasionally cooked for my housemates and, in my final year, I got a part-time job in a kitchen. My wife now endures my kitchen experiments as we both agree that having the same thing over and over again…

Here’s a funny thing about punk: at the time, it seemed that every band who emerged in 1977 were automatically regarded as part of that movement, irrespective of whether or not they fitted. And Swell Maps certainly did not fit neatly into punk. In fact, the only aspect they had in common with the spit brigade was their DIY attitude. Everything they did musically was radically different to what else was happening. Started in Solihull by Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks (in reality brothers Adrian and Kevin Godfrey), they were joined by Jowe Head (aka Stephen Bird) and Richard Earl (boringly, his real name!) for their 1979 debut album A Trip To Marineville, which followed on from two singles (Read About Seymour in ’77 and Dresden Style the following year).…

“IT WAS AMAZING; I still can’t get my head around it!” Esther CG, aka qariaq, is in awe that she made her live debut at this year’s ArcTanGent Festival. “I’ve been going every year for the last six years and a lot of that scene has really influenced me. As soon as I go into that field, it feels like I’m home.” Just a few years ago this self-taught former member of the WorldRoots youth choir was too shy to share her experimental bedroom recordings with the outside world, but things have changed. In 2018, she cautiously began uploading audio extracts to social media and they quickly caught the attention of festival bookers and fellow musicians. She’s just released her first EP, lumber limbs, which showcases her haunting and often…

After a year away, Touchstone have lined up a live show on May 9 at The Garage in London, with Paul ‘Moo’ Moorghen back on bass and vocals. A single, Stolen Moments, will be released on December 10, produced by John Mitchell. Tickets are on sale now for 2020’s Summer’s End festival (October 1-4) where Pallas and Antimatter will headline, with more acts TBC. Meanwhile, Antimatter’s new live DVD, An Electric Evening With Antimatter, featuring a string quartet, is out November 26. New Hampshire’s Rocking Horse Music Club will perform live for the first time at Trading Boundaries on Nov 14 and 15. Playing the music of Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford, guest vocalist Noel McCalla will appear for songs from Smallcreep’s Day. Hawkwind collaborator and author Michael Moorcock will…

Prog metal diehards will be well aware of Jason McMaster. Blessed with an extraordinary multi-octave range and a gritty, soulful tone that could be both tender and terrifying, he is best known for the first Watchtower album, 1985’s Energetic Disassembly: a seminal benchmark for the entire prog metal genre. Now, in 2019, McMaster has just released his second album with extreme prog crew Howling Sycamore, a collaboration with ex-Ephel Duath maverick Davide Tiso and death metal drumming legend Hannes Grossmann. Arguably even further out there than either Watchtower or Ephel Duath, Seven Pathways To Annihilation is a thrilling showcase for the chemistry between three revered virtuosos. Oddly, however, the trio have never actually been in the same room together. “We have actually never met,” McMaster tells Prog. “That adds to…

Recent recipient of Prog’s inaugural Classic Album Award, Warrior… sees Hawkwind deploy the full armoury of progressive rock – Mellotron, synth, violin, flute etc – to produce a brain-frying sword and sorcery spectacular, loosely based on Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion novels. Assault And Battery, The Golden Void and Magnu are heavy-duty classics and future staples of their live sets, while Opa-Loka is a good illustration of why some critics considered Hawkwind a British equivalent to Krautrock.…

The last Hawkwind album to be released on a major label, …Masques captures a band still pushing the envelope in combining supercharged guitars with state of the art technology. While the early 80s saw them partially aligned with Britain’s NWOBHM, much of the music here – especially the pounding, hypnotic title track – anticipates the industrial and electronic rock sounds of the late 80s onwards. Other highlights include the unnerving Dream Worker and the melancholic Solitary Mind Games.…

If we’re being bravely candid, there’s a raft of progressive acts who remain entwined and chained to the sole drive of recreating past progressive glories, content at trying to blindly recreate the wistful, unsurpassable highs that 70s acts such as Genesis or Pink Floyd achieved. That may be their prerogative but there’s often a sense that they’re wasting their talent in a dubious and futile attempt at replication. At the other end of the spectrum are those contemporary bands that determinedly avoid such temptations, and whose music is decent enough but who are never destined to perform in venues larger than pubs. It’s rare, then, that a band will stumble forcibly into the genre who possess an internal, innovative artistic desire that makes them stand out from the cluster of…

