Table of contents for Issue 109 in Prog

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog. I hope this issue finds you as well as can be expected under these most unique of circumstances. First of all, I’d like to thank all of you who bought the last issue of Prog. Obviously you can still buy Prog in the shops here in the UK, so our heartfelt thanks go to those who ventured out to buy it. More copies are now being made available to purchase online as well, and although we know there are currently some delays with the postal service, we hope these aren’t proving too frustrating for those who have bought their issues of Prog online. Of course we’re seeing big increases in people buying the digital version of the magazine–for many readers it…

When British prog metal giants Haken release their sixth album, Virus, on June 5 via InsideOut, they’ll complete an ambitious narrative that began with 2013 song Cockroach King from their acclaimed third album, that year’s The Mountain. The title of the new 11-track record has no connection with the global health emergency, but instead indicates a theme that’s a direct follow-on from 2018’s Vector. “We always planned for Vector to be a double album,” says guitarist Richard Henshall. “So while we were writing it, we were deliberately saving some of the riffs and ideas for what would become Virus.” He adds: “In terms of the music it’s arguably our most eclectic album to date. Its influences range from Fear Factory to Elbow–so to make sure it sounded focused rather than…

Inspiring the wider music world… “I first got into progressive music when I was a kid. We’re talking around ’76, just before the big punk explosion. My best friend’s brother was a big Jethro Tull fan and into Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream as well–I used to go over there to hang out and he would play all these records. That’s how it all started. “For me, though, Rush had better songs [than those other groups]. The phenomenal musicianship of that band just blew me away. Alex Lifeson is one of the most amazing guitar players ever. Geddy Lee–I’d never heard anything like that before. What a distinctive voice. That guy can play like hell as well. And Neil Peart was probably one of the top drummers in the world.…

WHEN PROG SPEAKS to touring Chicago quintet Post Animal during their pre-Covid-19 UK tour, they have just made an exciting discovery. “I’m just sat in a ’Spoons,” enthuses singer and guitarist Javi Reyes. “Second day in a row. All that you want for, like, six bucks. It’s amazing, man!” While his enthusiasm is tempered when Prog informs him of Wetherspoon’s founder Tim Martin’s recent controversial media statements, we’re not about to argue over his band’s hostelry choices if they keep making records as good as their new LP, Forward Motion Godyssey. A brilliantly freewheeling tour through a range of progressive styles, from floating psychedelia and thundering space rock to kraut-ish electronica and dewy-eyed dream pop, their second album represents a band coming of age as a multi-limbed, multi-talented beast. In…

Everything starts with The Beatles. We’re talking Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 60s. I had two older sisters that had all the 45s and they’d play them and I’d jump up and down in my crib yelling, ‘The Bees, The Bees!’ When I got a little older I discovered Revolver, and then I really got into the more psychedelic stuff, Tomorrow Never Knows, which was an explosion of sound. In the early 70s, at 11/12 years old, I got into AM radio. We had one in the car and that’s when I heard Roundabout. I had a birthday coming up and one of my sisters said, ‘What do you want for birthday gift?’ and I go, ‘I don’t know,’ to which she says, ‘Well you’re getting older now, you’re almost a…

“Very arty in his output but more industrial and goth in style than progressive.” David Preston “Foetus are amazing, Nail and Hole were both great albums as were all those wonderful early singles. Collabaration wise then you obviously have Flesh Volcano, the excellent Wiseblood album and the 12-inch with Lydia Lunch. His soundtracks have been great and his latest electronica project is very much worth getting.” Rob Hurst “It’s quite common for you to name people I’ve never heard. I think this is the first one I’ve never heard of.” David Meadows “Oh aye, old JG Thirwell… Nope, haven’t a clue.” Laurie Laughland “While not really prog, Thirlwell’s body of work definitely deserves mentioning, at least from a pioneer/visionary standpoint. Interesting Prog would discuss the man who is Foetus and…

Realm ONSLAUGHT MUSIC The Bloody Mallard are the brainchild of guitarist Tom Walding, veteran of Camden scenesters Monsters In The Attic and punk metal shouters Midwich Cuckoos. His latest project is a more considered affair, and their debut album Realm is the culmination of much experimentation, with slivers of songs being corralled into a cohesive, compelling whole. It’s by no means perfect: the recording is somewhat subdued, and the guitars don’t crush quite as mercilessly as they might on the occasions when doing so could be advantageous. But The Bloody Mallard have turned the fact that they’re not beholden to a singer to their advantage, and Realm is packed full of unexpected twists. They use tension and crescendo rather than race towards a climax, and this makes the eventual summit…

