“Ave Maria”
— Read on www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/05/ave-maria-camille-saint-saens.html
Lee Speaks About Music… #79
Lee Speaks About Music… #79
— Read on leespeaksoutaboutmusic.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/lee-speaks-about-music-79/
Neil Peart’s Painful Victory: Vapor Trails
It would not be an exaggeration to argue that meeting Carrie Nuttall served as one of the most important moments in Peart’s life and in precipitating Rush 3.0. In her, Peart found a reason to live fully, a reason to rediscover excellence, and a reason to return to his life in Rush. It was through their mutual friend, Andrew McNaughton (now deceased), that the two met.
In those days, Andrew and I often talked on the phone from wherever I wandered, and shared our sorrows and anxieties. Typically, Andrew was determined to find a “match” for this crusty old widower. When my motorcycle had carried me back across the continent yet again, to pause in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Andrew sent me a few test Polaroids of a photo assistant he had been working with-a pretty dark-haired girl named Carrie. Again, I was reluctant, gruffly telling him, “not interested”—but finally I made my meandering way west again, and stopped for a while in Los Angeles.[i]
When she met Peart, she knew next to nothing about the band.[ii] She told him, however, that she would love to see him perform again, especially considering his reputation as a drummer and his own love of music. For Peart, all of this proved almost Faerie-like.
Andrew introduced me to Carrie, my real angel of redemption; in less than a month we were deeply in love, and in less than a year we were married in a fairy-tale wedding near Santa Barbara. Carrie: Beautiful, smart, cultivated, artistic, affectionate; Deep green eyes, long dark hair, radiant smile; Tall, slender, shapely, nicely put together; Half English, half Swedish, all American, all mine. The answer to a prayer I hadn’t dared to voice, or even dream. Carrie. Soulmate, a lover, a wife, a new journey to embark upon, the greatest adventure. [iii]
Though still in pain—a pain that would (and will) never fully cease—when he met her, he found her instantly attractive intellectually as well as personally. They bonded almost immediately in friendship. She considered him a modern-day Conquistador, armed in black leather and mounted on a powerful red horse, forever seeking the road and adventure. But, his days of restless exploration had come to an end, and the Ghost Rider faded into memory. On September 9, 2000, just three days short of his forty-eighth birthday, Peart married Nuttall in Montecito, California.[iv]
Continue reading “Neil Peart’s Painful Victory: Vapor Trails”
Burning Shed’s Latest (May 14, 2018)
King Crimson
Discipline (vinyl pre-order)
Discipline is the ninth in a series of audiophile King Crimson vinyl reissues.
Super-heavyweight – 200g – cut from the masters used for the 30th anniversary series and approved by Robert Fripp, this vinyl version echoes the 30th anniversary edition CD and contains two takes of the majestic Matte Kudasai (featuring Adrian Belew’s lead guitar on track 3 side A and Robert Fripp’s lead guitar as a bonus track at the end of side B – uncredited as per the CD).
Pre-order for 15th June release.
Nine Inch Nails
Bad Witch (cd / vinyl pre-orders)
The six track Bad Witch is Nine Inch Nails’ first full-length album since 2013 and completes a trilogy of story-telling/conceptual releases (that includes 2016’s Not The Actual Events and 2017’s Add Violence EPs ).
Available as CD and vinyl editions.
Pre-order for 22nd June release.
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
Burnt Weeny Sandwich (vinyl pre-order)
A 180g audiophile vinyl version of Zappa and The Mothers enigmatic treat Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Supervised by the ZFT, the record was specially mastered for this release by Bernie Grundman with all analogue production and cut directly from the 1970 quarter inch stereo safety master tape in 2018.
Unavailable on vinyl for more than three decades.
Pre-order for 6th July release.
Jon Hassell
Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) (cd / vinyl pre-orders)
Continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of the studio, Listening To Pictures is the first new album in nine years from musical visionary, Jon Hassell.