Bruce Soord is late. Approximately three years late. Some time after the release of his self-titled debut in the autumn of 2015 and this year’s All This Will Be Yours, Soord had promised the Kscope label a second solo album. “I just wanted the cash,” he laughs. “I did remember thinking, ‘Shit, I’d better get this album finished because the label paid me for it years ago.’ I was very late and I’d spent all the money as well! Luckily, they didn’t send the men in suits down to find me, not that I imagine Kscope have many men in suits…” Soord is home in Yeovil after what must have felt like a life-changing 12 months or so: a new and unexpected baby, an Indian summer of success for his…

Some things are worth the wait. The American supergroup that features a who’s who of prog, with the bandmembers’ CVs boasting everyone from Dream Theater to Spock’s Beard, have finally released their appositely titled Third Degree, and it is a superb listen from start to finish. The first single released from the album, More, bears a significant Muse influence, but the album features arguably the band’s most diverse material to date, from the glorious, uplifting ballad You Are Not Alone to the jazzy Geronimo and the jaunty Love Letter. For keyboardist Neal Morse, it shows a significant evolution in the band’s sound. “Our first album was more pop-oriented,” he explains. “Third Degree is a little more intense and has some soaring, intense, darker melodic sensibilities. But Love Letter brings a…

They took their name from the remaining letters on a sheet of Letraset. They played on the same bills as ELO, Hawkwind, Genesis, Supertramp and Queen. But they were derailed from the big time by the lure of religion, and they lost the master tape for what could have been their breakthrough album in a fire. And, strangely, it was a Brooklyn rapper who brought the band to people’s attention in the 21st century. Welcome to weird world of Fruupp. The Northern Irish band were formed in 1971 by guitarist and vocalist Vincent McCusker, who was joined by Stephen Houston on keyboards, oboe and vocals, Peter Farrelly on lead vocals, flute and bass, and Martin Foye on drums. Less than two weeks after making their live debut on June 23,…

Words Fail Me CHERRY RED Beggs Sticks a new album to us, in a bundle with two reissues. The Chapman Stick is one of those instruments that has, in all fairness, captured the imagination of musicians more than it has music fans over the years. As a leading practitioner, Nick Beggs is firmly in the former camp, and on this new album of instrumental covers, he’s aiming to show the “versatility of the Chapman Stick”. As part of a three-CD package, he’s also reissuing his 2002 and 2004 solo albums Stick Insect and The Maverick Helmsman. “You have to admire the mischief in playing a song by The Muppets.” Their appeal of this package will largely depend on how pleasing to the ear you find the Chapman Stick itself. To…

All Aboard the Skylark/Acoustic Daze CHERRY RED Fifty years celebrated with new grooves and a trip down memory lane. Prog’s 50th anniversaries are coming thick and fast. One of the most welcome and most surprising – given their wild acid-drizzled past – is Hawkwind’s. They remain one of the definitive outsider bands, as legendary for the years of disputes, personnel changes, and excess use of narcotics as their defining contribution to space rock. With 30-odd studio albums already to their name, All Aboard The Skylark shows the original psychedelic-punk-crusty masters crossing their 50 year in rude health. Released alongside Acoustic Daze – unplugged takes on some of the band’s most beloved tracks – Skylark is immense fun and a satisfying return to their space rock roots. “It’s hard to not…

All This Will Be Yours KSCOPE Life, death, fatherhood – it’s all here on Soord’s superior second solo LP. Bruce Soord’s second solo album comes four years after his self-titled debut, and just 12 months after Dissolution became The Pineapple Thief’s first UK Top 40 entry. There’s inevitable crossover between his two musical incarnations, but All This Will Be Yours puts clear blue water between them. Under his own name, Soord dials down the overdrive and amps up the melancholy further, his brittle, emotional voice resting on delicately insistent acoustic guitars and glacial electronic textures. “Soord articulates and mollifies our own thoughts and fears.” Once again he finds inspiration in his hometown of Yeovil, Somerset, and the recent birth of his third child. The finest piece on the album, the…

Love From The Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973 - 75 UMG Long-promised box set exceeds expectations. The history of the Radio Gnome trilogy on CD has been especially disputatious with band members crying foul at the French label BYG’s use of unauthorised and indifferent stereo masters over the years. This wonderful boxed set, brimming with outtakes, previously unreleased material, new mixes and remasters, finally delivers on what is the definitive word on this period in Gong’s evolution. “Gong took ideas and gave them a physical form in the real world.” Previously, if you wanted to hear the very best version of Flying Teapot then Virgin’s original vinyl pressing was the only way to go. Now, with access to the original stereo masters, this new edition rescues the glissando guitar…

