Innehållsförteckning för Issue 151 från Prog

“I think it’s a subconscious reaction to the world we’re living in,” says Tim Bowness as he ponders the inspiration behind Powder Dry, his new solo album, released on August 16 via Kscope, his first for the label. “Generally speaking, albums either come from a deeply personal and isolated place or it’s when you’re almost open to what the world is saying to you,” continues the singer-songwriter, who’s also half of No-Man. “And I think that with the last two or three albums, there’s that sense that the world has become slightly more dangerous and slightly more menacing, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s Gaza, whether it’s just partisan political debate on social media. Things feel worse and more precarious than at any stage I remember. I don’t think I’ve lived…

Maastricht-based Lesoir return with a campaign of single releases to promote their sixth studio album, Push Back The Horizon, which is out in the autumn. Alongside this the band will be playing some carefully selected gigs including a few double-headline European dates with British proggers Pure Reason Revolution. After a deliberate break in live work for most of 2023, the band recorded the album in their hometown utilising the production skills of long-time collaborator and Muse producer John Cornfield, with vocals specifically produced by Paul Reeve, known for his similar role with Matt Bellamy. They then set about looking for a label that would share their belief in the material and enable them to widen their audience base. They settled on V2 Records, best known for their varied roster including…

FRENCH DUO ALBER Jupiter hail from Rennes in northwest France, which is an area best known for its medieval half-timbered houses and neoclassical cathedral. The pair grew up listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, although the real epiphany came when, as teenagers, they accidentally caught the Chilean space rockers Föllakzoid at a festival in Switzerland, a moment they describe as “like a slap in the face”. “We said to ourselves, ‘That’s what we have to do – we need to put together a band like Föllakzoid!’” recalls bass player Nicolas Terroitin. “We wanted to plagiarise their music, but what came out was something more personal.” Föllakzoid’s immersive soundscapes were joined by a burgeoning love of everything kosmische. “When I was 20, I met musicians who played krautrock,” he adds.…

This issue, we’re commemorating the 30th anniversary of Yes’s “forgotten album” with a special bundle set. Originally released in 1994, Talk has been out of print for many years, but has now been fully remastered and reissued by Spirit Of Unicorn Music. And we have a copy of the four-CD deluxe and white double vinyl reissues to give away to one lucky reader. The expanded CD set includes two discs with live recordings from the band’s June 1994 show in Canandigua, New York, as well as a third with bonus demo and instrumental tracks. There are liner notes from Prog Editor Jerry Ewing, too, which contain new interviews with Trevor Rabin and Jon Anderson. The very limited-edition and extremely rare vinyl edition also features a special version of The Calling…

“The past is foreign country, they do things differently there.” It’s unlikely that LP Hartley, author of The Go-Between, was referring to experimenting with ecstasy for the first time in your late 40s while working on a new album, but this is the seemingly alien landscape that singer Steve ‘H’ Hogarth found himself in as Marillion began the lengthy and ultimately rewarding process of making the hugely creative Marbles. “Let me tell you: ecstasy – it’s the way to go, for a little while at least,” says Hogarth, you can almost see the twinkle in his eye. He’s on the phone at home and we’ve been chatting about the band’s mindset post-Anoraknophobia and its industry-changing, crowdfunding model. A similar question to other members of Marillion had them reflecting on the…

Stickers. That’s what it came down to, a few lousy stickers. Marbles might have given Marillion a Top 10 single, but the album itself would never worry the Official UK Charts due to accidentally breaking eligibility rules. “We didn’t know,” says Mark Kelly with a shrug. “We had a couple of stickers included with the album, and it then wasn’t eligible for the chart. I think it shifted enough copies to go Top 30, too, but at least we got a hit single out of it.” “Yeah, you put some merch in with the record and then suddenly that stops you from being in the charts,” Ian Mosley says, equally nonplussed about the oversight. “It was one of the biggest pre-orders that we’d ever done, as well. Morale was high,…