Deep Blue PECULIAR DOLL Best known as one of The Eden House’s revolving cabal of vocalists, Louise Patricia Crane has taken the slow, scenic route to launching a solo career. Supported by a cast that includes Ian Anderson, Jakko Jakszyk and Danny Thompson, Deep Blue is a beautifully crafted and characterful affair that firmly establishes its creator’s identity while never coalescing around one dominant musical idea. Recent single Deity is a lush, hypnotic riot of colour, Crane’s sonorous alto buoyed by twinkling, Cocteau Twins jangle and swirling, shimmering chords. Snake Oil is one of several exuberantly proggy moments, Anderson’s flute blending with wave after wave of crescendos, sky-scorching lead breaks and muscular percussion straight from the Peter Gabriel handbook. Crane particularly relishes a dark ballad, and both Painted World and…

Reverie RIPPLE MUSIC Depending on how much of your stash you’ve hoovered up, it can be tricky to distinguish one prog-tinged stoner rock band from another. Thankfully, it’s a resilient subgenre and bands like Forming The Void can hardly fail to rise majestically to the top. Reverie builds on the mesmerising, somnambulant psychedelia of 2018’s Rift, taking the Louisiana quartet ever further away from cliché in the process. Thunderous opener Sage and the bullish Manifest deliver plenty of the souped-up fuzz that genre purists demand, but it’s the trippy meandering and maxed-out lysergic scree of Trace The Omen and the doomy Satellite that showcase a more dynamic side. At times, Forming The Void generate such an overpowering din that it’s more like listening to the hostile space rock of Loop…

Alive HAWKLORDS Recorded live in Chester on last year’s Generations tour, and including a guest appearance from Hawkwind’s former Lord Of Misrule Nik Turner, Alive is impressive evidence of just what a vital live band Hawklords are. Their legacy connection to Hawkwind will always be a selling point, but it certainly isn’t the only one, as the catchy, aggro rock of opening number We Are One makes plain–Jerry Richards is in fine voice and there’s some invigorating synth work from ‘Dead Fred’ Reeves. In fact, Reeves makes his presence felt throughout–on the steel-plated version of Robert Calvert’s The Aerospaceage Inferno he moves from crazed twiddling à la Tim Blake to jazzy piano runs in the dub breakdown. Isle Of The Dead and One Way Trip demonstrate that Hawklords have become…

A Continuous Portrait TEMPORARY RESIDENCE A Continuous Portrait is the third album from Inventions, a duo comprised of Mark T Smith from Explosions In The Sky and Matthew Cooper of Eluvium. As you’d expect from their day jobs in one of the biggest post-rock bands in the world and as a cult ambient artist, their collaborative output is in the broad wheelhouse of ambient electronica. This nine-track album was recorded in a beach house on the Pacific Coast, and, without wanting to over-analyse, that makes perfect sense as musically it’s akin to a washed-out Polaroid of a long distance beach visit. The overall sound of the record sits somewhere between the more experimental, reverb-drenched end of dream pop–exemplified perfectly by the opening one-two of Hints And Omens and Calico–and the…

Exophora HAPPY ROBOTS A sideshoot of the Mood Taeg Kollektiv–a community of like-minded musicians, painters, DJs and filmmakers–Mood Taeg is a nebulous project split between Düsseldorf and Shanghai. Principal members Lowell Freeman, TDK and K’ko have described themselves as purveyors of all things analogue and metronomic, a claim fully justified by this debut album. Their spiritual home is 70s Germany, rolling out motorik rhythms and overlaying synths, loops and effects. This is no exercise in hollow nostalgia though. Mood Taeg use their source material as a way to further their connections, from freeform electronica to prog disco. The eight-minute Mood Block, with its funky undertow, even manages to swing a little, its cool grooves reminiscent of the sunnier elements of Cluster. The equally lengthy 2MR keeps to a stricter tempo,…

Deleted Scenes CASTLE FACE It’s been three years since Oakland’s Once & Future Band unveiled their self-titled debut–a wondrous concoction of soft rock, prog and fusionist jazz that suggested the 70s was a party that never quite stopped. Its successor is no less impressive, the quartet drawing on a multitude of influences to fashion something that is both vibrantly fresh and engagingly familiar. Paul McCartney looms large on Freaks, which feels like a splash of late-period Beatles, complete with trumpet fanfare. The title track could be a space-pop 10cc, with singer Joel Robinow adding a buoyant synth solo that brings to mind the more playful tendencies of Yes. The ghost of David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name haunts the trippy Cali-folk of Airplane, complemented by the cosmic…

Wide Awake But Still Asleep KARISMA RECORDS An irrepressible energy fills nearly every available minute of Bergen-based Shaman Elephant’s second album. There’s no shortage of strident anthems, head-shaking riffs and that ragged abandonment of the moment that seems to be present in the fertile soil of the Norwegian alt-psych scene. While echoes of countrymen Motorpsycho are evident throughout, that sense of the familiar doesn’t divert attention away from a vigorous set that’s both self-assured and tightly controlled. The whirling, circular motif of the album’s longest track, Traveller gradually accelerates to a fevered spin that never loses focus. There’s a touch of vintage Moody Blues in the luminous vocal harmonies that rise above the song’s surging guitars, grinding fuzz bass and overdriven keyboards, with ethereal Mellotronic layers adding both startling colours…