The Ballad Of Jethro Tull ROCKET 88 Thick-as-a-brick oral history is a plushly packaged treat. Billed as their first ever official illustrated history, The Ballad Of Jethro Tull is a sumptuously presented hardback volume packed with striking, often unseen photography as befits a band who at the height of their success were as much about visual as musical entertainment. As this book reminds us, Tull were absolutely massive in the first half of the 70s, second only to Led Zeppelin as a live attraction in the US – and their commitment to putting on a show was a major factor in their popularity. But as to why their music was so popular… that seems to be a harder story to tell. “Great anecdotes, quirky details… but analysis-free.” Part of the…

VENUE ESSIGFABRIK, COLOGNE, GERMANY DATE 27-29/09/2019 THURSDAY For 15 years, Euroblast has been one of the continent’s most adored tech-metal extravaganzas. The not-so-enviable task of kicking things off on the Thursday pre-show falls on Toundra. With Euroblast officially starting tomorrow, the energised Spanish post-rockers have been brought in this evening as a warm-up. And what an amazing job they do. The four-piece retain their genre’s penchant for climactic riffs, but cut out all filler. The result is a postmodern party that could be the progressive world’s answer to AC/DC. “Between the Buried And Me are the centrepiece of the entire festival, bombarding Euroblast with two sets.” FRIDAY Euroblast proper commences with Klone, whose melodic art rock is so powerful and heartstring-tugging that their set outdoes anything due to follow for…

Where’s home? Chesham in Hertfordshire, just north of London. Earliest prog memory? In 2004 I was a metal fan teaching guitar, and one of my bass students came in with Dream Theater’s Images And Words saying, “I want to learn this!” It was way beyond both our limits, but that’s when I started paying real attention to prog. First album you bought? Dream Theater’s Train Of Thought was their new one at the time, so I bought that and went on a binge of their music. And the last? Emperor Norton by Emperor Norton, a band from York. They play proper, guitar-led prog, like Yes if you dialled down the classical influences and turned up the guitars. Fun. First prog gig? Dream Theater at Wembley Arena with Symphony X [2007].…

SWEDE DREAMS I’ve just read the latest edition and was delighted to find that the spirit is still flourishing (great stuff on Camel, The Aristocrats, to name but two). However, I would take slight issue with Dave Everley’s review of Opeth’s latest [In Cauda Venenum]. While agreeing wholeheartedly with the overall assessment, I think that in these dark times of nationalist populism, the decision to record the album in Swedish and provide an English version is a truly progressive move. I’m old enough to remember when the likes of David Bowie and Peter Gabriel (and others) recorded songs in French, German, in a positive attempt to further communication. In an age when the trend is to foment parochialist divisiveness, it is a courageous move to encourage linguistic diversity. I can’t…

Yes have announced seven UK dates in May and June next year. The Album Series 2020 tour will feature highlights from across the group’s career and they will play their 1974 album Relayer in its entirety. “Coming to the table with more Album Series concepts is always exciting but never more exciting than Relayer,” guitarist Steve Howe tells Prog. “Gates Of Delirium is full tilt, very high energy, and Sound Chaser and To Be Over haven’t been played since the shows with Patrick [Moraz] in the 70s. The complexity of the music is really challenging and Yes always works at its best when it’s challenged.” Moraz was one of the guests on 2018’s #Yes50 anniversary tour, but these shows will feature the core line-up of Howe, Alan White (drums), Geoff…

District 97 fought their way through a series of setbacks to achieve the release of fourth album Screens via Cherry Red on October 4. It’s their first with keyboardist Andrew Lawrence and bassist Tim Seisser, and comes after singer Leslie Hunt had to deal with a throat injury, along with delays associated with the crowdfunding process. But Hunt tells Prog the delays weren’t too daunting. “I feel like our sound has really evolved,” she said. “It’s such a strong record that the timing might not be too sensitive. It’s already being very well-received.” Most of the follow-up to 2015’s In Vaults deals with modern society’s near-addiction to digital devices, although Hunt emphasises that the perspective is “we’ve got to deal with this” rather than a lecturing “you’ve got to work…

Clannad will undertake their farewell tour in 2020, to be accompanied by the release of an 80-track anthology, with both projects named In A Lifetime. The band’s Pól Brennan confirmed to Prog that they’re preparing to record a handful of new tracks to be added to the box set. Unsurprisingly, the death of Padraig Duggan in 2016 contributed to their decision to call it quits after 50 years. “We were thinking about it on the last tour,” Brennan said. “The passing of Padraig knocked us all back and we started having that discussion, that perhaps the last tour was the last tour. Towards the end of it, we sat down and we said, ‘Let’s do this; let’s go out on a high, let’s call it in.’” With five decades of…