“Even by Bass Communion standards this is a pretty confrontational record.” Steven Wilson reclines on “Even a sofa in his north London home, sips his tea and seeks to explain to Prog exactly what Bass Communion is. How he makes the sounds that make up this project’s latest album, The Itself Of Itself. Where the ideas come from. And just what ambient drone noise music is anyway: is it even music at all? The Itself Of Itself is a sometimes uncomfortable and confrontational record, he’s right. But it’s also a fascinating noise. Veering into territory more commonly occupied by the likes of Sunn O))) and Earth in today’s musical sphere, and previously by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno back in the 70s, The Raven That Refused To Sing… or The…

“A hip label for groovy people” was how Decca Records subsidiary Deram was announced in Melody Maker on its inception in September 1966. This separated it from the rather fusty image of its parent company, which was formed in 1929 and had an impressive back catalogue of jazz and classical recordings. It was well-known that while they’d signed The Rolling Stones and Marc Bolan (and were soon to sign Bowie), they’d passed on The Beatles and the label’s roster included Val Doonican and Mantovani. With Swinging London in full spate they needed a bigger piece of that action, focusing on a younger market. Deram was formed by Decca executive Tony Hall and A&R Head Hugh Mendl, the name coming from a trademark they owned for a now-defunct ceramic hi-fi cartridge. Hall…

The Century Of The Self KARISMA Norse prog notables expand their sonic environment. Leading lights of the Norwegian progressive rock scene for more than 15 years, Airbag have always had a clear identity. Across their five studio albums to date, their subtly unique strain of post-Floyd melancholy has certainly proved itself to be a malleable thing. Their 2013 album The Greatest Show On Earth saw Airbag perfect their sound, and every subsequent album has brought new dimensions and textures to the tearful party, while also retaining the essence of their trademark dreamy drift. From the darkly digital paranoia-fest of 2016’s Disconnected to the back-to-basics sumptuousness of 2020’s A Day At The Beach, they have all contributed to a sense that Airbag could tinker at the edges of their sound forever…

More Questions Than Answers JADISMUSIC.COM Neo-prog veterans rouse from their slumber with satisfying return. Staples of the rebirth of prog during the 1980s, Jadis do things in their own dignified and unhurried way. Notwithstanding a 2017 25th-anniversary reboot of one of neo-prog’s most perfect albums, More Than Meets The Eye, and also a couple of compilations, More Questions Than Answers is the first release from this Southampton-based outfit in a whopping eight years. “A charming album that’s easy to listen to and easier to enjoy.” No matter. We can pretty much guess what it will sound like anyway, and please don’t interpret that statement as a criticism. In these days of super-fast broadband, Auto-Tune and AI-assisted creativity, the question of why Jadis required the best part of a decade to…

Bursting Out – The Inflated Edition WARNERS/PARLOPHONE Wonderful remaster of live double in a three-CD/three-DVD bookset. With Jethro Tull’s classic run of albums, from their 1968 debut This Was to 1982’s The Broadsword And The Beast, all now reissued and repackaged in expanded form as lavish ‘bookset’ remasters, it’s time for the band’s first live album to receive the same treatment. Originally released in September 1978, and recorded earlier that year at a variety of shows on the European tour for Heavy Horses, Bursting Out captures the band in fiery form while highlighting Ian Anderson’s role as frontman and zany ringmaster. Well-received at the time, it still stands up today as a record of Tull as an exciting live machine and stadium-filling global brand. “JOE BANKSFollowing directly onIt stands up…

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Pure Reason Revolution have announced the release of their sixth album. Coming Up To Consciousness, which is out on September 6 via InsideOutMusic. It’s their third since their post-hiatus return in 2020, and according to the band, they’ve attempted to move into new musical territories by drawing on influences as disparate as Talk Talk, Elliott Smith, The Smile and even Arctic Monkeys, as well as Pink Floyd. Made up of eight tracks, the album also includes a number of high-profile collaborators. Joining the band on bass for seven of the songs is celebrated session musician Guy Pratt, who has worked with David Gilmour and Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets among many others, while The Pineapple Thief’s bassist Jon Sykes provides the low end on the remaining number. His bandmate, Bruce…

