Table of contents for Issue 140 in Prog

Sonic Cathedral began life back in 2004 as a club night celebrating shoegaze, the short-lived musical movement from the turn of the 1990s that’s been revived on numerous occasions since and has now become a bit of a catch-all term for any music with lots of reverb. The remit of the night also took in the inspirations and influences of the movement, which allowed it – and the label that followed two years later in 2006 – to be a much broader church, taking in everything from Pink Floyd to Popol Vuh. One of the first bands championed at the night were prog-leaning dream rockers Engineers, so it’s fitting that their songwriter, Mark Peters, is now a mainstay of the label, and material from his recent album and EP open…

Johnny Fean, guitarist with Irish prog rockers Horslips, died on April 28, aged 71. In a tribute, Fean’s Horslips bandmates said that, “Johnny wasn’t only one of the greatest guitar players ever, he was also the sweetest man in rock and roll. His immeasurable talent won him countless supporters throughout the years. We remain his biggest fans. He devoted his life to music and we’ll be forever thankful that he did.” Horslips rose to prominence in the 1970s combining hard driving rock, progressive flourishes and traditional Irish folk music, often looking to Irish myths and legends for their lyrics. The year after the band’s 1972 debut album, Happy To Meet – Sorry To Part, came The Táin, which featured their signature song, Dearg Doom. Their 1976 LP, The Book Of…

Californian heavy-hitters Avenged Sevenfold have announced their first album in seven years. Life Is But A Dream… will be released on June 2 by Warner, and lead single Nobody is currently streaming. Clocking in at six minutes, the song features some Rush-style synth textures and choral and orchestral sections amid the metallic grind, giving a clear indication that the album will be progressive in nature: “I’ve played it to a few people,” singer M Shadows said in a recent online interview, “and what I keep getting back is it’s Abbey Road-esque. It’s got a bunch of different flavours and colours – we don’t stay too long anywhere.” The Huntington Beach quintet began as leaders in the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal movement of the 2000s, but they went on…

Self-described “retro prog” trio Ring Van Möbius will release their third album on July 17 via Apollon Records. Commissioned Works Pt II: Six Drops Of Poison is one piece of music divided into ‘chapters’, and the lavishly titled lead single, The 11th Chapter: The Nine, Including A) The Fire (Pt II), B) A Nonagon In Eight, is currently streaming. “This is a bigger piece of work than we’ve ever done before,” Norwegian singer and keyboard player Thor Erik Helgesen tells Prog. “The different parts get more room to unfold and, compared to our other albums, it’s a development with a more orchestral-based and diverse sound. We used a lot of instruments and a lot of recording techniques.” Helgesen likens the album to the sound of the 70s Italian prog scene. He…

“I STILL HAVE a lot of faith in human beings. It’s just the system we’ve built around ourselves, the miserable machine, causing all the problems.” Paul Wolinski laughs as he says this, almost surprised by his own view of the state of things. Though it’s a stark way of summarising the world outside our window, it’s also a base point for where Paul, as a musician, finds himself right now. Renowned for his work over the last 20 years in 65daysofstatic, Sheffield’s own multifaceted post-rock monster, his recent focus has been on Polinski, a private escape of experimentation that he’s dabbled in on and off for the last decade. As 65days are pivoting more to explorative soundscapes rather than fully fledged songs, he’s found a bit more time and space…

COWBOYS WALKING OFF into the sunset across vast deserts. Wizards practising spells in forests. Heroes riding into certain danger to save citizens from burning buildings. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have in the world, and for Yvette Young, it’s become a central part of how she creates music. These very different situations are all taken from Catharsis, the third album from her band, Covet. “In a world where everything is figuratively burning down, it’s easier to bury your head in the sand and build a different world than it is to address those problems,” she says. “But I didn’t just want to bury my head. Most of the songs on this album were written over quarantine. I had a lot of stuff happen and a lot…

In one way or another, Ray Shulman was destined to have a life in music. Born on December 8, 1949, he’s best known as a member of progressive rock mavericks Gentle Giant, but he could just as easily have become a star violinist in the classical world. The youngest of the three brothers who would form the band, Ray was a prodigious musical talent, skilled at both the violin and the guitar. His parents were eager for Ray to join the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, but brother Derek had other ideas. Electrified by the arrival of The Beatles, he set about forging his own musical legacy, forming his first band with friends from grammar school. One day, as they rehearsed in the Shulmans’ front room, Ray began strumming…

When a band have lasted as long as Yes, there are many entry points for fans. While some saw them at The Marquee and Blaises in 1968, picking up the debut album shortly afterwards, the rest of us have later jumping-on points: maybe Steve Howe’s debut with their crucial relaunch platter, The Yes Album; or Tales From Topographic Oceans, when Yes became a permanent byword for the prog genre. Perhaps one of the comeback albums: 1977’s Going For The One, a UK charttopper at the height of the media’s obsession with punk, or maybe 1983’s stunningly successful 90125. But 1980’s Drama surely brought in more than average. The surprising recruitment policy of Buggles synth duo Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes put the band’s name on the radar of much younger…

It’s easy to picture Pendragon’s Nick Barrett at work in his Cornwall home, curious cows peering over his garden fence and Barrett noodling with his guitar while gazing thoughtfully out to sea. It’s a serene setting that provides rather a sharp contrast with some of the hardships endured over the first 45 years of Pendragon’s career. “For me, this is the icing on the cake, really,” concurs Barrett. “All the time we were sleeping in vans and struggling with trying to make a living. At times we were living in one-bedroomed accommodation, getting into debt and doing shitty jobs just to keep things going. But now I can get up in the morning, play my guitar and stare out looking out at the view of the sea. It’s just fantastic…

There are polymaths, and there’s Mike Batt. He’s most widely known in the UK as the man behind the hit-laden music for children’s TV show The Wombles, but not long before that he was a young singer-songwriter musician with dreams of arranging and conducting orchestras. Southampton-born Batt found himself with a top job in A&R at Liberty Records in London in 1968 at age 19, and moved into arranging via Family’s debut album, Music In A Doll’s House. Batt also recorded albums of popular cover versions, created film scores, collaborated with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber and wrote jingles for adverts. For all his commercial work, and massive success with songs such as the No.1 hit Bright Eyes from the film Watership Down, the discovery and management of best-selling jazz-pop…

