Rick’s Quick Takes for June

On By kruekuttIn Ambient, avant-garde, Cosmograf, electronic, folk rock, jazz, progressive rock, Rock and Roll, singer-songwriterLeave a comment

It’s been an hugely enjoyable month for out-of-the-box music! Along with the alluring, elegant wallop of Nad Sylvan’s Monumentata (listen here) and the mesmeric slow burn of Jakko Jakszyk’s ruminative Son of Glen (listen here), three impressive new releases, a compilation taken from one of this year’s most-anticipated box sets, an utterly unexpected reissue — plus one from last year that got away — have crossed my desk. As usual, purchasing links are embedded in the artist/title listing, with streaming options after the review.

Cosmograf, The Orphan Epoch: Another winning set from Robin Armstrong! More thematic than conceptual this time around, The Orphan Epoch focuses on today’s younger generation and their search for a valid path, confronted by conformity and control like never before. “Division Warning” unfurls from fetching piano filigree to steamroller guitar supporting a dramatic, emotionally ripe chorus; elegance and savagery bob and weave, then fly in formation for “We Are the Young.” There’s gorgeous sax commentary from Peter Jones on the foreboding “Seraphim Reels”; big riffs, gang chanting and blustery organ workouts on “Kings and Lords”; a quiet, menacing synth pulse that, with Kyle Fenton’s skittering drums, propels the encroaching darkness of “You Didn’t See the Thief”; the loose yet inevitable build of “Empty Box.” It all coalesces along “The Road of Endless Miles,” as strong, hard power chording pushes Armstrong’s overdriven vocals to a striking crest, then ebbs away into dead silence. Impeccable, punchy, dynamic sound throughout brings out so much fine-grained detail, all in the service of Armstrong’s bleak yet beautiful, thoroughly humanistic vision. Moving and gutsy, this impressive record deserves the widest possible audience.

Louise Patricia Crane, Netherworld: Both in his recent Progarchy interview and in the liner notes for his latest, Son of Glen, Jakko M. Jakszyk has been beating the drums for this 2024 album – and he’s right to do it! Crane brings vaulting artistic ambition, assured worldbuilding and mad skills at singing, playing and production to bear on Netherworld; the result is an utterly absorbing song-cycle that pulls you in with the initial “Dance with the Devil” and refuses to let go until the last strains of “Japanese Doll” have died away. Wisps of early Genesis and Tull give “Tiny Bard” and “The Lady Peregrine’s Falcon” a folk-prog tinge, while a trace of vintage Kate Bush lingers in Crane’s resonant vocals, but the sweep of her archetypal lyrics and the variety of settings (from subtly psychedelic “The Red Room” to the overcast jazz of “Bete Noire”) dispel any hint of tired pastiche. Rather, Jakszyk joins an imposing crew of modern prog titans (hailing from King Crimson, Marillion, and points beyond), all dedicated to bringing Crane’s singular point of view to life. These classic ingredients come together in a heady, winningly original brew on an atmospheric soundstage that breathes; Nick Drake’s catalog and the rumbling calm of Talk Talk’s post-rock years are the closest parallels I can call to mind. Netherworld is a brilliant album, thoroughly deserving of your time, attention — and even love. It went on my Belated Favorites list like a shot!

Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts: More kaleidoscopic ensemble jazz from Halvorson’s Amaryllis sextet plus guests (including youthful sax giant Immanuel Wilkins). The warm, glittering sound of opener “Full of Neon” is typical here; launching a pointillistic riff, the ensemble builds through brass smears and a convoluted unison head to perfectly judged solos from trombonist Jacob Garchik and guest tenor Brian Settles. Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, vibist Patricia Brennan and Wilkins get their licks in as well, while the rhythm section of Nick Dunston and Tomas Fujiwara kick up plenty of dust and swing like mad. And while Halvorson generally lays back as a soloist here (“Carved From”, also a spotlight moment for Wilkins, is an enjoyable exception), her pointed guitar tone laced with congenial digital wobbles consistently pokes through at just the right moments. From “Absinthian’s” uptempo tick-tock through the graceful Ellingtonia of the title track to the sleek glide of “Polyhedral” and “Endmost’s” smooth, richly chorded bossa, Halvorson and her players are always inventive and inviting, conjuring sunny textures from the knottiest material. A great way to either discover this fine composer/performer’s unique voice, or to check out her continuing growth.

