Author: kruekutt

Grateful for my beloved wife, son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren and siblings. Also a lover of theology, music, history, philosophy, classic novels, science fiction, fantasy and Looney Tunes.

Sounding the Bardic Depths

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rock3 Comments

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’ … It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision – it is then that Friendship is born.

— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The Bardic Depths is a rare creation; the method of its making embodies what it portrays.  It’s a distinctive take on the concept album, sparked from ongoing collaboration by two devoted lovers of progressive rock, with stellar contributions from some of the music’s current leading lights.   (Oh, and fleeting spoken-word cameos from others, including yours truly — so yeah, objectivity is out the window here.)

Lyricist Brad Birzer and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Dave Bandana have been self-releasing enjoyable albums for a few years now,  launching impressionist volleys of lyrical prose (usually in a dystopian sci-fi framework) via arching, chantlike melodies, poised atop appealingly thick ambient pads and amiably chugging pop grooves.  When Birzer pitched the life, times and friendship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as an album concept, Bandana loved it — but as the music took shape, he realized that contributors who could kick things up a level were needed for the album to take wing.

Enter the Passengers — that astonishingly amiable Facebook group of fans brought together by their love of Big Big Train.  Having seen BBT live (and made numerous musical friends in the process), Bandana modestly reached out for help.  And, as the video below reveals, one thing led to another:

Continue reading “Sounding the Bardic Depths” →

Pat Metheny, From This Place

On By kruekuttIn jazz1 Comment

Well there’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground

— Bruce Springsteen, “The Promised Land”

The cover image for Pat Metheny’s From This Place — Springsteen’s twister touching down under lowering clouds above a reversed title — suggests that the guitarist’s first collection of new music in six years might be a dystopic downer, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls re-purposed for resistance in a tensely partisan time.  It’s true that Metheny writes from a distinct viewpoint here; but first and foremost he’s writing and playing from his musical and personal core, giving everything he has to connect with listeners of any and every outlook.  And this album communicates like mad.  It may end up being one of the best records released this year — state of the art jazz composed and performed at the highest level, a unified work of formidable emotional range and intelligence: instantly accessible, inescapably substantial — and above all, incredibly moving.

On his website, Metheny writes extensively about the process that led to From This Place: touring his back catalog with an international trio of virtuosos (Gwilym Simcock on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass, Antonio Sanchez on drums); the decision to record brand new tunes without rehearsal (a strategy by Miles Davis with his 1960s quintet); another snap decision to leave space for orchestrations (by Alan Broadbent and Gil Goldstein), incorporating both Metheny’s composed motifs and the quartet’s improvised inspirations; orchestral overdubs with conductor Joel McNeely and the cream of West Coast pros on a Hollywood soundstage (evoking CTI Records’ lush 1970s aesthetic); topped with guest shots from percussionist Luis Conte, harmonica player/Metheny alum Gregoire Maret and vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello on the hymnic title track.

All well and good, but process and preparation can only go so far.  Where the rubber meets the road is the playing — Metheny’s gutsy, creamy-toned melodicism, Simcock’s rhapsodic comping and vivacious solos, Oh’s fertile, bubbling foundational work and Sanchez’s pungent, earthy rhythmic concoctions.  These four are at the peak of their abilities throughout the session, primed to deliver their best.  It’s jaw-dropping stuff: interplay verging on telepathy, exhilarating ebb and flow both between individual players and as a unit, the space they leave for each other and the sumptuous orchestral backing all come together in awe-inspiring, high-intensity takes on 10 new tunes.  Whether scaling edifices of endlessly unrolling melody (“You Are” and “Pathmaker”), math-rocking through intricate uptempo bebop/Latin fusions (“Everything Explained” and “Sixty-Six”) or settling into hushed balladry (“The Past in Us” and “Love May Take Awhile”), they impress and astonish, as individuals and as a unit.  It’s hard to believe there’s a better jazz quartet active right now; this is a band I want to see and hear live as soon as possible.

But in the meantime, whither Metheny’s point of view?

Continue reading “Pat Metheny, From This Place” →

Fernando Perdomo, Out to Sea 3

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rock1 Comment

2019 was a breakout year for Fernando Perdomo.  As one of the first-call Los Angeles sessioneers assembled for the music documentary Echo in the Canyon, he’s been seen and heard on screens large and small around the world, backing up modern pop icons like Jakob Dylan, Beck, and Fiona Apple with his bracing guitar work and unmistakable stage presence.