Kosmonautik Pilgrimage MOONJUNE Engrossing jazz metal explorations. The first thing that leaps out about this release from the Berlin-based quartet is the striking cover art, which resembles a scene that might coalesce from oil paint dripped into water by Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dalí. The artwork perfectly mirrors the music, an interesting blend of avant-garde jazz, prog metal and electronic soundscapes. Markus Reuter and Alexander Dowerk, together with keyboardist Bernhard Wöstheinrich and drummer Asaf Sirkis, are the men behind the sound, with Reuter and Dowerk notable as masters of the touch guitar – an instrument that’s neither strummed nor plucked, but tapped with both hands, and which provides an impressive tonal range. Those with a liking for experimental music will appreciate adventurous tracks such as Cerebral Transfixations, a fluttering, crashing…

The Approbation INSIDEOUT Impressive debut album suggests a big future for metal-leaning Norwegians. AVKRVST may have a perplexing aversion to vowels, but there’s little mystery about the quality glowing from their debut album, The Approbation. The Norwegian quintet’s first full-length recording is a glorious opening shot, a near-masterclass in metal-tinged prog. Fans of Opeth, Steven Wilson and Between The Buried And Me will doubtless be impressed by the way The Pale Moon juggles its discordant attack with lucid, dream-like swashes of sound, while the rumbling Isolation jags and snags with just the right kind of awkwardness. It’s not all just metal turmoil, though – a plentiful penchant for atmospheric keys and a flair for melody shines through, with the instrumentation never stumbling into the trap of needless virtuosity. The concluding…

Holocene PELAGIC Album 10 and The Ocean keep getting deeper. It takes a degree of unbridled ambition to chart the paleontological history of the planet in musical form but that’s what Germany’s The Ocean have been doing over their recent albums. Holocene follows thematically from 2018’s Phanerozoic I (Palaeozoic) and 2020’s Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic, but sees the band pushing out into previously unexplored musical directions. “A sound of great depth and scope.” It was born from ideas from synth player Peter Voigtmann that sparked the imagination of guitarist and bandleader Robin Staps. Appropriately for an album that deals with the period of the planet wherein humans have risen to the fore and changed the world for better or worse through technology, Holocene begins with the sound of percolating…

The Answer Live FRANCKCARDUCCI.COM Refreshingly unpolished live outing from French prog’n’roller. There’s no Photoshop sheen to this live set from Franck Carducci. Captured last year at De Boerderij in the Netherlands when the tour was well underway, Carducci’s voice can sound road weary, particularly early in the set when he may not be fully warmed up, and he’s undeniably pitchy in the opening (Love Is) The Answer. But this isn’t a band that seem inclined to play it safe, and once the blood is pumping and the intensity dialled up, the irrepressible energy of The Fantastic Squad powers past any hiccups along the way. Even in their most expansive long-formcompositions, such as Alice’s Eerie Dream and Asylum, there’s a swagger and strut to the music that’s very rock’n’roll, particularly when…

Twelve Half Steps ESOTERIC Floyd’s desk guru engineers his own sounds. Andy Jackson is best known as Pink Floyd’s go-to engineer/mixer, entrusted for decades as their favourite pair of ears. Meanwhile he quietly crafts away at his solo work, which has given us 2014’s gently intriguing Signal To Noise and 2016’s quirky 73 Days At Sea. Twelve Half Steps is different again, a fully instrumental offering and a collection of tracks in 12 modal scales. Such structural and technical discipline will be more appreciated by musicians than laymen, but the atmospheres created will perhaps woo the latter. There’s rich variety here, from C-Scape’s proximityto Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross to the spooky suspenseful drama of Darien Gap. Attenuation Deficit drapes keening guitars over forceful rhythms. The finale, Between Scylla And Charybdis, constructs…

Vever GOD UNKNOWN RECORDS An immersive and rewarding experience that opens its layers. If treasure chests were easy to find, their bounty would undoubtedly lose their value. What’s needed for the yielding of results is a patience matched by some hard work. In this respect, Laura Loriga’s Vever is an album that slowly and yet methodically reveals the gems contained within its grooves. Born in Bologna, Italy and currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, Loriga has already released three albums under the Mimes Of Wine banner, but this is the first release that bears her name. The initial response to Vever as it kicks off with Mimi is a feeling of claustrophobia. The music, fuelled by fiddles and drones, bears a sense of oppression; an effect brought out by the…

World leaders are asking Veronica Lake to cut her hair, the Mona Lisa can no longer maintain her inscrutable smile, and ‘nothing is as good as they say it is – that’s the way it is’. It must be a Sparks album, their 26th in fact, and The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte (Island) is reliably full of delicately detonated surprises. It finds the Mael brothers, half a century into their curious career, in a great place, revered in both music and film worlds. Their own world, however, remains a dry, ironic, twitchy place, and this relentless set of hardcore synthpop songs – closer currently to Suicide than Moroder – renders It’s Sunny Today and That Was Fun regretful and sad and When You Leave a bouncy celebration. Deadpan…

Redemption UNICORN DIGITAL Quebec’s finest hit the neo-prog bullseye. If consistency and quality were guarantors of success, Mystery would be in the upper echelons of the prog firmament. It’s been five years between studio albums, but Redemption finds the Quebecois neoproggers in the rudest health, creatively speaking. Michel St-Père’s group continue to target the sweet spot where long-form compositions and technical finesse meet catchy hooks and AOR melodies. Lyrically, the album is big on grand dramatics, which suits vocalist Jean Pageau’s passionate style. He delivers lines like ‘Make these tears shine like stars in your eyes’, from Pearls And Fire, with conviction. The title track is a high point, with a lavish arrangement and sweeping chorus to make Jim Steinman blush. The songs often begin with a romantic theme before…

Airwaves RANDOMEARTHPROJECT.BANDCAMP.COM Easy-listening prog with a retro edge. This British collective use words such as “epic”, “symphonic” and “inventiveness unbound” to describe their debut album, but it’s hard to pinpoint the justification for such labels. There are undoubtedly major Pink Floyd influences threaded throughout, as evidenced by the slow-burning title track and the Gilmour-esque guitar solo that appears in Holy Blues. But “epic”? Maybe not. Instead, Airwaves delivers classy if predictable middle-of-the-road prog. Egyptian marries floaty late 60s psych-pop with a slight Latin edge, while the entirely self-explanatory Gospel contains passing nods to Americana. In terms of pacing, the material seems to stay mostly in second or third gear, only really getting the bit between its teeth in tracks like Gambler and the sunny early-70s rock meets neo-prog vibe of…