Markus Reuter – featuring Fabio Trentini and Asaf Sirkis, Truce <3: Full-on instrumental rock from three undersung players who know their stuff — including the magic that can happen when the red light comes on with nothing prepared! Reuter’s touch guitar conjures up hanging sonic clouds, cycling loops, piledriving licks and rich melodic spirals; Trentini’s bass lines ground the evolving excursions with a tasty mix of repetition and variation, plus fat, enticing tone; on drums, Sirkis is endlessly, subtly inventive within rock-solid grooves. Slinky kickoff “Not Alone,” the driven, stuttering funk of “It’s Not in the Cards,” the bubbling, smoldering interplay of “Crooked” and “Guardian Shadow,” with its stinging elegiac lament that morphs into a total wig-out, are just the highlights; every improvisatory leap here is inspired. Completely whipped up from scratch like the first two entries in this stunning series, Truce<3 catches music as it’s made on the fly, irresistibly setting body, mind and heart in motion. Already on the Favorites list for this year.

The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Rumours of Angels: Originally part of 2013 French boxset After the End, this set compiles two EPs from the end of RAIJ’s 20th-century run and two previously uncollected tracks. As such, you can hear the gleeful clash of opposites — floating folk melodies, chant and spoken word colliding with low drones, tribal rhythms and bruising industrial noise, all drenched in thick, wet echo — that marked the Liverpool collective’s initial, headlong assault on modernity. If tracks like “Cantata Sacra” and “Dies Irae” feel like desperate attempts to call down the Holy Spirit through sheer, strenuous force, moments in “The Parable (of the Singing Ringing Tree)” and “Suspended on a Cross” point toward the mix of ambient stillness and randomized sound collage that permeate later, more considered classics Beauty Will Save the World and Songs of Yearning (my album of 2020). For those who’ve already taken the plunge, Rumours of Angels is an unexpected gift, a vital signpost on RAIJ’s road toward their current, more meditative (yet still earthy) incarnation. If you’re new to it all, don’t let me dissuade you from trying this one out — but be sure to buckle up!

Bruce Springsteen, Lost and Found – Selections from the Lost Albums: I’d argue there are at least three facets to Springsteen’s artistic persona: the unstoppable Boss, barnstorming the globe with the E Street Band; the compulsive singer/songwriter, forever panning his psyche for creative gold; and most evident here, the obsessional auteur, agonizing time after time over the content of his next release. This sampler from Tracks II, an expansive (and exorbitantly priced) box of 7 unreleased albums, startles with the scope of Springsteen’s musical inspirations — though your mileage may vary as to how convincing the various genre exercises are. Chilled-out trip-hop Bruce (“Blind Spot”), spiritual-but-not-religious Bruce (“Faithless”) and country/rockabilly Bruce (“Repo Man”) click best for me; and even tejano Bruce (“Adelita”) and saloon crooner Bruce (“Sunday Love”) have their arresting moments. If anything, the straight-up rockers might be the weakest element here; “You Lifted Me Up” reminds me of nothing so much as a third-string praise and worship chorus. Still, it’s hard to beat Lost and Found’s value — 1/4th of the box set’s tracks for 1/20th of the price, and it certainly lets you know what you’re in for from Springsteen’s latest raid on his vaults. If you’re intrigued like I am, check out the sampler, maybe listen to the complete set online — then hope for a Black Friday price drop.

— Rick Krueger

Jakko M. Jakszyk: The Progarchy Interview

On By kruekuttIn Insideout Music, progressive rockLeave a comment

“A Musical Memoir Like No Other” – as always, the estimable Alison Reijman nailed it in her review of Who’s The Boy with the Lovely Hair: The Unlikely Memoir of Jakko M. Jakszyk last fall. Stranger than fiction would be an understatement; only Jakszyk could have told this page-turning, hair-raising narrative — the son of Irish and American parents, raised by a older Polish/French couple, driven both to make his mark in the music business (from having his shoes noticed by Michael Jackson to joining The Kinks for a week to becoming the singer in King Crimson’s final incarnation to date) and to suss out the twisty, elusive truth of his life story.

In fact, Jakko’s past has consistently fed his most personal art, from radio dramas and one-man theatrical shows to his pensive, potent solo albums The Bruised Romantic Glee Club (2007) and Secrets and Lies (2020). Released later this month, his new record Son of Glen continues his quest for both clarity about his past and a settled present, building from subdued acoustic beginnings to an explosive electric finale with patient, long-breathed confidence. Like all Jakszyk’s work, it’s bracing stuff that nonetheless goes down smooth — fearless, affecting and engrossing.

