Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 138 i Prog

Since 1995, when he released Ayreon: The Final Experiment, Arjen Lucassen’s imagination and ambition have flourished, unfettered by convention. Albums centred around a conceptual theme began to attract the attention of a burgeoning audience interested in new progressive sounds. For 1998’s Into The Electric Castle, he collaborated with artists from the prog and metal worlds, namely Fish, Anneke van Giersbergen, Sharon den Adel, Damian Wilson, Thijs van Leer, Ton Scherpenzeel and Edward Reekers from Kayak, and Clive Nolan. This was the masterstroke that would bring his musical vision the wider acclaim that he so clearly sought. Explore his supersonic universe with this free digital sampler, curated by Arjen Lucassen himself. The two-part Universal Migrator albums, released in 2000, saw Bruce Dickinson, Floor Jansen, Russell Allen and Neal Morse join the…

ALL HAIL THE NEW KINGS So the Readers’ Poll 2022 [Prog 136] sent a pretty clear message – hardly a prog god or ‘Big Six’ member in sight! Looks like the handover to the next generation is virtually complete and if there was any doubt just look at which Wakeman is in the top keyboardist list (it ain’t Rick). Interesting to note that (I) while the Big Six bands dominate the reissues and Prog covers categories, the only big sixer in the best album listing is Jethro Tull (although perversely they also feature in the disappointment category) and there’s less than a handful of big sixers in the musician listings. (II) the only big sixer in three categories – i.e. reissues, covers and albums – is, again, Jethro Tull. (Does…

Yes, Porcupine Tree, Mike Oldfield, ELP, Brian Eno and Gong are among the artists releasing music for this year’s Record Store Day, taking place on April 22. Standouts include: Yes’ three-LP set Live At Knoxville Civic Auditorium (recorded in 1972); new Porcupine Tree 12” IA/DW/XT (with tracks from Deadwing and In Absentia previously unreleased on vinyl) and a 50th anniversary picture disc of ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery. More on these and this life-affirming event at recordstoreday.co.uk…

Kevin Parker’s neo-psych champs Tame Impala (right) reissue their superb second album, 2012’s Lonerism, on May 26 via Fiction. The three-LP, 10th anniversary box set comes with 24-page booklet and bonus material galore. Pre-orders at www.bit.ly/tamelonerism. Further to our story last month, Soft Machine have confirmed that their upcoming studio album will be called Other Doors. It’ll be released on June 30 through Dyad in the UK; MoonJune will do the honours in the US. More info at www.softmachine.org. Manchester’s indie synth proggers Dutch Uncles release their sixth LP, True Entertainment, on March 10 via Memphis Industries. Their guests include members of Metronomy and Everything Everything. Much more at www.dutchuncles.co.uk.…

1 RIVERSIDE ID.Entity (INSIDEOUT) 2 MUSE Will Of The People (WARNER/HELIUM-3) 3 KATATONIA Sky Void Of Stars (NAPALM) 4 PINK FLOYD Animals (2018 Remix) (PINK FLOYD RECORDS/RHINO) 5 10CC The Things We Do For Love: The Ultimate Hits And Beyond (XPLODED MUSIC) 6 POLYPHIA Remember That You Will Die (RISE) 7 TAME IMPALA The Slow Rush – B Sides & Remixes (FICTION) 8 RUSH Moving Pictures (UMC/VIRGIN) 9 ROGER WATERS The Lockdown Sessions (LEGACY RECORDINGS) 10 BLACK MIDI Hellfire (ROUGH TRADE) 11 HAWKWIND We Are Looking In On You (CHERRY RED) 12 PINK FLOYD Alternative Tracks 1972 (PINK FLOYD RECORDS) 13 THRESHOLD Dividing Lines (NUCLEAR BLAST) 14 PORCUPINE TREE Closure/Continuation (MUSIC FOR NATIONS) 15 JETHRO TULL The Zealot Gene (INSIDEOUT) 16 BRIAN ENO Foreverandevernomore (UNIVERSAL) 17 WARDRUNA Kvitravn – The First Flight Of The White Raven (MUSIC FOR NATIONS) 18 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Oxymore (RCA) 19 MARILLION An Hour Before…

“It was obviously very exciting to see Bill Bruford and John Wetton in the line-up. I liked Yes but oddly I think it was John’s arrival that prompted the most excitement as Family were also a big deal then, which tends to be forgotten today. “The set didn’t contain any recognisable numbers until the Schizoid Man encore. Given the amorphous nature of a piece like Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part One, the open-ended section on Easy Money and the beginning of Exiles, it all sounded very weird and quite mysterious. What we now know were improvisations we honestly thought were composed as they all dovetailed into the composed material. Jamie Muir was dressed in bearskins and at one point was leaning over his kit hitting an object of some kind,…

