There are few bands that perform as well live as they do in the studio.  And, of course, there are some for which the opposite is true.

One band that only gets that much more interesting live is Andy Tillison’s ever-evolving The Tangent.  This year, amazingly enough, is the tenth anniversary of the first live The Tangent release, PYRAMIDS AND STARS.  Looking at the line up for that tour, one has to wonder if one is caught in some kind of heavenly time-loop or fantasy prog game.  Andy Tillison, Roine Stolt, Jonas Reingold, Sam Baines, and Zoltan Csorsz.  The lineup could be for a Flower Kings album or, perhaps, a Steven Wilson album.

The ever, endlessly talented Ed Unitsky painted the cover, and, of course, it’s gorgeous.

Only six songs make up this 77-minute feast: The World That We Drive Through; The Canterbury Sequence; The Winning Game; The Music That Died Alone; In Darkest Dreams; and the only song under six minutes in length, a cover version of (ELP) Lucky Man.

The songs—all of which come from the first two The Tangent albums—sound as gorgeous as Unitsky’s cover art would suggest.  This is The Tangent, but it’s The Tangent fully alive.  What happened in the studio is merely prologue.  That the embryo, this the fine young man come of age.

Andy and Roine are especially playful and open to the spirit of the muses.  Their love of this music is palatable.

Sadly, this live album is extremely hard to find, and I made it a point several years ago to dig deeply across and through the internet to find a copy.  It was well worth the hunt, for I treasure this album like no other.  It’s a precious thing to behold.