Get in early on what promises to be another amazing Lobate Scarp album, and a true highlight of 2016!
Their teaser single “Beautiful Light” is magnificent and it will surely leave you wanting more. I myself have been listening to it a lot lately!
Come on, all good people! Find out more details from the Kickstarter video below.
Our esteemed Progarchy editor has invited me to offer some thoughts and insights about how music has shaped my life; so hang on to your hats as there will be much to impart – but not all at once!
Where did it all begin? That’s an interesting question as my first memories are of bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, circa 1964. Even then, the Beatles were the good guys and their single “She Loves You” was the first record I ever owned when I was six. The Rolling Stones were cast as the bad guys and quite honestly, I never really took to them until much, much later when I finally came to understand the more darkly adult themes within their music.
I was brought up on hip new television programmes such as “Ready Steady Go”, “Juke Box Jury” and of course, the iconic “Top of the Pops”, which was then a cutting edge programme very much in its infancy.
However, it was my parents who gave me the first taster of some of what was to come. My Dad, who has always been a huge jazz/big band fan, had a sizeable collection of 78s by artistes such as Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman with “The Woodchopper’s Ball”, Stan Kenton, Tommy Dorsey and Nelson Riddle. Although I did not have the same deep affection for his big band passions, Dad certainly did teach me how to appreciate and enjoy music- as he found out later to his cost when I became a teenager!
There were two bands that he particularly loved, who went on to influence me and indeed, many of our contemporary heroes.
One was The Four Freshmen, an American four piece vocal harmony band, very much in the jazz tradition, who also played their own instruments. Some of their renditions of standards like “Tuxedo Junction”, “Baltimore Oriele” and “Poinciana” were simply breath-taking in their harmonic complexity and beauty. It is no surprise then that they were a major influence on Brian Wilson, and their vocal style provided the foundations for all that is best in the Beach Boys. Both The Manhattan Transfer and Donald Fagin have also acknowledged the Freshmen as a major inspiration.
Perhaps this is why I have a great love of bands which specialise in close vocal harmonies. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Zombies, Yes, Queen and Simon & Garfunkel come immediately to mind along with the brilliant Fleet Foxes, and latterly, the great Moon Safari with their vocalist/keyboard player Simon Åkesson’s amazing a capella side project, Accent.
My father’s other great musical love was the Jacques Loussier Trio, an outfit which puts an amazing jazzy spin on European classical music, led by the charismatic, celebral French piano maestro Jacques Loussier, who is also a pilot and wine producer.
I loved the way these three musicians could so effortlessly fuse two distinct musical styles to create a brand new modern-sounding idiom. They were, in fact, probably the first musicians I ever saw in concert at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth and I must thank my parents for taking me along that night.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would hear of them again much further down the line. But it comes as absolutely no surprise that they are one of Andy Tillison’s major influences and you can detect that inspiration in The Tangent’s music, especially when the Maestro cuts loose his jazzier mojo.
To a lesser extent, the other group who I remember hearing very early one via my parents was The Swingle Singers. There are links with the Freshmen and Loussier yet again as this group were French-based and weave their close harmony vocal magic on European classics in very much a jazz style, with double bass and drums accompaniment, their most famous interpretation being Bach’s “Air On A G String”. And if you listen to the instrumental passage in ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky”, you will find them right in there too!
There were early classical influences too, such as Antonín Dvořák’s extraordinary Symphony No 9, better known as “The New World Symphony”, which was influenced by his experiences of America and its native music. The other piece which really rang true was “Vltava”, more popularly known as “The Moldau”, by his fellow Czech composer Bedrich Smetlana. This was the first time I ever heard nature pervading music with that incredible “river” effect achieved in the composition.
I have never had a chance to reflect on these beginnings but, writing it down now, it makes perfect sense and gives me a much greater understanding on why I now love the music of so many artistes, who use so much of what is best in classical and jazz, to give us this all- encompassing style we know and love as prog.