Square Wild aren’t your usual prog band. In 2022, they were voted best unsigned band in this magazine’s annual readers’ poll, and frontwoman Lucy Shevchuk even made the top 10 female vocalists list. “Jerry [Ewing, editor] messaged me himself with the news,” Shevchuk remembers. “I paused for a second and then just burst into tears. I think that was the best moment I’ve had in the band so far.” These admirable accolades have been earned by Strange Wild’s “huge mixing pot” of musical influences with a massive dose of fun. From jazz to punk, rock to reggae, Shevchuk explains that the band naturally write progressively due to their collective interests. They met at Matt & Phred’s, a jazz club in Manchester. Shevchuk laughs as she recalls that she and drummer…

Chilean sextet deliver album four with flair after six-year wait. Following up their 2016 sprawling concept album, Hawaii – hailed by Prog as a “joyous expression of individuality” – was never going to be an easy feat. It seems Aisles have taken their time in crafting its successor. With vocalist Israel Gil, who joined in 2020, at the helm, the band feel re-energised. It’s a shame, then, that the magic of this line-up is to be so short lived with Gil, guitarist Rodrigo Epúlveda and drummer Felipe Candia announcing their departure from the band in late January. The high energy of Fast unites modern prog rock with swinging salsa, while Megalomania balances beautifully pained vocals with sugary hooks. Needsun is thickly layered and tactfully cacophonous, while the extravagant, slow burning 11-minuter…

Pop-rock tunes from ex-Sound Of Contact multi-instrumentalist. Having established himself in various other projects – namely, Sound Of Contact – it’s no shock that Matt Dorsey’s first solo LP, Let Go, is a diverse affair. Featuring contributions from Marco Minnemann and Dave Kerzner, standout Waiting For The Fall comes closest to evoking the sci-fi prog rock hooks and complexity Dorsey is most associated with. Contemplative opener Castles Made Of Sand recalls late-70s Genesis, whereas Man and Let Go lean closer to the cosmic keyboards and guitar-driven heft of Rush. All of them do a superb job of fusing familiar genre elements with Dorsey’s distinctive singer-songwriter palette, yet the album is truly impressive when it veers into even fresher territories. The ballad Compromise is particularly catchy and uplifting, with gentle acoustic…

Exciting live document of “etheric celestial sounds”. At the start of 1977, and in the wake of his latest album, L, going Top 10 in the UK, Steve Hillage travelled to California for the first time as, somewhat incongruously, ELO’s support act, playing to audiences of thousands, most of whom had never heard of him. Yet as this recording from the second of two shows at the LA Forum in Inglewood clearly shows, Hillage and his band were in uncompromising form on this tour, with the crowd treated to an energised rendition of most of L, mystical interludes and all. This is the front-of-house desk mix as recorded on cassette, so the quality is that of a superior bootleg, but the vibrancy and tightness of the playing is often quite…

Nick D’Virgilio and Steve Vai guest on ex-Zappa man’s off-the-wall latest. This guest-heavy follow-up to 2016’s Scambot 2 offers more proof of the vast musical abilities and left-field imagination of ex-Zappa guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist Mike Keneally. A tight nine-song set, The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat opens with quirky piano-led skit Logos, heads into 70s-style alt-rock with the strident Both Sides Of The Street and then turns on a sixpence for oddball acoustic piece Mercury In Second Grade. Keneally’s voice is soft and breathy on the ironically titled Big Hit Song and gentle Spigot (Draw The Pirate), featuring drums from BBT’s Nick D’Virgilio. Crunchy instrumental Celery is packed with guitar licks that are typically oblique yet still make perfect musical sense, with fellow Zappa alumnus Steve Vai adding some…

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Progressive metal pioneers continue to broaden their horizons. Anyone who pushes the play button on Periphery V would be forgiven for thinking they’ve been tricked into putting on a route one heavy metal record. Opening song Wildfire explodes with a drum fill, followed by chugging riffs and pinch harmonics, then frontman Spencer Sotelo’s barrage of growls only make it feel even more brash. However, as the seventh album by Washington DC’s djent pioneers (a term they clearly dislike, given the snarky album title) proceeds, it reveals a host of experimental proclivities. Not only do Wildfire’s riffs eventually give way to a lounge jazz interlude. Silhouette ventures even further into uncharted territory by evoking a prog Linkin Park, its blitzkrieg guitar playing traded for soothing keys and electronics, with Sotelo giving…

Occasionally brilliant third LP from 65daysofstatic mastermind. Since 2011’s Labyrinths, 65daysofstatic’s Paul Wolinski has released two albums, an EP and several singles under his Polinski moniker. Where his main band have increasingly focused on generative and algorithmic music, Telex From MIDI City is instead more premeditated both thematically and musically. Its core idea comes from academic and polemicist David Graeber – the notion that the world we see has been imagined into being, and that we could imagine it differently. Re-contextualising timbres and tech from the past is key here. The slickest tracks – Distant Friend, I Love You! and Other Worlds Parts 1 & 2 – heavily feature jittery 90s breakbeats and 80s synths. However, in context, these parts melodically and tonally belong to the modern electronic canon. Despite…