It was a pleasure to talk to Jakko about the new album. Even at the end of what I’m sure was a long day, he was positive, attentive and kind — when I had audio problems at my end, he generously recorded the interview and sent it to me! My thanks to him for his time and for going the extra mile. Audio is immediately below, with a transcription following.

We last talked about five years ago, after your last [album] had been released, and I know you published your book in that time. What are the things that you see as milestones or turning points on your path between Secrets and Lies and Son of Glen?

Well, I guess the book came in between. I did a one-man show at the Edinburgh Festival, which is loosely based on events in my life; that followed the album.

And then, as a result of that, I got the book deal. And although I’d been asked to complete another record, I kind of started bits and pieces. Really, what inspired the record as it stands now was partly the work I did on an album called Netherworld by the lovely Louise Patricia Crane.

And I did a lot of things on there at her behest, I think; I found myself digging deep into my musical DNA and my past to come up with stuff that is part of what I grew up listening to, but stuff I hadn’t ever really used in my own work.

And then when we’d finished, when I’d finished the book, again, I was in a weird place and Louise was incredibly significant in building my confidence back up. And then I remember one evening we were having dinner and, having discovered my real father after decades of fruitless searching for him, she pointed out something that I guess was kind of obvious, but hadn’t crossed my mind in that the reason I exist at all is that my American airman father was stationed in England and fell in love with a dark haired Irish singer.

And here I was all these decades later, kind of repeating the same thing!  Which was, I guess, kind of staring me in the face, but it was only when she mentioned it. And so that became the inspiration for the title track and the title of the song, really.

I then, armed with this conceptual idea — both [my] kids play, they’re both great musicians, both my kids. So there’s always instruments in the house everywhere. And they quite often, both of them, my daughter and my son, mess around with alternate tunings. I’ve never really done that. And I remember picking up a guitar and I had no idea what was going on, tuning-wise. And I came up with this pattern, and that started the whole title track.

And then it just developed. I didn’t set out to write some epic. It was just this conceptual idea, a few chords, and then it just kind of started to write itself, really. And then that set the tenor of the whole record, and the idea of making it relate to the book.

Okay. You mentioned some musical areas that you dug into when working on your partner’s album that you had maybe put aside or not necessarily used.  Could you be a little more explicit about that?

Yeah, sure. When I was a kid, the band I probably saw live more than any other was the Gabriel-era Genesis, because they played locally to me, where I live in England. And I was completely taken with that.  But I’ve never really done anything Genesis-like, I don’t think, on my own stuff. And there were certain references that Louise was utilizing when we were creating her album.  And I thought, “oh, okay, yeah, I used to love that record!”

And so Genesis, there’s bits of Jethro Tull, again, a lot of acoustic-type stuff that’s not really normally evident or fundamental to any of the work that I’ve done. I think I’m referring to those specifically in terms of my own record. But there was other stuff.  There’s a lot of the references that she utilized that I was able to kind of replicate, because I understood the musical language. 

To backtrack a little bit, one of the things I noticed is that a number of the chapter titles in your book become song titles on Son of Glen. I’m assuming that’s a deliberate thing, and that there’s some significance involved with that.

Yeah, some of them were ideas I’d started and then wrote the book. In fact, there was a couple of things I’d done when I was promoting the book later on. There was a couple of instances where it was a really interesting thing, where I would talk about how some of the songs are kind of diary entries.  They’re responding to something that’s happened. And so I was able to say, “well, look, what I’m going to do now is read a passage from the book that describes the event in detail, and then I’m going to play the song that I wrote about it.” So I was able to do that at that stage as well, because the two things started to overlap.

And sometimes I’d just have a title, which I then used as the title for the chapter of the book, and then extrapolated from that. And some of the things I’d already started, that were from way back, but fitted into the conceptual continuity of the whole nature of the book and the album together.

Another thing I noticed: if you divide the album into LP sides, each one opens with a distinct version of that instrumental, “Ode to Ballina”. Is that simply for the sake of variety, or does that play a part in how things unfold musically?

It was a deliberate ploy. I thought, and I was deliberately thinking about it as vinyl, even though I know it comes out on CD too.  For the first time really, I was definitely thinking about it in vinyl terms. I had a conversation with Thomas Waber, whose label it is, and we were discussing about how the length of albums has got preposterous due to the ability to store more information on a CD.  And in his head, and kind of mine, those album era years of the ‘70s, 40 minutes, 45 minutes, that was enough, that was ideal. So, I did think in those terms.