Heaven’s Sun BELIEVERS ROAST Kaleidoscopic journey from the beginning to the end of the universe. Kavus Torabi should by now require no introduction – but suffice to say that as an alumnus of Cardiacs and Guapo, leader of Knifeworld and Gong, and most recently a member of the Steve Hillage Band and The Utopia Strong, he’s put himself about a bit. Richard Wileman, on the other hand, is perhaps a lesser-known quantity, but for the past 25 years he’s released a series of mostly instrumental chamber prog albums under the name of Karda Estra. With both of them coming from the more esoteric/psychedelic end of progressive rock, this collaboration – released via Torabi’s Believers Roast label – pushes at the boundaries of composition, with much of the music here feeling…

Malice In Plunderland WHITE KNIGHT Prog-lite collection questioning the accepted order of things. This seventh solo album from UK singer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Thorne continues his highly personal, often indignant explorations of politics, media and corporate manipulation of the masses. Musically, there are no overblown instrumental workouts or symphonic rock drama, just consistent, tautly arranged prog/pop fusions, sprinkled with snippets of dialogue from news broadcasts and elsewhere. Fans of Neal Morse may find a certain familiarity in the refrains of Rubble And Dust and Cup Of Truth (alongside some light Mellotron), and there’s surely more than a little Crowded House influence to Catherine Wheel. Deliberate or merely imagined musical references, it’s hard to say, but the intro to Tall And Strong does bear a striking likeness to It Bites’ Ice…

Úath CURSED MONK RECORDS Debut from haunted folk duo with pronounced literary influences. Formed by Irish ambient/drone composer Ruairi O’Baoighill and Scottish haunted folk magus Grey Malkin, Úath bring a palpable unease to their carefully rendered, slowly evolving soundscapes. The sense that something wicked this way comes is near constant as soon as the tranquil bird song on opener The Awakening Of Pan fades, but most unnerving of all is The Fenstanton Witch, a nightmare-ish epic with traumatised witch voices seemingly inspired by MR James’ 1924 ghost story of the same name. Adding hurdy-gurdy, Irish whistle, harp, strings and more to their ominous, drone-heavy mix, Úath also cite The Wicker Man soundtrack and Pentangle as influences, but their own music is more ambient and more textural; a spell conjuring-up the…

Encore ESOTERIC Remastered release of a long-lost gem from twin talents. The fruitful partnership of Brian Auger and Julie Tippetts (née Driscoll) is so entrenched in the 60s that their all-too-brief 1978 reunion tends to get unfairly discounted. Not that either remained dormant during the interim period. Driscoll married Keith Tippett and embarked on a number of exploratory projects with him while also recording solo and collaborative albums, as her erstwhile partner spearheaded jazz fusion ensemble Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express. Though on the one hand Encore begs the question of what might have been had Auger and Tippetts continued working together, this nine-track album is better appreciated as a testament to two colossal talents actually getting it on to create an artefact that was every bit the equal of what…

Individual Choice/Open Mind/No Absolute Time EDEL Remastered trio from jazz fusion pioneer. The ever-inventive violinist Ponty’s work with Frank Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea and more recently Jon Anderson shifted perceptions of how the instrument can be deployed (the Frenchman also appeared on Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire De Melody Nelson and Elton John’s Honky Chateau). While most of those outlets allowed him to do his own thing (Zappa was, he’s said, the only person to command him not to deviate from his parts), on his solo albums he’s enjoying fully cutting loose and flying free. His 70s work leaned into hippiedom but still constructed stable platforms over which he could sprinkle his magic. He’d already experimented with the hypnotic effects of repetition, and fans of both krautrock and trance have embraced…

Radio Times – Live At The BBC 1971-90 REPERTOIRE Folk rock stalwarts get phenomenally comprehensive session vault treatment. Lindisfarne snuck into many early 70s record collections alongside Charisma labelmates and early touring partners Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. Usually at least semi-acoustic, with cats’ choir nasal folky harmonies that were even wilder in concert, their raucous live incarnations are superbly captured here. The curse of many such compilations, such as the recent Genesis BBC Broadcasts collection, is the disinclination of compilers to include multiple versions of individual songs. – whom these releases are presumably aimed at – want. Happily, this eight-CD box is exhaustively inclusive. So, while there are, for example, crystal-clear takes of the eerie, Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Lady Eleanor (introduced on more than one occasion by an…

Live Fillmore West And Other Adventures REPERTOIRE Formative live knockings from evolving Yardbirds excavated. Later evolving into the band with vocalist Annie Haslam, who scored a one-off hit with Northern Lights, Renaissance were at first a different beast. Departing Yardbirds singer Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty wanted to do something, in the latter’s words, “more poetic… not so heavy”, envisioning this new project as a blend of rock, classical and folk. It didn’t last long as such, and Relf and McCarty left, but the seeds they sowed stayed in the DNA of the project thereafter. This four-CD/DVD set, with McCarty contributing to liner notes, curates their concert and broadcast recordings from 1969 to 1971, as the pair worked with co-vocalist Jane Relf (Keith’s sister), pianist John Hawken and bassist…

VENUE O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON DATE 26/03/2023 Welcome to the Godzilla vs King Kong of progressive metal. Haken and Between The Buried And Me are both beloved behemoths within this style of music, but beyond that they have nothing in common. They hail from different sides of the Atlantic. They ascended to prominence in different eras. And, most significantly, their definitions of what being ‘progressive’ means couldn’t be further apart. For Between The Buried And Me, making forwardthinking music involves slamming together as many genres as possible. The North Carolina group collide metal and classic prog with sounds as disparate as folk, pop and jazz, often marching from one to the next with reckless abandon. It’s a fearlessness that’s spawned masterpieces like Colors (which our readers voted the 45th…

GLASS HAMMER @GlassHammerProg I’m hard at work on a new album for you. Title and art reveal coming soon.:::steve::: STEVE HACKETT @HackettOfficial Jo and I enjoyed a day off yesterday in Paris, visiting the beautiful Musée d’Orsay and the intriguing underground archaeological area beneath Notre Dame square. Looking forward to playing at La Seine Musicale tonight! RICK WAKEMAN CBE @GrumpyOldRick So much still to do… time for a new list, I think… PETE TREWAVAS @PeteTrewavas Back at LHR T5 heading off for the start of @MarillionOnline Weekend 3 in Padua. See you all there. BRUCE SOORD @bsoord I spent a lovely evening with Ian Anderson yesterday at Dolby HQ in London doing a bit of Q&A before the Atmos playback of the new Jethro Tull album, RökFlöte through a rather…