Second long-player from British band fine-tunes the frequencies. Intended or not, Rain’s 2020 debut, Singularity, contained pronounced gear shifts across its five tracks – due in part to the fact that it was produced remotely, with band members not meeting at any point. Radio Silence is a different beast in many respects. Yes, it boasts an unchanged line-up of drummer Andy Edwards and bassist John Jowitt (both ex-IQ and Frost*) alongside Rob Groucutt (keyboards/lead vocals) and Mirron Webb (guitars/lead vocals) and it draws on both old-school prog and diverse contemporary styles. It is, however, a more song-orientated, more focused and arguably less self-conscious album than their debut. While there are twisty-turny time signatures (Hypnosis and Solid State), and the playing is first rate, it’s the way that styles merge and…

French Norse-ophiles’ fourth album of ancient-meets-modern incantations. They may look and sound quintessentially Nordic, but Skáld are in fact the brainchild of French multi-instrumentalist Christophe Voisin-Boisvinet, who has taken his passion for early music and Norse mythology and run with it, armed with a collection of the requisite medieval instrumentation. However, on Huldufólk there’s little doubt that more contemporary sounds have crept into Skáld’s campfire cauldron – black metal for one, in the guttural, Satan-expectorating vocal style adopted for several of these tracks, and industrial hardcore in the quasi-militaristic donner-und-blitzen beats that permeate many of these compositions. While there’s little in the lyrics that will be discernible to non-linguist Brits, the chanting vocal hooks employed on Ljósálfur and Elverhøy are as hypnotic as any pop banger, and Då Månen Sken…

Melodic folk prog experimentalism that’ll soothe life’s aches and pains. London-based singer-songwriter Emma Tricca was handpicked by Nick Mason as opener on Saucerful Of Secrets’ 2018 tour. Tricca’s work might not seem Floydy per se, but her delicate, acoustic guitar storytelling often has Syd Barrett somewhere in the expression, mixed with her passions for Italian proggers Le Orme and estimable jazz-folkers Pentangle. Fourth album Aspirin Sun (what a Syd title!) keeps that feel, Tricca’s vocals on a Karen Dalton/Vashti Bunyan axis in a melody-driven set, texturised by ambient Americana and watercolour minimalism. Backed by former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, The Dream Syndicate’s Jason Victor on guitar and bassist Pete Galub, Tricca’s close-mic’d vocals have a calming ASMR effect, and there’s a touch of Spiritualized in opening track Devotion. Emotional…

Medievally fixated 70s prog-folkers’ tale told. Amazing Blondel carved a niche in the early 70s counterculture with a brand of early music-influenced folk rock that was heavily populated with brave knights and fair maidens. Initially splitting in 1977, they’ve been performing in some form on and off since a 1997 reunion. Longtime fan Michael Billington has seemingly talked to all who were there, but pads out the tale with irrelevant lists (such as every later-notable actor that appeared in a Robin Hood TV series, which influenced the early Blondel) and reproducing archive interviews and reviews in full where judicious editing might have helped the narrative along. Stories that may have been amusing or entertaining – the difficulties of tuning their instruments at gigs, having their gear robbed in Italy –…

VENUE BRIDGEWATER HALL, MANCHESTER DATE 17/01/2023 SUPPORT EIVØR, LILI REFRAIN Heilung are a force to be reckoned with. After their first live ritual went viral on YouTube in 2017, the trio from Denmark, Norway and Germany have seemingly taken over the globe. Their most recent album, Drif, saw their popularity soar as well as a contract for Hellblade II with game developers Ninja Theory secured, but what is it about the experimental folk collective that fans just can’t get enough of? The first act this evening is Italy-based Lili Refrain, who creates a meditative atmosphere with her layers of dark textures, pierced only by the sound of her soaring vocals and chanting. A truly cathartic experience and phenomenal start to the night’s events. Eivør ascends ethereally to the stage; the…

VENUE NEW CROSS INN, LONDON DATE 03/02/2023 Experimental rock, art-rock, jazz rock prog jazz, jazz, proto-prog… name a genre with ‘rock’, ‘jazz’ or ‘prog’ in it, and during their lifetime Soft Machine have blown a tune in it. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge, a lot of serious talent through the in/out doors and a lot of fabulous music from this band name across their 50-plus years. Anyone who hasn’t regularly cocked an ear during the different phases across that half-century might have difficulty finding a stylistic thread running from the original, Canterbury scene cornerstone Soft Machine of the mid-60s, to today’s jazz-you-like-it version. But, not really surprisingly, the DNA helix has endured and is audible. Welcome to the Machine. Tonight at the New Cross Inn in…

