Innehållsförteckning för Issue 146 från Prog

Space rockers Hawkwind have announced a run of tour dates for spring 2024, and revealed that the title of their next studio album will be Stories From Time And Space. It’ll be released via Cherry Red in April. “We haven’t actually done anything about space for ages,” guitarist Magnus Martin tells Prog of the album’s origins. “So we thought, ‘Let’s actually do some space rock.’ There’s also this amazing book that [author and former music impresario] Rob Godwin has written about space rock and Hawkwind as well, so that’s what got us thinking about actually just doing a space rock album, you know?” “We haven’t actually done anything about space for ages.” The gestation of Stories From Time And Space goes back almost a year, when Hawkwind founder and leader…

The Pineapple Thief have revealed details of their forthcoming album, It Leads To This, due for release on Kscope on February 9. It’s the Somerset formed art-rock quartet’s 14th album of new material, and their fourth to feature erstwhile King Crimson and Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison. The percussion maestro again took an active role in composing the album, and this time around, he and TPT frontman Bruce Soord decided to do things differently. In contrast to the process of writing and constructing songs remotely that they and their bandmates had taken with previous albums, Soord and Harrison worked up the bulk of the record in the same room. Says Soord, “When I was driving back from Gavin’s house after working together for several days, I felt like a zombie…

The Aristocrats’ fifth album, Duck, might be conceptual, but bassist Bryan Beller warns fans that it isn’t your archetypal affair. “This is an Aristocrats concept album,” he says with a smile. “It’s not The Wall; it’s about a cartoon duck that gets kicked off an Antarctic island by a malevolent police penguin and then travels the world!” Out on February 16 via Boing Music, the bassist explains its story was a happy accident: “[Drummer] Marco Minnemann wrote a song called Sitting With A Duck On A Bay, which had a 70s R&B vibe to it, but we also had a more complex song with a parenthetical title of Duck’s End. Then we thought, ‘Are we writing an album with a story here?’” Having released their first three albums in consistent…

(Rough Trade, 1983) In an increasingly tumultuous world, it’s important to seek mental solace from time to time. What better chance to consider this uplifting, pastoral ambient work from British singer-songwriter Virginia Astley, which recently – softly – celebrated its 40th birthday? Even Astley’s name conjures up a watercoloured, bygone era, perhaps the days of Edith Holden’s 1906 Nature Notes, which became a hugely successful 1977 book, The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady, comprising the art teacher’s outdoor observations over a year? If only field recordings had been available to fit that landmark work… For centuries composers invoked the natural world – birdcalls, weather, rivers, sunrise. It was only a matter of time before Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and its ilk – alongside emerging technology to capture found…

The prog top 30 albums November 2023 Compiled by 1 STEVEN WILSON The Harmony Codex (SW RECORDS/VIRGIN) 2 ROGER WATERS The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux (COOKING VINYL) 3 WITHIN TEMPTATION Bleed Out (FORCE MUSIC) 4 MATT BERRY Simplicity (ACID JAZZ) 5 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Oxymoreworks (SONY MUSIC) 6 GONG Unending Ascending (KSCOPE) 7 PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS Fronzoli (WHAT REALITY?) 8 KING GIZZARD & LIZARD WIZARD The Silver Cord (KGLW) 9 GOAT Medicine (ROCKET RECORDINGS) 10 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING This New Noise (TEST CARD) 11 SIGUR RÓS Átta (BMG) 12 MIKE OLDFIELD Tubular Bells – 50th Anniversary Edition (UMC) 13 OZRIC TENTACLES Lotus Unfolding (KSCOPE) 14 YES Mirror To The Sky (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 15 TARJA Dark Christmas (EARMUSIC) 16 TAME IMPALA Lonerism (FICTION) 17 POLYPHIA Remember That You Will Die (RISE)…

Tarja Turunen can remember the first time she set foot on Antigua. It was 2007, and a “chaotic” period in the Finnish soprano’s life: two years after her very public, acrimonious split from symphonic giants Nightwish, the band with whom she made her name, and one year after the launch of her solo career. What she needed, more than anything, was anonymity. Immediately, she fell in love with the beautiful scenery, easy-going way of life and the overwhelming sense of seclusion. “You will find a beach where you will be alone the whole day. It’s so chilled and so positive,” she says over Zoom from her current home in the Andalusia region of southern Spain, the memory of her first visit to the Caribbean still vivid 16 years on. “It…