I’ll admit it: my diet isn’t exactly going to plan. I’m trying my best to eat healthily and reduce my portion size as well as not eat between meals (basically achieved by not stopping meals but letting them run into each other). However, my nutritionist (aka my lovely wife) isn’t impressed. She’s told me all about the importance of staying fit and healthy when you have a heavy workload and busy schedule like mine, and I know I need to take immediate action. By the time you read this, I’ll be on tour in North America, and so in preparation I’m drawing up a strict health regime. I intend to stick to it rigidly so that by the end of this year I’m the sylph-like figure of supreme fitness that…

“I discovered TesseracT around the release of Altered State [in 2013]. I was seeing a lot of my friends sharing the videos and commenting, ‘Oh my God! This is mind-blowing!’ I was hooked in by [former singer] Ashe O’Hara’s voice, the music, the ambience and the melodies. At the time, I was listening to Epica, Dream Theater and Evergrey; I’d never heard of djent before but it felt like I’d opened a magical box. I bought the album and have been following them ever since. Through TesseracT, I then discovered Periphery – they’re my second big djent crush – Monuments and Vildhjarta. I’m in love with Plini and Animals As Leaders, and I adore Leprous and Textures as well. Altered State is my favourite release of theirs, the level of…

There’s been a right kerfuffle over the arrival of Tool’s new album. Whether or not it’s any good is almost secondary to the debate about the length of time it’s taken to release it. Lengthy breaks between prog albums aren’t a new thing though. Check out Peter Gabriel’s release schedule: there were ever-increasing gaps between albums until 2002’s Up and no new material since, bar his cover versions and orchestral meanderings. Many fans also seemed cautious of Up’s challenging content which made it feel as if the wait might not have been worthwhile. Modern technology allows bands to knock out albums even faster than ever but the creative spark still has to be there. That’s how Emerson, Lake & Palmer managed four landmark studio albums in as many years. Genesis,…

“A common response from people who’ve heard the new album is, ‘I don’t know what I thought the record would sound like, but this is not it,’” laughs US-born drummer and composer Mark Holub, speaking from his home in Vienna about Led Bib’s ninth release, It’s Morning. One definition of what makes a band truly progressive is the ability to grow, transform and change over their lifetime. Led Bib certainly fit that bill. Formed in 2003, the band’s fourth album, Sensible Shoes, was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2009, bringing their squalling, hit-and-run brand of improv-based jazz rock to a wide audience. While winning plaudits and praise has become commonplace for the group, Holub says that with this new album he was keen to aim for something radically different…

Here’s a riddle for you: what do three frontmen, two keyboard players, one guitarist and a drummer have in common? The answer is they all belong to an elite group of people who’ve been crowned as Prog God, the highest honour at the Progressive Music Awards. This year, a second drummer has joined the ranks: Nick Mason. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Nick Mason’s elevation to such rarefied heights is the climax of the eighth Progressive Music Awards. First, let’s go back to the start of this annual occasion. At the beginning of the night, Prog finds The Moody Blues’ John Lodge stood in awe on the stairs leading down to The UnderGlobe. “It’s my first time here,” he says. “Every other time I’ve been invited I was…

The entertaining fantasy metal of The Chronicle Of The Black Sword (1985) notwithstanding, the rest of the 1980s saw Hawkwind release a series of frustratingly patchy albums. But the early 90s techno/rave scene reinvigorated them, as did their consolidation to a power trio of just Brock, bassist Alan Davey and drummer Richard Chadwick. Electric Tepee reflects this new-found energy, particularly the hard riffing and sequenced propulsion of tracks such as LSD and The Secret Agent.…

When you present the world with a “science fiction space opera” set in a future where humans are emigrating to Mars to escape ecological disaster, it’s no major surprise to find the prog universe embracing you as a fellow traveller. And naturally, we responded warmly to Fred Deakin’s new album The Lasters, which he’s currently bringing to the stage as a costumed-up, visually enhanced musical drama. But on closer inspection it turns out this is somehow the same Fred Deakin who was one half of Lemon Jelly, the loungy dance duo that gave us The Staunton Lick and Nice Weather For Ducks, fond of sampling twee TV dialogue and languid folk and jazz licks. A man with a background at the more mischievous end of the club scene who once…