Never one to take things easy when there’s the business of making music to be taken care of, Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess is set to return when his new solo album, Permission To Fly, is released via InsideOutMusic on September 6. According to Rudess, it promises to “push creative, sonic and technological boundaries” as it delves “into the complexities of human existence within our multifaceted world.” He adds, “Permission To Fly is a diverse collection – ranging from elaborate prog compositions to sweeping ballads. The songs explore diverse themes from everyday human struggles to supernatural phenomena.” Joining Rudess are variety of guest musicians that include drummer Darby Todd, That Joe Payne on vocals, electric and classical guitarist Stephen Dadaian, and six-string sensation Bastian Martinez providing guest guitar solos. Writing on…

A new book detailing the rise of the prog rock revival of the 1980s traces the inspiration behind the scene to the influence of Genesis’ second live album. Andrew Wild, the author of A Mirror Of Dreams – The Progressive Rock Revival 1981 To 1983, which is out via Kingmaker Publishing on June 21, says, “What was really important about the 80s revival was that it wasn’t 30-year-old guys trying to relive their 20-year-old self, it was 20-year-old guys who were new to all of this. Almost all of the players of that period said, ‘My older sibling had a copy of Seconds Out in their album collection.’ It seems to be a theme almost all the way through.” The book charts the intertwining stories of the six bands which led…

“I used to work in a retail store called Hot Topic that sold goth apparel and we got to choose what CDs got played. OK Computer was always in the mix. There were people who’d be like, ‘This again?’ and I’d tell them that it made my shift easier. The thing about Radiohead is that they can go from the very complex and dark to the very soulful and beautiful. They just make things flow and as an artist, a musician, and also as a listener, I really appreciate that. I’d heard Creep and the earlier stuff, but OK Computer was critically acclaimed and commercially accepted, and that was kind of like the entry level for me; I could explore it as a youngster and as I developed as a…

TREASURE (4AD, 1984) Back in the mid-80s when levity and piss-taking were an integral part of the music press, British weekly music mag NME ran a humourous column called ‘Bismillah’ in its jokey Thrills pages. Dedicated to highlighting excruciatingly bad lyrics – who can forget The Cult’s ‘Sittin’ on a mountain, looking at the sun/Plastic fantastic lobster telephone’ from Aphrodisiac Jacket among many other dubious pearls? – it probably did more to seal the image of Cocteau Twins singing in gibberish than anything else when it ran the lyrics of Ivo, the opening song of Treasure, as ‘Ping pong page scrub pandor pompadour/Henry he’s sweet he saved me.’ (They are, in actual fact, ‘Peep hole, peach blow, Pandora, pompadour/Pale leaf, pink sweet, Persephone.’) Of course, Cocteau Twins – and more…

IT’S HARD TO believe Talie Rose Eigeland had barely played guitar or sung before launching Teiger around two years ago, given the depth and conviction of their self-titled debut album. “It’s happened very fast in the grand scheme of things,” she admits. Very fast indeed. The London-based trio have quickly developed a strong reputation as ones to watch, with their dark, ethereal undertones standing out in an industry often jam-packed with cookie-cutter acts. Completed by drummer Jon Steele and bassist Phillip Eldridge-Smith, Teiger have copped comparisons to everyone from Jefferson Airplane to Tool – while Eigeland herself has highlighted Opeth, Radiohead and PJ Harvey as influences. Be ready to chuck those comparisons out the window, though; the trio are already carving their own path, indie-flecked but adventurous and otherworldly, which…

IN 1996, WHEN Nils Erikson released his Swedish Grammy-nominated debut Spår, the music journalist, musician and lyricist Anders Lundquist took a fateful call from Sony Records. “The guy said, ‘You like Peter Gabriel, right?’ I said, ‘Well, my son’s name is Gabriel – that’s a clue!’” Erikson recalls. Lundquist was soon hired to write the bio for Erikson’s debut, and so began a beautiful friendship. “I couldn’t believe there was a Swedish artist up there with Bowie, Gabriel, David Sylvian and all those guys”, says Lundquist today, when he and Erikson join Prog via Zoom. “Nils should be a household name by now.” Happily, proper recognition may now beckon. Last Plane Out’s self-titled debut is an elegant, thought-provoking pop-prog record, which sees Erikson – more recently of Swedish proggers Karmakanic…