The best laid plans of mice, men and progressive rock musicians can often go awry. When Prog speaks with Earthside, on the eve of their return to European stages at Euroblast in Germany and ProgPower in the Netherlands, they’re only a handful of weeks on from the news that singer/guitarist Jamie van Dyck has been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Today, Jamie looks and sounds in good health and is less interested in bemoaning his lot than in enthusing about his band’s return to the festival circuit, and their absolutely colossal new album, Let The Truth Speak. “We delivered the mastered album to the label in May, and then I got the testicular cancer diagnosis [in September],” he notes with a shrug. “It’s all happened very fast. It was as simple…

In 1993, as sidekick to former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, Francis Dunnery had what he now calls “the biggest guitar job in the world”. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, but three decades later the kid from Egremont in Cumbria still gets a kick from remembering that he played the guitar solo to Whole Lotta Love in stadiums across the world. During the previous decade, Dunnery’s band It Bites had been loved by fans and hated by the press over the course of three resolutely fascinating albums that to this day still stand up as masterpieces. Formed in 1982, It Bites enjoyed chart success in ’86 with Calling All The Heroes but just a few years later, the guitarist and singer dismayed and puzzled his bandmates by opting to…

When Caligula’s Horse released Rise Radiant in early 2020, the band seemed to be in an ebullient mood with an album about triumph in the face of adversity. Looking back now, it seems almost eerily prescient. Like everyone else, they saw their plans to promote the album crash into the unyielding brick wall of the pandemic. Four years later, Charcoal Grace feels like a sombre, reflective counterpoint to Rise Radiant, that sense of exuberance exchanged for a melancholy born from the isolation and self-examination of recent times. The album is informally divided into three acts. The opening tracks showcase the group’s contemporary prog metal stylings. There’s the drop-tuned riffing of The World Breathes With Me and Golem. The former exudes anger and sorrow as vocalist Jim Grey pleads, ‘God forgive…

VENUE THE LONDON PALLADIUM, LONDON DATE 08/11/2023 The godfathers of kosmische playing at London’s mecca of light entertainment might seem like a mismatch on paper, but once Tangerine Dream are in full flow it all begins to make sense. Light entertainer Bruce Forsyth’s ashes are buried under the boards of the Palladium’s stage, and everyone from Arthur Askey to Zsa Zsa Gabor look down from the walls of its Edwardian corridors. The Tangs, too, carry ghosts with them, not least of all Edgar Froese, who led the good (space)ship TD for 48 years until his death in 2015. Any concerns about the current trio fitting in are soon allayed when Thorsten Quaeschning takes to the stage. The custodian of the group in Froese’s absence has the aura of an old-school…

Norwegian progressive rockers Madder Mortem have announced their first studio album in six years. Old Eyes, New Heart will come out on January 26 via Dark Essence. Lead single Towers is currently available on streaming services. Old Eyes… is dedicated to Jacob, the father of singer Agnete M. Kirkevaag and guitarist BP M. Kirkevaag, who suffered from an obstructive lung disease and died of colon cancer. It was written and recorded during his illness, and the cover is based on one of his paintings. “He was such a huge influence, musically: we grew up with him blasting Bach,” says Agnete. “It was hard watching my strong and wise dad become less and less able to take care of himself. That, I think, contributed – a lot of the album is…

When Big Big Train release The Likes Of Us via InsideOutMusic on March 1, they’re expecting an emotional reaction. Their first studio title since the death of frontman David Longdon features Alberto Bravin in his place. And although mainstay Greg Spawton thought they’d simply found their new voice – deliberately distinct from Longdon’s – he discovered the Italian was also a writer and a studio wizard. Stating the case for the new line-up, Bravin’s vocals are heard almost as soon as lead track Light Left In The Day kicks in. “It unfurled very naturally,” Spawton says. “We actually thought of it as a 30-second secret track at the end… but things changed.” A slightly heavier edge is also soon in play, and while Bravin takes responsibility for that, he asserts: “Most…

Norwegian progressive metal musician Ihsahn will release his long-awaited eighth solo album on February 16 via Candlelight. The 100-minute, self-titled double record contains two different versions of each song: while one disc is progressive metal, the other is purely orchestral. “It’s been a long time since my last full-length album [2018’s Àmr],” says Ihsahn. “I did some experiments with some EPs [2020’s Telemark and Pharos], and I came to a point where I just wanted to hone in on something. I thought, ‘What’s the very core of my expression?’ And it’s always been blending orchestral soundtracks with extreme metal.” The musician, who’s fronted symphonic black metal band Emperor since 1991 and started his solo career in 2006, describes Ihsahn as his first concept album. “It’s a very traditional hero’s journey, John…