Seventeen years might seem like a long gap between albums, but time moves differently when you’re in a world of your own. Since the release of 2002’s Out Of Season, the first Rustin Man album (in collaboration with Portishead’s Beth Gibbons), Paul Webb has found a way of working where music has stopped being a discrete job and instead become part of the fabric of his everyday life. The family home – “a barn in a field in the middle of nowhere,” according to Webb – has been transformed into a cunningly concealed studio space, where instruments are disguised as desks and ornaments, and mic leads worm their way into every room. “I’ve built a place where everything is possible,” he tells Prog. “I can try anything, it doesn’t matter.…

When Leprous launched the publicity campaign for sixth album Pitfalls, band leader Einar Solberg wasn’t shy about what was coming. “It’s the album no one is expecting from Leprous,” he said. “When you think you know where it’s headed, you’ll realise you’re wrong.” The good news is they haven’t made a polka album, or tried their hands at catstep (it’s a genre, honest, go look it up), and the other good news is they’re treading a path that’s borne fruit for others: from Opeth to Ulver, Katatonia and Anathema, the fan of modern progressive music is able to enjoy a growing army of acts whose focus has shifted over the years towards something less rigid. They’re bands who’ve drifted away from their metallic roots, taking a chance on more interesting…

You Know What They Mean INSIDEOUT Brilliant, breathtaking and back on form. They say you can tell a lot about the true character of a person from the way they handle adversity. Bent Knee’s progress from being a hot property in their Boston base to becoming a widely respected, must-see act on an altogether much larger stage after the release of their third album, Say So in 2016 has been nothing but impressive. “Imbued with punky velocity and gritty emotional detonation.” However, 2018 was not so kind. First, drummer Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth broke an ankle coming off stage in San Francisco, leaving his bandmates to carry on touring without him. Secondly, and potentially far more serious, after Wallace-Ailsworth had rejoined the group, their tour bus crashed in icy conditions between Salt…

From Out Of Nowhere COLUMBIA The follow-up to Alone In The Universe. Guess what it sounds like? There’s something incredibly comforting about the Electric Light Orchestra. For the middle-aged among us, they’re one of those bands who have always been there, despite all the personnel/name rights shenanigans and the commercial tides and critical brickbats. Their all-time great catalogue of orchestral pop is always somewhere in the background, soundtracking happy times. Watching Jeff Lynne lead his superb live band out at Hyde Park back in 2014 was a thrill, with the gig seemingly putting them back in the wider audience’s mind. Released a year later, Alone In The Universe was the band’s first selection of original material for 14 years and the first credited to Jeff Lynne’s ELO. It went platinum…

Waiting For Miracles INSIDEOUT A rose by any other name: Stolt stuns again. It’s been a mildly bewildering few years for Flower Kings loyalists, with main man Roine Stolt taking various sabbaticals, guesting with A-listers, saying he was done with being in a group, hedging his bets by touring as The Flower Kings Revisited, then returning like a prodigal son to the fold and releasing this album under the band’s more usual name. So it’s the Swedish outfit’s 13th, or 14th if last year’s as Roine Stolt’s The Flower Kings counts. Which it probably should. Whatever tweaks are made to the moniker, a Stolt-led album is a guarantee of a certain style, sound and substance. His exeats with Transatlantic, Steve Hackett and Jon Anderson (the 2016 Anderson/Stolt album Invention Of…

Afraid Of Sunlight RHINO In two deluxe editions, this 1995 gem sees the light of day once more. After deluxe editions of Misplaced Childhood, Clutching At Straws and Brave, Warner’s repackaging of Marillion’s EMI catalogue continues with this standout title. By 1995 the band’s relationship with the label had soured and they would soon move on, but they still owed EMI one more album (and £500k), so over an uncharacteristically short period of a few months Marillion holed up in their own, newly kitted-out Racket Club studio and (in their words) ‘knocked out’ Afraid Of Sunlight. “Its themes – toxic fame, self-destruction, hubris – shine anew.” And what a knockout it is. Out of its mid-90s cultural context the timelessness of its themes of toxic fame, self-destruction and Icarian hubris…

VENUE INDIGO AT THE 02, LONDON DATE 21/09/2019 It’s during A Natural Disaster when Anathema’s Vincent Cavanagh asks the audience to hold up their glowing mobile phones. He wants to recreate the starry cover of live album Universal, and the twinkling effect is made all the more breathtaking by the various spacecraft on display around the auditorium. As hundreds of lights illuminate the crowd, we’re stunned into silence by Lee Douglas’ velvety vocals and mournful violin from special guest Anna Phoebe. This isn’t just any headline slot, this is Space Rocks 2019. Now in its second year, the Prog Awardwinning festival of science and culture has found a welcoming audience among fans of experimental sounds. Anathema are one of four progressive acts performing alongside a programme of TED-style talks from…

