Many of you will know Johnny Unicorn as an artist featured on several of the awesome Phideaux Xavier’s greatest musical moments. He also has a rich catalogue of his own mostly quirky and always interesting music. His album Angels In The Oort Cloud was one of my favourites from 2014!
And he’s about to extend his catalogue significantly by performing a marathon recording session from 4am on the 31st of December to 4am on January 1st.
Madness? Probably, but no doubt lots of fun to be had.
So if you’re the type of person that can’t pretend that an incremental change in an arbitrary measurement of an abstract concept such as time is more worthy of faux celebration than any other, you may yet find solace with Johnny at his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/junicorn.
Iris interviewed Craig Blundell via Skype on 21 December 2016. They talk about Steven Wilson‘s upcoming album, John Mitchell‘s upcoming album, and more! Please stay tuned for part 2!
NOTE: Apologies for the bad video quality, and for things popping up all over the screen. My usual video recording software didn’t work so I had to use another recording program very quickly. Luckily the sound is good!
Ten songs on a debut album by Italian metallers As A Conceit, will give you exactly 40 minutes of something that is brutal, complex, heavy, noise and hardcore with a slice of melody. Imagine The Dillinger Escape Plan with peaces of less complex stuff but more melodic metal parts and you got As A Conceit.
I don’t know how to describe this kind of music but I can imagine where the term/genre ‘noise’ made its entrance. I can also understand that a lot of people can’t take this longer than one minute. But I still wouldn’t describe it as noise. They use these melodic, ‘listenable’ parts in it. That just give you the few, but very needed seconds, to take a breath and protect you from mental damage.
Still, I’d rather see the balance between the melodic metal parts and the brutal noisy complex parts a bit different. Yes, it’s very impressive that they can play it this tight and well controlled. I also think that it’s great to play. But the fact that it takes this much energy to listen to it. A bit less complex would be great, but hey, isn’t that just a matter of taste…
The Vivaldi Metal Project is arguably the Album of the Year for 2016.
Part of that argument involves adopting an historical perspective. To that end, here’s an extract from the interview that on January 2015 (at Blue Train’s studio, Venice) Mistheria gave to Sir RICK WAKEMAN.
Rick wants to test his theory that Vivaldi was the first rock star, and that the Four Seasons was the first concept album. The Croatian musician Mistheria, who is behind the Vivaldi Metal Project, confirms Rick’s thesis.
Rick Wakeman on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
Antonio Vivaldi’s the Four Seasons is the most popular piece of classical music of all time. There have been over 1000 different recordings , selling tens of millions of copies. It’s become so ubiquitous – in lifts, as phone ring tones or on call-centre answering machines – that it has been denounced as Muzak for the middle classes.
Rick Wakeman – platinum-selling prog rock keyboardist and television Grumpy Old Man – thinks the critics are wrong. He believes that the Four Seasons was so far ahead of its time that it was actually the first ever concept album – and that Vivaldi was the world’s first rock superstar.
But how could a sickly 18th century priest create the prototype for Rick’s very modern genre? And why did Vivaldi and the Four Seasons disappear into obscurity for more than 200 years after his death ?
Rick turns detective to solve the mystery: his journey takes him to Venice – in the 18th century the most debauched city on the planet – where he encounters some of those who have devoted their lives to studying and worshipping Vivaldi … and uncovers the whiff of a very modern rock star sex scandal which may have contributed to Vivaldi’s downfall.
Rick talks to Scottish virtuoso Nicola Benedetti and genre-hopping British composer Max Richter. In Venice he tracks down a Vivaldi super fan who relocated from France to pay homage every day; he meets Vivaldi scholar Susan Orlando and author Dr Virgilio Boccardi who writes about The Red Priest. And he learns about the composer’s involvement with Pieta, an institute for abandoned children to whom he taught music, from former Wimbledon photographer turned Venetian Micky White.