Time Lapse N5MD Gavin Miller has been releasing fuzzed-out ambient-techno dronescapes as Worriedaboutsatan since 2006’s self-titled debut EP. On his seventh album, beats become crackling pulses in the undergrowth as his guitar leads four lengthy, multi-tiered mood cathedrals built on densely ominous drones that rear through its shimmering sonic blizzards. Over its spectral canter, Dawn uncurls heavily-reverbed guitar overdubs, before Point Of Departure heats up a warmer floatscape, goosed by micro-feedback surgery. A Lost History turns darker, its tense guitar motifs countered by glacial Mellotron-like strings. Peppered with gauzy static, Roland acid machine flecks agitating in its Y-fronts, Twin deploys crashing drum then gentler beats as Miller’s dramatic strums direct the ethereal traffic raging or leaving vapour trails around him before bringing down the curtain with the three-minute jangle of…

Between The Buried And Me CRAFT RECORDINGS Few present-day progressive metal bands have evolved as ingeniously as Between The Buried And Me. In fact, their unparalleled knack for melding perpetually hypnotic, adventurous and virtuosic compositions (that switch styles at the drop of a hat) makes them the best at what they do. Taking that into account, it’s eye-opening and endearing to realise how much their comparably basic and repetitious 2002 self-titled debut foreshadows that future supremacy. Remixed and remastered by longtime producer Jamie King, Between The Buried And Me remains an enjoyably brutal peek into their humble beginnings. Like its successor, 2003’s The Silent Circus, this initial collection leans heavily on metalcore proclivities. That central formula, coupled with the idiosyncrasies of its one-time line-up, make it feel noticeably different from…

Burning For You/Heartbreak Hill ESOTERIC By the mid-70s, Strawbs had notched up a pair of hit singles and a handful of moderately successful albums, but they seemed to struggle to find their place within the wider UK music firmament. By the time they signed to Oyster Records, it seemed that mainman Dave Cousins’ heart wasn’t in it. Yet despite that, they weren’t quite finished. Produced with Jeffrey Lesser, 1977’s Burning For You contains its share of classic Strawbs moments. The melodrama of Burning For Me is matched by Robert Kirby’s rich orchestrations. While guitarist Dave Lambert looks toward rock and bassist Chas Cronk generates ballads, it still manages to be Cousins’ album: the delicate Bacarole (For The Death Of Venice) is warm and sweet, while his pop parody Alexander The…

Camel At The Royal Albert Hall CAMEL PRODUCTIONS Those who were at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday September 17, 2018 are unlikely to forget that evening of impeccable musicianship made even more emotional by the circumstances surrounding it. In October 1975, on the back of the band’s concept album The Snow Goose, Camel sold out London’s celebrated venue for the very first time. Now, almost 43 years on, Andy Latimer, having battled life-threatening blood cancer throughout most of the 2000s, brings the band back for another packed crowd to celebrate. It’s 1976’s Moonmadness we get in full on this DVD and Blu-ray, and no-one’s complaining as Latimer’s fluid guitar and occasional flute leads the way. Now augmented by Tiger Moth Tales’ Peter Jones on keys and sax, who tackles…

All My Yesterdays OMNIBUS PRESS In writing this engaging account of a remarkable career, Howe says he’s not in the business of settling old scores, dishing the dirt or sharing backstage scuttlebutt. While laudable it does mean some parts become utterly baffling. On one page he’s part of an Asia reunion but then, turning over, he’s walking out of the door, wishing them well. Did he jump? Was he pushed? More often than not Howe refuses to elaborate and the reader is left with a tale untold, hanging in the air. Away from his upbringing in north London and his journey through the 60s, much of the narrative relies heavily on Howe’s tour schedule as an aide-memoire. Consequently, the narrative is date-driven as he swaps between his time in Yes,…

John Carpenter will release a deluxe vinyl box set of the music from his horror classic The Thing. The vinyl set features Ennio Morricone’s score and unreleased audio cues. Limited to 3,000 copies, it arrives on May 5. See www.sacredbonesrecords.com. The next album from Tim Bowness (left) is likely to be called Late Night Laments, he's confirmed after releasing preview track The Other Side. He jokes that the LP "may or may not be released some time before 2054". See www.timbowness.co.uk. Sanguine Hum will soon complete their fifth album after the coronavirus lockdown gave them the chance. They said they'd "pretty much called it a day" last year over time constraints. The LP's working title is Hum 5. See www.sanguinehum.com.…