Jacques Loussier Trio – Toccata
One of my earliest musical loves was Simple Minds. For those of us who grew up deeply loving prog, the late 1970s and early 1980s were a very difficult time. If we couldn’t get our belovedly and outrageously complex 12-minute or even 24-minute epics, we had to find a worthy—no matter how watered down—substitute. For me, at least at the age of 12 or 13, I wasn’t willing to go the classic rock route. No matter how many times the radio played Jackson Brown or Aerosmith, these bands meant nothing to me. Sometimes less than nothing. Even worse was Top 40 pop.
In 1981 and 1982, that meant the only real alternative in the rock world was what was being called New Wave. While their songs were way too short, the use of keyboards and bass—at least in the best of the New Wave sound—I found them rather progressive. And, just as often, the lyrics were as intense as they were intelligently playful.
The bands I loved most: ABC; Thomas Dolby; and Simple Minds. I didn’t just tolerate these bands, I fell in love with them. I couldn’t even count the number of times I listened to GOLDEN AGE OF WIRELESS or LEXICON OF LOVE.
They played over and over again on my stereo during the early 1980s.
I came to Simple Minds a bit latter than either Dolby or ABC, but only a bit later. To this day, I think Sister Feelings Call/Sons and Fascination, New Gold Dream, and Sparkle in the Rain are some of the best albums I’ve ever heard. Even when compared to straight-up progressive albums, I would place anyone of these albums—but especially New Gold Dream—in my top 50 albums of all time.
Anyway, a brief thought about why New Wave mattered. Until next time. . . .
Now this one is definitely in my comfort zone. The Last Colour play a style of powerful, on moments atmospheric Progressive Metal, with Post-Metal interspersed into their sound too. In a bid to continue with my ever continuing broadening of horizons I decided I’d give this a look over for review.
The Last Colour are the kind of band I wouldn’t have touched a few years ago, and those who listen to the more conventional styles of Metal can safely give this one a miss from the get go. However, those who are attracted to bizarre and abstract strands of Metal are going to want to read on.
The Last Colour’s style is a suffocating mesh of jangling, and atmospheric guitars. Their pacing is a slow burning type, and their songs are not too long, yet ever growing. A spiralling, haunting trudge through dank mires, their riffs claw out the speakers like skeletal branches; constricting the listener and dragging them into pits of despair. The guitar tone isn’t too overbearing. The drum work is excellent, with tasteful use of cymbals and drum fills. The bass also has a good degree of room to breathe here on Beautiful Apocalypse which is just great.
The band is at their best as the album flows. A tumultuous journey on “The Race Against The End” that spans over five minutes, and drags the listener right to the heart of The Last Colour’s nightmare world. The album cover is absolutely perfect for the music contained, with rather simplistic drawing which when observed carefully explains more.
A bizarre, and sometimes horrifying release, The Last Colour create their atmosphere well. I’d say fans of the style are going to be in for a treat with Beautiful Apocalypse.
A jury in California decided today that the opening acoustic riff to Led Zeppelin’s iconic “Stairway to Heaven” is indeed original. The estate of the late Randy Wolfe, a member of the band Spirit, sued Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, claiming they stole the riff from Spirit’s song, “Taurus.” The riff in question is a very short descending cord progression that has been used in music for hundreds of years.
Continue reading “Jury Decides in Favor of Led Zeppelin in “Stairway” Copyright Case”
While there has been talk of a new Kansas album for a few months now, the band made it official this past Tuesday. The new album, entitled The Prelude Implicit, is due out September 23, 2016, and it is their first album since 2000’s Somewhere to Elsewhere, which featured all original members of the band, including Kerry Livgren. Kansas began recording the new album in January of this year, after signing with InsideOut records.
Continue reading “Kansas to Release First New Album in 16 Years”
Italian metal band Judas The Dancer have just released the third video in the serious of video singles taken from their upcoming EP “Post Pop Violence” due in September. In an interview for Progarchy, bassist and singer Nicolo Cavallaro and guitarist and singer Marco Paltanin tell us what is it like to be in the band, but also inspiration and more.
What made you go for the name Judas The Dancer?