VENUE THE GARAGE, LONDON DATE 02/01/2023 A forest of blue knives stands against a blood-red sun. A low, resonating synth note lifts us sharply from our beers. The backdrop is set, and the mood is not quite of this world – or certainly not of this place, this time. They might be travelling with a minimal production (reflective of the budget struggles felt by so many bands in these post-pandemic times) but the Von Hertzen Brothers know how to command an audience, conjuring an immersive, wintery slice of darkest Finland in London this Thursday night. Almost a year on from its release, Red Alert In The Blue Forest stands confidently as the brothers’ strongest record yet; a majestic, ambitious expression of what progressive rock can, and should, be all about.…

1 Ayreon The Awareness Taken from The Final Experiment 2 Ayreon Computer Eyes Taken from Actual Fantasy 3 Ayreon Isis And Osiris Taken from Into The Electric Castle 4 Ayreon The First Man On Earth Taken from Universal Migrator 5 Ayreon Day Two: Isolation Taken from The Human Equation 6 Ayreon Comatose Taken from 01011001 7 Ayreon The Theory Of Everything Part 1 Taken from The Theory Of Everything 8 Ayreon The Day That The World Breaks Down Taken from The Source 9 Ayreon Message From Beyond Taken from Transitus 10 Arjen Lucassen’s Guilt Machine Green And Cream Taken from On This Perfect Day 11 Arjen Lucassen’s Guilt Machine Twisted Coil Taken from On This Perfect Day 12 Arjen Lucassen’s Supersonic Revolution SR Prelude/The Glamattack Taken from Golden Age Of Music…

British dark prog trio Esben And The Witch will release their sixth album, Hold Sacred, on May 12 via Nostromo Records. The “brooding, gentle, almost ambient” record is their first since Nowhere, from 2018. “Everything’s changed and nothing’s changed,” says vocalist Rachel Davies. “This kernel is the purest essence of Esben And The Witch since our inception.” That was over 14 years ago, in Brighton, and these days the trio – Davies, Thomas Fisher and Daniel Copeman – are split across the UK, US and Germany. The new songs, including current single The Well, took shape in summer 2019, when the three decamped to a villa near Rome to write. “This is the sound of three people who love and support each other,” says Davies, “navigating the ever-present figure of…

It’s all change again for Big Big Train, as they announce their 16-date The Journey Continues Tour and upcoming record, Ingenious Devices. Keyboardist Carly Bryant stepped down from the group in February, citing family commitments, and has been replaced by Oskar Holldorff. The Norwegian deputised for Bryant during BBT’s brief run of shows last September, with his own band Dim Gray also supporting. He will contribute to the next studio album, due next year, and next March will join BBT for their co-headline slot on the Cruise To The Edge. The Journey Continues Tour runs from this August 26 to September 13, with rising Italian guitarist Maria Barbieri standing in for Dave Foster, who’s still a BBT member but had prior commitments to the Steve Rothery Band. June 30 will…

SONY NW-A306 WALKMAN Not to start a fight, but I’ve long believed that high-resolution audio is snake oil sold to gullible people who, by amazing coincidence, also have exceedingly deep pockets. Magician James Randi likened some of the claims made by audiophiles as akin to paranormal events, and put up a prize of $1m to anyone who could prove them. (It went unclaimed, and now he’s dead, so hey.) Anyway, Sony have launched this hi-res Walkman which, unlike their signature series ZM2 (£3,000) is priced at a mere £349. You still won’t be able to tell the difference between 24- and 16-bit audio, but at least you won’t have been fleeced. www.sony.com PITTSBURGH MODULAR TAIGA Modular synthesis is another potentially expensive hobby, where can you find yourself lusting after the…

“WE MAY BE the only band in France that plays with just an organ and drums,” says Colin Goallen, drummer of the Reine-based hard progressive psych duo Moundrag. “For many people, the first time they hear us, it’s a real shock!” Having released their debut album, Hic Sunt Moundrages, last October, Moundrag – aka brothers Colin and Camille – make an extraordinary racket augmented by the mighty timbre of the Hammond organ and their duelling harmony vocals. They’re two men with a fondness for the Devil’s interval and their unholy noise could wake the dead. “People think they’re hearing lots of instruments,” adds Colin, “but there’s no guitar or bass; it’s just the distortion of the organ with pedals and a lot of amps.” Does Colin’s brother Camille, Brittany’s leading…

With new, major projects in the pipeline, John Joseph Wardle, aka Jah Wobble, has been harnessing the power of portable digital tools and the internet to celebrate his former hometown of London. Eschewing traditional business and distribution models, The Bus Routes Of South London, his latest digital-only release, was uploaded to the music distribution platform Bandcamp just 30 minutes after it was completed. Arguably best known as the co-founder of post-punk pioneers Public Image Ltd with singer John Lydon and guitarist Keith Levene, Wobble has forged a singular career of his own and, in the process, has elevated his instrument of choice to centre stage. In a career spanning more than four decades and participating in genres as wide as world music, dance, ambient and industrial rock, this most progressive…