In a world of musicians restrained by carefully worded, PR-driven responses to questions, it’s refreshing to discover that Arjen Lucassen doesn’t follow that debilitating trend. Honest and engaging, the mastermind behind Ayreon is a self-confessed perfectionist and social recluse, and recounts with good humour the origins of the Ayreon project back in the early 90s. “It was the days of grunge and Nirvana, and here I come with a progressive rock opera,” he laughs. “It was stupid, man. I went to 30 record companies and most of them said, ‘We love it, it’s great, we’re going to play it each evening but we’re not going to sign you because we can’t sell this.’ I still have a lot of the faxes from all the record labels, telling me they loved…

Over the last three decades, Kristiansand’s Green Carnation have striven to wring hope from the bleakest of circumstances, and to dig deep within themselves to nurture the most fertile of musical shoots. Having emerged from the heart of Norway’s metal scene–founder member Terje Vik Schei, aka Tchort, played bass on Emperor’s landmark 1994 album, In The Nightside Eclipse–the band expanded into richly progressive realms far beyond their gothic and doom-laden origins. Their second album, 2001’s Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness, a seminal and widely regarded masterpiece, took the form of a single, hour-long track whose unforgettably resonant core motif and far-ranging tonal explorations endeavoured to come to terms with the death of Tchort’s daughter while welcoming the birth of a new son. After covering varied yet immediately identifiable ground…

The Cataclysm DUNK! RECORDS The concept of The Cataclysm is alarmingly on the nose at this particular point in time. It’s a record about the end of the world, with two fictional narratives. The A-side is about a flood, while the B-side centres around the world burning–hinted at by the artwork. At its best, the record has some of the heft of a good metallic post-rock band, and the thickest riffs veer close to Tool territory. Throughout the album there are diversions into progressive metal, though the percussive chugs sound more 80s or 90s than modern in their execution. The Cataclysm is slightly held back by a lack of dynamics however–it’s largely ‘stop’ or ‘go’ and the drum tracks feel very tight on the grid, without the organic timing and…

Senses (Part Two) SELF-RELEASED Someone stumbling across a band called Derange and expecting bulging-eyed, wild avant-garde contortion might be a little disappointed. But ignore the name and Senses (Part Two) emerges as an impressive, left-field listen. At five songs long, and with no tracks breaking the five-minute mark, the London quintet’s new EP–the second part of a double-header–is deliberately concise. High-octane opener The Hunted sets the pace keenly with melodic metal drama, while Take It All nods to balladry but tugs at the right moments with well-placed feints. Having performed at Tech Fest and toured with contemporaries Valis Ablaze, Derange’s prog credentials shine through in the shape of sharply-pointed, djent-friendly metal chops and a penchant for curiously veering off the trodden path, pinpoint radio-friendly hooks floating on top of TesseracT-esque…

Dreaming City SOUND RESOURCES/ARION RECORDS Eighteen albums in and Glass Hammer continue to indulge their enthusiasm for concept albums with Dreaming City. This time they’ve gone for a swords and sorcery romp about a warrior called Skallagrim facing an evil wizard. So far, so Michael Moorcock. Musically, though, bandleaders Steve Babb and Fred Schendel have updated their neo-prog sound with new wave and synthwave influences. These come to the fore in three instrumental interludes, although the synth-led tracks work better as atmospherics than standalone compositions. The songwriting is strongest when Glass Hammer sound like a full band rather than a John Carpenter movie score, but it’s best consumed whole rather than piecemeal. The title track includes a great wah-wah guitar solo, and This Lonely World has a laid back 80s…

Kollaps LONG BRANCH The Hirsch Effekt broke into the German charts with their last album, the German-language Eskapist, but reaching non-German speaking audiences may still prove challenging. The Hannover trio’s abrasive sound draws upon metalcore, post-hardcore and math-rock, and although there are sung passages, most of the vocals are screamed which will likely be a turn-off for many prog fans. They’re certainly willing to shift gears and styles at any moment–Noja features a spoken, semi-rapped section that unexpectedly recalls 80s Austrian synth-pop star Falco among the aggressive riffing and screaming. Many of the tracks are punctuated by staccato bursts of speed when everything locks together to punch out a frantic rhythmic phrase. Domstol briefly eases off the intensity with a gentler opening passage, but it’s not long before the spitfire…

Gift Of Sacrifice IPECAC For those who know Buzz Osborne through his Melvins output and Trevor Dunn from Mr Bungle, the one thing they’ll expect is the unexpected. And that’s what’s on offer here. While short instrumental passage Mental Vomit leads this off with a tribal inflection, as soon as Housing, Luxury, Energy takes over the listener knows this is gonna be just a tad crazy. Osborne barks and yelps, butting his throat up against a psychedelic wash. I’m Glad I Could Help Out has the hallmarks of an acoustic gothic excursion, albeit with a enhanced sense of improvisation. And Delayed Clarity boasts a menacing vocal mood, enhanced by the string driven instrumentation, Science In Modern America is chilling, in its use of simple rhythms to accentuate a sense of…