Available as a CD in jewel case with printed outer slipcase and 10 page booklet, and as a single 140g vinyl LP in a full colour printed sleeve with printed inner and digital download card.
Pre-order for 8th June release.
Marillion
Smoke / Mirrors (cds)
Smoke and Mirrors are part of a limited edition series of releases that were previously only available via Marillion‘s own web store and features the band performing live at the Marillion Weekend in Minehead in 2005.
Taken from the Saturday performance, Smoke features Marillion’s most up-beat and high-energy songs. Taken from Sunday’s performance, Mirrors showcases the slower and more atmospheric side of the band’s output.
Shipping now.
Orbital
Monsters Exist (cd / vinyl pre-orders)
Britain’s giants of electronic music Orbital return with the bold Monsters Exist.
Available as a deluxe double CD with 7 extra tracks and as a double vinyl edition with full-colour insert and download card.
Pre-order for 14th September release.
Jason Rubenstein: FOUR POINTS OF FOCUS (Pre-Order)
I’m thrilled to know that Rubenstein’s EP is now available for pre-order. The man looks like Alex Lifeson and plays better than Keith Emerson! His previous album, NEW METAL FROM OLD BOXES, is still a stunner.
And, it’s now possible to get Rubenstein’s entire discography for $13.60. Enjoy!
|
||||||||
|
Watch: The Mercy Stone Release Video for Jazzy, Funky “Wail Song
A 12-piece experimental rock ensemble, The Mercy Stone has launched a new studio performance video for the song “Wail Song” taken from their album Ghettoblaster. Watch it below.
Founder of the project, guitarist and composer Scott Grady stated, “‘Ghettoblaster’ uses many different genres/styles of popular music with elements of classical composition. With ‘Wail Song,’ I was looking to take The Mercy Stone into a jazzy/funky musical space. A lot of the musical ideas come from the fact that I play a little bit of many different instruments. Once I had a good idea of how the piece would unfold, experimenting and improvising on strings, winds, and percussion helped generate many of its melodic and rhythmic elements. This is one of the most challenging and most fun pieces that we play. Much of the piece fluctuates between meters frequently, so it keeps us all on our toes. Getting everyone in the band to really groove through all of the rhythmic challenges definitely took some time.”
The Mercy Stone recently started work on their sophomore full-length release.
“While Ghettoblaster was entirely instrumental, this new album will have several tunes with vocals. It will be exciting to share a very different side of The Mercy Stone when all is finished,” Grady commented.
Rick’s Retroarchy — Procol Harum, Still There’ll Be More: An Anthology, 1967-2017
Take a Dylanesque verbal collage by lyricist Keith Reid; marry it to instantly appealing melody and harmony — passionately sung and played by R&B pianist Gary Brooker, drawing equally on Baroque grandeur (Bach’s “Air on the G String”) and dramatic soul (Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”). Then garnish with Matthew Fisher’s Hammond organ counterpoint. The result: “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Procol Harum’s first single, a defining hit of 1967, and one of progressive rock’s most influential precursors.
You can argue Procol Harum (Brooker, Reid, drummer B.J. Wilson and a shifting supporting cast — notably Fisher and guitarist Robin Trower) never topped their debut, either artistically or commercially. But they made excellent music for a decade, with reunions every 12-15 years after that — thirteen fine albums that consistently engaged the mind, gut and heart. The latest installment in Procol’s current reissue campaign, Esoteric Recordings’ Still There’ll Be More: An Anthology, 1967-2017 , is the long-overdue box set this band richly deserves.