Field Music founder revels in baroque majesty on delightful solo album. Best known for leading Sunderland art-rockers Field Music with brother Peter, David Brewis has also carved out an intriguing career with side-project School Of Language across three albums. With such a prodigious output behind him, it comes as something of a surprise that The Soft Struggles is his first fully fledged solo album. What also raises eyebrows is the current direction taken by Brewis. While his side-project has found him moving in the area of mutant funk with music that twists this way and that, it’s here that he’s found his sweet spot. Eschewing hard rhythms, he’s accompanied by Sarah Hayes (piano and flute) and Faye MacCalman (saxophone and clarinet) as well as the string quartet of Ed Cross,…

Space madness from Norwegian progger’s spin-off project. Electrond is the brainchild of Trond Gjellum, the drummer in Oslo prog bands Panzerpappa and Suburban Savages. For this electronic side-project, Gjellum taps into the universes of far-out composers, such as German avant-garde titans Conrad Schnitzler and the late Manuel Göttsching, bringing his own eccentricities to the party. Onstage he assumes PPE clothing and covers his head and body like a post-apocalyptic lab technician. It’s in keeping with the extended EP’s title, although Uneasy Listening is a misnomer. Opener Apogee is stately, like a numinous ballroom of the imagination, while Cicada chimes with retro-futurist nostalgia. There’s a charming, almost ramshackle DIY element to all of these songs, bringing a tatterdemalion elegance that feels rather like a rocket ship lost in space, majestic yet…

Californian instro-proggers deliver classic sound with a modern twist. Isobar are the San Jose-based trio of bassist Jim Anderson, guitarist Malcolm Smith and keyboardist Marc Spooner, augmented here by a plethora of guest players. Hitting the sweet spot between King Crimson, Camel and Rush, they specialise in multitextured instrumental prog that’s compositionally complex but pleasingly cogent, the various transitions handled with confidence rather than glued together in hope. The flowing piano and Mellotron intro of opening track Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been? hits a mid-paced glide guitar groove before plunging headlong into a section of chromatic angularity. Parts Of Harvey has a looser, more laid-back vibe, before a shift into stuttering riffage. Face In The Blue is another piano-led mid-pacer, which then dashes off in a cosmic…

Norwegian trio’s fourth album in four years. Jan Mikael Sørensen and Havard Enge have never hidden their passion for the music of their 80s youth, and there’s a distinctly retro look to the graphics of this new album’s sleeve, but Songs For The Future is a far more eclectic-sounding affair than those cultural signifiers might suggest. Whereas their last two thematically linked albums, Zero Acts 1 & 2 and Zero Acts 3 & 4, were concept sets, here they offer up a grab bag of styles and subject matter. Not all of which, in truth, will appeal to everyone. ‘The boys are going out for a night on the town,’ they sing over a rinky-dink acoustic rhythm on opener For The Boys, and a string of clichéd observations follow. Thankfully,…

Progressive, ethno-jazz tinged bromance from underdogs turned top dogs. Michael League is best known as the founding member of Texan progressive jazz outfit Snarky Puppy, and London-born pianist Bill Laurance has been in that band since before their first album while also developing a fascinating solo career on the side in recent years. Their first collaboration as a duo is a record full of surprises, and anyone expecting Snarky Puppy unplugged may be in for a shock. It’s certainly stripped back, with Laurance concentrating everything on a “prepared” grand piano with some of the brightness deliberately dampened, though his playing still has plenty of sass on tracks like La Marinada. It’s League who confounds expectations here: the funky bassist in Snarky has switched to traditional stringed instruments like the oud,…

Yes bassist’s prog supergroup serves up a new batch of original gems. Whether they’re dishing out original songs or reinventing rock staples from decades past, Billy Sherwood’s Prog Collective usually deliver great LPs. The same holds true for Seeking Peace, the project’s first assemblage of new material since 2013’s Epilogue. The interlocking vocals, breezy rhythms and colourful instrumentation of opener Electric World channel the synth-laden sleekness of 80s prog. It also sets up the playful vibe that Sherwood and company uphold during the remaining pieces, with In An Instant and the uplifting Finally Over serving as authentic throwbacks to the spirit and craftsmanship of the genre’s initial decade. Elsewhere, Seeking Peace and A Matter Of Time scale back the theatrics to provide riveting verses, whereas All Is Meant To Be…