IRELAND-BASED PROGRESSIVE metallers The Enigma Division formed in 2019 but their story begins much further back in time: 1977 to be precise. That was when Star Wars was firing the world’s imagination and NASA launched the Voyager Program to observe the outer limits of the solar system. Guitarist Conor McGouran explains: “People began to take an interest in space again and science fiction became embedded in pop culture like it never had before. I was always fascinated with Carl Sagan and the Voyager missions, from watching [Sagan’s 1980 TV series] Cosmos as a kid to my uncle showing me the first photos of Neptune in 1989.” McGouran and bassist Ronan Burns began playing music together at the age of 11. They shared a passion for metal, prog, fusion, pop and…

Undoubtedly one of the most naturally gifted musicians ever to have come out of England, Mike Oldfield celebrates his 70th birthday this year, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of his first solo album, Tubular Bells. Born in Reading, Berkshire, Mike’s first professional music experience came as half of folk duo, The Sallyangie, alongside his sister Sally. He then came to the attention of Kevin Ayers, playing on two classic albums, Shooting At The Moon and Whatevershebringswesing. By 1971, Oldfield was a bassist in blues-rock group The Arthur Louis Band and worked on solo material in his spare time. It was in September of that year that a fateful meeting occurred. The Arthur Louis Band decamped for recording sessions to The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, a newly built facility owned…

Over the last 30-odd years, Amplifier have established themselves as Manchester’s foremost space rock quartet. Only they’re no longer based in Manchester nor a quartet. Change has been afoot in the Amplifier camp, as singer and guitarist Sel Balamir and drummer Matt Brobin have left the north-west and headed for the south coast, settling near Brighton. This may help explain the briny flavour of Balamir’s 2021 solo album, the ocean-themed Swell. “I’ve been moving to the sea for the past 20, 30 years. I was just stuck in the wrong place,” says Balamir. Like his gradual drift down to the seaside, Balamir hasn’t rushed to put out new Amplifier music. Trippin’ With Dr Faustus arrived in 2017 and while the next full album, Gargantuan, has been announced, there’s still no…

Eivør Pálsdóttir’s recent single, The Beloveds, begins with a deliberate stomp that could be the Great Heathen Army caving in a door with a battering ram, then comes a dark liturgy sung in Faroese with words that translate into English as: ‘In the cradle of life/Fire frolics/Licks the horizon…’. All the while, Eivør is throat singing ominously like a mythical siren in the water as we board the Stygian Ferry to Hades. The Beloveds no doubt commits every sin known to streaming as Adderall-minded listeners go on the lookout for easy ear candy, and yet – Daniel Ek be damned – it’s completely and utterly mesmerising. The Beloveds is the opening track on Eivør’s latest album, The Last Kingdom – Destiny Is All, recorded with British film composers John Lunn…

prog.reviews@futurenet.com With every studio recording, live album or tour announcement, there’s always a faction of fans who will turn up on a corner of the internet waving their ‘No Jon Anderson, No Yes’ banners. Their zeal is only matched by the nearby counter-demonstration shaking their ‘No Peter Banks, No Yes’ placards. But time and events have moved on and maybe the ‘No Anderson’ contingent should too. In the aftermath of the singer’s unceremonious departure 15 years ago, we’ve since lost Chris Squire and Alan White, a stark reminder, should it be needed, that life is really too short to spend time grinding gears over something we have no control over. Rather than exercising well-worn prejudices and allowing expectations to become self-fulfilling prophecies, isn’t it better to approach a new album…

Elemental ARCANICA.BANDCAMP.COM Dark cosmic prog metal delights from the Philadelphian quintet. Progressive metal has continuously evolved over the last 40 years, so it’s often difficult for newer bands to find their own sound. That’s why ArcAnica’s latest EP, Elemental, is noteworthy, as they blend influences such as Leprous, Haken and early Black Sabbath into a fairly fresh and rewarding collection. Opener The Flood demonstrates this wonderfully, with its impassioned singing, chaotic instrumentation, and apocalyptic lyricism conveying plenty of urgency and quirkiness. Although the remaining three tracks don’t deviate very much from that formula, each of them offers a few special qualities. The initially peaceful Against The Wind, for example, incorporates traces of sludge rock and psychedelic rock as it becomes increasingly feisty and complex. Black Fire’s emphasis on playful acoustic…

Live At Bush Hall NINJA TUNE Band sheds key member, returns with assured live album. Black Country, New Road built a formidable reputation as a live band prior to 2021’s debut For The First Time, but that album failed to fully capture their energy. Follow-up Ants From Up There was more indicative of the London seven-piece’s true essence, though four days ahead of the record’s release, lead singer Isaac Wood announced he’d be leaving. Their first release following Wood’s departure is a masterstroke. Live At Bush Hall – recorded at the titular venue in Shepherd’s Bush, west London – is made up entirely of new songs filmed and recorded in front of a partisan 400-capacity crowd, with songwriting duties and vocals handled by bassist Tyler Hyde, saxophonist Lewis Evans and…

North Star TOFF RECORDS Beautiful mini-album from Nick Barrett’s prog institution. Pendragon’s Nick Barrett originally started writing the music on this beautiful mini-LP with a view to making an album with John Barnfield, the band’s original keyboardist. “Then I panicked,” Barrett says, “and thought, ‘Jeez, Pendragon really needs to get something out.’ So I told John I needed to nab the material back for the ol’ Dragon!” “Brimming with life-affirming music, it’s a band on fine form.” It’s probably for the best. Mixed and mastered by Karl Groom, North Star finds the quartet – singer/guitarist Barrett, keyboardist Clive Nolan, bassist Peter Gee and drummer Jan Vincent Velazco – in strong yet mellow mode. Their first release since 2020’s Love Over Fear comprises just four songs, but they’re very good ones.…

The Rise Of Medici CRIME RECORDS/WE LÅVE ROCK Italian dynasty gets the harpsichord and symphonic rock treatment. This project, based on the lives of members of the powerful 15th-century Italian Medici dynasty, is the brainchild of guitarist, Eric Bouillette (Nine Skies, The Room, Nova Cascade, etc.). He brought keyboard maestro Clive Nolan, no stranger to ambitious concept pieces and collaborations, on board; sadly, however, Bouillette isn’t around to see the results of his labour – he died from cancer last year. Fundamentally a rock opera, The Rise Of Medici begins with Festina Lente, whose doleful church bell and intoning monks lend it a sense of time and place. But the bulk of the album blends Renaissance-era atmospherics with classical flourishes and moments of power metal energy on Duty Of Love,…