Noise In Your Eye NIYE RECORDS Listening blindfolded to Noise In Your Eye, there’s something about its shape and feel, with themes and motifs that accrete then dissolve almost organically, that recalls electric Miles Davis–albeit in a rockier vein–and Tortoise offshoot Isotope 217. That might partly be due to the fact that it was created out of live ensemble improvisations with subsequent edits and reworkings. Adrian Chivers’ sax and Daniel Pennie’s guitar carry a lot of the melodic work here and the featured drummers include Nick Mason, Michael Giles and Kasabian’s Ian Matthews. Limits Of Control is a polyrhythmic stew with strings shimmering in and out of the frame, while Zombie Johnson begins with a syncopated conversation between double bass and drums, with trumpet, sax, electronics and FX’d guitar joining…

Songs Of Yearning/Nocturnes OCCULTATION Prior to this welcome double helping, RAIJ had released just three albums in their 35-year lifespan, a meagre output that’s only served to make their extraordinary music even more treasurable. The Liverpool-born collective–centred around core members Paul Boyce, Jon Egan and Leslie Hampson–are masters of the experimental soundscape, investing their work with sacred imagery, field recordings and intense ambient drones. Songs Of Yearning is a procession of sombre pieces, ripe with classical European textures and flitting between six different languages. A harmonium underpins the lovely Prayer; religious whispers give way to something unsettling and grandiose on Vespers; sorrowful cello streaks the soulful balladry of the title track. Nocturnes, its limited edition companion, is rather less austere. I Carry The Sun takes a WB Yeats poem as…

Summerlong THRILL JOCKEY Guitarist Ripley Johnson has been captain of US psych-rockers Wooden Shjips for well over a decade now, as well as co-piloting the more synthheavy Moon Duo with partner Sanae Yamada. But he’s evidently been fancying his chances in a country rock outfit too, if Summerlong is anything to go by. Rose City Band is essentially solo Johnson, aided by drummer John Jeffrey. Less nebulous than last year’s self-titled debut (described by Johnson as “sort of a back porch jam just as the ’shrooms are starting to kick in”), Summerlong feels like an extended hymn to the freedom of the open road, driven by guitar and embellished with mandolin, lap steel and even a touch of jaw harp. There are plenty of Shjips-like stonerisms in the warm air…

All Things Being Equal CARPARK Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember’s post-Spacemen 3 musical travels have encompassed Spectrum, who essentially grew out of his original band, the improvisational E.A.R. and his work as a producer for the likes of MGMT and Panda Bear. A perennial signature of Kember’s guitar, organ and analogue synth music is his use of drones, effects and shuddering delays, all of which feature on the throbbing musical systems of Spinning Coins And Wishing On Clovers, which is full of subtle detail. On A Summer’s Day, with its sunny keyboards and lyrical sentiments–‘When I saw you/I adored you’–comes across like a four-bar section of a 60s Beach Boys tune repeated over and over. Much of All Things Being Equal is based on similarly simple chord sequences, and you have…

The Glass Bead Game TENOR VOSSA It’s well documented that former 4AD head Ivo Watts-Russell described Breathless singer Dominic Appleton as “by far my favourite living male vocalist”. He stands by that to this day. Back in the mid-80s, when everything on Ivo’s label was eulogised, this group somehow never managed to catch the acclaim and commercial success they merited, and perhaps wished they’d won the golden ticket of being label-mates to The Cocteau Twins. That voice was, however, heard and marvelled at in more homes when Appleton guested on the This Mortal Coil project, often defining its majestic melancholy. The same spirit floods through Breathless’ 1986 debut album, now reissued. Like many dark gems of its ilk, it’s not as florid or fey as one remembers. Joy Division, Bauhaus…

Prognosis Festival have announced new dates of September 4-5, after the original March 20-21 dates were abandoned at Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The fourth annual Midsummer Prog Festival, set to take place in Valkenburg, also in the Netherlands, on June 1, has been rescheduled over a year later on June 26, 2021. Winter’s End Festival, planned for April 23-26 in Chepstow, has been moved back a year to April 22-25, 2021, with the intention of presenting the original line-up. Van der Graaf Generator and Lesoir both rescheduled their November dates, while the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band moved their farewell show from May 29 to December 18 at the original venue, London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Periphery announced that, “with heavy hearts,” their European tour was cancelled with no plans to reschedule.…

MYSTIK CASSETTE PLAYER Back in the 80s, I bought my albums on cassette and spent long evenings in my bedroom taping hours of music off the radio. The format holds a special place in my heart but even I’d have to acknowledge it’s had its day. A French company disagrees with me, however. It’s manufactured a 21st century cassette player, complete with rechargeable battery, Bluetooth 5.0 and a recording facility. Had I not thrown all my cassettes into a skip years ago I might even have bought one. www.mystik-by-rtm.com DRUM ROLLER Cellists or tuba players have it hard, manoeuvring colossal instruments from A to B on a daily basis. However, drummers–that much-maligned species–have had to: a) learn to drive; b) buy a car; and c) lug 50kg of hardware in…