Floyd-channelling Germans are back with a criminally good record. In the years since their 2000 debut God Has Failed, these German proggers have shown that they know their way around a concept album. For their eighth studio record, RPWL are turning to crime. Crime Scene draws on notorious real-life characters such as cannibal Karl Denke and necrophile Carl Tanzler. But such macabre themes slide by nicely thanks to Yogi Lang’s likeable, unforced vocal style, and, as a listening experience, it’s the sound of four blokes making a genteel, 80s-tinged, post-Floyd racket. Opener and lead single Victim Of Desire is a dramatic, symphonic piece armed with Kalle Wallner’s grandstanding guitar work and Lang’s sweeping keys (the expensive-looking video is well worth YouTubing too). The affecting Red Rose and disturbing Life In…

Experimental guitars combine to mesmeric effect. Since 2019, Swiss guitarist and composer Stephan Thelen has convened what amounts to a regular summit of creative guitarists working across the progressive, ambient, electronica, and jazz scenes. This latest Fractal Guitar release is arguably the best to date. Here, the collective fretboards of Eivind Aarset, Markus Reuter, Jon Durant and other guitar guests collide with drummers Yogev Gabay and Manuel Pasquinelli’s pulsing rock grooves. Yet this is no tedious jam session – there’s not a solitary clichéd lick in earshot. All instruments are deployed with Thelen’s distinctive orchestral precision. Some drift hazily like clouds, others bring timbral and rhythmic structure, but all combine to frame fierce and inspired soloing. Heady cascading runs, hypnotic drones, tangled rhythmic counterpoints, and vaporous keyboards dance in and…

Ruban Nielson’s New Zealand-formed prog-psych act shifts up a gear. “The definitive UMO record,” says Unknown Mortal Orchestra conductor-in-chief Ruban Nielson of his fifth album. Long operating as a kind of lo-fi Steely Dan with a nice sideline in off-kilter guitar hooks, Nielson made V between Palm Springs and Hawaii. Tapping the Hapa-haole (i.e. ‘half-white’) music that’s part of his part-Polynesian DNA, he’s made a sunny, un-typically tropical LP of prog jazz instrumentals, skewed yacht rock and playful, envelope-pushing pop. Nielson’s brother Kody shares drumming duties, while their father Chris Nielson plays fine sax and flute on a defiantly upbeat record concerned with not-always-happy childhood memories and the mortality of loved ones. Claims that V is the kind of mid-period breakthrough that 1999 was for Prince might sound highfalutin, but…

Threshold keyboard player reflects on four decades in prog. Threshold’s Richard West takes readers on an amiable amble through his life on and offstage in this charming autobiography. Devoid of rock star pretensions, West starts out playing piano in church, while one unfortunate experience with drugs leaves him feeling so discombobulated he never dabbles again (he recounts with horror the experience of touring alongside US band Psychotic Waltz, with their enthusiasm for bongs and porn). While it’s not The Dirt by any stretch of the imagination, a little rock’n’roll tomfoolery makes its presence felt in Maybe A Writer. There are onstage tantrums and a backstage dust-up, although West discretely avoids revealing the identity of the participants. Elsewhere, his dream of buying a house in the Czech Republic descends into something…

VENUE 100 CLUB, LONDON DATE 29/01/2023 SUPPORT THE GALILEO 7 “But none of the original ones are left in the band,” argues a man standing next to Prog a few minutes before the show. Atomic Rooster have had countless different line-ups during their 50-odd-year career and the current one stands up solidly when compared with Carl Palmer and Vincent Crane’s original formation back in ’69. But first, the arduous task of breaking the quiet melancholy of a Sunday evening has been assigned to The Galileo 7, a Kent quartet fuelled by garage and high-energy psychedelic pop. The band successfully catapult the audience back in time to the era of the 45, especially on songs such as You Tear My Mind Wide Open and a very enjoyable rendition of Pink Floyd’s…

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. March already? (Well, the end of February as I write this!) How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I was welcoming you to the first issue of the year, but here we are, with a new issue and plans afoot that take the magazine deep into 2023! As for this issue, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of, as our cover says, “one of the most audacious, inventive and imaginative albums” in the whole of 70s progressive rock. King Crimson’s fifth record, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, is yet another intriguing chapter in the King Crimson story, and another example of Robert Fripp’s tenacious ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and create something mesmeric, momentous and memorable. Oh,…

Dutch prog maverick Arjen Lucassen returns with a new band and album this year. Out on May 19 via Music Theories/Mascot, the 15-track Golden Age Of Music will be the debut of Arjen Lucassen’s Supersonic Revolution. The Ayreon star describes the new quintet as an “upbeat, positive project. I was like, ‘Let’s form a band and write songs in the style of the 70s, and have the lyrics be a celebration of all the memorable things from that time.’” For info and pre-orders go to arjenlucassen.com.…