Yes’s hugely successful Union tour ended in spring 1992. This left the band – not for the first time – at a crossroads. In truth, there was never much likelihood of the eight-piece Yes continuing, but salvation came in the form of long-term supporter Phil Carson, who now ran a new label, Victory, for Japanese conglomerate JVC and badly wanted Yes on his roster. He knew what version of the band he wanted, and Trevor Rabin was given a mission. “Phil asked me if I’d take the responsibility for a new Yes album with the 90125 line-up giving us pretty much free rein to do what we wanted,” Rabin remembers. The guitarist also had a plan for recording. “I’ve always been technically minded and I’d been following the development of…

Anthony Vanacore was only supposed to be away for a few weeks. After finishing his studies of music at Queens College, New York, in 2010, the American drummer joined an orchestra for a tour of China. He enjoyed it so much that he did it again the following year. Upon his second return home from the Far East, he realised something: it didn’t feel like home any more. “When I came back – I was in Flushing, Queens – I gained a whole new perspective on where I was living,” the musician tells Prog over a video call from his current hometown of Beijing. “I became more and more fascinated, and very passionate about learning Chinese. It’s hard to describe, but there is a resilience about the people here, and…

There’s a touch of the throwback about Louise Patricia Crane. Such a term is frequently used as a snide weapon of criticism, but Crane is a cerebral retreat to an era of Dylans and Mitchells where musicians readily purged personal trauma with soulful music to match. She possesses an honest fragility that provokes thought, without ever venturing into the mawkish world of oversharing or mere attention-seeking, in the current era of talent-compromised self-promoters. Crane’s work with dark proggers The Eden House led to her recording a solo album, 2020’s The Deep Blue, which was unanimously lauded for its ambition. Given such palpable talent, it comes as quite a surprise to learn of her peculiar lack of self-confidence. “I felt like I had things that I wanted to say and I…

From the very first mentions in the British music press of a young co-founder of Fairport Convention, Richard John Thompson was described as a teenage prodigy. A summer 1968 reference to the Notting Hill native in Beat Instrumental, just after the release of the groundbreaking folk band’s debut album, said the lead guitarist was “reckoned by many to be the best in the country” and that “with little apparent effort he will switch in a flash from rhythm chords to a searing, wholly-integrated solo”. Soon that magazine’s Rick Sanders (not to be confused with later Fairport member Ric) was stating that “at the age of 19, he’s right up there with the heroes”. More than 55 years later, Thompson’s status as one of the great players of his, or any…

Netherworld PECULIAR DOLL Northern Irish songwriter returns in a romantic mood. Four years on from her debut album Deep Blue, Louise Patricia Crane undertakes a musical metamorphosis. It seems a little early in the singer and multi-instrumentalist’s career for the artist to be reinventing herself, but Netherworld is a marked stylistic departure from its predecessor, swapping the alternative rock vibe of Deep Blue for a sound that draws more from celtic folk and Kate Bush’s idiosyncratic school of art-rock and prog. “It draws from Kate Bush’s idiosyncratic school of art-rock.” The album is produced by Crane and King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk, who also contributes guitar. While the celtic influences can be heard in the fiddle and uillean pipes of the opening track Dance With The Devil, Jakszyk’s electric lead guitar-work…

ECM Records’ Luminescence series continues to delight with another vintage selection that deftly illustrates why the label founded by Manfred Eicher in 1969 has been so hugely important in developing contemporary jazz’s emotional vocabulary. Originally released in 1975, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland and Jack Dejohnette’s Gateway’s joyful interplay between Abercrombie’s serpentine guitar, Dejohnette’s sprightly drums and Holland’s earthy bass remains just as vital and engaging today as it did nearly half a century ago. Abercrombie, who died in 2017, wields raw tones and subtle colours against the receptive backdrop weaved by his colleagues. The conversational album trades wry flashes of boppish blues, explosive Mahavishnu-style rock-outs, and thrillingly intricate flurries as they plunge into their pooled ideas. Jon Durant’s Momentarily (Alchemy Records) finds the American guitarist in the company of Swiss…