And I thought, well, “Ode to Ballina” is a piece based on my emotional response to going to Ireland, back to where my mum came from for the first time.  And so I thought, that’s a great place to start, because that’s the kind of start of the story. And then halfway through, to reiterate that theme, but do it — by which time I’m now a musician, and I’m living a life as a musician — to reiterate that same thematic idea, but in a more modern, more electric way. So that was deliberate, as was the beginning of each side and the end of each side.

I knew I definitely wanted to end with the 10-minute title track. And I wanted to end side one with the song I wrote about Louise.

And as I heard that album, what I felt like was that the whole thing built from the acoustic beginning on the first side, it was almost like this long 40-minute crescendo, which was really effective.

Oh, well, thank you.

Because like you say, on side two, you’re bringing in more of the electric elements, and it just sort of gains in whoomp, to use a technical term.

[Laughs] That’s great. You know, these things, you have a rough outline of a conceptual idea, and then the music kind of takes over and presents itself in a way. So it’s a combination of finding a vehicle and then somehow something else takes over.  I mean, I don’t know what it is, whatever you call it, you know, inspiration or the muse or whatever.

Yeah, I felt good that I’d kind of dealt with some subjects that are peppered throughout the book and ended up with a paean to my real father.  That’s the mystery of the beginning of my book and the beginning of my life.  That’s where the book ends, really: me finally, after decades of fruitless searching, finding who he was and stuff about him after being thrown all sorts of red herrings by my mother and downright lies.

I know one of the themes of the book is how difficult it has been to get to the truth, because you had to pick your way through any number of deceptions and equivocations.

Yeah.  And it feels, like all of us, we want a degree of stability, we want to know who we are, we want some solid ground on which to stand, you know.

And you keep thinking, “Oh, OK, that’s what happened.  Fantastic.” And then, and then, you know, a few years later, the rugs pulled out and you thought, “Oh, hang on, that was all bulls–t. Wait a minute!”

And so, you find yourself constantly in a state of flux. And, you know, these things, as we’ve discovered in the decades since — at its most basic in the 50s and 60s, I think the attitude was, “Well, having children adopted has got to be better than bringing them up in a home [orphanage],” and it’s only in the intervening decades that a lot of research has been done into how that experience fundamentally affects an awful lot of adopted kids, and it f—s with your psyche and it and it has a whole controlling influence on your whole personality.

So as you say, these songs are full of people from your history, your birth mother, your adoptive father, your current partner, your biological father, a friend who passed away. Does writing about them, whether in your book or for this album — how does that make a difference in terms of how you think about them, how you feel about them?

Well, I think writing the book in particular, because it’s so detailed and so if you’ve read the book, you’ll realize how long it is.

Oh yeah, that was one of the things that I think was fascinating about it, is how much detail and depth and — your life has been so full of incidents and coincidences and synchronicities, as well as — frankly, the incredibly difficult foundation that you had. But again, you can tell that you’re processing this.

Yeah.  I tell you what, there was a weird thing right at the end of writing the book. There was a sense of achievement. Because I know when I was first approached to write the book, the publisher sent me a kind of contractual breakdown and advances and all this. And then I ignored it.

And about three weeks later, they said, “Do you not want to do this?”  And I said, “I don’t think I can do it. I’m a small person at the bottom of the Himalayas.  I can’t get up there. That’s miles away.”

And then they suggested, “Well, maybe we can get a ghostwriter.”  And I said, “You know what? I’m not going to use a ghostwriter. So, I’m going to write an opening chapter. And if you think it’s of any worth, then let’s discuss it further.”  And that’s what I did.

So, when I finished the book, there was a sense of achievement and euphoria that I’d actually done something that extraordinary and that long and [of] that depth. And that stayed with me for about a week.  And then we had a meeting about it coming out.

And then suddenly it dawned on me that I’ve written this unbelievably personal, exposing stuff. And everyone would — you know, people were going to read this!

So that was a real shock. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous in that that’s the very nature of writing a book. But that really freaked me out.

So, it was a whole rollercoaster of emotions, because on one level, it was incredibly cathartic. But on another level, you know, all these things have happened. There’s an approximate chronology in your head of how things led one thing to another.  But when you sit down in a concentrated way and lay it all out before you, all of those things, the random things that you mentioned, you know, it’s kind of weird moments of luck and timing.

But they’re all kind of connected, because had I had a normal upbringing, I would not have been so driven and I wouldn’t have felt so fundamentally insecure and have a low self-worth, which means I wouldn’t have just worked like a maniac, you know, and said yes to everything. So I would never have put myself in those different places and gone forward, so it’s a kind of weird mishmash of the experience.

