Category: Progressive rock

Jordan Rudess and Zee Baig: Fire Garden’s Heaven

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment
Fire Garden - Jordan Rudess Banner
The fire montage!

Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) records guest solo for Fire Garden’s upcoming album

FG_Far_and_Near_Album_artwork
The sophomore album

Chicago based progressive rock act Fire Garden is pleased to announce the guest appearance of virtuoso keyboardist Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) on their second full length release ‘Far and Near’. The record also features Jimmy Keegan of Spock’s Beard on drums and many others. The album is mixed by Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief) and the artwork cover is designed by Travis Smith (Opeth, Riverside, Katatonia).

The album is going to be released on July 29th 2016 through PledgeMusic platform and can be pre-ordered with special exclusives at http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/firegardenmusic

Fire Garden’s mastermind Zee mentions, “It’s a great honor for me to work with Jordan Rudess. He is a legend and I have grown up listening to his music and watching him play throughout the years. It’s surreal, and at the same time amazing to see his personal touch on my music.”

Fire Garden is a progressive rock project by Zee Baig from Chicago. The band has released one EP, ‘The Prelude’ in 2012, and one full length record, ‘Sound of Majestic Colors’ in 2014. The brand new album, ‘Far and Near’, is more personal and exploratory in nature, and is ready to release this summer. The band is also ready to hit the road to support the new album.

Contact: Get in touch with Zee at info@firegardenmusic.com for bookings, interviews and promos.

Zee_Fire_Garden_one

Hackett’s Latest Video: Wolflight

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment
Hackett
Photo by Tina Korhonen

 

WORLD-RENOWNED GUITARIST/COMPOSER STEVE HACKETT‘S NEW VIDEO CLIP “WOLFLIGHT” HAS EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE PREMIERE ON TEAM ROCK TODAY

 
VIDEO TAKEN FROM 2CD/2DVD, BLU-RAY “THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE 
LIVE IN LIVERPOOL,” NOW DUE OUT IN NORTH AMERICA JULY 29TH
VIA INSIDEOUT MUSIC
 
(New York, NY) – Fans of progressive rock around the world can click here to check out the exclusive worldwide premiere of the brand new live clip “Wolflight” from world-renowned guitarist/composer Steve Hackett on Team Rock today.  The live performance clip is taken from his forthcoming 2 CD/2 DVD, Blu-Ray package THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE LIVE IN LIVERPOOL, due out in North America on July 29th (please note new release date) via InsideOut Music.  The package was filmed during Hackett‘s Acolyte To Wolflight With Genesis Revisited tour last year.  Celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first solo album VOYAGE OF THE ACOLYTEand following his latest album WOLFLIGHT, the Acolyte To Wolflight With Genesis Revisited Tour was Hackett‘s effort to represent the many chapters of his career. Featuring two sets – one highlighting his solo work, the second paying tribute to Genesis – the two hour performance was greeted with enthusiasm by both fans and critics.  To preorder the package, please click here.
THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE LIVE IN LIVERPOOLwill be available as double CD plus double DVD digipak, separate Blu-Ray edition as well as digital album including the two audio CDs; click here for cover art.  The line-up for the performance is as follows: Steve Hackett (guitar, vocals), Roger King (keyboards), Nad Sylvan (vocals, tambourine), Gary O’Toole (drums, percussion, vocals), Rob Townsend (saxophone, woodwind, percussion, vocals, keyboards, bass pedals), Roine Stolt (bass, variax, twelve string, vocals, guitar) with special guests John Hackett and Amanda Lehmann.
Steve Hackett‘s latest solo album, WOLFLIGHT (InsideOut Music) explores a new chapter in Hackett‘s career.  The tracks take the listener through a journey in space and time looking at the different faces of the endless fight for freedom. Wandering between parallel universes, Hackett explores contemporary and ancient cultures, from Greece (“Corycian Fire”) to the Far East (“Wolflight”), the United States and Martin Luther King (“Black Thunder”), and also his very own childhood memories (“The Wheel’s Turning”) and the unresolved drama of domestic violence (“Love Song To A Vampire”).  The video for the title track can be seen here.
In 2010, Steve Hackett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame at The 25thAnnual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony alongside his Genesis bandmates from the classic line-up: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford.  For more than three decades, Steve Hackett has been known for his innovative tone and extraordinary versatility as a guitarist and composer.  He helped define Genesis’ sound as lead guitarist in the classic line-up and went on to have a highly-successful career as a solo artist, and also as part of 80s supergroup GTR with Steve Howe.
 

Review: MetaQuorum – Jonathan Livingston

On By NickIn Progressive rock2 Comments

Jonathan Livingston

UK based progressive rock duo MetaQuorum, in existence for a few years, have released a new single called “Jonathan Livingston” recently. When it comes to the progressive and atmospheric variants of rock music, bands coming from Europe have carried a rich history and undeniable reputation of taking it to unmatchable extremes, so a band like MetaQuorum immediately compels Progarchy to take notice, and share with readers thoughts on the band’s new single.

