Table of contents for Issue 147 in Prog

Bella Union, as it now is, began life by accident. Initially created to release the music of its owners, Cocteau Twins, the band broke up soon after. Now at a loose end, bassist/keyboardist Simon Raymonde signed Warren Ellis’ Dirty Three and John Grant’s The Czars and the rest is history! Then followed Midlake, Explosions In The Sky and Beach House, which lead in turn to Fleet Foxes, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Spiritualized and many others. The label continues to develop young artists like Pom Poko and Penelope Isles while continuing to build with veterans like BC Camplight and Destroyer. How to download your free digital MP3 sampler from Bella Union 1. Visit www.bit.ly/bella_sampler. Type it straight into your browser – do not type the URL into a search engine.…

Jane Weaver is set to return with her brand-new album, Love In Constant Spectacle, which is out on April 5 via Fire Records. Produced by John Parish – arguably best known for his production work with PJ Harvey, folk-proggers This Is The Kit and singer-songwriter Aldous Harding – the full-length release also marks the first time that she’s worked with a producer outside of her immediate creative circle. “I just wanted to do something that was a bit more emotional and sensitive.” “I’ve always wanted to work with John,” admits Weaver, “but I got in touch with him accidentally saying, ‘I want to do a new album and get outside of Manchester and what’s Bristol like to work in? I’d jump at the chance to work with you.’ And he…

Progressive jazz fusion guitarist Jane Getter will release her third album with the Premonition band on February 23 via Esoteric. The New Yorker has told Prog how Division World’s song-orientated approach has resulted in her strongest body of work to date. “This album has been about letting the song dictate when it needs something, and when it doesn’t,” she reveals. “I’m editing my writing more. It doesn’t have to be that I throw everything into the pot for one song.” Lyrically, the record charts the dichotomy of both personal and societal division. Although not strictly a concept album, Getter says it was important those themes resonated across the record. “There’s conflict throughout the album. We’re very divided as a world right now, but that’s not who we are as humans.…

Following in the wake of last year’s mammoth 14-disc box set, Interference Patterns, Esoteric dip back into the Van der Graaf Generator vaults with reissues of Still Life and Vital, due on March 29. Initially released in 1976, Still Life was VdGG’s second studio album after the band reformed to record Godbluff the previous year. Both of the reissues have been remastered and the former will be released on vinyl only, while Vital will be available on double vinyl and CD editions. “The stars aligned for us. We felt there was work to be done,” says Peter Hammill about the 1975 reunion. “It was a headlong period. Van der Graaf were always a slightly bizarre ongoing movie, but we were probably at our peak in this period. We were touring…

(Epic, 2001) Emerging at the height of Britpop on Alan McGee’s fabled Creation Records with their delightfully quirky 1996 debut single Hometown Unicorn, Super Furry Animals immediately marked themselves down as a breed apart from what was going on around them. Prodigiously talented and with a fierce intelligence and sense of humour to match, it was obvious to anyone paying attention that these Welsh wonders were in for the long haul. And unlike labelmates Oasis, who found themselves increasingly circling down the plug hole of creativity, Super Furry Animals moved ever forward with each subsequent release. Their fifth album, and first for new paymasters Epic in the wake of Creation’s ignominious collapse, Rings Around The World remains their most progressive and commercially successful album to date. Embracing the new eclecticism…

The prog top 30 albums January 2024 Compiled by 1 PETER GABRIEL i/o (REAL WORLD) 2 STEVEN WILSON The Harmony Codex (VIRGIN/SW RECORDS) 3 ROGER WATERS The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux (COOKING VINYL) 4 SIGUR RÓS Átta (BMG) 5 OPETH Damnation (MUSIC FOR NATIONS) 6 WITHIN TEMPTATION Bleed Out (FORCE MUSIC) 7 MIKE OLDFIELD Tubular Bells – 50th Anniversary Edition (UMC) 8 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING This New Noise (TEST CARD) 9 TAME IMPALA Lonerism (FICTION) 10 GOAT Medicine (ROCKET RECORDINGS) 11 YES Mirror To The Sky (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 12 GOAT Levitation Sessions (THE REVERBERATION APPRECIATION) 13 JETHRO TULL RökFlöte (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 14 STEVE HACKETT Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live (INSIDEOUTMUSIC) 15 KING GIZZARD & LIZARD WIZARD PetroDragonic Apocalypse (KGLW) 16 MOON SAFARI Himlabacken Vol 2 (BLOMLJUD) 17 JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Oxymoreworks (SONY MUSIC) 18 JETHRO TULL The Broadsword And The Beast (PARLOPHONE) 19 OZRIC TENTACLES Lotus Unfolding (KSCOPE)…