Nic: We firstly wanted to call ourselves Motaro (the Mortal Kombat character half horse and half man). When Marco heard that he just said “Yeah! Why not Dylan Dog at this point?!” And I said “Dylan not for sure… But Judas Dancer is good!”… We added the “the” just because is so cool…
Marco: I vividly remember we didn’t want to move in circles for days or weeks, awaiting divine inspiration. We solved it briefly in a twenty minutes-chuckle-chuckle-discussion. I guess it could have been something cheesy such as “Baywatch” or fucked-up like “The Bully Bumblebee has a crap, pronto” (Mr.Pickles please, don’t sue me if I steal from you). We were lucky we agreed on Judas The Dancer before anything tragic had happened.
How do you usually describe your music?
Nic: We call it “Post Pop Violence”. And I think there’s no best ways to describe it.
Marco: To me it’s a bastard son of a threesome: metal, funky and a dirty rock. But I wouldn’t trust the way I see things, if I were you. There’s much going on in the songs so yeah, we prefer to describe the mood of our music, instead of its genre. “Post pop violence”, that’s our Klaatu verata Nicto, if you know what I mean.
What is your writing process like?
Nic: For the EP we started from ideas during jams or rehearsal and than we worked on them. The new music is coming out from recorded ideas and than we arrange together. But if some big producer wanna join us to make big money we’re open to proposals…
Marco: Writing together in the rehearsal room was a really convenient approach when we were defining our sound. After all I wouldn’t be honest if I pretended we knew what we wanted to play from the start. We never knew our whole life actually. Now that we work on pre-recorded stuff it’s amazing, because there’s intense agreement and everyone knows exactly how that idea should be evolved. There’s not a song similar to another, of course. But they’re all Post Pop Violence.
Who or what is your inspiration, if you have any?
Nic: All the things happening in this world are potential inspiration. But they have to be very stupid or enjoyable to join Post Pop Violence.
Marco: The Almighty’s Cloak of Invisibility. The guy is so good at hiding under It, He may even convince me He doesn’t exist.
What is your favourite piece on the “Post Pop Violence” EP?
Nic: Every song has its own history, for many reasons… But I would probably say “Maradona Talking Heads!”
Marco: Probably “Along Came Lilì”. I had grown sick and tired of listening to it… but I must confess I enjoy so much playing it live, in all its pimpin’ majesty and length, that’s the best of the lot for me.
What makes “Post Pop Violence” different?
Nic: Post Pop Violence is having interesting arrangements keeping the song listenable and letting ALL the people enjoy it. It’s like playing proggy music into an Irish pub or at least this is what we want to do with JTD.
Marco: The freedom to play whatever you like but never compromising on accessibility on behalf of the listener. When we’ll manage to play before traditional country, pop, chill-out, dubstep, brutal metal audiences without them brow-furrowing, seeing them adapt to your music and enjoy it, the mission of Post Pop Violence will be complete.
What should music lovers expect from “Post Pop Violence”?
Nic: 5 different song (plus 1 cover) but just one single mood.
Marco: Well, I have a bunch of trademarks to sort out to answer this. “We snatch the hidden depravation in listenable music”. “Shape of a puppy. spirit of a murderer”. “The poltergeist of commercial music”. Enough pearls for today, I don’t want to squander it all like a boozer.
What kind of emotions would you like your audience to feel when they listen to your music?
Nic: we just want people to enjoy our music however they see fit. We have heavy parts, we have choruses, we have funky stuff… Wanna mosh? Just mosh! Wanna sing? Just sing! Just enjoy every feeling we share with you!
Marco: It’s in the name. I wanna see them dance with metal like the whole world had become a rubbish tip disco. That’d be something.
Which do you like most, life in the studio or on tour?
Nic: Personally, I like to film videos… Ahah! Tour or studio is both good. I like to play my music and if I can do it it will surely be awesome.
Marco: The studio is the place your ideas take shape. They somehow connect to the flesh and still surprise you, long after you thought you had grasped them for good. I like that part. The stage though is the only place where you can really measure the energy of those ideas. I like that feeling too.
Pick your three favourite albums that you would take on a desert island with you.
Nic: Between The Buried And Me – Colors, Ihshan – Arktis, Huey Lewis and the News – some double CD greatest hits or something like that… Sometimes you just need to smile and relax..
Marco: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – Of Natural History, Blind Guardian – Nightfall in Middle Earth, Death – The Sound of Perseverance.
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