“I used to take drum lessons at a place called the Long Island Drum Center in Nyack in New York state. I found out that there was a band that was blowing up from around that area and that they [Coheed And Cambria] used to rehearse in Nyack. So I’m like, ‘Cool, a local band that’s making waves!’ And I’d watch them just getting bigger and bigger. This was around the time of In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 and I was really fascinated by them. There are so many nuances about that band. First of all, the progression of where they started and what they became and secondly, they were just obviously very album-focused. They have this ongoing sci-fi plot going across their albums that they then turned…

Even before they’d released a note of music, Chile’s Tryo found themselves opening for prog royalty, Yes at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater in Viña del Mar. “It was a big honour!” beams bandmanager Ignacio Carvajal Gómez. It was also the culmination of seven years’ hard work. Formed in 1987 in the Chilean port city of Valparaíso by brothers Ismael and Francisco Cortez Aguilera on guitars and bass respectively, and drummer Félix Carbonne Kind (recently replaced by his protégé Felipe Baldrich Maldonado), the group found success on the college circuit before releasing their eponymous debut album in 1996. Since then, the band – now augmented by keyboardist Pablo Martínez Rodríguez – have released a further six albums, the most recent of which, Suramérica, came out earlier this year. Pondering their motivation, Ismael…

“In the early days, we used to wear these stupid kaftans with a big eye on it. We’d walk down the street in them before the show, publicising the gig. Whatever it took.”Mick Pointer (ex-Marillion) All things must pass, and prog’s imperial early-to-mid-70s phase was no exception. By the end of that decade, many of its chief protagonists were either seemingly spent as creative forces (ELP, Yes), about to undergo radical transformations (Genesis, Yes again) or absent (King Crimson, albeit temporarily). The upstarts of punk may have been commercial minnows in comparison, but their jibes about ‘dinosaurs’ hit where it hurt. Yet as the 80s got underway, something unexpected was happening. Across the United Kingdom, a wave of grassroots bands set about reviving this seemingly moribund genre. A scene was…

Did you ever think you’d see Greg Lake doing the plank with David Bowie? Fly fishing with Jack Hargreaves? Larking around with Bedouins in the desert? Well, look no further! It all started innocently enough, with a train journey and a conversation with the PR for the Magical box set. Out of the blue, the PR announced that he had been given a whole load of previously unseen photos from the Lake archive – captioned by Greg’s wife, Regina – and within seconds we’d decided that we just had to share them in Prog. They show a more private side to Lake, who, outside of the glaring spotlight of Emerson, Lake & Palmer – and let’s face it, that spotlight was particularly glaring – tended to shun the limelight for…

“Frank Zappa loved our music, though, and he actually wanted to sign us to his label.” By 1973, the year in which Nektar made their most celebrated album, Remember The Future, the four virtuoso Brits who comprised the group were honorary Germans. They lived in Germany, they’d recorded three LPs for the German label Bellaphon/Bacillus, they had German girlfriends or wives, and German artist Helmut Wenske painted their album sleeves. Thanks to their mind-expanding live shows and LPs, such as their 1971 debut Journey To The Centre Of The Eye, Nektar sat at the epicentre of a vibrant, bohemian scene that drew hip young German devotees. “The UK scene at that time was mainly based on pop music,” says Nektar’s bassist Derek ‘Mo’ Moore today. “That was all you heard…

“In my head I wanted to be in Genesis, I wanted to be in It Bites. I was living the dream as a teenager and there was no second-guessing what I was going to write. So, there’s a lovely innocence with these tracks.”Rob Reed “I knew the songs were good back in the day,” Cyan mainman Rob Reed says of his band’s original releases, from back in the 1990s. “But they just needed to be reworked. A lot of people would go back and remix the album or tinker with it, but this is a major rebuilding, throwing out sections and writing new ones. Some of the tracks are unrecognisable, some less so. I just enjoy fixing things, and hearing them with the full production.” Reed is speaking down the…

VENUE THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON DATE 26/11/2023 It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas… if your annual festive shindig means sheets of freezing rain framed against a grey London sky and the dark silhouettes of the city’s skyline, with a soundtrack scored by Marillion. There’s something very reassuring about hearing Easter out of season and realising time is creeping to the end of yet another year. Tell that, though, to the hundreds of poor souls caught out in the torrent as the patient and seemingly endless sold-out queue of punters – heads down, hoods up – shuffle along to the sanctuary of London’s landmark venue. The Roundhouse – as featured on the artwork for Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (how apt, how prog!), has, much like Marillion, reinvented…