So, you’re still left with those fundamental flaws in your personality from what happened as a child.  But at the same time, it’s enabled me to live this extraordinary life and meet the most amazing people. So, it’s a weird kind of car crash of of all those things, of all those emotions.

And I think the cathartic nature of it, seeing it all written down, understanding how bits fit. When I finished the book, I went into some post-adoptive counselling as well. And one thing I found is that, whilst you can place what happened and how you feel as a result of what happened and while you can understand it and see the logistics of it, what it doesn’t do is stop you — you still feel those feelings. The difference is, you now know where they come from, and you understand how that journey has manifested itself. But it doesn’t — for me anyway, it doesn’t stop those innate feelings. You just know where they come from.

[On the other side: Jakko talks with and about Steven Wilson, best mate/drummer supreme Gavin Harrison, the guys in Marillion, Robert Fripp, the future of King Crimson releases, and much more!]

Continue reading “Jakko M. Jakszyk: The Progarchy Interview” →

Nad Sylvan Steps Out with ‘Monumentata’

On By kruekuttIn Insideout Music, progressive rockLeave a comment

“I’m not worried what people think of me anymore. When Steve Hackett chose me to be his singer for Genesis Revisited, I spent a lot of time adjusting to the limelight and dealing with insecurity. I wanted to be upfront and real this time, open and honest with the audience. The new album is meant to say, ‘Here I am. This is me.'”

Speaking with Progarchy from his home in Sweden, Nad Sylvan is forcefully enthusiastic about Monumentata, his fifth album on Inside Out Music. As he should be: it’s a compelling listen that grabs hold and doesn’t let go, both direct and sophisticated musically, personal yet universal in its lyrical themes.

Monumentata definitely shares and expands on the musical approach of Sylvan’s Vampirate trilogy Courting the Widow, The Bride Said No and The Regal Bastard; that unique mix of rock punch, folk grace and prog elaboration riding irresistible funk and R&B grooves couldn’t come from anyone else. And moving on from 2021’s collaborative Spiritus Mundi, Nad is fully in the driver’s seat, writing all the songs and tackling most of the guitar and keyboard work. Terrific contributions from fellow prog luminaries (Randy McStine & David Kollar on guitar; Tony Levin, Jonas Reingold & Nick Beggs on bass, and Marco Minnemann & Mirko DeMaio on drums) polish impressive diamonds like the glammy album opener “Secret Lover” and the heavy rocker “That’s Not Me” to maximum brilliance, with Sylvan’s dramatic singing more upfront and delightfully in your face than ever.

What’s not here for the most part (OK, the showbizzy “I’m Steppin’ Out” is a fun exception) are larger-than-life characters or fantastic situations. As Sylvan says, “I’ve been searching for my own identity; this album gets closer to the bone than ever; it feels honest and good.” Having stashed the props of his public persona backstage, Sylvan leans into his true nature by exploring his past. While he recommends the album’s liner notes and lyrics to get the whole story behind the songs, he’s intensely communicative even without those helps, digging into the tangled roots of his family on “Monte Carlo Priceless”, standing up to users and stalkers on “Secret Lover” and “Wildfire”. But the emotional heart of Monumentata comes at the end with the deeply moving title track. Using spare, incisive brushstrokes, Nad deftly portrays his long-absent father, pays tribute to what their relationship might have been, and mourns his recent passing. It’s a devastating ballad that wounds to heal, already garnering powerful reactions online.

While Monumentata is a solid step forward in Nad Sylvan’s artistic development, upcoming tours this fall and next year with Steve Hackett mean that live work as a leader can only be an idea to pursue in the indeterminate future. But Sylvan’s OK with that. “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is the first album by Genesis I heard, when I was a record shop clerk in Gothenburg as a teenager; it’s still my favorite.  To be singing those songs at the Royal Albert Hall to 5,000 people [documented on Hackett’s upcoming release The Lamb Stands Up Live] – it was extraordinary.  Genesis is my musical DNA, and it feels like my life has come full circle.”

Whether belting out classics first sung by Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins fifty years ago or bringing his own music into the world, Nad Sylvan has been blazing a trail worth following for more than a decade. Monumentata is an ambitious, satisfying new milestone on his creative path.

Monumentata is released on June 20th; it’s available to preorder on signed CD at Nad Sylvan’s webstore, on LP and CD at the Inside Out online store, and via download at Bandcamp.