Ancient Skills KARMANJAKAH.BANDCAMP.COM A powerful and intricate set from Swedish prog metallers. Karmanjakah return with a four-track EP following their well-received self-titled debut back in 2016 and 2021’s full-length, A Book About Itself. Opener Breathing lays down the template for the Swedes’ quiet/loud dynamic. Acoustic guitar explodes into a thunderous pattern of drums, deep bass and electric guitar, lulling into softer interludes. Even in its heavier moments, however, the four-piece never lose sight of an arresting melody, and the vocals of lead singer Jonas Lundquist perfectly suit this balance of power and finesse. Flying showcases the band’s ability towhip up an interesting and layered soundscape. It’s another driving, powerful piece that benefits from repeated plays. Listening quickly rises from gentle keyboards and circling guitar to embrace more of Sebastian Brydniak’s…

Golden Age Of Music MUSIC THEORIES RECORDINGS Playful, powerful and heartfelt nod to the rocking glamtastic 70s. In a surprise move, here’s an album from multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen that isn’t a universe-spanning fantasy concept project featuring a roll call of guest vocalists. And Lucassen doesn’t even play keyboards or guitar, taking bass duties instead. Golden Age Of Music is nothing less than a full-blooded celebration of much of the music that influenced and inspired Lucassen as a younger man – less prog, more down-the-line classic and glam rock. The title track sets out the premise, name-checking a plethora of 70s acts from Rainbow to Alice Cooper. Fans of Hammond organ-drenched rock are wellserved with suitably redolent keyboard sounds from Joost van den Broek from intro track SR Prelude through to…

16 INSIDEOUT Leprous man goes it alone with a journey of self-examination. Many a debut solo album is a chance for self-reflection, but Leprous’ singer and keyboardist Einar Solberg hasn’t worked entirely alone after seven long-players made with the band. “The whole idea of the album,” he says, “was to collaborate, 50/50, with one composer on each song.” However, there’s an emotional thread to 16 that’s very personal. “An impressive and adventurous new chapter.” As Solberg’s glacial falsetto relates on the title track, enhanced by the cello of co-writer Raphael Weinroth-Browne, ‘It took me 16 years to realise/That I was meant to walk through winter nights/When doubt appeared in my mind.’ He’s called this collection of songs “the closest I’ve ever come to writing a concept album”, and lyrically it…

Eye SUPERNATURAL CAT Slow and soporific second solo album from Ufomammut frontman. On this follow-up to 2018’s Doppelebben, mononymous Ufomammut founder Urlo ventures further from the doom metal realm into, well, equally doomy pastures, without so much of the metal. Rather than skullcrunching heaviness and demonic vocals, Eye is heavy on smoky midnight atmospheres but light on traditional rock dynamics. At times the Italian’s gothically shrouded, medieval-leaning tunes invoke the spirit of early Dead Can Dance, while elsewhere they drift into drone rock territory. This sometimes makes for a fleetingly captivating, lie-in-a-darkened-room- and-breathe-it-in experience. Subtle changes to the sonic structure help on that score, as when Neurosis singer Steve Von Till’s gravelly delivery lends character to the otherwise funereal Confession, or when weeping violin and windswept sound effects prick up…

Metamorphosis VICISOLUM RECORDS Icelandic troupe serve up an eclectic prog rock odyssey. The follow-up to 2017’s Beyond The Night Sky, Metamorphosis builds upon its predecessor’s ambitious and irresistible fusion of progressive metal and hard rock. Dragonflies is a catchy and intricate introduction whose periodic bells accentuate its moody percussion, operatic singing, and hyperactive keyboard and guitar riffs. The interlocking vocals near the end are a nice touch, too, and the quintet sustain that inspirational heftiness across Parasite and Find Me Here. Ring Of Gyges also explore more delicate and nuanced tapestries on The Choice and Holy Water. Not only do these pieces represent some of the best song-writing and instrumentation on Metamorphosis, but they also make the surrounding dives into full-on prog metal ferocity on Cabin Fever and Nautilus stand…

Summit KARISMA Norway’s lords of jazz prog madness return. After a seven-year gap, these purveyors of heavy, jazz-powered skronk have re-emerged, sounding more bug-eyed than ever. Summit comprises four expansive exercises in dark prog insanity, with all the warped time signatures, sax lines and wilful obtuseness that made Seven Impale’s two previous albums such a wonky joy. This time, songs such as the slow-burning, melodramatic Hunter seem less bound to complexity than they are to an atmosphere of controlled chaos. It veers off course halfway through, into a chattering cacophony that eventually morphs into a series of bewildering riffs, with guitar, sax and keyboards in breathless unison. It’s an impressive feat of ensemble playing, but Seven Impale share a wayward raggedness with their obvious forebears Van der Graaf Generator. Whether…

Dalla Volta WELLS MUSIC Prolific Aussies overfill what could have been an excellent EP. Any artist releasing six albums in four years will inevitably struggle to keep up the quality and so it proves with Teramaze. Combining four new songs with demos and reworks of older songs – mostly from albums that pre-date the current era of the band – Dalla Volta feels like a bloated EP. Originally released on 1998’s Tears To Dust, Shadows tones down the metal for a richer, keyboard glittered sound, but otherwise mimics the original. Broken tenderises an already balladic track, stripping away its distorted guitars without filling the space, and their predictable take on Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s 80s hit Easy Lover feels reductive. It’s a shame, because elsewhere Navigate In Solitude showcases…

Kill The Wolf: 10th Anniversary Edition ACID JAZZ Analogue-loving songwriter’s 2013 album intriguingly expanded. Since signing to Acid Jazz in 2011, Matt Berry has built an eclectic back catalogue, using his collection of vintage instrumentation to channel a love of acid folk, bucolic prog, movie and TV themes and soundtracks, psychedelia and plenty of points beyond. Kill The Wolf – his second album on the label, reissued here in two-LP format – convinced any remaining cynics that he was more than an actor and voiceover artist indulging in an off-duty hobby, and this reissue offers a dozen or more extra tracks to further shed light on his creative back pages. The original set is a pretty timeless affair in any case, with Berry’s penchant for bewitching sounds illuminating tidy songcraft.…

To Our Children’s Children’s Children UMR Lavish, remixed reissue of the Moodys’ fifth album. Just four years separate The Moody Blues’ 1965 debut album, The Magnificent Moodies and this, their fifth release. Given the accelerated change in personnel, musical style and ambitious plans regarding what kind of group they wanted to be, it’s a run that is still impressive. While the arrival of Justin Hayward and John Lodge undoubtedly proved to be a significant catalyst, it was the wholehearted willingness of the entire band to experiment and fully embrace the progressive spirit of the times that propelled their creative streak. “The perfect example of their slightly stiff polyester psychedelia.” To Our Children’s Children’s Children was their second album release of 1969 after On The Threshold Of A Dream, and it…