“This is solo album number 30,” explains Steve Hackett. “I suppose if I keep at it there’s a possibility of the John Wayne award for ‘Most Westerns In The Saddle’!” Pan out for the prairie wide shot, and it seems extraordinary that Hackett has done so much since leaving Genesis in October 1977. Then again, he’s one of prog’s great enthusiasts, passion undimmed. “I still so much enjoy music,” he affirms. “It’s my chosen medium, just as my father’s chosen medium was art. Dad painted the world, but I try and make it a film for the ear. And if ever I made a film for the ear, this album is it.” Chatting from his New York City hotel room, Hackett is referring to his spectacular latest record The Circus…

“It’s a bit like No-Man transformed the sound of electro and rave, but from outside the club… There was a sense of being detached from the culture itself. That’s what made us outsiders.”Tim Bowness 1987 was a big year for Steven Wilson. Still in his teens, he devised Porcupine Tree as a progpsych conceit, complete with a fabulously fictional back story. He also happened to meet singer songwriter Tim Bowness, with whom he began playing as No Man Is An Island (Except For The Isle Of Man). While Porcupine Tree would gradually evolve into a whole other creative entity, the Bowness project was a more immediate priority. The chemistry was instant. “At our very first recording session, we did three completely different kinds of song,” Wilson recalls. “We recorded Faith’s…

There’s sluggish, there’s long winded, there’s slow, there’s languid and unhurried. Then there’s the speed at which Pallas seem to operate, which can best be described as glacial. Prog’s correspondent has just taken his life into his hands by voicing this theory to the veteran Scottish neo-proggers. Fortunately, they erupt with laughter before addressing the truth behind our statement. “We take a long time to do anything,” says a smiling Ronnie Brown, “and then quite often we’ll go back and do them all over again. I don’t think we will ever do anything quickly. We’ve turned messing around and going down alleys into an art form.” “No, we’re not the fastest-moving group of individuals,” Alan Reed says, nodding in agreement. “But having said that, cutting the tracks was done quite…

It’s 11am in a very sunny Los Angeles when Prog catches up with Pattern-Seeking Animals keyboard player/multi-instrumentalist, main writer and producer John Boegehold, and he’s already been up for more than five hours. It’s an almost daily routine that allows time to boot up his studio to write and demo material before tackling his ‘proper job’ in property management, and he’ll keep toying with ideas throughout the day. This cycle of writing partly explains the vast pool of music (more than 200 songs, he estimates) Boegehold has amassed for a number of collaborations, film soundtrack work, contributions to Spock’s Beard over the last 20 years and the already enviable back catalogue assembled by Pattern-Seeking Animals since 2018. “When it gets to the point where I think, ‘Oh, that would be…

“Are you sitting comfortably?” asks the voice from the BBC Radio programme Listen With Mother from within a sound collage at the beginning of People From The Smoke, the track that opens The Circus And The Nightwhale. It’s more than coincidence that this famous phrase was first uttered in 1950, the year of Steve Hackett’s birth, as the story begins in traumatised post-war London when the national broadcaster was a reassuring presence, and follows the rites of passage of the principal character, Travla – who despite his name, is based on the guitarist. Hackett’s solo debut, 1975’s The Voyage Of The Acolyte, was a concept album, taking its inspiration from the tarot, but apart from toying with some themes on 1980’s Defector, which he states is not a complete concept…

VENUE THE FIDDLER’S ELBOW, LONDON DATE 03/12/2023 It’s a both bitterly cold and rain-sodden, not to mention heartsinkingly grey, December Sunday – the kind tailor-made for spending the day lazing on the sofa, central heating on and watching movies. But there’s a very healthy queue of expectant prog fans doing their best to shelter from the unstinting drizzle, stretching down the road from the Fiddler’s Elbow doorway. It’s this writer’s first time at the charity event and it’s an absolute delight to attend. Even though the day has been blighted by the last-minute withdrawals from both The Blackheart Orchestra and This Winter Machine, Kindred Spirit Band and Storm Deva have been seemingly effortlessly shoehorned into the bill, although Prog is sure there was a bit more consternation behind the scenes than seems…