Thankfully, Perdomo (who first surfaced in these precincts as Dave Kerzner’s lead guitarist and production sidekick) still loves his old-school prog rock, as the latest installment in his series of instrumental Out to Sea albums attests.  While the original Out to Sea focused on tributes to his musical heroes and OtS 2 served up dazzling miniatures of dizzying rhythmic and sonic variety, Out to Sea 3: The Storm turns out to be that delight of prog fans everywhere — a concept album!

After a theme song that pushes out from acoustic shores into the electric surf, “Wonder” showcases Perdomo’s inexhaustible gift for melody and his slick multi-instrumental chops. These two tracks are majestic cruises over the bounding main, with wave on wave of soaring guitar, shimmering keyboards, and loosely grooving drums, all played by Fernando himself.   “Cycles” features more tasty electric soloing over a simple, hypnotic bass lick; then Perdomo’s acoustic guitar gently weeps as “The Storm” hits:

From there on, the music and the implied storyline just keep getting wilder, as Perdomo throws himself into the deep.  “The Great Known” swings in 7/4, with a Beatlesque bridge sandwiched in the middle; “Frenzy” dives into exhilarating power riffage; “The Tambourines of Malmo” keep time to asymmetrical surf music, with a Latin American side trip tossed in.  The spindly wah-wah funk of “The UFO Club” slams hard into “Doom Is Often Loud” (which, with Morse code riffing, ominous Mellotron pads and a slinky John Bonham groove, totally delivers on its title’s promise), which in turn sets up the skewed chromatic waltz of “The Crab”.  Is the story all just a nightmare or a landlubber’s yarn, as the beautiful, mostly acoustic closer “Dawn” implies?  No matter what you conclude, the musical voyage Perdomo takes his listeners on here is a worthwhile trip — heady, hearty, heavy and tons of fun.

If you’ve enjoyed the previous Out to Sea albums, you’ll find OtS3: The Storm a worthy successor — indeed, a fitting conclusion to the story so far; if you haven’t heard them, I think it’s the perfect introduction to the series.  Either way, Fernando Perdomo’s widescreen compositional vision and instrumental prowess are on full display here, and the results are completely delightful.

Out to Sea 3 is released March 6; downloads and CDs are now available to preorder on Bandcamp.

perdomo ots 3 cover

— Rick Krueger

News of the World … of Prog

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rock1 Comment

Big Big Train’s announcement of the Passengers Club and North American tour dates were just the tip of the iceberg this week!  In other progressive rock-related news:

King Crimson and The Zappa Band (the latter an authorized project of Frank Zappa’s estate, featuring alumni from his 1980s bands) will tour the USA and Canada in June & July.  One tour date (at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts) in Virginia has been announced for June 30th; others will be announced soon.

The three-part Emerson Lake & Palmer epic “Karn Evil 9” is being developed as a science-fiction movie, to start production later this year.  ELP managers Stewart Young & Bruce Pilato will serve as producers, along with Carl Palmer and Radar Pictures (developers of the Jumanji and Riddick franchises).

Plenty of great album releases are on the way as well, including:

Tiger Moth Tales’ live CD/DVD A Visit to Zoetermeer, out on February 21 and available to pre-order on Bandcamp;

John Holden’s Rise and Fall, the follow-up to 2018’s well received Capture Light, out on February 29;

Fernando Perdomo’s Out to Sea 3: The Storm, out on March 6;

Rick Wakeman & The English Rock Ensemble’s The Red Planet, out in April.

Time, it would seem, for the world of prog rock to awaken from its long winter’s nap!

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Alan Messer/Shutterstock (133333fw) EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER VARIOUS

— Rick Krueger

 

 

The Bardic Depths

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

From Robin Armstrong’s Gravity Dream Records:

‘The Bardic Depths’ is an all new progressive rock project formed from the writing team of multi-instrumentalist, Dave Bandana with lyrics and concept from Bradley Birzer, plus contributions from Peter Jones (Camel/ Tiger Moth Tales) – Saxophone/ Vocals, Tim Gehrt ( Streets/ Steve Walsh) – Drums, Gareth Cole (Tom Slatter/ Fractal Mirror) – Guitar and Robin Armstrong (Cosmograf) – Keyboards/ Guitar/ Bass, amongst a host of other amazing musicians from the progressive rock community around the world.