The chances of a new Porcupine Tree album might be as rare as hen’s teeth but this deluxe box set is a welcome reframing of the band’s iconic 2002 album, In Absentia. Spread across three CDs and a Blu-ray, the special package includes Steven Wilson’s remastered mixes of the album, additional studio recordings, unreleased demos and a new feature-length documentary directed by Lasse Hoile. Also included are the previously unreleased tracks Imogen Slaughter, Watching You Sleep and Enough. What’s more, this deluxe set also contains a new 100-page hardback book with exclusive content including photography by Lasse Hoile, Carl Glover, Richard Barbieri and John Blackford, along with extensive liner notes and a track-by-track commentary by journalist Stephen Humphries. For your chance to win a copy of this fantastic set, visit…

Having co-founded Styx in 1972, keyboard player and singer Dennis DeYoung wrote many of their finest songs, including Come Sail Away and The Grand Illusion, as well as the US chart-topping ballad Babe. Styx broke up following 1983’s poorly received concept record Kilroy Was Here, and although he was part of a reunion in 1990, DeYoung was controversially replaced by the band nine years later when a medical condition prevented him from touring. His first solo album in almost a decade, 26 East, Vol One (a second part is to follow), is named after the Chicago address where Dennis and most of his Styx bandmates grew up. It’s also set to mark his recording swan song. How did you fall in love with music of an adventurous nature? The vast…

Masterworks Revisited REASSESSING TREASURES FROM A BYGONE ERA… It’s autumn 1972. John Cale is vacating the studio. A picturesque residential studio in the Oxfordshire hills, The Manor is a recent acquisition by one Richard Branson, a hirsute, budding music impresario. The next artist booked in is a wan, taciturn 19-year-old unknown called Mike Oldfield. Noticing a shining set of tubular bells among Cale’s equipment, he asks if he can add it to the two dozen instruments he’ll use to record his one-man symphony, tentatively titled ‘Opus One’. Released the following year, that album, redubbed Tubular Bells, would become a commercial and cultural phenomenon, launching Oldfield as one of the UK’s most acclaimed composers, bankrolling Virgin Records for years to come and setting Branson on course to become the country’s most…

Christian Vander is one of the most important musicians and composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, but I’m guessing that only a small minority of you reading this will be aware of this. Remember how you felt like an outsider at school because you were one of only maybe 10 kids who were into Yes? Well Magma fans were in an even smaller sub-set than that, but God were and are they fanatical. If there’s one thing that people know about Magma it’s that 80s snooker ace Steve Davis promoted a London show by them. For Davis, an unashamed prog and jazz rock fan, Magma were like a visitation from beyond. “It was at London’s Chalk Farm Roundhouse, where I’d gone to watch the support act, Isotope. I was…

Precognition COYOTE MAN RECORDS According to Native American legend, the Coyote Man was the east coast’s deadliest hunter of assassins during the 18th century, infamous for slaughtering one hapless victim with his bare hands. Stopping short of inflicting physical harm, Chicago’s Coyote Man unleash a formidable onslaught on their second album. Between them, guitarist-bassist Augie Portugal and drummer Ian Wheeler whip up tumultuous waves of guitar, pummeling beats and sparking sheet metal gauze, heralded by Perilous, their strident, scathing single aimed at their home country’s laughable political shenanigans. The stoner riffage of Remnants and Death Before Dishonour is bolstered by keyboard ectoplasm and complex counter-riffs, while The Unseen Hand is their idea of a ballad with soaring cliff-top guitar and piano interlude. The strongest affirmation of Coyote Man’s potential comes…

26 East: Volume 1 FRONTIERS MUSIC Looking like a well-heeled accountant who liked to party hard at the weekends, and with an inimitable voice, original Styx vocalist Dennis DeYoung cut a swathe through the pomp and prog scenes of the 70s and 80s. For many fans of the Chicago legends–especially those whose inner child lived to sing the high parts on Babe and The Best Of Times in the shower–something died inside when he finally left the band in 1999. Though this is billed as his penultimate album, DeYoung, with the help of ex-Survivor man Jim Peterik, sounds freshly minted still, his voice a clearly struck bell. Excellent in the poppy opener East Of Midnight, a nod to his childhood neighbourhood in Chicago where Styx took their formative steps, and…