VENUE ISLINGTON ASS EMBLY HALL, LONDON STARDATE 04/10/2019 Whether it’s down to their inclusion on the Roadburn line-up five years ago at the behest of Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt or just because music this far out on a limb will always remain timeless, Magma’s return to the UK has attracted a broad, all-ages crowd. Seasoned fanatics (including Steve Davis, obviously) rub shoulders with metallers, stoner rockers and 20-somethings in the aptly ornate venue. But no matter how au fait you think you are when it comes to Magma, you can never be sure quite where they’re going to take you. Tonight is something of a ‘greatest hits’ set, but so sprawling yet so immersive is the universe they’ve created that even on familiar ground you’ll find new details to remap your…

Follow us on twitter.com/progmagazineUK HAWKWIND @HawkwindHQ Fly free Ginger… Crazy, happy memories of your time with us… #GingerBaker #Legend #Anhonour NICK BEGGS @NickBeggs A great weekend in Belgium with Fish On Friday. GODSTICKS @Godsticks Just over a year now since our strippedback performance celebrating 10 years of @kscopemusic at the incredible Union Chapel – what a night that was! #Godsticks #GodsticksLive #10YearsOfKscope #UnionChapel #London IAMTHEMORNING @themorningband It’s official. First prize for hospitality on this tour goes to @muziekgieterij. Thank you guys KAVUS TORABI @Knifeworld Magma are playing in London tonight so basically everything else can fuck off. CRAIG BLUNDELL @craigblundell Announcement of the day HAS to go to Minnesota Airport for their paging of “Alison Chains”!! if she exists, amazing, if someone went up to the office to get them…

Big Big Train will release concert movie Reflectors Of Light on December 6 via English Electric Recordings. The 2017 recording has been the subject of delays, but the band’s Greg Spawnton says quality is worth waiting for. “It’s the record of a moment,” he tells Prog. “We recorded all three nights at the Cadogan Hall in London, and this is the best recording of each track.” After becoming a Top 40 band with latest album Grand Tour, their UK festival ambitions come to fruition next year with a headline spot on the Prog In The Park stage at Ramblin’ Man Fair in Maidstone in July. Spawnton says their immediate focus is to “spread the word” of Grand Tour, with no new album due until 2021, although other releases are under…

Liverpool based, piano-powered trio Exploring Birdsong will release their debut EP, The Thing With Feathers, on November 29 via Long Branch Records. It follows the two singles The Baptism and The Downpour, and their nomination for two Prog Awards this year. “We’re extremely proud of this EP,” drummer Matt Harrison tells Prog. “I feel these songs really encompass what we’re about as a band, they’re very accessible but also a little bit weird and we can’t wait for people to hear them.” Alongside the singles and an a cappella cover of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, recorded in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, the band’s stock has risen rapidly, gaining support slots with Sleep Token, Anneke van Giersbergen’s VUUR and Godsticks. “It’s pretty crazy to have signed for Long Branch [home to acts…

THANKS, MARK KING. If it wasn’t for the prog-certified Level 42 bassist, there may never been a Jon Pold Synergy. Jon Pold, the brains behind the Danish prog rockers, was encouraged to ditch an upbringing of classical piano and youth choirs and pick up a four-string instead after seeing slap-happy King perform live as a teenager. “Watching him playing those songs, something just clicked,” Pold reflects. “I locked myself in my bedroom for two years and rehearsed for eight hours a day.” Pold has become an accomplished bassist and vocalist himself since his epiphany as a 16-year-old, and after working as a hired gun he launched his Synergy project with a self-titled EP in 2017. Citing forward-thinking influences from Peter Gabriel to Return To Forever, the mellifluent Jon Pold Synergy…

“I’ve missed two of our shows in the last nine years and it was horrendous,” says Kunal Singhal. “Some think it’s an achievement to have people run an event without you but if I spend months promoting a gig and getting excited about it, I want to be in the crowd for it.” Former prog metal singer Singhal founded Chaos Theory in London in 2010 in response to the way bands were being treated by pay-to-play promoters. His aim was to bring “unusual” music to new audiences and create an excellent experience for artists and their fans. Chaos Theory quickly became a collective with in-house photographers, bloggers, DJs, videographers, and, recently, its own podcast, all of which is aimed at helping to raise artist profiles. Through his regular themed nights,…