Guillaume Bernard isn’t feeling very well. “My girlfriend is ill, and so am I,” the guitarist of atmospheric art-rockers Klone tells Prog when he joins our telephone call from his home in Poitiers. “I have Covid.” Mercifully though, Bernard sounds okay, speaking in his thick French accent and answering every question that we throw his way at length. It’s a testament to his belief in the band he co-founded in 1995 – as well as their new release, Meanwhile – that he’s still so eager to talk while under the weather. The band’s seventh album was forged through the fires of the pandemic. Meanwhile is the svelte and energetic sibling to 2019’s critically acclaimed Le Grand Voyage. On one level, the relation between the two is obvious. Both are hypnotic…

Texan quartet search for the truth on album number four. The challenges of the last few years have offered oodles of creative opportunity for songwriters out there, and the latest to have a crack are The Aaron Clift Experiment with their fourth album, The Age Of Misinformation. A document of the lockdown era, the US prog collective paradoxically continue to give their music the freedom to roam. ‘Born into a swarm of eyes, where hoaxes grow like thorns,’ vocalist and keyboardist Clift sings on the title track, on top of classic rock-meets-prog vigour. There’s a Rush whip to L.I.A.R, while the ethereal Color Of Flight skews the norm and slides in sun-kissed acoustic guitar, strings and percussion, even if the pace occasionally drops and the album teeters on the edge of…

Irish prog metal prospects on the rise. Well, this is a belter. Self-professed ‘tech noir’ group The Enigma Division features ex-Xerath guitarist/keyboard player Conor McGouran and drummer-vocalist Ben Wanders, joined in their new venture by bassist Ronan Burns. The guitars here are crunchy, and the rhythm section possesses heft and power, yet despite the heaviness, the overall vibe is energising and upbeat. It’s refreshing to hear music this punchy with clean, passionate vocals and a mood that’s hopeful rather than wallowing in gloom or menace. They can reach towards djent riffage in The Age Of Discovery and McGouran knows how to shred, yet they’ll balance that out with the rich piano lines and gentle washes of synth in the excellent ballad Clarity. Derek Sherinian makes a guest appearance on the…

Kent vocalist reveals subtle depths. This Maidstone-born singer-songwriter’s second album exudes the essence of progressive folk and feels very rural; a contrast to her rockier, LA-recorded debut. It’s chiefly introspective, gazing out of the window, quietly musing over solitude and hope, home and escape, yet it has an attractive tendency to glide into intriguing areas, whether that be via hooky melodies or spells of analogue synth tinkering. The atmospheres here shift charmingly between Nick Drake, Beth Orton and a playful, optimistic ambience of Henderson’s own. Back After Sunrise brings us in with a 70s-tinged lilt, its relaxed Colin Blunstone swing humming warmly before the crisper Druxy offers a more brittle air of craving, with guitar breaks suggesting a cheekier Steve Howe. This unflashy confidence sustains through the bittersweet Head Full…

The voice of Nightwish reveals her glossy pop-rock side. After a traumatic 2022, during which she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent successful surgery, Floor Jansen has earned this revitalising rebirth. Despite being omnipresent in the symphonic metal realm since the turn of the century, Paragon is the Nightwish singer’s first solo album. She’s steered away from writing anything that resembles either her day job or any of the multiple projects she’s lent her versatile tones to over the years. Instead, Paragon is an exercise in sumptuous but intimate pop-rock songs, with Jansen’s voice given rather more room to breathe than it generally gets during Nightwish’s intricate, progressive metal epics. With nods to artsy, big-budget 80s pop, there’s plenty for prog fans to enjoy here. Paragon strikes a balance…

Debut from this exotic, Canterbury-loving French collective is magnifique. Oiapok’s composer Pierre Wawrzyniak was once part of oddball psych-rockers Camembert, but here he’s united with vocalist Mélanie Gerber and a collective of musicians playing trombones, harp, xylophones and vibraphones. Together, they imbue clever tunes with proggy Canterbury sounds, modern jazz elements and breezy chanson stylings. While Gerber’s vocals draw on retro, chansonnière textures on the title track, the moody Summer 19 also shows her Björk-y, avant-pop side, and she’s just one part of a larger tapestry here. The parpy trombones and tight, bright xylophone/vibes parts inevitably evoke Zappa (the busy, dazzling Les Grands Equipages), but Matthieu Lenormand’s snappy drum work and Wawrzyniak’s exuberantly clever bass grooves give Oisolün less a passé feel and a more contemporary, jazzy one. There’s something…

Cheltenham pair spike their folk flavours with a touch of acid. Marvin B Naylor and Rebsie Fairholm have made some seriously haunting folk music together in recent years, with a penchant for unusual instrumentation ranging from psalteries to electric guitars played with bows. They’re also fans of 60s psychedelia, as the name of this project suggests, and their debut set under that moniker is as an intoxicating a confection. The trippiness of Captain Digorie Piper His Galliard is enhanced by the use of medieval reed instrument the cornamuse, and the sweet acoustic reverie Venus Blue is decorated with a harp-like instrument that lends the whole affair the feel of a deleted dream scene from The Wicker Man. Their folk roots show through on the traditional lullaby of Corpus Christi, in…