Whisky A Go Go, 1968 ZAPPA RECORDS/UME Previously unreleased live experiment from peak-period Mothers. On the face of it, this looks like something of a peach for aficionados of the never-sharper Zappa. Just four months prior to this extensive three-set hullabaloo, he’d delivered the Mothers’ iconoclastic freak-defining, hippie-baiting We’re Only In It For The Money collection. Recorded at one of the band’s favourite venues on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard and advertised via an open invitation in the LA Free Press as “five full hours of unprecedented merriment, which will be secretly recorded for an upcoming record album”, Whisky A Go Go, 1968 has been a long time coming. So was it worth the wait? “There are extensive improvisations that just don’t work.” As its 32-track unexpurgated immensity remorselessly unfolds, one…

Eyes In The Night – The Recordings 1981-1986 ESOTERIC Must-have box set documenting the early years of Scottish neo-proggers. Given their mixed fortunes, including being unceremoniously cut off by EMI at the height of touring in support of 1986’s The Wedge, it’s a minor miracle that Pallas managed to survive their first few years of existence. This generous seven-disc collection brings together their first three full albums, recordings from both the Reading Festival in 1983 and an Aberdeen gig from 1985, tracks from a 1983 BBC Friday Rock Show session, along with The Knightmoves EP, B-sides and bonus tracks. “It’s hard to think of a more comprehensive celebration.” With most of the music here being remastered especially for this release and the inclusion of the Blu-ray of a concert filmed…

Where’s home? Lydney in Gloucestershire, between the River Severn and the Forest of Dean. What’s your earliest prog memory? When I was about 10, my older brother bought a car with an eight-track cartridge player. He had two cartridges: Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits and Trespass by Genesis. I fell in love with both but it was the Genesis album that stuck. It’s still a favourite today. What was the first prog album you got? That same year, 1973, my even older brother bought me Genesis Live for my birthday. I loved it and bought Nursery Cryme as soon as I could save the money. And your latest? I was recently given a copy of Forget~Me~Nots by [Russian progressive artist] Dikajee. I’m not interested in the ‘Is it prog?’ debate: whatever…

MADE FOR THE LIKES OF US! Thank you for covering Big Big Train’s new album and tour in recent editions. As someone who discovered BBT at about the time of The Second Brightest Star and having really enjoyed their subsequent albums (so much so that I now rate BBT as one of my favourite prog bands), I am intrigued by the report of their gig in New Jersey, in Prog 149. Your reviewer tells us that there is an almost complete absence of pieces from the latest album, The Likes Of Us, apart from Love Is The Light. While your review of the album in Prog 147 described The Likes of Us as“consolidating” and“a little safe”, repeated plays reveal, in my opinion, one of the best prog albums of recent…

Drummer Gavin Harrison – most recently seen in action with The Pineapple Thief and Porcupine Tree – has announced the release of Perpetual Mutations, his second collaboration with bassist and guitarist Antoine Fafard, out via Harmonic Heresy on 26 July. In keeping with the flavour of the album’s predecessor, 2020’s Chemical Reactions, all the music has been performed using real instruments and excludes the use of any programming. The pair also set themselves the brief of not repeating what went on before and have this time thrown Spanish guitars and pianos into the mix. Joining them are a variety of guest musicians including soprano saxophonist Jean-Pierre Zanella, cellists Joasia Cieslak and Isodora Filipovic, violinist Ally Storch, brass player Dake Devoe and Rodrigo Escalona contributing oboe. Fans can expect more collaborations,…

After 2022’s acclaimed epic, Jettison, Belfast post-rock quartet And So I Watch You From Afar have returned to “home comforts” for an album that pays homage to Northern Ireland and the band’s deep-rooted support network. As such, the band have benefitted from a back-to-basics approach with Megafauna, which releases via Pelagic Records, on August 9. “It was lovely to just get in the back into the room with two guitars, bass and drums: home comforts,” explains guitarist Rory Friers. “There was a lot of great collaboration and going off-road, exploring new ideas together, so the songs are very frenetic, high energy and choppy, but in essence it’s a very simple and honest record. We love it.” The band will tour in December playing at Manchester’s Albert Hall (13), Bristol’s The…