The greatest live album ever? Quite possibly – it’s certainly unlike anything else released then or now. Recorded on the tour of the same name, drawing heavily on the previous year’s Doremi Fasol Latido, and housed in another wonderful fold-out sleeve, it’s an intense 88 minutes of body-pummelling riffs, otherworldly electronics and sci-fi poetry, a headlong plunge into the pitch-black void. Highlights include Born To Go’s frantic statement of intent, the cosmic boogie of Orgone Accumulator and the chilling fatalism of Sonic Attack.…

Having reverted to being Hawkwind, the band that make Levitation are almost unrecognisable from its late-70s incarnation – Calvert’s rock theatre is gone, and in its place is the instrumental firepower of Huw Lloyd-Langton, Tim Blake, and bizarrely, Ginger Baker. It’s a tougher, more guitar-oriented sound for a new decade, and one they’ll pursue throughout it. The title track is a crunching but catchy riff monster, while Who’s Gonna Win The War? is a sobering evocation of nuclear devastation.…

“My story has written itself,” Stacia Blake tells Prog. “It’s been written by people who’ve never met me or spoken to me. Then when I say something people say, ‘Oh, that can’t be true, because I’ve read it somewhere else.’ And I go, ‘Well I was there!’” There are many stories about Stacia, Hawkwind’s dancer and performance artist during their golden era of the early 1970s. According to some reports, she joined the band at the behest of lyricist Robert Calvert. Other accounts state that she first saw Hawkwind at the Isle Of Wight Festival, that she made her live debut with them at Glastonbury in ’71, that she was romantically involved with Nik Turner and had once been booted out of ballet school for being too tall. Her Wikipedia…

“My goal was always to focus on his work as a composer, as a guitarist, as a bandleader, and show the depth and the variety in the music.” 1969 was a momentous year for Frank Zappa. On September 5, he and his wife Gail celebrated the birth of their son Dweezil. Then, on October 10, Zappa released his second solo album, a fearsome blend of instrumental jazz rock fusion called Hot Rats. Fifty years later, Dweezil is bringing the album back to life, playing the full record on tour with the band that he likes to call his “rocking teenage combo”. In honour of his father, Dweezil aims to produce a DNA-accurate audio presentation of Hot Rats onstage. “It’s just a really cool-sounding recording,” says the guitarist. “Part of what…

Daniel Estrin and Simone Dow are seated in a brightly lit dressing room within the bowels of London’s O2 Arena satellite venue the Indigo. A keytar leans against the wall. On a stage nearby an audience listen as The Sky At Night presenter Chris Lintott and award-winning author Lucy Hawking, daughter of the late national treasure Stephen, conduct a scholarly debate over black holes and the mysteries of the universe. The occasion, of course, is Space Rocks (read our review on page 116). Voyager’s Estrin and Dow are honoured to be a part of this fine event, though the sharing of their band’s name with a pair of robotic probes sent to study the outer reaches of the Solar System in 1977 is purely coincidental. “In fact, the band was…

Spiritual Instinct NUCLEAR BLAST Post-everything pioneers artfully stick to the script. All credit is due for having effectively coined an entire subgenre, but Alcest haven’t always been an easy band to love. By the time founder and creative force Neige’s crew arrived at 2014’s Shelter album, the black metal elements that partly defined their original sound had been entirely excised, resulting in a credible but slightly dull attempt at a dreamy, quasi-ambient shoegaze record. Shorn of black metal’s underlying heaviness, Alcest suddenly sounded a bit wet and weedy. “Strives to be a definitive statement – and pulls it off.” Thankfully, guitars made an enthusiastic comeback on 2016’s Kodama, which felt like a shrewd upgrade for Alcest’s seminal blueprint, as opposed to more of the shark-jumping vagueness of its predecessor. Whether…

Third Degree MUSIC THEORIES/MASCOT The supergroup five-piece reach new heights. If Tower Records still existed in this day and age, they’d need to open a section titled ‘Mike Portnoy supergroups’ just to house all of the prolific drummer’s output since departing Dream Theater. What’s even more impressive than Portnoy’s inexhaustible work rate is the consistency of the end results. “Beautifully arranged classic rock filtered through a prog prism.” Album number three from Flying Colors continues the drummer’s winning streak, revealing a band able to explore different directions and styles without ever losing their core musical identity. There’s less of the over-the-top, non-stop bombast prevalent in Neal Morse’s solo career and Portnoy plays for the songs, rather than showing off his talent for odd-time signatures, which no doubt everyone fully appreciates…