Progressive jazz-prog fusionists Colosseum have announced the release of the six-CD box set, Colosseum: Elegy – The Recordings 1968-1971, on February 23 via Esoteric Recordings, as well as a series of live dates in England and Germany. The set includes the albums Those Who Are About To Die Salute You, Valentyne Suite, The Grass Is Greener, Daughter Of Time and Colosseum Live. The sixth disc includes 12 bonus tracks taken from studio sessions and live recordings captured in Manchester University and Bristol University in 1971. The band formed in 1968 by drummer Jon Hiseman and saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith. They disbanded in 1974 before reforming in 1994. Colosseum tour England in February and play London’s The Forge (4), Manchester’s Band On The Wall (6) and Kendall’s Brewery Arts (9). They then…

Prog Award winning Scottish post-rock trio Midas Fall have announced that they will release Cold Waves Divide Us, their first new album for six years, through Monotreme Records on March 8. Cold Waves Divide Us, the follow-up to 2018 album Evaporate and the band’s fifth overall, is the first studio album that Midas Fall have recorded as a trio, with Michael Hamilton joining founding members Elizabeth Heaton and Rowan Burn. “This album is a heavier and bigger experience than the last,” says Heaton. “We kept the atmospheric strings and 80s synths of Evaporate but wanted to add heavier layered elements, to represent more what we sound like live.” Cold Waves Divide Us will be released digitally, as well as on CD and a limited pressing of 500 LPs on 180g…

While the days have largely passed when an artist might release two studio albums in quick succession, a decade has elapsed since Moon Safari issued Himlabacken Vol. 1. And while they have not usurped American businessman cum musician Dean Gitter (who took a mere 57 years to follow up 1957’s Ghost Ballads with that elapsed between King Crimson’s Three Of A Perfect Pair and Thrak. So, after a steady work rate that yielded the band’s first four studio albums in the period from 2005 to 2013, how on earth did it take Moon Safari so long to release the excellent Himlabacken Vol. 2? “Perhaps we can blame the kids?!” says lead vocalist/acoustic guitarist Petter Sandström from his home in Stockholm. Sweden’s birth rate this millennium has dropped well below two…

“That’s quite the look, Neal!” cackles Nick D’Virgilio to his buddy Neal Morse as the Zoom call kicks in. The former Spock’s Beard and current D’Virgilio, Morse & Jennings compadres explode with laughter on first sight of each other, always a good sign, even when the interviewees already have reputations for being distinctly non-prickly. The reason for the mirth is Morse’s wide-brimmed blue hat and matching waterproof poncho. They’re joining Prog to talk about the “trio’s” (as Morse likes to call them) quickly realised second album, Sophomore. Morse has tied in a family road trip with his sister’s birthday celebration in the San Francisco Bay area, travelling from his home in Nashville. He joins us from a famous Nevada beauty spot. “It’s morning in Lake Tahoe and I’m sitting by…

VENUE THE ORPHEUM, TAMPA, FL, USA DATE 11/11/2023 SUPPORT INTERVALS TesseracT have had an unusual 2023. Before the summer, the UK prog metal darlings hadn’t released a new studio album in five years, with the quintet instead maintaining their momentum with some festival sets and their 2021 livestream release, Portals. But then the floodgates opened. On July 12, TesseracT didn’t just release their mammoth 11-minute single War Of Being (a return to the more experimental songwriting of their first two albums), they also announced their long-a-waited fifth LP and a world tour that would take them across four continents in a mere seven months. When the demo version of a tie-in War Of Being video game also came out later in the year, it only reaffirmed that this band were…

VENUE BEC ARENA, MANCHESTER DATE 03/11/2023-04/11/2023 Almost 20 years since it was founded, Damnation Festival has long been a champion of metal’s underground. But a move to Manchester’s BEC Arena (formerly Bowlers Exhibition Centre) in 2022 expanded both the festival’s capacity and scope for programming, and even its preliminary evening, A Night Of Salvation, has expanded to bigger bands this year. The line-up boasts a litany of exclusive album-in-full sets covering a spread of subgenres and styles that, while not all prog-friendly, certainly adhere to a principle of progressive, challenging music. By the time Enslaved released 2003’s Below The Lights, they were well on the way to embracing the prog sensibilities that would let them slip the bonds of black metal. Playing the record in full, the shift has never…

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