Spirit Of Unicorn Music are to release a three-CD box set containing all the material recorded by short-lived prog supergroup Emerson, Lake & Powell. Emerson, Lake & Powell – The Complete Collection is out on April 12. The anthology includes the band’s eponymous studio album, plus three bonus tracks The Score (Single Edit) and B-Sides The Loco-motion and Vacant Possession. Also included in the box is their live album, Live In Concert, which was originally released in 2003, as well as The Sprocket Sessions, a CD of rehearsals that had previously only been available as a bootleg. All of the material has been remastered by distinguished engineer Andy Pearce, who’s previously worked with Deep Purple and Todd Rundgren. An enhanced booklet is also included with sleeve notes written by Prog…

Derek ‘Mo’ Moore – the longest-serving member of prog veterans Nektar – has recalled with fondness the live sets from Calderone Concert HalI in Long Island in 1975 and Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1976. They both make up part of the five-CD reissue of 1975 album Recycled, which is out via Esoteric on March 29. “Massey Hall was a fantastic place to play,” he says. “It was packed out and I was told that the guys from Rush were there. We were really peaking at that time. People came from all over the country for the gig. The vibe from the crowd was great. Even when we play now, people come from all over. When we played in the US last year, we had people from Italy and the Netherlands.”…

North Sea Echoes – the new project from Fates Warning vocalist Ray Alder and guitarist Jim Matheos – have announced the release of their debut album Really Good Terrible Things on February 23 via Metal Blade. “Jim was writing another solo album and he thought that it needed vocals,” says Alder of the album’s origins. “He came to me to see if I’d be interested. I said, ‘Send me the music.’ He did and I said that I’d love to do it.” Immediately apparent is the marked difference in sound from what fans of Fates Warning might expect. Here, electronics, ambience and an ethereal atmosphere infuse the album’s 10 tracks. This, says Alder, was a conscious decision by the duo. “It wasn’t a case of, ‘Let’s do everything we can not…

“I first became aware of Emerson, Lake & Palmer at school when I was about 15 or 16. I went to see ELP play in Glasgow and watched your man Keith Emerson pull his Hammond organ all over himself and sticking knives into the keyboards and whatever. The thing is, we had this music teacher at school and she would belt us if we didn’t know all the musical signs and notes. She used to play Mussorgsky and Purcell and Britten and that all saturated into me at that time. So I really love ELP’s version of Pictures At An Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, especially The Hut Of Baba Yaga. And being familiar with that music, it was really interesting to see it being performed that way on Hammond organs…

“I had some issues with my hand,” sighs Petra Hermanova. “I had to stop playing guitar 12 years ago, so I started thinking about what instrument could I play instead. There weren’t that many available to anyone who was recovering from a hand injury that wasn’t healing. It was like, ‘What can I actually do?’” The answer came from the unlikeliest of instruments: “I bought my first autoharp about five or six years ago and there was something magic about it,” smiles Petranova. “Many musicians have a feeling of instant magic with their chosen instrument and for me, it became something of an obsession.” Born in the Czech Republic, Hermanova left for Berlin with her trip-hop band, Fiordmoss, but success proved to be elusive. After they split up, Hermanova was at…

Cover star Steve Hackett celebrates more than half a century of music with his first concept album since 1975’sVoyage Of The Acolyte. The 13-track The Circus And The Nightwhale is available on a variety of mediums including a limited-edition CD and Blu-ray mediabook, which is up for grabs in this month’s competition. One lucky reader will win the collectable set, which comprises the full studio album along with 5.1 surround sound and 24-bit hi-resolution stereo mixes. The album features guest appearances from Steve’s brother John Hackett, as well as Nad Sylvan and Amanda Lehmann on the vocals. The whole package is adorned with gorgeous artwork by Denise Marsh. (Now turn to p36 to find out more about its creation.) To be in with a chance of winning this special prize,…

