Category: progressive rock

KATATONIA’s ANDERS NYSTRÖM on Band’s Comeback: “Our Hunger and Passion Came Back Pretty Quick”

On By NickIn progressive rockLeave a comment
Photo credits: Ester Segarra

KATATONIA’s guitarist Anders Nyström and singer Jonas Renkse talked before the recent show in Izmir, Turkey about their return, the upcoming album City Burials which is out on April 24 via Peaceville Records, among other topics. Watch the full interview below.

Asked about KATATONIA’s return a year after they announced the hiatus, Nyström commented: “The break was something that we really needed to do. We’ve been going for a band since early ‘90s, non stop. With everything you need to step back and sometimes put things into perspective and re-evaluate yourself and everything around you. We needed to do that. Also to try to see where we want to go and also to gain the motivation to continue. It was not a set plan that we need a year. I think our hunger and passion came back pretty quick. It kind of happened to be the anniversary of ‘The Night is the New Day’ album and we felt that it was like a perfect slow comeback thing; nothing too dramatic and it would just make a lot of sense trying things out again and celebrate that album. It actually made things very exciting again. Stepping into that, that way.”

KATATONIA returns on April 24 with the release of their 11th studio album City Burials; pre-order it here. The band will play a fan voted by request set at the Prognosis Festival in Eindhoven on March 20.

Watch the interview with Anders and Jonas below.

ELP’s Karn Evil 9 To Become A…Movie?

On By russellclarkenzIn progressive rock1 Comment

As these things are wont to do, this will go very well, or very badly.

Deadline reports that Radar Pictures has secured the rights to the centerpiece of ELP’s 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery with Robopocalypse author Daniel H. Wilson on board to adapt “Karn Evil 9” into a screenplay.

More here.

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

 

 

Big Big Train Release “Passengers Club” and Announce North America Live Dates

On By Bryan MoreyIn progressive rock1 Comment

Big Big Train have just announced a new members-only club called the Passengers Club. From the band:

Membership of the Passengers Club will give listeners a chance to get behind the scenes in the world of Big Big Train. Club members will be able to hear early demos from the writing and recording stages of our studio releases and demos of songs that got lost along the way, including some tracks from an abandoned concept album that we were working on a few years ago. There will be films of us backstage, recording in the studio, and during rehearsals and soundchecks. There will also be exclusive photo galleries, blog posts, Facebook Q and As, and other good things.

Membership of the Passengers Club costs £30 for one year, or £50 for two years.

Full details of how to sign up, what is on offer, and our reasons for starting the Passengers Club can be found at https://thepassengersclub.com.

They also announced some live dates for the United States and Canada:

• Saturday 9 May – Rosfest, Opera House, Sarasota, Florida, USA (festival headline show)
• Monday 11 May – Opera House, Toronto, Canada *
• Tuesday 12 May – Corona Theatre, Montreal, Canada *
• Wednesday 13 May – Théâtre de la Cité Universitaire, Quebec City, Canada *
• Sunday 17 May – Brook Arts Center, Bound Brook, New Jersey, USA *
• Saturday 23rd May – Sweetwater Performance Pavilion, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA **
• Thursday 16 July – Friars, Aylesbury, UK ***
• Saturday 18 July – Ramblin’ Man Festival, Kent, UK (festival headline show)
• Monday 20 July – Stadstheater, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands **
• Tuesday 21 July – Lichtburg, Essen, Germany **
• Thursday 23 July – Konzerthaus, Karlsruhe, Germany **
• Friday 24th July – Phenomenon, Fontaneto D’Agogna, Milan, Italy **

* Supported by IZZ
** Supported by Robert Berry’s 3.2
*** Supported by Lazuli

All shows will feature the full 12-piece BBT live band.

Progarchy’s co-founder and former editor, Brad Birzer, and Progarchist Tad Wert have released an ebook about Big Big Train called Big Big Train: A Dream of the West. Yours truly and Progarchist Alison Reijman contributed chapters. Get it at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Train-Dream-West-ebook/dp/B084QF79GK/ref=zg_bs_156354011_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5NSMTTWKFH5CJZT8NDBV.

Get ready for @WhiteCrone on 22/02/2020!

On By Time LordIn progressive rockLeave a comment

Great sounding tracks below from White Crone!

No hype, definitely as advertised: ‘White Crone’s The Poisoner delivers Traditional Heavy Metal, with traces of prog, proto & doom. Featuring soaring Dickinsonian female vocals, epic dual guitars, thunderous drums & (most especially) iron-fisted bass guitar, The Poisoner will take you “back to the day.”‘

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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Fort Wayne, Indiana, Prog Group Thematic to Release New Album

On By Bryan MoreyIn progressive rockLeave a comment

Fort Wayne, Indiana, based prog band Thematic is set to release their new album, Skyrunner, on January 31. I was previously unaware of this group, but I must say the single from the album is quite good. They have a good balance of the classic styling combined with the crunch of a band like Haken. Check out the video below and more info about the band and new album after that.

Continue reading “Fort Wayne, Indiana, Prog Group Thematic to Release New Album” →

Neil Peart marched to his own beat of faith

On By Time LordIn progressive rock1 Comment

neilpeartFrom my tribute to Neil Peart, a focus on his lyrics and their spiritual journey:

Fly by Night (1975) was Peart’s first album with Rush. The title track buoyantly celebrates the sense of adventure that should characterize life: “Start a new chapter / Find what I’m after / It’s changing every day.”

But on Caress of Steel (also 1975), with the track “I Think I’m Going Bald,” Peart grapples with mortality: “My life is slipping away / I’m aging every day / But even when I’m grey / I’ll still be grey my way.”

This independent ethos assumed mythical form on 2112 (Rush’s breakthrough hit album of 1976), which depicts a dystopian sci-fi future where a totalitarian priesthood bans guitar music and tries to bring the story’s hero under its total control.

On A Farewell to Kings (1977), the magnificent song “Xanadu” retells the story of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.” Peart depicts the emptiness that results when one is devoted solely to a life of pleasure: “Waiting for the world to end / Weary of the night / Praying for the light.”

Hemispheres (1978) contains “The Trees,” a memorable parable from Peart about a war between oaks and maples. The terrifying twist ending shows the violent cost of egalitarian revolution: “Now there’s no more oak oppression / For they passed a noble law / And the trees are all kept equal / By hatchet, axe, and saw.”

Although aware of humanity’s evil tendencies, Peart’s humane optimism bursts through in “Jacob’s Ladder,” from Permanent Waves (1980): “Follow men’s eyes / As they look to the skies / The shifting shafts of shining / Weave the fabric of their dreams.”

On the jubilant “Limelight” from Moving Pictures (1981), Peart clings to hope for life lived to the fullest, despite the obstaces presented by social convention: “Those who wish to be / Must put aside the alienation / Get on with the fascination.”

The album Signals (1982) laments those who “sell their dreams for small desires,” in the song “Subdivisions,” which makes the mass-production building zones of suburbia into a metaphor for social conformity: “Subdivisions / In the basement bars / In the backs of cars / Be cool or be cast out.”

Grace Under Pressure (1984) contains the haunting song “Afterimage” about the death of a friend: “Suddenly, you were gone / From all the lives you left your mark upon.”

It’s a testimony to the impact of Neil Peart that so many people felt such a blow from his death.

Music gives shape to our lives as we reflect along with it in our private interior dialogues. Peart was a conversation partner for many in this inner world.

Although he was agnostic in public, yet always “looking for an open door” (as he put it), perhaps the hope and joy he did discover in life may have enabled him to find his way in the end.