The almost four-minute song creates dreamy atmospheres with bass and keyboard works that strikes an excellent balance between heaviness and melody, and the drum patterns on top of it amplify the melodic element further. The music transitions between these extremes and smoothly moves from one passage to another, making the four-minute duration seems almost momentary. The song follows a simple structure but the music is well-written and played. Drawing parallels with other bands would be a mistake, as MetaQuorum tend to combine plenty of different styles. With a song of this nature, the duo has come forward as another noteworthy entity in a crop of progressive, electronic, atmosphere-inducing rock groups. Their subsequent releases should be on everyone’s radar. In the meantime, listen to “Jonathan Livingston” here.

soundstreamsunday: “If There Is Something” by Roxy Music

On By Craig BreadenIn art rock, electronic, glam rock, Progressive rockLeave a comment

ROXY-2If in May 1972 the Rolling Stones defined and deified rock and roll (and themselves) with the release of Exile on Main Street, one month later Roxy Music’s debut album made splatter art of such ideas.  A galvanizing, glammed-out, punked-up masterpiece, Roxy Music is the first of a series of four albums (including For Your Pleasure, Stranded, and Country Life) that artfully engage a European, distinctly non-bluesy, approach to rock. Where a mere three years later Roxy would hit the disco with “Love is the Drug” and a decade on would make one of the great, soulful, chilled-out new wave records with Avalon, in 1972 the band was pushing in every direction, its self-defined non-musician Brian Eno creating on-the-fly soundscapes that turned Andy Mackay’s reeds into guitars and Phil Manzanera’s guitars into sirens, while Bryan Ferry ululated — more in the style of Roger Chapman than the smooth crooner he would become — loose, even free associative, lyrics rendered on a spectrum from oddball to heartbreaking. While their image and aesthetic fit into the cutting edge of the British glam music scene at the time (Bowie’s Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust was released just the week before), and their creation myth is inseparable from their influential visual audacity (for who could look more creepy in a feather boa and leopard skin than the be-rouged Eno?), it was the band’s intense musicianship and penchant for the melodic that was the core of its success and influence, and why you can hear this first album in everything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Talking Heads. The sound is richly subversive, hooks are everywhere, songs use shifting dynamics to create emotional peaks. They challenge convention, but are fully wrought, they are all surface, but go deep.

Roxy Music on Amazon

soundstreamsunday archive

Progarchy’s* Interview* with Jem* Godfrey* of Frost*. Seriously.*

On By Erik HeterIn Progressive rock4 Comments

On May 27th of this year, Frost* returned from an eight-year hiatus to release their latestFrost album, Falling Satellites (Progarchy review here). In conjunction with this release, Frost* … ‘s mastermind, Jem Godfrey, was willing to sit down with us for a chat (where do you put the apostrophe with the asterisk already there??). We discussed the new album, mused philosophically about life, talked more about his the formation of Frost* and his activities outside of the band … and asterisks. Those pesky asterisks.

 Progarchy: What would you say is different in a musical sense relative to the two previous Frost* albums?

JG:      We have a different bass player and drummer from the previous recorded album we did. I think that in and of itself adds a whole new sound to the band, because they are playing in a different sort of way than JJ [John Jowitt] and Andy [Edwards] did. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that John Mitchell was very keen on not doing classic John Mitchell on this, he was really up for taking his rule book and throwing it out the window, and that was brilliant. He was trying out new, different sort of effects and putting his guitar through all kinds of plug-ins and interesting sort of sounds, trying different guitars, so he was really up for experimenting. I think kind of also just that it’s eight years later that our sound palette is slightly different as technology has sort of moved on. So you know it’s the same band but it’s definitely sort of moved on, I think.

Progarchy: Now with John (Mitchell), you say he threw out his rule book, so how would he define his rule book?

JG: Well, he has got two settings, loud and quiet normally. He’s not normally one for heavily effecting his guitars, but he got some Valhalla plug-ins and stuff, and was running it through his laptop and doing all sorts of non-John things this time out, and it really worked.

Progarchy: So I guess his classic John Mitchell sound is what you hear more on Arena or Lonely Robot then?

JG: Yeah, I think so. There are a couple of bits where it’s obviously him doing that sound, because you have to have a bit of that in there, but he was very up for trying different things. There are a couple of bits in there that you wouldn’t know it’s guitar, but it’s actually guitar, he’s gone quite experimental in some places.

Progarchy: And what about you, how would you say your sound palette has changed?

JG: I’ve got sort of a lead sound I’ve developed over the years which has sort of become my signature sound, and which I didn’t really mean to do that back in the day. There are a couple of times I sort of “wheel it out.” I sort of liken it to how Tony Banks does his Pro Soloist … it’s quite nice to get a sound in there that you recognize. But again, I’m not wedded to any particular synth, I just use whatever is around at the time and put it through effects.

Progarchy: You also mentioned something about using a Chapman Railboard on this album, can you elaborate on that?