“Our music is a bit like the weather,” considers Artur Wolski, the guitarist and keyboard player of Polish proggy art-rockers Oudeziel. “There are songs that start on a lazy morning, when the fog evaporates and the sun rises. There are elements of a summer storm that comes suddenly. We live close to the Baltic Sea and such a comparison reflects well on the progression in the music.” Wolski’s assessment is indeed apt. Oudeziel was formed by the guitarist and drummer Jarek Bielawski from the ashes of the ethereal trio Obrasqi, who came to premature close at the end of 2022 following untimely passing of singer Monika Dejk-Wikła. “We decided to end that band’s activity and to create music by inviting guest musicians and being without a permanent singer,” explains Wolski. Bassist…

MUSIC HAS ALWAYS been a thread running through the lives of Candacraig’s Sharon Cannings and Martin Nicholls. Prior to entering the music industry however, both had careers as actors and first met while performing in a local Shakespeare production. “It was one or the other really for me,” Cannings begins. “Music has always followed us around. It was something we enjoyed but never thought we’d end up doing as a career.” Having fallen out of love with acting, the pair turned to the world of music, becoming a professional duo in 2015. In 2019, they decided to give Candacraig a shot, having had much of the music for almost two decades. “We never intended to do progressive rock,” Nicholls admits. “We just ended up writing the music that we liked.”…

Some things you never see coming, and a latter-career hit single was probably one of them. The choppy, rhythmic loop of You’re Gone, the lead track from Marbles, reached No.7 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart, their first Top 10 since 1987’s Incommunicado. The Dutch, who like Marillion the way a cat likes cream, propelled it to No.8 in their Top 40. Quite the turnaround for a band who’d had to revert to crowdfunding their previous album, Anoraknophobia.“Still didn’t stop people asking me about Fish, though,” Steve Hogarth observes wryly. “It was funny, we couldn’t believe it. You have this Top 10 hit and suddenly everyone gets excited and starts phoning you up. I haven’t changed, I haven’t done anything different, and now you’re all doing backflips because of a…

“I tend to write about different characters, so it feels like it’s not really about me. This is more of an emotional, in-touch record.” Those lesser talents who hitched their horses to the psychedelic bandwagon of the last decade might be feeling the strain after just a few releases, but Jane Weaver is showing absolutely no signs of losing any interest in her art. Indeed, she’s now reached the point where her music is instantly recognisable thanks to an ever-evolving solo career that stretches back to the start of the millennium. Her fusion of hauntology via vintage analogue synths, with a love of pop’s melodicism at its most insistent and the more psychedelic end of krautrock, all garnished with mysticism and the occult, has ensured a steady of stream of…

Marjana Semkina’s second solo album, Sirin, is full of songs of ornate beauty that belie their bleak subject matter. The Russian singer has always had a predilection for the darkest of fairy tales, but, crucially in this real-life story, the world has become a perilous, nightmarish place since she released her solo debut, Sleepwalking, in February 2020. Semkina left St Petersburg in the middle of lockdown that year to take up residence on the Sussex coast, having attained a Tier 1 “exceptional talent” visa. Then, as was the case for millions of others, her world was turned upside down when the country she grew up in invaded Ukraine in February 2022. As Pericles once said: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take…

“I want my child to grow up and to be able to speak her mind and to have opinions on her own. Hopefully, she’ll be creative and put out stuff, too. But no matter what she wants to do, I don’t want her to have to hold back or be cancelled, which is the worst-case scenario.” “It’s funny because our debut album, Identity, has just celebrated its 15th anniversary,” says Airbag’s guitarist Bjørn Riis with a hint of wistfulness. “I sat down and listened to the album yesterday and I really think that we’ve come a long way. There have been some personnel changes, and we’ve evolved as a band in many ways, which I think is something that you can hear on this new album.” It feels as though…

prog.reviews@futurenet.com If there was a year when prog reached its nadir of unfashionability, 1996 was it. Britpop was riding the zeitgeist, while the rock scene was still under the lingering influence of grunge, keeping rock on the straight and rather too narrow for music lovers with a penchant for something more expansive. Not that anybody had told Pendragon. As this reissue of the Gloucestershire proggers’ fifth album The Masquerade Overture – now replete with gatefold vinyl packaging with leather effect finish, plus Simon Williams’s intriguing artwork presented on card sleeve inserts – reminds us, there were some UK acts keeping the home fires burning very effectively. Not that the uninitiated would have realised at the time from the airplay, industry support and media coverage – or lack of it. The…