“The album is about friendship and its ability to get us through anything including war, with the concept centering on the literary friendship formed between J.R.R Tolkien and C. S Lewis between 1931 and 1949. “ says the Lanzarote based band leader Dave Bandana.

Friendship also provided the catalyst to enable such a wide cast of musicians to come together for the record, largely from the community provided by the Big Big Train Group on Facebook. The resulting album is an immersive combination of ethereal soundscape with Floydian undertones, and Talk Talk progressive pop sensibilities.

The Bardic Depths is available to pre-order now from Gravity Dream on CD or in an extremely limited CD/T-shirt bundle.  It’s also available on CD from Burning Shed, who provide the tracklist:

1. The Trenches
2. Biting Coals
3. Depths of TIme
i) The Instant
ii)The Flicker
iii) The Moment
4. Depths of Imagination
5. Depths of Soul
6. The End
7. Legacies

And of course, there’s an album teaser on YouTube:

— Rick Krueger

News: Steve Hackett’s Autobiography in July!

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

From HackettSongs.com:

July 2020 sees the publication of A Genesis In My Bed – the long overdue autobiography from guitar great and former member of Genesis, Steve Hackett. As with his music, Steve has written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing tome that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years with Genesis that saw the band’s meteoric rise to become one of the most successful British bands of all time.

Steve talks candidly about his early life, his time with Genesis, and in particular his personal relationships with the other four band members, with great insight into the daily goings on of this major rock band.

Naturally, A Genesis In My Bed also regales stories of Steve’s career since leaving Genesis and the many different journeys that it has taken him on. With his flair for the creative, and a great deal of levity, A Genesis In My Bed is a riveting read. Indispensable for Genesis fans but also essential for general music lovers and avid readers of autobiographies full of heartfelt and emotive tales.

A Genesis in My Bed: The Autobiography is now available for pre-order from HackettSongs and Wymer Publishing (the latter featuring slightly cheaper shipping to North America).  Wymer’s signed & numbered special edition of the first 1000 copies is already gone, but Steve will sign copies pre-ordered through HackettSongs.

— Rick Krueger

Markus Reuter, Truce (Or, A Centenary Worth Celebrating!)

On By kruekuttIn avant-garde, Progressive rock3 Comments

Touch guitarist Markus Reuter’s new album Truce is utterly bracing, a cold slap in the face that boggles the mind and kicks off 2020 in the best way possible.  Recorded live in the studio on a single day in collaboration with bassist Fabio Trentini and drummer Asaf Sirkis,  this is the unfiltered sound of three virtuosos throwing caution to the winds and just going for it. Put simply, these seven instrumentals rock — hard, sharp and smart.

Reuter (best known for his partnership with King Crimson members Tony Levin and Pat Mastoletto in Stick Men) lets rip without a pause, now firing off astonishingly ballsy/brainy solos, now laying down pensive, brooding soundscapes — then layering the one atop the other! Trentini is stunningly melodic and stunningly powerful on fretless bass, always laying down a deep, unshakeable foundation for Reuter’s explorations.  Sirkis (one of the subjects of Bill Bruford’s doctoral dissertation Uncharted) is a genuine revelation on drums — simultaneously disciplined and free, tight and loose, spinning out endlessly compulsive grooves, whether subtle or stomping.  From start to stop, the music these three make is unbeatably powerful, head-snappingly varied, and vividly compelling — whether on the searing stomp of a title track, the brutal mid-tempo funk of “Bogeyman”,  the abstract balladry of “Be Still My Brazen Heart”, or the Police-ified dub wig-out of “Let Me Touch Your Batman”.  Listening to Truce is an hour-long thrill ride with tons of substance to chew on through multiple listens — one you need to experience for yourself.