Tubular Bells UMR Groundbreaking classic honoured with golden jubilee reissue. When Kevin Ayers sang, ‘It begins with a blessing/And it ends with a curse’ on Why Are We Sleeping as his band, The Whole World, played London’s Hyde Park in 1970, his words could almost be describing the future awaiting his then 17-year-old bassist after composing and releasing Tubular Bells. Inspired by Keith Tippett and Terry Riley’s long-form experimental works, Mike Oldfield obsessively distilled his avant-garde influences into an uncannily accessible formula, whose ensuing popularity and cultural cache were impossible to predict, not least of all by the composer himself. Bringing financial security, though not necessarily happiness, the reverberations of Tubular Bells throughout his career have variously come to be seen by him as a both blessing and a curse.…

The Hurting VIRGIN/UMR Early 80s landmark still dazzles with candour and invention. If, 40 years ago, Tears For Fears’ debut saw them dismissed in some grumpy quarters as ‘just’ a pretty-boy synthpop duo, time and tide have very much shifted that perspective. Their musical range and ambition flowered on subsequent albums, from the psychedelic prog-soul 80s kiss-off The Seeds Of Love, to the epic sweep of last year’s triumphant comeback, The Tipping Point. They always contained multitudes. The pair have openly discussed their love of early Genesis, King Crimson, Robert Wyatt and Pink Floyd, and over the years their themes have incorporated philosophy, mortality and Thatcher-bashing “Closer in texture to Peter Gabriel than any Top Of The Pops gear.” As The Hurting returns as an Abbey Road half-speed mastered vinyl,…

VENUE O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN, LONDON DATE 01/04/2023 SUPPORT THE UTOPIA STRONG Through his work with partner Miquette Giraudy, Steve Hillage is as much a maven of electronic music as he’s a progressive guitar hero. It makes perfect sense then, that new kids on the psychelectronica block The Utopia Strong should open tonight’s show. Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi and Michael J York improvise two lengthy pieces, the second of which vibrates the air like a lost Fripp & Eno recording. York’s plethora of percussion, bagpipes and woodwind are manipulated almost beyond recognition through the signal processing chain. Davis’ percolating modular synth sequences create a miasma behind Torabi’s shamanistic incantations. Heavily effected guitar pierces the veil, recalling Fripp’s gorgeous Evening Star melody. The room is charged. Mission accomplished. A video montage…

VENUE THE DRILL HALL, CHEPSTOW DATE 31/03/2023-02/04/2023 And so once again Prog makes its biannual jaunt to the Welsh border for a weekend of prog, frivolity, catching up with good friends and meeting new ones and, largely thanks to Progzilla Radio’s Mike Whitfield, one or two convivial adult beverages as well. There have been some excellent prog events that have sprung up in the last few years, but Winter’s (and Summer’s) End remains the original, and as always, sets the yardstick by which all others are measured. Friday night kicks off with Howard Sinclair and his acoustic guitar. Unfortunately it also brings an abundance of audience chatter (this is the bugbear of many a prog fan, so it’s somewhat surprising to hear in The Drill Hall). It evidently has an…

VENUE KK’S STEEL MILL, WOLVERHAMPTON DATE 04/04/2023 SUPPORT KLONE, FIXATION We’re all familiar with the reasons why tours have been postponed and cancelled over the last three years. Still, one return to the live circuit that is especially eagerly anticipated is that of the wondrous Devin Townsend. As Prog surveys the venue, KK’s Steel Mill, owned by ex-Judas Priest guitarist KK Downing, we note the buzz of anticipation in the air and plenty of pints flowing, despite it being a weeknight. Norway’s Fixation are the first to grace the stage and they present an ethereal version of progressive rock. Opening for someone as well known as Devin Townsend can present challenges, but the band command attention and control the entire room. Explosive riffs and catchy hooks soon have everyone moving,…

Electronic post-prog band North Atlantic Oscillation have released their first album in five years. Their fifth full-length record, United Wire is the belated follow-up to 2018’s Grind Show, and finds singer/mastermind Sam Healy processing the global turmoil of the last few years. “I definitely needed some way of processing the chaos of the pandemic,” the Edinburgh-based Healy tells Prog. “It knocked me sideways. It was only after the uncertainty and pressure dissipated a bit that I was able to respond properly.” Healy didn’t start working on the album properly until after restrictions lifted, but it was indirectly influenced by the events of the last three years. “I got really into reading about science and mathematics during that time,” he says. “Compared to the incomprehensible stuff on the news, mathematical equations…

SWEDISH DUO US And Them do a wonderful line in folkish beauty undercut with a generous helping of foreboding. It’s no surprise, then, to discover that they’re big fans of The Wicker Man. The twosome recently released a new anthology of their work via the gloriously fecund Surrey-based Fruits De Mer label, including covers of two songs from the British folk horror classic, starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee. “We saw the movie and we were like, ‘Wow!’” enthuses singer Britt Rönnholm, who makes Willow’s Song her own. “The songs in that movie simply blew us away.” “The thing that is so scary about that movie is that you can go to a place and everyone seems to like you, and then you discover that they have a [sinister] plan…

Marillion’s Seasons End, originally released in 1989, introduced their “new boy” Steve ‘H’ Hogarth to the prog world. This year, the same line-up are celebrating 34 years together with new deluxe editions of that very record and we’ve got a set of the vinyl and CD boxes to give away to one lucky reader. Both the five-LP and three-CD/Blu-ray sets contain new 2023 stereo remixes by longtime engineer Mike Hunter, live versions recorded last year at De Montfort Hall in Leicester, and updated and expanded artwork from Bill Smith Studio and Carl Glover. The Blu-ray includes a brand-new documentary entitled Seasons Change with in-depth interviews with the band chronicling the album’s recording process; as well as a second documentary, From Stoke Row To Ipanema; and HD promo clips of the…

Sometimes, the truth can seem a little mundane. Beloved of all sensible prog-leaning folk, Einar Solberg is embarking on a solo career, largely to save himself from getting bored. After 22 years as frontman with Leprous, he’s finally made a record under his own name. Entitled 16 and focused on events in his life between the ages of 16 and 19, it comprises songs co-written with a diverse array of musicians and composers, with a few selfpenned songs thrown in for good measure. It’s a spectacular beginning to his solo endeavours, but one that grew from a simple urge to find something to do. “I remember when I got home from a tour in 2018 – and it’d been a year with very extensive touring – I got back to…