Continue reading “Rick’s Retroarchy — Procol Harum, Still There’ll Be More: An Anthology, 1967-2017”
soundstreamsunday #110: “Twa Corbies” by Steeleye Span
The power in “O Fortuna” — last week’s entry on the infinite linear mixtape — is in its performative setting, the text from Carmina Burana, enlivened, engulfed, by Carl Orff’s score. Liquored- and sexed-up Goliards may have written it, may have given it a chant or two in its 12th-century time, but it was Orff who saw its dark potential and thus defined it. It’s the magic in the most successful pieces of music, and why the idea of performance (whether it’s a live rendering of a piece or a feat of studio engineering), the act of putting on a mask, is such an important counter to its parallel, authenticity, with its passing and uncaptureable fire.
The conceits of performance make any “folk” revival possible, and while the makeup may be thickly applied at times — whether it’s a young Bob Dylan doing his best to carry himself like Woody Guthrie or Gillian Welch’s plaintive approximation of Appalachia — it’s a path to something deeper, a striving towards the elemental.
When Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention in late 1969 to form Steeleye Span, something like this may have been on his mind. In bringing together two couples rooted in Britain’s folk music scene, Maddy Prior and Tim Hart, and Gay and Terry Woods, Hutchings was continuing a search to find a balance between the traditional and contemporary, which would soon lead him to form another keystone of the revival, the Albion (Country) Band. The Woods’s left after the first record, 1970’s Hark! The Village Wait (Terry would go on to be one of the essential Pogues), and increasingly over the next decade Steeleye would be vocalist extraordinaire Maddy Prior’s vehicle, but the debut captures the spirit of the BritFolk moment, with Hutchings and Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks giving a rock anchor to traditional flights.
“Twa Corbies” brings the darkness, recounting a conversation between two crows about making a meal of a dead knight. Based on “The Three Ravens,” the song was first published in 1611 but in all likelihood has a far deeper past. Steeleye makes the most of it, Prior’s clarion call washed in the ragged-but-right chorus of her bandmates.
- As I was walking all alane,
- I heard twa corbies making a mane;
- The tane unto the t’other say,
- ‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?’
- ‘In behint yon auld fail dyke,
- I wot there lies a new slain knight;
- And naebody kens that he lies there,
- But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.
- ‘His hound is to the hunting gane,
- His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
- His lady’s taen another mate,
- So we may mak our dinner sweet.
- ‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,
- And I’ll pike out his bonny blue een;
- Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
- We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.
- ‘Mony a one for him makes mane,
- But nane sall ken where he is gane;
- Oer his white banes, when they are bare,
- The wind sall blaw for evermair.’
The chunky lo-fi crash apropos a murder of crows murks in the background, conjuring its medieval vibe as baldly and surely as Orff might, electric guitars not detracting from the proceedings. We’re there, with the band, with the corbies, pikin’ at the bonny blue een.
*Image above by Sam Black.
soundstreamsunday presents one song or live set by an artist each week, and in theory wants to be an infinite linear mix tape where the songs relate and progress as a whole. For the complete playlist, go here: soundstreamsunday archive and playlist, or check related articles by clicking on”soundstreamsunday” in the tags section.
AN INTERVIEW WITH AUSTRALIAN PROG ARTIST, BEN CRAVEN ON HIS NEW ALBUM “THE SINGLE EDITS”
I’m used to getting referrals to up-and-coming albums from mainly artists or even the rare heads-up from labels (remember those?), and even among my peers here at Progarchy, but it’s a special occasion when a fellow Prog fan, Robert Silverstein asks me if I’d like to give a mention to Ben Craven’s new album, “The Single Edits.” To be honest Ben had never shown up on my radar, or not that I can recall, so it was interesting to hear his album with no preconceptions whatsoever. I purposely didn’t google any information about this Australian artist other than receive a one sheet digital blurb Robert sent me. He organized a contact between Ben and myself not long after that and I received in the mail his new CD album which I instantly loved the artwork by Freyja Dean with Ben’s logo courtesy of her father. More on that later. But I also really enjoyed hearing the whole CD for the first time which is always a good sign. I’ll go into that in our interview, but what I know about Ben I’m happy to share here with a few lines.