 Focus 12 SPIRIT OF UNICORN MUSIC Dutch masters deliver trustworthy tropes. The indefatigable Focus continue to craft effective prog-friendly instrumentals, 55 years on from their formation. There have been stoppages and reunions across that time, and founder member Thijs Van Leer now leads a quartet including long-term drummer Pierre van der Linden, guitarist Menno Gootjes (a contributor since the 90s) and bassist Udo Pannekeet (a mere eight years in the saddle). “Its organic warmth gives off its own charisma.” While the latter pair produced this 12th studio album, it’s very much Van Leer’s baby. His keyboards and flute are all over these pieces like white on rice. Since Jan Akkerman’s departure after their unlikely commercial heyday had faded, Focus has been his ship to steer. The 75-year-old orchestrates two modes…

Sommargryningsljus INSIDEOUTMUSIC Swedish prog luminaries provide nourishing light in the darkness. Led today by keyboard player and sole remaining founder member Hans Lundin, Swedish symphonic prog exponents Kaipa have a venerable history. With five albums released between 1975 and 1982 (the first three featuring 17-year-old future Flower Kings frontman Roine Stolt on guitar), a two-decade hiatus and nine subsequent albums since 2002, they are a Scandi-prog institution. “It captures the majesty of classic symphonic prog.” Kaipa’s latest, Sommargryningsljus (‘Summer Dawn Light’), is themed around the concept of a nocturnal odyssey from fading light to redemptive dawn. It starts as the day ends with Sommarskymningsljus, actually the first part of one song that bookends the album, with vocalist Aleena Gibson gently emoting as she reflects on the dying of the day.…

VENUE TRADING BOUNDARIES, FLETCHING DATE 09/05/2024 On a sunny evening in the heart of the East Sussex countryside, Pendragon kick off their 2024 tour with a special two-part set at the quirky Trading Boundaries. Entering the stage to warm applause, Pendragon open with the pseudo-classical organ intro to Everything, and frontman and guitarist Nick Barrett immediately encourages the crowd to clap along, setting the tone for the evening. “We’re going to play some quite unusual stuff tonight,” he promises and he’s clearly in a playful mood as he refers to the band as “Trotter’s panopticon of prog rock”. Next comes The Walls Of Babylon from 1993’s The Window Of Life, which showcases Barrett’s excellent guitar articulation with both tremolo arm and fingers, along with first-rate vibrato and phrasing. He gestures and…

VENUE EARTH, LONDON DATE 25/05/2024-26/05/2024 This isn’t a traditional prog festival. Portals will likely never try to book Rick Wakeman or Nektar, but every year this two-day event hosts some of the most fearless youngsters in modern music, now mostly grouped into the post-rock and math rock niches. Such an innovative stance on experimental sounds has seen this weekender grow exponentially, this year selling more tickets than ever before. Upstairs, on the smaller of EartH’s two stages, Din Of Celestial Birds open everything using the type of music long associated with this festival: climactic, instrumental post-rock. Nonetheless, these Brits still feel fresh, thanks to their animated stage presence and attention-demanding blasts of light. Yama Warashi follow, contrasting sparse percussion, bass and keyboard notes against densely textured vocal melodies coming from every…

VENUE THE WAITING ROOM, LONDON DATE 30/05/2024 It’s been a while since Lesoir last brought their amalgam of melodic art-rock, atmospheric prog and pop-rock sensibilities to the UK from their native Netherlands. A mini-tour back in March was cancelled due to a sudden medical emergency affecting lead guitarist and main composer Ingo Dassen, and this is the rescheduled (and relocated) London date. For a band who revel in creating often big, cinematic sounds, The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington, one of London’s smallest basement venues, feels a little incongruous. The five-piece spill out from the modest stage, partly to accommodate a very generous amount of equipment, not least the frankly enormous number of effects pedals utilised by every member of the band apart from drummer Bob van Heumen, who triggers…