— Rick Krueger

Rick’s Quick Takes for May

On By kruekuttIn art rock, Haken, Insideout Music, Pink Floyd, progressive metal, progressive rockLeave a comment

This month’s selection kicks off with something very special: John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie, the most impressive book on The Beatles I’ve encountered in ages. Pop-psychology journalist Leslie blew up the Internet in 2020 with “64 Reasons to Celebrate Paul McCartney”, but the driving passion here is his scrupulously balanced estimation of both Macca and John Lennon as men and musicians. Staying off the long and winding “John versus Paul” road so many authors take, Leslie traces the arc of an exceptionally deep male friendship between “two damaged romantics whose jagged edges happened to fit.” Which birthed an exceptional creative partnership, the fruits of which still brighten the world. His thoughtful reflections on 43 songs — grounded in copious documentary evidence, the best Beatle scholarship, accessible musical analysis and his own insight into creativity — vividly portray the forging, then the fracturing of Lennon and McCartney’s bond, from pre-Beatlemania through the Fab Four’s imperial phase and their ill-tempered breakup to Lennon’s shocking death. Tangled as their connection became in the throes of professional and personal conflict, John and Paul couldn’t help but look to each other throughout the 1970s — as competition (writing “Imagine”, John wanted the melody to be as good as Paul’s “Yesterday”), as foe or friend of the moment, as the only other person who could possibly understand. Throughout, Leslie brings to bear admiring gratitude for The Beatles’ music — George and Ringo get their props as well — along with compelling clarity on the emotions that drove that music. And in the end, his portrait of a collaboration that “even as its most competitive, was a duet, not a duel” is utterly moving, equal to chronicling what Lennon and McCartney made of their tempestuous time together and apart. Just read this.

The Flower Kings, Love: A long-playing magic carpet ride, with the minutes effortlessly flying by in the capable hands of Roine Stolt and his Scandinavian comrades. Kicking off with a pair of change-ups (tough, bluesy opener “We Claim the Moon”, jazzified ballad “The Elder”), the Kings then settle into a multi-part suite that, if a bit sedate, has plenty of instrumental color and dynamic vocal shading to hold interest. But the home stretch of this album is where Stolt and company take wing, channelling their inner Yes for the acoustic lilt of “The Promise”, the orchestral build and double-time finale of “Love Is”, the grooving power ballad “Walls of Shame” and the extended closer “Considerations”. Sneakily, subtly addictive, Love is simultaneously a master class in ongoing invention and a psychedelic time travel exercise — so retro it’s actually back there, yet fresh as a daisy throughout.

Gentle Giant, Playing the Fool – The Complete Live Experience: The original 1977 release was inspired both by Gentle Giant falling victim to bootleggers and by the rush of mid-70s double concert albums (the British sextet had opened for Peter Frampton both before and after his game-changing Comes Alive set). On the edge of punk’s advent, was a mass-market breakout still possible for a prog band that promiscuously swapped guitars, saxes, recorders, violin, multi-keyboards, mallet percussion and hand drums onstage, mixing soul shouting with Baroque vocal counterpoint all the while? The Shulman brothers, Kerry Minnear, Gary Green and John Weathers give it their all here, from the ricocheting precision of “Excerpts from Octopus” to a wobbly take on “Sweet Georgia Brown” improvised when said keyboards blew up in Brussels. This brand-new reissue restores the complete live set, including three tracks off the contemporaneous “Interview” album, showcasing Gentle Giant as a jaw-dropping live act, doubtless as awesome to behold in the moment as they are to hear right now.

Haken, Liveforms: If Gentle Giant has a modern-day successor, it’s gotta be these guys! Captured in concert at London’s O2 Forum, Haken doesn’t constantly trade instruments, mind you — though the unrelenting interweave of Charlie Griffiths & Richard Henshall’s guitars and Connor Green’s bass (all downtuned, all with an extra string), Peter Jones’ Wakeman-meets-electronica keys and Raymond Hearne’s dizzily polyrhythmic drums evoke a similar instrumental giddiness. Mix in singer Ross Jennings’ searing, soaring leads and occasional demented-barbershop-quartet backing vox, and you have one singular, headturning sound.

A complete run-through of their latest album Fauna (featured on the vinyl version) is equal parts ballet and blitzkrieg. The BluRay/CD package adds a second set to showcase Haken’s catalog to brilliant effect, from the headlong pop-prog of “Cockroach King” and “1985” to the foundational metal epics “Crystallized” and “Visions”. Whether they’re pivoting on rhythmic and melodic dimes, diving into the heavy, or wrangling multiple genres at the same time, this band deserves a hearty “WWOOARRRRGGGHHH” from fans across the board.