Hailing from Brisbane, Australia Ben self taught himself guitar and keys, and played in a number of local bands. 2005 he went solo and recorded an album titled “Two False Idols” under the name of Tunisia, inspired by The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd. A live acoustic EP Under Deconstruction was released free nest. It was in response to how the Labels were really making a mess of the new mediums for listening and playing music. Roger Dean’s artwork graced Ben’s next album, “Great & Terrible Potions.” Then in 2016 he released Last Chance To Hear, where instrumentals played a larger part in the tracks provided. “Spy In The Sky Part 3” also featured William Shatner. We’ll go into this a little more in the interview below. suffice to say Ben has collated a number of tracks from his back catalogue and released them as a digital download last year. Encouraged by the response he has edited them further and released a CD/digital download under the album heading, “The Singles Edit.” You’re in for a treat. Ben is a very talented artist who shows his Pink Floyd colours on certain numbers with that David Gilmour soaring guitar down pat, but with an added taste uniquely all his. All found on his latest album and have to say I’m really impressed with the overall packaging of it. I can’t think of a better way of getting to know Ben Craven’s music . Enjoy.
How did you initially get involved in Progressive Rock?
I’ve listened to progressive rock all my life without even realising it. When I was three years old I had a cassette tape of “Days Of Future Passed” by the Moody Blues, which I played endlessly. I remember it particularly because it always used to jam and get tangled in the tape player. Later I discovered Pink Floyd and ELP in my parents’ record collection. I had no idea there was a particular label or a genre for any of this music. I just knew it stood out from the other things I heard on the radio and seemed much more exciting and rewarding to me as a listener.
When I did eventually record my first album, “Two False Idols”, it was a lot closer to Floyd than, say, Yes. I used the term “cinematic rock” to describe it. It wasn’t until later that events conspired to change that to “progressive rock”.
To some extent this is a compilation album containing tracks from your various releases (which I’ve yet to discover and listen to). What was your process of cherry picking these tracks specifically for this album?
This compilation started out as my attempt to address the music streaming problem. Most artists out there seem to be happy enough making their entire catalogues freely available on Spotify. I don’t perform live very often, so physical CD and download sales are still important to me. I didn’t want to abandon that concept just to become “discoverable” and gain “exposure”, so my music wasn’t being represented on the major streaming services.
However, making a compilation of single edits available seemed like an ideal solution. That way, bite-sized chunks of my music could be found on Spotify, and perhaps that would encourage people to track down the longer versions from the original albums on Bandcamp. So I tried to represent each of my three albums equally, and picked the most accessible tracks from each. Some of them already existed as single edits for airplay or video clips, and others were reimagined and remixed as singles.
“Aquamarine” and “Great Divide” has a kind of David Gilmour vibe to it in my opinion. Were there any bands that inspired you, either internationally or local?
Clearly, Pink Floyd and David Gilmour in particular are a huge influence. Gilmour was the first player, for me, who combined melodic taste with the ear candy of his incredible tone, and inspired me to actually pick up a guitar rather than admiring it from a distance.
Then I discovered Yes. Wow. I had never heard anything like it. After being immersed in glacial Floyd, the keyboards and guitar playing were beyond my league of comprehension at first. But that amazing, punchy lead bass guitar, I understood immediately. Chris Squire’s deliberate choice of basslines blew me away. It was like Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney on steroids. And Bill Bruford’s drums were utterly gorgeous, both sonically and melodically.
It’s worth pointing out as well that as an 8-year old, before I had any awareness of the existence of progressive rock, I was hooked on John Williams movie scores, particularly the Lucasfilm ones. Williams was at his height around that time and everything he touched turned to gold. I suspect in the back of my mind I’m always trying to achieve the musical equivalent in a rock context.
The first thing I noticed with the first minute of hearing “The Single Edits” and recurring throughout the album is how embedded the sound was cinematically in the 60’s particularly to my ears such as the track on here, “Critical Mass Part 2“, any spy movie that comes to mind. Thematically was that an intention at all by you?
