Happy Pi Day from Kate Bush, even if she does sing it incorrectly:
Real Pi: 3. 1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 Kate Bush Pi: 3. 1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 58231974944 5923078164 06286208 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223
This fine track comes from Roy Harper’s 1980 album, The Unknown Soldier, with Kate Bush also on vocals and David Gilmour on guitar:
The previous Voyager album, V, made my Top Ten list for 2014 of the best prog albums. Click the link to read my review.
Now here’s the awesome video for “Ascension” from Voyager’s forthcoming new album Ghost Mile (release date: May 12, 2017). Can’t wait!
Nick Beggs recently named his 10 most influential bassists and here are his top three:
3. GEDDY LEE
“Fronting up a band as a bass player and vocalist is a tough gig – one with which I’ve had some experience. Geddy shows how it should be done. In a power trio, every little helps and additional duties on bass pedals, double-neck guitar and synths made for a fulsome sound in his stadium filling band Rush.”
2. JACO PASTORIUS
“Also often cited as the most influential player ever, his approach to Jazz and the fretless instrument was ground breaking. It’s hard to find someone Jaco didn’t influence. The 80s music charts were populated with hits featuring many Jaco clones – and for good reason.”
1. CHRIS SQUIRE
“My biggest musical influence ever. His sound and tone inspired a legion of players. Chris’ own inspirations were Paul McCartney and John Entwistle, two players who probably influenced more than most. But for me, Chris will always be top of the list. Sorely missed.”
This is awesome.
Next up, we need fox heads and starter prog for the kids!
“Lunch is ready.”
Bass Player magazine recommends the new Sting album, and I heartily concur. Here’s the review by Chris Jisi:
Sting’s first rock album in 13 years, 57th & 9th (named for the Manhattan intersection near the recording studio), is a first-rate, ten-song collection that touches on all phases of Mr. Sumner’s broad musical career. The first single, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” has a heavy Police presence—with its chugging-eighths groove, arpeggio guitar parts, and shifting key centers—while “Petrol Head” pivots between the Police and roots rock. “50,000,” dedicated to such departed greats as Prince, Glenn Frey, and Lemmy, rides a muted verse (with Sting tuning the E string on his ’53 Fender Precision down to D) before bursting into a stadium-ready classic rock hook, a formula present on “Down, Down, Down,” as well. Sting’s Celtic persona emerges on the 6/8 “Pretty Young Soldier” and the guitar-and-vocal ballads “Heading South on the Great North Road” and “The Empty Chair” (for journalist and ISIS victim James Foley).
Summoning the jazzy, solo Sting side is the Middle Eastern-tinged, European refugee-focused ballad “Inshallah,” and the exotic “If You Can’t Love Me,” with descending bass notes creating harmonic colors against a repeated four-note pattern, set to Vinnie Colauita’s 7/8 drum figure. Finally, there’s the somber topic of climate change presented via the upbeat, super-catchy rock bossa “One Fine Day,” which, with its Latinlike pushes in the bass line, make it Sting’s best 4-string work on the album.
It’s precisely the Police-like opening track, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” that first hooked me, along with the magnificently smoldering meditation on mortality, “50,000,” where Sting muses on the “what is it all worth?” factor of stardom.
My favorite part of the post-Police side of Sting is exhibited on the guitar-and-vocal pairings on “Heading South on the Great North Road” and “The Empty Chair.” So also on “Inshallah” which is both haunting and catchy.
Skip the bonus tracks version, which offers nothing additional worth hearing, but do be sure to grab hold of the ten-track album version. Sting should keep returning to that corner of NYC, if only to remind us how great music could be when record companies allowed it to be smart.
I couldn’t agree more with my fellow Progarchy editor, Brad Birzer, who has recently been singing the praises of Pink Floyd’s Meddle album and Live at Pompeii film. Back in the day, that was one of my most frequently played VHS tapes, as I watched “Echoes” over and over again. When the Floyd gets their groove on in that track, there is simply nothing better. It has set the standard for my aesthetic judgment of great prog in so many ways. No wonder Brad and I are brothers in prog!
Recently I have belatedly discovered one of the very best albums of 2016: Vision and Ageless Light by Eye. I must say that, if you like Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” and other such perfectly psychedelic prog, you will love this album. Eye has truly assumed the mantle of classic Pink Floyd for the present day. No one is making better music than this when it comes to groovy tunes laced with spacey synth sounds. Only Dave Kerzner’s mastery of vintage keyboard sounds is in the same league.
Listening to Eye, I am reminded of the excitement generated upon first hearing those classic sounds on Dark Side of the Moon. We forget how innovative and thrilling those sounds are, but Live at Pompeii can serve to remind us whenever we overhear the Floyd crafting that epochal album in some of the documentary stretches of the film. They are sounds both familiar (from the subsequent album) and unfamiliar (from the nascent album, in progress but not yet finished) that tantalize us with the brilliant experimental studio genius of the Floyd. Well, just like the Floyd, Eye has the uncanny knack for such innovation.
“Book of the Dead” starts things off with a slowly building instrumental that highlights Eye’s penchant for classic keyboard sounds. It crossfades into the next track, as does every track on the album, a feature which ends up shaping this album into an integrally perfect progtastic whole.
“Kill the Slavemaster” shifts things into higher gear as the band shows off their full psychedelic capabilities when it comes to rocking out. The aural delights in this song will seal the deal, if you have any doubts. If you like it old school, this is the album for you. The instruments all have a classic sound, but the music is truly fresh and exciting. It’s like entering a time machine and experiencing what it was like to hear a classic for the first time.
“Searching” is my favorite track on the album. It’s perfectly placed in third position here. By the time it arrives, the listener has been slowly primed for this maximally groovy experience. Seriously, I have not heard a song in years that more justly deserves the epithet of “groovy” than this one. The singing and the lyrics are so cool, especially with that perfectly timed echo at the end of the phrases. The back half of the track slips into such awesome grooving and then it even surprises with some exciting Jimi Hendrix Experience-like drum fills and guitar breaks to keep things going even longer.
“Dweller of the Twilight Void” is an appropriately mysterious pause between my favorite track and the extended psychedelic rock opera about to follow. Again, Eye shows off incredible instrumental mastery here, creating the sort of Floyd-like mood that no one else is able to generate these days.
“As Sure as the Sun” is the 27-minute track that the entire album culminates in. It will take a few listens for you to wrap your mind around it but, once you do, it becomes seriously addictive and wholly enjoyable, much like that all-time favorite track of mine by the Floyd, i.e., “Echoes.”
The sprawling grand finale track contains many highlights, but perhaps my favorite point arrives at 21:44, when the band suddenly morphs into sounding exactly like classic early Rush, right up until 23:14.
In short, if you have any good taste at all, you will delight in the magnificent aural feast served up by Eye on their latest album. It’s truly the uppermost upper-echelon prog that you should not be missing out on.
The MoMM is an excellent resource of hearing about new music. For example, check out his feature review of a great new band, Helion Prime. Thanks, MoMM, you had me at “science-based power metal”!
In another example, I’m looking forward to hearing more Battle Beast, since I like the songs I’ve been able to buy and download so far. Thanks, MoMM!
Finally, I am indebted to the MoMM for learning about one of the very best albums of 2016: The Jaguar Priest by Universal Mind Project, featuring the amazing vocalist Elina Laivera. I have listened to that album more than any other in the past month and a half, and it has not yet grown old. It’s a truly magnificent sci-fi masterpiece, with many transcendent musical moments.
Progarchy 