Some solo careers are born of turmoil; a sudden, dramatic rift between an artist and the band in which they made their name. Steve Hackett’s solo debut album Voyage Of The Acolyte wasn’t born like that. After its release in October 1975, the Genesis guitarist made two more albums with them: February 1976’s A Trick Of The Tail and December 1976’s Wind & Wuthering. Indeed, Hackett wouldn’t bow out of Genesis until after their May 1977 EP Spot The Pigeon. “You have to remember that my experiences in Genesis were largely extremely positive,” Hackett says today. “In fact, when we were touring Selling England By The Pound, a bit of Foxtrot and a bit of Nursery Cryme, I felt like I was in the best band in the world. For…

“Invocation is quite powerful, it’s about the feminine archetype, whereas Supplication is almost like a glimpse of a very private moment. So that’s where the balance is.” If progressive music is about anything beyond long-winded epics and curry-stained capes, it must be a wide-eyed and persistent disregard for the norm. The greats of the genre all had a desire to push music into new territory, and use any artistic or technical resources that came to hand. The cello wielding embodiment of that ethos, Jo Quail may not be making traditional prog rock of any kind, but her fearless, questing spirit has won countless admirers from the prog and heavy music communities over the last few years. Her last full release, The Cartographer, was a wildly atmospheric orchestral piece that made…

A picture’s worth a thousand words. It’s a cliché we’ve all heard too many times in our lives. However, when the artwork for the new Caligula’s Horse album, Charcoal Grace, is compared to that of its 2020 predecessor, Rise Radiant, readers will see everything they need to know about the Aussie prog quartet’s last four years. Rise Radiant’s cover was a lavish, colourful painting. Crammed with springtime imagery from deer to flowing water and emerald grass, it was created at a time when, as guitarist Sam Vallen phrases it, the band had “all their ducks in a row”. Then the pandemic happened. Now, Charcoal Grace is jet-black; flora and fauna are replaced by a human face distorted and washing away into nothingness. It’s a pretty surefire sign that some morale…

There’s an undeniable synchronicity at play knowing that The Orb and David Gilmour’s Metallic Spheres In Colour, the remix of their 2010 album Metallic Spheres, can be traced back to the activities of Scottish systems administrator Gary McKinnon, who in 2002 was accused by the US government of “committing the biggest military hack of all time”. In his defence, McKinnon pleaded harmless motives by claiming he was looking for information on UFOs. With McKinnon facing extradition, decades in jail and a potential $2m fine, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour stepped up to the fundraising plate with the release of Chicago – Change The World, a cover of Graham Nash’s 1971 single Chicago, which in turn was later remixed by The Orb and producer Martin ‘Youth’ Glover with the full participation…

IQ VENUE O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON, LONDON DATE 08/12/2023 It’s bitterly cold outside tonight as IQ take the stage for yet another ‘Legendary Christmas Bash’, and to be honest, the atmosphere seems a bit frosty inside Islington Academy too. Downgrading from the far more suitable Islington Assembly Hall (where the band played in 2019) or 229 in Great Portland Street, probably hasn’t helped matters as it’s rammed to the rafters inside this soulless concrete box of a venue and sharpened elbows are pointing rigidly outward. There’s little in the way of Christmas cheer for anyone trying to manoeuvre their way towards the stage. At the bar, one fellow of short stature is even getting belligerent with punters standing in front of him ordering a drink, seemingly oblivious to the fact that’s actually what…

Seventies prog rockers Greenslade are to issue their BBC recordings from 1973 and 1974 as part of a new two-disc set. Greenslade At The BBC. It’ll be released in February through Repertoire Records and will feature two In Concert performances, both recorded at the BBC Paris Theatre, London, one from 1973 and one from 1974, as well as the band’s November 1973 Old Grey Whistle Test appearance and three different Bob Harris sessions. Greenslade formed in September 1972 in the wake of the demise of Colosseum, by keyboard player Dave Greenslade and bassist Tony Reeves, with keyboardist Dave Lawson and drummer Andrew McCulloch. Greenslade made their live debut at Frankfurt’s Zoom Club in November 1972. The band released both their self-titled debut album and Bedside Manners Are Extra in 1973,…

Krautrock pioneers Can are set to release the fourth in their ongoing series of live releases. Live In Paris 1973 comes out on February 24 via Mute and Future Days on double vinyl, a two-CD set and digital. It follows the previously released Live In Brighton 1975, Live In Stuttgart 1975 and Live In Cuxhaven 1976. Live In Paris 1973 is the first in the series to feature the Japanese vocalist Damo Suzuki. He joined the band after being discovered busking on the streets of Munich by members of the band. He would go on to perform on what is arguably Can’s most celebrated run of albums that include Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973), as well as the 1970 compilation Soundtracks. Suzuki quit the band…

Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt was sitting in a cheap hotel in the unglamorous Derbyshire town of Ripley when he heard Steven Wilson’s rough mix of his band’s album Damnation for the first time. It was late summer 2002, and Åkerfeldt and guitarist Peter Lindgren were mixing Damnation’s heavier sister album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at the latter’s nearby studio. “We only had one pair of headphones between us,” Åkerfeldt recalls now. “I said to Peter, ‘Can I go first?’ I listened to it and thought, ‘Oh God, I can’t believe it’s us. It was pretty amazing to me. I got shivers listening to it. I’ve got shivers thinking about it now.” “I got shivers listening to it. I’ve got shivers thinking about it now.” Until that point, Opeth had been…

“I always try to put two things together that don’t normally fit,” says Trevor Horn by way of trying to sum up a hugely diverse career as producer, musician and songwriter. That would explain the latest release to bear his name, which sees a number of curious marriages of artists and repertoire on a new album of covers. Who else would commission Toyah Willcox and her prog-aristocrat husband Robert Fripp to tackle Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax? Or persuade Rick Astley to take on Yes’s 1980s prog-pop chartbuster, Owner Of A Lonely Heart? Elsewhere, Steve Hogarth offers his reading of The Cars’ haunting, Live Aid-associated lament Drive, alongside numerous other curious match-ups. It’s a convenient jumping-off point from which to discuss a career that has been reliably unpredictable. He may…

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but a lot of musicians who talk about Family say, ‘Oh, you were a proper band. You weren’t like a bunch of posers.’”John ‘Poli’ Palmer “We weren’t trying to sound different, we just were different,” vocalist Roger Chapman says about his former group, Family. And while never a vehicle for double concept albums or displays of flashy virtuosity, Family were one of the first and among the most open-minded of the late-60s/early-70s progressive rock groups, mixing songcraft with a multitude of styles, from jazz to soul, to heavier rock forms, to folk, classical and Eastern influences. They were also a dynamic live act, with Chapman a particularly intense frontman. In a time when musically different was embraced by the record-buying public, all this contributed to…

It’s the day before Brian Auger’s 84th birthday, and the legendary Hammond maestro is in fine spirits. Seated in his practice space at home in Los Angeles, he explains that he’s getting together with his family to toast the occasion. That means a visit from his grandkids and children, three of whom – son Karma and daughters Ali and Savannah – have at one time or another played in Auger’s ground-breaking jazz-fusion ensemble Oblivion Express. There’s also cause for a celebration of the musical kind: the recent release of Complete Oblivion, a lavish box set of the band’s essential run of studio albums from 1970-75, a period that saw Auger move from progressive jazz rock to deep jazz funk and beyond, driven by his love of experimentation and dynamic rhythms.…

VENUE PIANO SMITHFIELD, LONDON DATE 12/01/2024 What happens when you take most of it away? The instrumental layers, players, smoke and mirrors that so much progressive music revels in? In the case of tonight’s tour-opening set from Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman, we’re shown the heartbeat of a rich collective CV. The stories (by turns funny, silly and heartbreaking) that shape these musical compatriots and old friends, set to an immaculately balanced palette of voice, acoustic guitar and piano. It’s perhaps the closest we get to really seeing them, as people. “Thank you so much for coming!” Wilson exclaims as he bounds into the queue at the door, greeting old friends and fans with the energy of a leading West End performer. A few minutes later we meet Wakeman in a cupboard.…

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Where’s home? I live in the wonderful area of LA called Topanga Canyon. What’s your earliest prog memory? Growing up in North Carolina, listening to classic rock radio and hearing Rush. In my early teenage bands we used to cover Tom Sawyer, of course! What was the first prog album you bought? I was a huge Frank Zappa fan early on, so either Hot Rats or Joe’s Garage. I can’t remember which I had first. And the last? I recently scored a vinyl reissue of Can’s Tago Mago. I’ve been a massive fan through the years, and love all phases of that band. What was your first proggy gig? Rush on their Signals tour, in Greensboro, North Carolina [March 1983]. I remember during the song Subdivisions that word came out…