Final Quiet FIELD RECORDS If you enjoy Pelican and Russian Circles, then Final Quiet should be mandatory listening. These Londoners, Flies Are Spies From Hell, match elegant passages of piano oriented sparseness with occasional moments of bleakness. And while it may seem a little foreboding, there’s a genuine beauty here, and this makes it all seem perversely uplifting, because the band do have respect for the use of melody as well as an understanding of how to build tension. A magnificently articulate musical passage led by some deceptively simple piano, Nearly Saw The Light is a near-10-minute metaphorical trip through both urban decay and pastoral peace. The track Last Hour builds from a gentle introduction to an orchestral crescendo, whereas Float Apart serves as a brief meandering interlude, before Always…

Panic Machine VENN RECORDS In a move weirdly appropriate for our times, Watford’s Gold Key sequestered themselves in perfect isolation in north Wales for this follow-up to 2017’s debut, Hello, Phantom. The resulting intense, visceral alt-rock ride shifts slightly from the more artful leanings of the debut into a musical landscape far more Green Day and Stereophonics than Genesis and Steven Wilson. Yet this is greater than a collection of raw and noisy riffs. There’s real atmospheric tension before opener Sweet Darkness explodes into life, channelling the likes of Foo Fighters and Manic Street Preachers, while Don’t Sleep sees spiky guitar redolent of King Crimson’s Red quickly escalating into an insistent, desperate portrait of insomnia. At the other end of the scale is Enceladus: a chest beating pop rock classic…

For years he’s brooded introspectively in a fox(x)hole of minimalist electronica, but on the brashly beautiful surprise that is Howl (Metamatic), John Foxx And The Maths will thrill long-time Foxxaholics. It’s wish fulfilment time for those who craved one more album in the early, pre-Midge, Ultravox! vein. With guitarist Robin Simon joining the equation, The Maths mutate into a glittering fusion of Systems Of Romance and Scary Monsters, dovetailing drama and dynamism. Even the imagery–ghosts, 70s New York, clowns and fools, strange beauty–feels like a happily haunted hurrah from the band who were too late for glam but too early for punk, while Foxx’s icy-fire vocals sound timeless and 10 feet tall. A dazzling resurgence from one of the best minds of his generation. Several generations have loved songs by…

Mosaic GLASSVILLE RECORDS Dutch quintet Lesoir came to the UK to record their fifth release Mosaic with Muse producers John Cornfield and Paul Reeve, and together they’ve crafted an album of beautifully refined neo-prog. Mosaic feels like the natural evolution of 2017’s Latitude, but it’s simply stronger all around. Singer Maartje Meessen has a similar timbre to Magenta’s Christina Booth, possessing a warm, inviting tone yet with the dramatic range to bring some venom to Is This It. The songwriting matches the quality of the production, from the sweeping lift of Somebody Like You to the lush arrangement of It’s Never Quiet, complete with Meessen playing the flute. Dystopia brings in some Pink Floyd stylings with outstanding, Gilmour-esque guitar work from Ingo Dassen which is married to a warning about…

Threesome Vol. 1 LOGIC There’s a sting in the tentacle of the Jellyfish story. Three members of the 90s power-pop band reunite to radiate this fourtrack EP, the first in a planned triptych. Roger Manning Jr, Tim Smith and Eric Dover have played (separately) with everyone from Beck to Alice Cooper since, but one can sense the sheer fun they’re having here as, perfect harmonies intact, they rattle through an infectiously vibrant flurry of art-pop tropes. Named after a 1970 Italian “erotic” film, they chuck in every 70s-spawned trick in the book, and as you grin ear to ear you’ll know resistance is futile. From the opening bars of Fadoodle, which simultaneously pilfer Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain and Sailor’s A Glass Of Champagne, you can guess the reference points to…

Fantasize Your Ghost JOYFUL NOIZE Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham–aka Ohmme–are both classically-trained multi-instrumentalists and co-vocalists who have focused their manifold talents on the artier end of the indie rock spectrum. Their debut, 2018’s Parts, was moody, scratchy and littered with melodic glimmers. By contrast, Fantasize Your Ghost offers a confident one-two punch of their songwriting strengths. The pair’s heavyweight harmonies hit you first, powering through the core of Ghost and Selling Candy. There’s a touch of Wye Oak, in the velvet voices and woody tones, and Kate Bush amid the smart arrangements and quick vocal turns. Elsewhere, Sturgeon Moon proves Ohmme are unafraid when it comes to veering off the tracks into full Chicago-style, deep-dish improv work-outs. Indeed, whenever you begin to suspect the saccharine, it’s pulled away and…

Recorded live in Sweden in 1974, Mike Westbrook’s Citadel/Room 315 (My Only Desire Records) sees Westbrook and John Surman front the 16-piece Swedish Radio Jazz Group as they get to grips with Westbrook’s soaring themes and orchestral bravura. As you’d expect, Surman is on fiery form as lead soloist weaving an agile path between Westbrook’s bracing writing that’s always zeroing in on where the heart and heat lie. Available on sumptuous limited edition vinyl or CD, it captures British jazz at its tuneful, adventurous best. Co-produced by Swiss Zen-funk maestro Nik Bärtsch, Blaer’s Yellow (Ronin Rhythm Records) features pianist Maja Nydegger’s intriguing compositions that sit between textures of real depth and detail arising from dual saxes and contrapuntal sparkles as the rhythm section shifts gears. Fans of Bärtch’s Ronin, Sonar,…