It’s 6am in Edmonton, Alberta, and Blood Ceremony’s frontwoman Alia O’Brien is up and at ’em. Well, up and at Prog, via Zoom. “No, I’ve not had breakfast yet,” she laughs, when asked. But what would the first meal of the day be for Blood Ceremony, we wonder? “Probably pancakes,” she decides, “bloody pancakes with raspberry, some sort of sacrificial coulis…” Our stomachs rumbling, it’s time to focus not on food, but on Blood Ceremony’s new album, The Old Ways Remain – the band’s fifth, with a seven-year gap since 2016’s acclaimed Lord Of Misrule. In 2020 the record was written and ready to go, but in a similar scenario to many acts, the pandemic meant Blood Ceremony couldn’t move around to record The Old Ways Remain, travelling to their…

The first question of an interview is more often than not, “How are you doing?” It’s a pleasant little ice-breaker that’s started 99 per cent of conversations throughout history. However, when The Ocean leader Robin Staps sits down to talk with Prog over Zoom, we ask that opening question with more concern in our voice than usual. In December 2022, barely four months before our chat, Staps had a near-death experience. His post-rock collective were enjoying a day off on a Puerto Rican beach during a South American tour, and the guitarist decided to finish the downtime with a sunset swim. Almost instantly, he was caught in a rip current and left powerless against the vicious waters for three hours. He’s convinced that, had the coastguard shown up just 10…

Fire Fortellinger KARISMA Retro prog nirvana from Wobbler’s piano man. When it comes to the noble art of plundering prog’s past, Lars Fredrik Frøislie has already made a sizable contribution. Best known as keyboard player with Norwegian mavericks Wobbler, he’s also leant his not inconsiderable talents to music by Tusmørke and White Willow and pulled off a smart hybrid of prog and black metal with his own In Lingua Morta project. His first solo album, Fire Fortellinger, puts his multitudinous, militantly analogue approach to tickling the ivories centre-stage. “A whirlwind of ideas and freewheeling keyboard solos.” Recorded as a means to keep creative during gaps in Wobbler’s schedule, this is very much a solo project, with Frøislie playing everything except the bass guitar (which is deftly handled by Elephant9’s Nikolai…

Chromosphere RICKARMSTRONG.BANDCAMP.COM Edison’s Children guitarist takes another small step into ambient electronica. On his third synth-oriented solo album in two years, Rick Armstrong once again demands the listener set the controls for the heart of, well, if not the sun, then somewhere a long way from Earth. That vision is sound-tracked from the opening chord of The Vast Unknown, inspired by the first images from the James Webb telescope, and from thereon in the piece drifts on dreamily, the only hints of drama coming from some shards of guitar from Big Big Train’s Dave Foster. Similarly dreamlike in feel are the 20 minutes of Artemis One, inspired by the NASA mission in Steve Rothery applies some November last year, until agreeably wistful licks to the final passage. And although Gabriel…

Leave The Ghost Behind CRISPIN GLOVER RECORDS Norwegian space rock of the heaviest stripe. Winters are long in Black Moon Circle’s hometown of Trondheim, and so, happily, are the songs. Four of the seven tracks on Leave The Ghost Behind exceed the 10-minute mark, with the longest clocking in at almost 23 minutes. Guitarist Vemund Engan, his brother Øyvin (bass/vocals), Scott Heller aka Dr Space (synth) and ex-Motorpsycho drummer Tomas Järmyr are black-clad, reassuringly hairy men whose commitment to bludgeoning, partjammed psych runs deep. That much is obvious on Snake Oil, as solidly built as the hefty wooden sculptures on their 10th album’s front cover. With Vemund’s baritone guitar riffs tapping the weightier lower-reaches of prog, 19-minute epic Psychedelic Spacelord (Lighter Than Air) doesn’t outstay its welcome, though the delicious…

Nemesis SPIRIT OF UNICORN MUSIC Second album from mood-swinging Brit prog quintet. In the seven years since these British proggers made their bow with Say, the five-piece led by keyboard whizz Rob Cottingham have seen a new singer come on board. Yet on seven-minute opener Asleep At The Wheel, Sarah Bayley’s vocals play more of a background role: a dreamy synthscape fills the air with sweet melodies one minute that are offset by foreboding chords the next. It’s the time-honoured quiet before the storm tactic, as it’s followed by the riff-led hard rock of Tripwire, over which Bayley takes centre stage with a dramatically delivered topline melody taking aim, with a curled lip at ‘the chasms in your head’. Elsewhere, The Love sees guitarist James Hards deliver some emotive, Rothery-esque…

Subterranea Live GEP Neo-prog perennials’ 2011 performance of 1997 album reborn on triple vinyl. It’s an oft-stated ambition of bands to recreate the potency of their live sound in the studio, but it’s seldom achieved. There’s a kinetic energy in the air at a live show that somehow galvanises the music in a way it rarely does within the confines of best live albums manage to capture something of that extra magic, and when IQ’s performance of their 1997 double album Subterranea in the Netherlands in 2011 was recorded, they evidently hit that sweet spot. Originally livestreamed during lockdown in 2020 in place of the band’s traditional Christmas show, it has now finally made it onto a handsome triple vinyl gatefold package. Peter Nicholls’ vocal performance is particularly charismatic on…

Take Me Back To Eden SPINEFARM Genre-mashing prog metal stars continue their meteoric rise. The promotional materials for Take Me Back To Eden call it a “chapter-closer in the ongoing Sleep Token saga”. This enigmatic statement could be hinting at a future shift in musical direction or a change in the way they present themselves. It could even suggest the end of the road for the band after just three albums. Much like so many things about this masked, genre-straddling collective – up to and including the real identity of pseudonymous singer Vessel – it’s a statement shrouded in mystery. “Not prog with a capital ‘P’, but progressive in sound and spirit”. What is clear is the power of Sleep Token’s music. Theirs is an exhilarating fusion of prog, metal,…

At The Mercy Of Manannán M-OPUS.BANDCAMP.COM Beautifully crafted retro concept album from Irish proggers. M-Opus have an interesting line in conceptual ideas: pick a year and write an album that’s redolent in feel and sound to the progressive rock of those specific 12 months. They’ve covered 1975 and 1978 on previous releases; this time it’s the turn of 1972. At The Mercy Of Manannán centres around a classic tale of sea-farers on a journey of danger and discovery, Manannán being an ancient Irish sea god. The flavours of ’72-vintage prog are never far away – Riverflow conjures up the spirits of early ELP and Genesis, Whirlpool’s frenetic keyboard and guitar riffs and drum solo bring a bit of Rick Wakeman and spiky King Crimson to mind, and Mellotrons swirl in…