Pink Floyd, At Pompeii MCMLXXII: A pristine new version of the classic acid-trip midnight movie, complete with a typically crystal-clear, hard-hitting new sound mix from Steven Wilson. I dig the behind the scenes footage from the recording of The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road — flashes of studio inspiration, David Gilmour and Nick Mason’s passive-aggressive interview snippets, revealing glimpses of the hostile, fragile band dynamic just waiting to be completely curdled by mass success. But the main course here is Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Gilmour and Mason huddled in that ancient, haunted amphitheatre, surrounded by devastated ruins and arid desert, conjuring up the spooky sonic webs of “Echoes” and “A Saucerful of Secrets”, the obsessive mantra “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, the whisper-to-scream catharsis of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” and “One of These Days”.

Without those long years of building their lysergic, near-telepathic style to the feverishly precise pitch shown here, could the Floyd have taken the world by storm with Dark Side? Available in multiple audio and video formats, At Pompeii remains a stunning portrait of a band on the brink of an unlikely world-conquering moment.

— Rick Krueger

Can a Progger Be Christian? via Brad Birzer at Spirit of Cecilia

On By Bryan MoreyIn progressive rockLeave a comment
Can a Progger Be Christian?

Perfect Timing

On By alisonscolumnIn progressive rockLeave a comment

The annual Summers End/Winters End festivals held at Chepstow in Wales are always a celebration of Prog.

Each one of them showcases some of the hottest names on the circuit, some high profile international names like Discipline, Wobbler and Moon Safari, and also lesser-known bands which organisers Stephen Lambe and Huw Lloyd-Jones have meticulously curated. Their Roladex of Prog must be absolutely bursting at the seams.

In October 2017, the Summers End Sunday afternoon openers caught everyone by surprise, delivering one of the most upbeat, quirky sets of the entire weekend, punctuated by elaborate time signatures and virtuoso playing.

Even more pleasing was the fact Half Past Four are Canadian, a country not renowned for producing well-known proggers beyond Rush, Saga, Mystery and Voivod, plus more recently Crown Lands.

The Toronto-based band are one of those hidden gems who have used their time together to hone their unique sound that tips its hat to the likes of King Crimson, Frank Zappa and Kate Bush. It infuses traditional prog-rock music with folk, heavy metal, jazz and classical genres, among others.

Their fourth studio album Finding Time is released on 30th May. Keyboards player Igor Kurtzman says the band thinks it’s their best so far, and it would be hard to disagree.

From the rhythmic tango like opening of Tomorrowless, there’s never a dull moment from then on, the song shifting tempo and mood as vocalist Kyree Vibrant, who, using the analogy of organisms in the soil, explores the notion of what would happen if you found you did not have a tomorrow to look forward to. Bold, sassy and downright bonkers in places with lots of swishy percussion from drummer Roberto Bitti, staccato choruses and a shimmering guitar break from Boris Kalantyr, it’s one of the most ear popping introduction songs to be heard on many an album.

A stunning keyboards groove launches the jazzy Far Away Here, which skates along at a rapid rate, Vibrant’s voice hitting some heady heights over some delicious instrumental textures.

Slower and more studied with Dmitry Lesov’s bass guitar coming to the fore, Shake Your Head has a mystical quality reflected in the lyrics which Vibrant delivers with innate power and sensitivity. At its core is a dynamic instrumental section where intricate guitar work meets throaty keyboards and later plaintive piano.

Returning to the quirky, Igguana is all about mythical creatures living up trees, recounted in storytelling mode with some fantastic backing vocal harmonies that scale some dizzy Queen-like highs in places. There’s a lovely understated synth solo in the mix and some elaborate Crimson-like instrumental breaks.

Branches has Vibrant singing a lilting Kate Bush-like melody that rise and falls before the rest of the band ratchets up the tempo, Lesov’s bass acquiring a voice of its own intermittently and Kurtzman delivering a dazzling piano solo, while Kalantyr’s guitar solo has a touch of Andy Glass from Solstice with its soulful, fluid delivery.

Closer Underbelly has a much gutsier, bluesy feel to it, musing about there being a darker side to life in any given situation. Kurtzman’s stabbing keyboards and Bitti’s forceful beats give it a decidedly menacing feel.

Here’s a band who obviously love working and growing their distinctive sound together.

It’s time to discover Half Past Four. Find out more about them here and see them talking about Finding Time here.