JG: It’s a kind of Chapman Stick, sort of a Tony Levin classic 10-string guitar thing. It’s basically one of those but it’s made out of solid aluminum, so it’s basically a single machined piece of metal. It looks like a Stick, but it’s a metal Stick. It’s got different tones, it’s quite tubular, it’s really nice. It’s really good for arpeggio stuff. You can hear it on Numbers and Closer to the Sun, there’s a lot of Railboard on those two tracks.

Progarchy: Can you delve into the concept behind this album a bit more?

Continue reading “Progarchy’s* Interview* with Jem* Godfrey* of Frost*. Seriously.*” →

GRENDEL: Anderson/Stolt – Invention Of Knowledge (2016) — Grendel HeadQuarters

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock2 Comments

Jon Anderson of Yes and Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings, making an album together? Why not? I always had the feeling The Flower Kings are heavily influenced by (early) Yes. The two blokes surrounded themselves with guest musicians like Tom Brislin, Daniel Gildenlöw and Nad Sylvan, and (ex) members of The Flower Kings for […]

via Anderson/Stolt – Invention Of Knowledge (2016) — Grendel HeadQuarters

Interview with METAQUORUM

On By NickIn Progressive rock1 Comment

MetaQuorum

A UK based progressive rock project by Dmitri Ermakov and Koos van der Velde recently put out two new songs: “Jonathan Livingston” and “Migration.” The band that grabs inspiration from plenty of different genres talked with Progarchy about their creative chemistry.

Hey folks. How are you doing?

Doing OK but wish the weather was better 🙂

Continue reading “Interview with METAQUORUM” →

soundstreamsunday: “Stop Breaking Down” by the Rolling Stones

On By Craig BreadenIn Progressive rock, Rock and RollLeave a comment

Rolling Stones-Exile on Main Street 1“Unlikely” is probably the right word, that the hairiest, grittiest, straight-uppenest American rock record of the 1970s, maybe ever, would be made by an English band in tax exile in the south of France lolling in sheer European decadence. That the Rolling Stones attained such a state of grace is only partly surprising, though, given the sheer will of their progress to the point of Exile on Main Street: with Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers the writing was on the wall, but it was this double album that sealed their legend, where the channeling was complete, where without seams the Deep South blackness poured through their pasty, pale, drug-addled limey fingers in drums and basses and guitars and voxes and keys and horns. They hadn’t just gone to the crossroads, they’d set up the tent years before and waited it out, for the spirit to finally visit them. “Satisfaction”? “Get Off My Cloud”? Even “Honky Tonk Women,” with its perfect guitar? Those were killing time, chop builders, and the work they’ve done since has had high points too but has never been more than the downhill coast. Exile’s the big meet up, a meticulously made album with no contrivance, a blues turned over with a rock shovel, originals mixing with covers with barely a hint of borderline, as if this is their music as much as it is yours or mine or Robert Johnson’s. And it’s here that they cover one of Johnson’s more unusual songs, less a blues than a prophet’s vision of the rock and roll to come.  The Stones had already covered Johnson on record by the time of Exile — the down tempo “Love in Vain” was featured on Let It Bleed — but the rock and roll suggested in “Stop Breaking Down” is wrung from the song by the Stones, matching the strut of the lyric, “Every time I’m walking down the street….”

soundstreamsunday archive

How to Listen to Jazz, by Ted Gioia

On By Time LordIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

A taste of a great book review by Paul Beston:

Gioia is so confident that newcomers can appreciate jazz in part because he believes that objective benchmarks of evaluation exist, and that, in the case of jazz, we can listen for fundamental “building blocks” such as rhythm, dynamics, pitch and timbre, and phrasing. This view puts him at odds with more theoretical critics who claim that subjectivity is the only aesthetic standard. Nonsense, says Gioia: “Understanding jazz (or any other form of artistic expression) can never be reduced to personal whim or some flamboyant deconstructive manipulation of signifiers but always builds on a humble realization that these works impose their reality on us. . . . and in this manner can be distinguished from escapism or shallow entertainment, which instead aims to adapt to the audience, to give the public exactly what it wants. We can tell that we are encountering a real work of art by the degree to which it resists our subjectivity.” In this one passage, Gioia manages to push back against both highbrow and lowbrow wrongheadedness.

When I’m not cleaning windows: the joy of being in a part-time band

On By Dr NickIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

This piece in the New Statesman, from Scritti Politti’s Rhodri Marsden, will resonate for prog musicians everywhere – and for prog fans too, I guess.

There’s some really good stuff in here, particularly on the idea of ‘small but sustainable’, on the economic pressures favouring “solo projects with computers and acoustic guitars”, and on the role played by fortunate personal circumstances (the “Mumford & Sons route to success”), but I was particularly taken by the following amusing quote, from Tommy Shotton, former drummer of Do Me Bad:

We were among the last crop of bands who took advantage of an industry that had money to throw around… The label seemed to think that it validated their investment if we agreed to travel around in a funny taxi with flowers and magazines in the back. There was a lot of ‘Oh, give the artists space to be artists’ – but all we were doing was sitting about, arguing about the sound of a cowbell while eating free doughnuts.