But the investigation also leads Rick to unexpected places and people. He meets fellow prog rocker Mike Rutherford from Genesis and debates whose band Vivaldi would join; and he encounters the Croatian arranger and keyboard player whose multi-national assembly of musicians is turning the Four Seasons into heavy metal.
Along the way Rick also discovers the only existing original score for the Four Seasons – in just about the last place anyone would have thought to find it ….
A really insightful interview with Steve Babb and Fred Schendel of Glass Hammer–about the band, the state of prog, the state of technology, and the state of culture. The interviewer is not only intelligent, but he also knows which music to play.
So, what happens when you mix one extremely talented musician with one extremely ditzy professor? You get a notice about some amazing music six months too late!
As I was going through some research papers tonight, I found this package from Ann Arbor, Michigan– a CD (beautifully packaged, by the way) and a number of postcards from 7Sleepers.
Make sure you check them out. I’ll be reporting on them a bit more in the near future. . . .
In the meantime, my apologies to Robin and to all progarchists! Also, make sure you check out Iris’s reviews at GrendelHQ.
As December 31st draws closer and the days to add my own “Top Ten” or “Favorites of 2016” dwindle…it’s time for something completely different (well, not totally, as our hero Dr. B routinely extols, and properly so, the merits of Tears for Fears, XTC, and other notable artists on the “fringe” of prog).
I don’t know about most of you but I still listen to CDs the majority of the time and love having a disc in my car as I drive around–especially summer. I routinely have my one “Summer Album” that is on constant drive-time rotation. And though the album is usually prog, this past summer of 2016 my cherished moving music was the splendid album GOOD TIMES. I highly recommend this work for its pure fun. Those who were pre-teens when the Monkees hit their peak know what I mean. The reason for this particular post on Progarchy is to make a tie-in to Brad’s love of the great Andy Partridge. Mr. Partridge pens the albums second track “You Bring the Summer.” Micky sings and it’s 1966 all over again. And check out this wonderful video. Not prog, sure…but c’mon.
Greg Spawton, David Longdon, Andy Poole and all the others in Big Big Train posted this on X-mas eve. ☺
Christmas Message from Big Big Train
We wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all Merry Christmas and to thank you for your continued support for the band over the last year. It goes without saying (but it can't be said enough) that we wouldn't be able to release music and videos and play gigs without the support of listeners across the world who take the trouble to spend some time with our music. Every time a listener buys a CD or an LP or a download or a concert ticket or some merchandise or streams our music it generates income which helps to pay our bills and enables the band to continue. And your support in spreading the word by talking about us to others and mentioning us on forums and reviewing our releases on Amazon and other sites helps us to grow. So thank you from all of us for what you do.
As you may have gathered, we have been extremely busy in the last few weeks finishing a new album which will be released in April next year. We will be working over Christmas to get things completed in time for mixing in January. The album started as an EP, then, as we found we had written a lot of new songs, we thought we'd make a companion album to Folklore, and then it grew still further into something which stands entirely on its own as a new studio album but which also (we hope) will act as a kind of summary of all that we have tried to achieve since we released The Underfall Yard in 2009.
After the release of the album in April, we will start preparing for our biggest gigs yet which will take place at Cadogan Hall in London in late September and early October. We also hope to be able to announce some news during next year of our first shows in mainland Europe and in the States which, if things go to plan, will take place in 2018.
So, hopefully, there will be a busy and productive time ahead for us in the next couple of years. This is important as, if we have learnt anything at all over recent months it is to be busy and active in music as much as we can whilst things are going well (to make hay whilst the sun shines.) And it is true to say that too often recently there have been cloudy skies over the rock music world. Whether it has been the untimely deaths of some of the greatest and most influential artists or the loss of some of the best and most important music magazines, things have not been good. We do hope that 2017 will prove to be a less difficult year than 2016.
Merry Christmas
Andy, Danny, Dave, David, Greg, Nick, Rachel and Rikard.
Big Big Train
Progarchy 