I don’t doubt it, but it’s probably not as contrived as you expect. I am a huge fan of John Barry and Henry Mancini movie soundtracks, especially from the 1960s, along with The Ventures, The Shadows, The Beach Boys and so on. In another life I could quite happily play in a surf instrumental band, and may yet even do so if I retire to the beach one day and start collecting Hawaiian shirts.
My work has increasingly been moving more into instrumental territory as I’ve become more confident in my writing and arranging abilities and the music itself becomes more over-the-top. I suppose I have naturally gravitated towards twangy guitar as one alternative “voice” for the melodies.
It probably comes as no surprise that producing a theme for a James Bond movie was something I aspired to, a big traditional Barry-like theme. Given how the film franchise has moved on and the business operates, it’s difficult to think of something more unlikely now. So instead I just make them for my own amusement.
There is quite a strong Yes presence in that you had Roger Dean (for your logo and of course for the artwork for your “Great & Terrible Potions” album) and his daughter Freyja Dean to do the album cover and beautiful bird illustrations for this one, not to mention Billy Sherwood engineering and producing one of the vocal tracks with William Shatner? That’s some serious namedropping there. How did each of these artists get involved?
It all started with “Great & Terrible Potions”, which was my second album. I had been uncomfortable about embracing the label of “progressive rock” up to that point because I thought it was a little presumptuous and also carried with it certain expectations for the music, lyrics and my own instrumental ability. However a friend who was working for a record label at the time heard the works-in-progress and not only convinced me that it was indeed progressive rock but also that it needed a Roger Dean cover! Something I would have never had the temerity to consider myself, but I could certainly see the merit in his idea. I tracked down Roger and the “Great & Terrible Potions” cover was the result. It was really a most incredibly exciting and surreal event.
It was through Roger that I met his daughter, Freyja Dean who is just as ridiculously and unfairly talented. Freyja has a particular style all of her own, yet you can still recognise her heritage in her work. She painted the cover for the subsequent album “Last Chance To Hear” – in fact she painted six covers and we used them all – and also the cover for this new single collection. His name is Archie, he’s a starling, and according to Freyja, he’s a bit of a lad.
“Last Chance To Hear” included quite a long track called “Spy In The Sky” which featured fairly esoteric lyrics and climaxed with a guitar and minimoog solo duel. I sang it originally but could never get past the aural image I had in my mind of a spoken voice. A grand voice. A Captain of the Enterprise. William Shatner, perhaps. I’m a huge fan of Star Trek, loved his work on Boston Legal, and I’m yet to hear anything quite like his album “The Transformed Man”. A sensible person would have dismissed this idea as impossible, so naturally I was obliged to pursue it. My secret weapon and fulfiller of dreams was Billy Sherwood, who had worked with Shatner on his excellent album “Ponder The Mystery”. Somehow they found the time and opportunity to record the vocals for “Spy In The Sky” at the Shatner residence in LA! Looking back now, it seems miraculous how all the stars aligned to make it happen.
Is there anything new that you’re working on?
Always! I’m trying to finish off a piece of music for the next United Progressive Fraternity album and have been recording guitar parts for prog artist Joost Maglev from the Netherlands. Also recording songs with a local Brisbane band called Frankenfido, remixing my previous albums in 5.1 surround, and all the time trying to sneak in work on my next album proper. I’ve just about finished the opening 10-minute track.
Where can listeners hear tracks from your album, Ben, and purchase the CD/digital?
The best place to go is my Bandcamp page where everything is available:
https://bencraven.bandcamp.com/
You can also contact Ben through his Facebook page:
3RDegree – “Ones & Zeroes: Volume 0”
3RDegree – “Ones & Zeroes: Volume 0”
— Read on theprogmind.com/2018/05/11/3rdegree-ones-zeroes-volume-0/
Progarchy 