Strings Of Light ESOTERIC ANTENNA Original Genesis guitarist takes his rarest instruments and shines. Anyone ancient enough to remember the earliest Genesis gigs may recall two chairs always positioned stage right; one for Mike Rutherford, the other for lead guitarist Anthony Phillips, who loved sculpting the 12-string guitar textures that glazed the Trespass era. Unhappy with Genesis’ solidifying musical direction but also citing stage fright and health issues, Phillips left in June 1970, studying classical guitar at London’s Guildhall after hearing Jean Sibelius convinced him to up his game. “Glistens like delicate mosaics of finely-cut diamonds.” With Rutherford’s support, Phillips returned with 1977’s The Geese And The Ghost, further albums including Sides, and ’83’s Invisible Men his requisite stab at prog pop mainstream (his Private Parts & Pieces volumes indulged…

CYNIC Traced In Air, Remixed SEASON OF MIST Floridian prog metal ingenues polish their shiniest prizes. Originally released in 2008, Cynic’s second album arrived after 15 years of creative silence. The band’s debut album Focus emerged from death metal’s progressive wing in 1993; an inspired blend of technical extremity, jazz chords and dream pop haze, it immediately set them apart from their more brutish peers. But Traced In Air was something else entirely. Firmly entrenched in art rock and left-field melody, it was a comeback that redefined the band and placed them at the heart of heavy music’s progressive renaissance. Since then, Cynic have refused to pander to expectations, releasing the strange but immersive Carbon-Based Anatomy EP in 2011 and the deeply peculiar but fascinating Kindly Bent To Free Us…

Clockwork Angels Tour RHINO More evidence of Rush’s general brilliance arrives on 10 sides of vinyl. The wound is still raw. Grown men (and possibly even some grown women) are still randomly bursting into tears. There will never be any Rush gigs ever again (well, probably not) and no amount of lavish vinyl reissues can take away the pain. On the plus side, Clockwork Angels Tour sounds absolutely mind-blowing on vinyl and if you listen to it at a sufficiently wall-cracking volume, you might be able to convince yourself that you really are air drumming like a lunatic as Geddy, Alex and Neil do their authoritative thing mere yards away. At this point, it’s all we’ve got. “Huge, warm, vibrant, dazzling… as ever.” Originally released in 2013, this full-blown account…

VENUE VENTURA THEATRE, VENTURA, CALIFORNIA DATE 05/09/2019 For a band that don’t play often, Flying Colors certainly can play. Since forming in 2012, the prog supergroup have performed live just two dozen times prior to arriving in Ventura, a quaint, oceanside town located an hour northwest of Los Angeles (where, at the Wiltern theatre the night before, guitarist Steve Morse helped Deep Purple continue their long farewell). The band’s infrequent performances due to their members’ commitments with numerous other projects is humorously acknowledged by drummer Mike Portnoy soon after the show kicks off. “Welcome to the rarest of all sightings – rarer than Sasquatch, rarer than a UFO!” he quips. “Dave LaRue’s driving bass serves as a locomotive that powers show opener Blue Ocean, encore finale Mask Machine and everything…

VENUE ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL, LONDON DATE 07/09/2019 You can tell that tonight is an album launch event. The queue for merchandise stretches to the back of the Assembly Hall’s foyer and spills into the car park. IQ took delivery of their new opus three days ago, and early adopters are lining up to bag the new double album weeks before general release. The album’s title is emblazoned in triptych on the video screens behind the stage: Resistance. Atmospheric intro music plays and the band begin with the Tool-like Alampandria, which saw its debut at Night Of The Prog in July. It’s a short and sweet appetiser. “On the basis of the 40 minutes of fresh material, IQ are only getting better.” Bela Lugosi lights up the screens and leads us…

VENUE ROBIN 2, BILSTON date 01/10/2019 SUPPORT JUMP, CIRCU5, THIS WINTER MACHINE There’s a moment when, as The Reasoning’s intro tape to the opening swirl of Awakening begins to segue with the band onstage, vocalists Andrew Demczuk and Emilee Moyce seem to momentarily freeze in the spotlight. This is wholly understandable when you consider that neither have performed live with the band before, and, indeed, Moyce has actually never performed live on stage at all. In the merest fleeting moment, both bassist Matt Cohen and guitarist Keith Hawkins step up alongside them, a show of support to say, ‘Everything’s going to be alright,’ and, nerves settled, The Reasoning’s last hurrah is underway. The Reasoning imploded nearly five years ago, the resultant cancelled tour meaning they never got the chance to…