Mirror In The Darkness MEDEVIL.BANDCAMP.COM Canadian metallers take the prog train for their second outing. Medevil’s debut album, 2016’s Conductor Of Storms, was praised by fans of contemporary progressive metal for its maturity and bruising riffage. The commitment to the heavy end of things hasn’t disappeared here on the long-awaited follow-up, but what has developed is a more rounded approach and the blossoming of more obviously progressive elements. Those bludgeoning riffs and urgent, growled vocals are still in evidence on Mirror In The Darkness’ opening two tracks. Then comes Pray For Me, which introduces atmospherics and a chorus that could easily find its way onto a Dream Theater record, and the odd time signatures and orchestral sections of The Signal, with its lyrical reflections on self-awareness and mortality. Later, Gateways…

Le Memoires Des Orages SUB ROSA A head-spinning concoction with no unpleasant side effects. Belgian octet Ogives are probably best thought of as an act of liberation rather than something resembling the orthodoxy of a band setup. Eschewing rock’s basic songwriting structures gives Ogives the freedom to explore musical regions that might otherwise be left untouched or even forgotten. In doing so, Le Memoires Des Orages (‘The Memory Of Storms’) is an active and intriguing experience that kicks any notions of passivity by the listener into the long grass. Barriers are removed as volume, chamber music, pummelling rhythms and ancient choral traditions are thrown into the mix; nothing is off limits. The tracks aren’t bothered by the constraints of time and the conclusion of the 12-minute Patience Part I-III leads…

Limbus PELAGIC The Ocean keyboardist’s solo adjunct to his main band’s new album. The debut solo album from The Ocean’s Peter Voigtmann, aka SHRVL, might easily get lost in the shadow of the concurrent release of his main band’s latest album, Holocene. But this isn’t down to bad timing: Limbus is an appendage to that record or, as the title implies, a work that sits at the edge or border of another work. The five tracks that make up Limbus form the basis of five complete songs from Holocene, and it’s tempting to compare the two, though the former is strong enough to be taken on its own merits. Remission, with its stripped-back electronica, and Relapse, which crackles in and out like a ghostly transmission, feel like eerie palimpsests; they…

Cosmic Chronicles: Act 1, The Ascension NEW HEAVY SOUNDS Space rock and doom metal collide to create a sonic supernova. In keeping with heavy psych antecedents such as England’s Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats and New Jersey’s Ruby The Hatchet among others, Kansas’ They Watch Us From The Moon have cracked the formula that blends distortion, volume and power with harmonious, hazy melodicism. Not that this suggests They Watch Us From The Moon lack their own identity – far from it. Across five tracks of epic length (nothing here clocks below the six-minute mark) the sextet have developed a heaviness in sound that’s wholly their own. The layered guitars of plank-spankers The General Shane Thirteen and R Benjamin Black (yes, those are their names) create a fearsome backdrop on On…

Seasons End: Deluxe Edition PARLOPHONE EMI-era album reissue campaign ends on an impressive high. When it was released in September 1989, Seasons End had one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Marillion’s fifth album marked the debut of ‘new boy’ Steve Hogarth – actually a veteran of more than one band that had flirted with stardom without ever sealing the deal – but a chunk of the music on it was left over from the preceding Fish era. “A 360-degree view of both the album and the band.” Seasons End itself remains a top-tier Marillion record, one that’s simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. Berlin, The King Of Sunset Town and others date back to earlier sessions, and they act as a musical bridge between ‘old’ Marillion and…

An Accident Of Stars: 2004-2017 KSCOPE From Hemel Hempstead and Tel Aviv, with love. One must hand it to Kscope, who handle these retrospective packages with care and style. Packaged in a thick, LP-sized box, illustrated with images from Carl Glover and including an illuminative sleeve essay that charts the group’s birth, ups and downs and now apparent dormancy, An Accident Of Stars is pretty much a one-stop-shop for fans of Blackfield (the only omission is their seemingly final album, For The Music, released by Warner in 2020). Formed by Aviv Geffen, a celebrity in his native Israel and a massive fan of Porcupine Tree, and Steven Wilson of that very band, Blackfield at first burned brightly. Despite being born on opposing sides of the globe, as singers, musicians, songwriters,…

Guitar Noir/Darktown INSIDEOUT Two Hackett solo LPs from the 90s reach vinyl for the first time. Decent records both, Steve Hackett’s Guitar Noir (1993) and Darktown (1999) marked periods when the great guitar synthesist’s mood was a little less Carry On Up The Vicarage and a little more Land Of A Thousand Autumns. ‘Standing under the lamplight/In one of the nicer parts of Hell,’ he intones over exquisite Spanish guitar on Guitar Noir’s There Are Many Sides To The Night, a song about prostitution. But for all its sombre beauty, this moody, string synth-heavy LP had touches of levity, too, notably in mock-eerie prog metal song Vampyre With A Healthy Appetite, which sees Hackett cast himself as the tall tale’s mysterious narrator. Six years later, Darktown was a transitional record…

The Complete San Francisco Moog 1968-72 VG+ RECORDS Synth pioneer’s unearthed recordings get a CD release. Doug McKechnie was one of the very first players of the modular Moog IIIc synthesiser – he gained access to number 004 in 1968 due to the generosity of his flatmate’s wealthy father. Although principally a singer, he played piano and quickly learned how to programme and play it. He took the temperamental instrument away from white-coated studio technicians and out on the road, where he recorded his improvised live performances onto tape, an archive that was packed away, unheard until a few years ago. McKechnie didn’t realise at the time how groundbreaking his music was and The First Exploration, recorded in 1968, sounds exceptionally accomplished and imaginative with its rich, shifting bass lines…

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Where’s home? A small village in rural Northumberland called Warkworth. It has an impressive castle and sits in an oxbow of the River Coquet. What’s your earliest prog memory? As a teenager I saw Steve Hillage at Newcastle City Hall, around 1977, and received a free single [pictured left]. It seemed like another world to the classic rock I’d been listening to, and opened my eyes to musical possibilities. The first prog album bought? Sunburst Finish by Be-Bop Deluxe, if you count that as prog. I certainly do. And the last? The self-released [and self-titled] debut album by a local outfit called Unit8. It’s gentle and melodic, and I’ve enjoyed it in the car very much. First prog gig? Steve Hillage, then it was Barclay James Harvest, also at Newcastle…