Nocturne MUTE Having studied with avant-garde titans Stockhausen, Ligeti and Cage, Irmin Schmidt could have enjoyed a career in the rarefied circles of contemporary classical music and academia had he not diverted his musicality into Can. Recorded live at the octogenarian’s appearance at last year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, this album, featuring three compositions for prepared piano and tape (as it still might quaintly be called) provides a glimpse of how things might have turned out had he not followed a very different calling. The gently exotic timbral pathways of Klavierstücke II and the title track are joined by field recordings in which insect chatter and the low drone of a passing plane combine into an intimate environment that’s oddly luxuriant. The shift from interior perspectives towards more expansive landscapes…

A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip BMG Some veteran acts retain so much goodwill from fans that they can pretty much do no wrong. Just don’t ask anyone to name a song they’ve written recently. Sparks are a case in point. Their arch synth pop influenced generations of wry stylists, but despite 2017’s Hippopotamus breaching the Top 10, even die-hard fans’ “best of” lists are unlikely to feature much since the early 1980s. Still, the septuagenarian duo show here that they can still turn out some neat nuggets of intriguing quirk pop. The minor acoustic chords of Left Out In The Cold have an alluring, faintly Hispanic flavour, while Self-Effacing is similarly infectious and laced with Russell Mael’s vocal melodramatics. Elsewhere though, they try too hard. Stravinsky’s Only Hit is a…

The Litanies Of Satan INTRAVENAL SOUND OPERATIONS When The Litanies Of Satan was released in 1982, it was so utterly contrary to the pop trends du jour, that rather than disappearing into obscurity, it attracted press coverage and launched Diamanda Galás’s career as an artist who steered extreme vocal performance to the outer limits. As a teenager, Galás looked set for a career as a concert pianist, but she was drawn more towards singing. Here her unique approach carries the melodrama of Maria Callas singing the ‘mad scene’ from Donizetti’s opera Lucia De Lammermoor, Armenian opera singer Cathy Berberian’s avant garde experiments and the complex, fractured structures of modernist composer Iannis Xenakis. She’s said that without her formidable vocal technique and ultra-physical approach, she would have felt like “someone going…

Artificial PLANE GROOVY Prior to the ongoing Antipodean post-djent avalanche, Unitopia were one of very few Australian bands to successfully pursue a progressive path on the international stage. Somehow, the Adelaide traditionalists seldom get a mention these days, which may be part of the motivation for this lavish vinyl reissue of their third album. After two promising albums, Artificial was the one that brought everything together in one cohesive, lethally melodic splurge of great songwriting. After the tense ambience of opener Suffocation, Artificial World skitters in, like some souped-up Blue Nile out-take, drenched in melancholy but full of uplifting musical detail and earthy charm. In between the fluttering sax and hazy synths there’s a pleasingly straightforward and catchy rock song working its magic, with a dash of Toto’s fusion-rock chucked…

Robert Ramsay WWW.ROBERTRAMSAY.ORG “The only trouble with magic is that it doesn’t work,” wrote Aleister Crowley’s biographer John Symonds. Former Tinyfish member Robert Ramsay thinks otherwise and draws here on ideas from the likes of Crowley and Arthur Koestler, and combines them with well-documented experiments that prove the existence of psychokinesis and precognition. In a display of what one might call prog science, he synthesises these strands and his own concept of the “Timeless Multiverse” to explain how we can effectively change outcomes. It’s complex stuff and Ramsay also explores the role of ritual in the magic act to separate the desire that focuses the individual from the distractions of conscious thought. Rather than dismissing magic by “favouring assumptions over facts”, Ramsay provides us with a consistently argued framework as…

Mario Giammetti KINGMAKER PUBLISHING For many progressive rock devotees, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis represents the pinnacle of the genre. After all, virtually no other band have ever achieved such a perfect blend of sophisticated musicianship, mesmeric songwriting, and fanciful yet erudite lyricism. Thankfully, Mario Giammetti’s book does an excellent job of guiding readers through every decision, circumstance, and pinnacle moment Genesis faced during that period. It’s not without its faults; nonetheless, it’s surely the most inclusive, earnest, and charming retrospective the quintet has received. “The band offer candid but affectionate recollections.” Every chapter is dedicated to a specific album, and Giammetti puts each in context. He offers track-by-track and album art breakdowns, with plenty of first-hand insight from the various band members, before digging into the subsequent touring schedules. It can…