Beyond its sheer brilliance, Truce is also a testament to one of progressive music’s unsung heroes — the 100th release masterminded by Leonardo Pavkovic.  Since 2001, Pavkovic’s one-man operation MoonJune Records has been on a mission to “explore and expand boundaries of jazz, rock, ethnographic, avant, the unknown and anything between and beyond” with artists from across the globe.  Whether relatively well-known (Tony Levin, Stick Men, Soft Machine) or criminally anonymous in the Western Hemisphere (Indonesian fusioneers Duwa Budjana and Dwiki Dharmann, Sirkis’ rewarding solo projects and marvelous International Quartet featuring vocalist Sylvia Bialas, masterful European musos like guitarist Mark Wingfield and drummer Xavi Reija), Pavkovic has believed in them, recorded them on their own and in exciting combinations (often at Spain’s La Casa Murada, where Truce was laid down), and helped them take their music to the people.   Already this year, Pavkovic has mounted North American tours of The Levin Brothers (cool jazz with Tony and pianist brother Pete) and vintage English/German proggers Nektar; Stick Men dates in Asia and North America follow starting in February.  Whew!

If all of the above intrigues you, MoonJune currently offers two in-depth ways to get in on the action.  A subscription plan gets you everything released for a year as multiple format downloads plus bonus back catalog albums and samplers plus 25 percent off vinyl, CD and merch purchases. (I splurged on this with Christmas cash, and am already plotting what to get next.)  Or the same amount ($100) gets you 19 album downloads from across MoonJune’s catalog or 19 CDs (selected catalog titles, with a minimal shipping charge added).

But if the above is too rich for your wallet, or you want to dip a toe in the water first, take my advice: listen to Truce.  And buy Truce.  Then dive deeper into what MoonJune Records has to offer.  I think you’ll be glad you did!

— Rick Krueger

moonjune

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In Memory of Neil Peart (1952-2020)

On By kruekuttIn progressive metal, Progressive rock2 Comments

Unlike so many writing about him in the wake of his passing, Neil Peart didn’t change my life.  By the time I first seriously listened to Rush in college, when I reviewed Permanent Waves for the student newspaper, my tastes were pretty set, and they didn’t lean toward heavy rock.  (Truth to tell, I looked down on “that stuff” back then.)  So while Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures and Exit Stage Left got me into a band my best buddies from high school still raved about — they were using keyboards now! — I basically thought, “hmm … noted and logged.  Buy their stuff from now on”, and kept moving.

So I bought and enjoyed Rush’s albums through A Show of Hands; picked them up again with Roll the Bones (probably my favorite, which I know makes me a schismatic or a heretic); lost track again following Peart’s family tragedies, retirement and comeback.  All the while I dug deeper and wider musically — into classical, jazz, country, folk — and finally embraced the heavy stuff.  (This happens when your stepson digs Led Zeppelin.)

But for me and Rush, 2007’s Snakes and Arrows finally sealed the deal.  An album this good after this many years of active service didn’t just catch my ears; it commanded my respect.  I knew I had to see them live, and my high school buddy Keith obliged with tickets to their 2008 Joe Louis Arena show.  And I saw something like this:

And I was gone.  And I saw Rush four more times before they retired from live performance (usually with those high school buddies); bought Clockwork Angels, all the concert videos and everything else Rush-related I could get my hands on; exulted at their elevation to the heights of Noughties celebrity by the movers and shakers of geek culture; cheered when they made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (and took over the induction ceremony), then finally made the cover of Rolling Stone; even grew to appreciate the over-the-top virtues of “By-Tor and the Snow Dog,” 2112 and A Farewell to Kings.

So yes, Neil Peart’s loss moves me.  But what ultimately drew me to him as a musician, a man, an artist, an exemplar?  Some attempts to unpack the mystery follow.

Continue reading “In Memory of Neil Peart (1952-2020)” →

kruekutt’s 2019 Favorites: Reissues and Live Albums

On By kruekuttIn avant-garde, electronic, jazz rock, Progressive rock, Rock and Roll2 Comments

Here are the reissues and live albums from 2019 that grabbed me on first listen, then compelled repeated plays. I’m not gonna rank them except for my Top Favorite status, which I’ll save for the very end.  Links to previous reviews or purchase sites are embedded in the album titles.  But first, a graphic tease …

Continue reading “kruekutt’s 2019 Favorites: Reissues and Live Albums” →

kruekutt’s 2019 Favorites: New Music

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rock1 Comment

Here are the albums of new music from 2019 that grabbed me on first listen, then compelled repeated plays. I’m not gonna rank them except for my Top Favorite status, which I’ll save for the very end. The others are listed alphabetically by artist. (Old school style, that is — last names first where necessary!) Links to previous reviews or purchase sites are embedded in the album titles.  But first, a graphic tease …

Continue reading “kruekutt’s 2019 Favorites: New Music” →