Enigmatic prog metal project takes a big step forward. The brooding atmospherics of Sermon’s debut album, The Birth Of The Marvellous, made it one 2019’s most intriguing releases. Fronted by an anonymous, golden-masked outsider known solely as Him, a smattering of live performances followed, but the band never gained the momentum their music warranted. This time, things may be different. If their debut offering was all about tension and release, Of Golden Verse feels more immediate, threatening and pissed off at the world. Their musical mantra is the same, with the haunted nursery rhyme motifs of Senessence and the villainous séance of Royal continuing where its predecessor left off, but with greater conviction. Him’s vocals are a different class now too, spitting and soaring atop structures that feel like they are…

Retro-leaning hug of an album from ex-Kentish Spires keyboardist. A Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2021 led to multi-instrumentalist Rik Loveridge leaving his band, The Kentish Spires, to make his debut solo album. Taking cues from early-70s prog in general and the Canterbury scene in particular, Prog Nosis evokes sounds and feels of yesteryear. Kentish Spires fans will recognise reworked versions of that band’s songs in the mostly languid, piano- and sax-drenched 19-minute suite of Trilogy. Guest guitarist Nick Fletcher contributes some beautiful work to many tracks here, including the spacious instrumentals West Coast Journeyman and Dark Matter. Elsewhere, there’s an environmental focus to the understated balladry of Silent Spring and Nature’s Eyes and the soothing ambiance of Teed’s Lullaby eases us towards the album’s close. There are echoes of The Tangent, not…

Arboreal folk masks pagan unease on Gloucestershire trio’s second album. Horror, spoken or unspoken, is one of the foundation stones of folk music, something Toadstone are fully aware of. The Gloucestershire trio’s second album may have a veneer of pastoral gentility, but dark waters churn just below its surface. Cernunnos – named for an ancient Celtic deity – sits somewhere between Jethro Tull’s Songs From The Wood and Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England in its skewed approach to tradition. The innate eeriness of Feast, Knot Garden and Leonora, the latter based on an old Germanic ballad about a sinister knight, is emphasised by their pared-down delivery. Lucy Newbould’s hauntingly clear vocals are supported by music that’s sparse and occasionally strange, courtesy of guitarist Mike Libbiter and especially flautist Bhavandeep…

Brassy London collective Perhaps Contraption last appeared in Prog with their 2016 album Mud Belief, and their latest release, Nearly Human (perhapscontraption.co.uk), is an even more delightful collision of performance art, choral music, Canterbury/Knifeworld-esque prog and Penguin Café experimentalism. Performed with vigour, thought and conviction, this beautifully rendered meditation on the life cycle of an atom accompanies the Contraption’s gig/theatre show of the same name, which they performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. The record genuinely does spark thoughts about just what we are, and what we’re made of. Based in Alnwick, Northumberland, Unit8 bring a gentle, melodic and nicely DIY slant to prog on their current self-titled, self-released record. Lead singer Kris Popat’s blessed with a hearty pure vocal tone, which, along with Rothery-esque chorused guitars, fiddly time signatures and…

A penetrating study of Talk Talk’s maverick leader. Though it was No Doubt’s hit take on Talk Talk’s early synthpop single It’s My Life that eventually financed Mark Hollis’ first Porsche, acclaim and posthumous near-sainthood came via his avant-garde masterpiece Spirit Of Eden. Like its follow-up Laughing Stock, it saw Hollis go to extraordinary lengths to realise jazz and minimalist classical-influenced music. “What would [that part] be like if you played it like you were a rhesus monkey?” he asked one contributor. Interviewing pretty much every relevant party still willing to talk, Ben Wardle’s detailed chronology of Hollis’ life and career is a fascinating glimpse behind the veil. It presents him in all his complexity: the cripplingly shy performer who hid behind mirrored sunglasses and alcohol; the wind-up merchant who…

VENUE O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN, LONDON DATE 10/02/2023 SUPPORT SOM You have to feel sorry for SOM. When the Americans arrive to serenade the O2 Forum with their prog-inflected shoegaze, it’s 10 minutes after doors and almost nobody’s about. However, those who walk in during the set get the most crystalline of entrance music complemented by frontman Will Benoit’s drawn-out croons. The singer and his bandmates are silhouetted against their backdrop, yet SOM still look like stars. Spotlights shine through the rising smoke and flash with every striking snare. It all cultivates a visual magnificence that not even tonight’s first headliner can emulate. For Sólstafir, emotional devastation is all that matters. Post-rock’s saddest cowboys take the stage under a blue hue, with zero frills, and immediately let their melancholic music…