Devin Townsend live in concert

Devin Townsend and TesseracT, Live in Nashville, May 2, 2025

On By Bryan MoreyIn Heavy metal, progressive metal, progressive rockLeave a comment

Venue: Marathon Music Works, Nashville, TN

Tesseract, War of Being Tour, Part 2
Band: Daniel Tompkins (vocals), Acle Kahney (lead guitar), James Monteith (rhythm guitar), Amos Williams (bass), Jay Postones (drums)
Setlist (one hour): Natural Disaster, Of Mind – Nocturne, King, Sacrifice, Legion, War of Being, The Grey, Juno (with Concealing Fate Part 3: The Impossible outro)

Devin Townsend, Powernerd Tour
Band: Devin Townsend (vocals, lead guitar, theremin), Mike Keneally (rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Darby Todd (drums), James Leach (bass)
Setlist (~one hour fifty minutes): Powernerd, Love?, The Fluke, Lightworker, Dimensions, Aftermath, Deep Peace, By Your Command, Bastard, Why?, Gratitude, Almost Again, Truth, Kingdom
Encore: Ih-Ah! (Devin solo acoustic), Deadhead, Bad Devil

Talk about a power lineup. For me, anyways. This show was only on my radar for the last couple weeks when I first saw it when stumbling across Devin’s Powernerd tour. When I saw TesseracT were opening for him on part 2 of their War of Being tour, I was intrigued. I saw them on the first part of this tour back in 2023 in St. Louis, and they were phenomenal. I had never seen Devin live before, but I’ve really fallen into his music since 2019’s Empath. I didn’t buy the tickets until a couple days before because work has been so busy and I’ve been so tired, but when Devin announced early last week that after this tour he would be stepping back from regular touring, I figured I needed to go. Nashville is a little over an hour from me, so it’s an easy trip and can be back in my own bed the same night. Or in my case falling asleep on the couch at 1am with the dog barking at me for leaving her at home.

I left work a little early to go home and feed the hound before heading south early for some BBQ near the venue and to get a free parking spot on the street near the venue, Marathon Music Works. Marathon Motor Works was a brass-era automotive manufacturer in Nashville, active from 1909-1914. The buildings still stand all these years later, and one of them is the home of this deceptively large venue. It looks like a small club from the outside, but inside has a standing capacity of 1800. For being in what is essentially a large open warehouse, the sound quality was quite good. More on that later. Multiple discretely located bars and a hot dog stand round things out inside. The weather was a bit crap, so the venue opened the doors long before the stated 6:00pm doors open time, allowing people to line up in the vestibule area. They also offered free water at the bars and security handed out free water bottles in the interim between bands. I’ve never seen a concert venue do that before, and considering the inexpensive cost of the show ($43 plus ~$13 fee), I was pleasantly surprised. This was a great venue. Parking is limited, but there are a few paid lots nearby and street parking in the area if you show up early.

Tesseract

Beginning right on time, TesseracT take the stage to a largely Devin-focused crowd. While it seems most people haven’t heard of TesseracT before (to their shame), the band seems to impress all-around. They thoroughly impressed me, playing a strong setlist of some of their best tracks. Unsurprisingly they pull from their heavier output, with crunching riffs and Tompkins distorted vocals. As the first show of the tour, Tompkins wisely paced himself. Their songs require a lot from him, so he has to pick and choose which high notes to reach for and which to knock down a notch. He knows which ones to shoot for to really make the songs. His distorted vocals were always stellar, and his high notes never disappointed.

TesseracT playing live

I suppose you could say I was in the second row, standing right behind the folks leaning on the rail, off stage left (so, right side of the stage from the audience perspective). I had a great view of prog metal’s giant (literally – he looks like he’s 7 feet tall) James Monteith. When I saw them before, I was in the loft at that venue, which afforded a great overall view. This time it was nice to get a closer look at Monteith’s fingerwork. Their music is so complicated that often he was in the zone and focused on his fretwork. But he still took time to engage with the audience, even climbing on the little stool that Tompkins took more use of. Bassist Amos Williams also made several trips over from his side of the stage to engage a bit. Sadly Acle never wandered over to our side.

Watching the band up-close I was struck with how they really don’t get their power from a particular virtuosic player or excessively technical noodling, but rather from exquisitely tight riffs and technical polyrhythms. To stay in sync as well as they do is a remarkable accomplishment. While standing in line to get into the show, I saw a young dude with a t-shirt that asked, “Does it even djent?” TesseracT answered that question with a resounding YES. The heavy repetitive crunches, the stuttered drops, the thundering bass and drums – oh yes, it djents.

I brought earplugs as I usually do to shows like this. I found myself standing rather close to one of the stacks, although I was so close and it was hanging that I don’t think the full brunt of it was aimed at me. I could feel the bass though, but not in a makes you run to the bathroom way. I could actually feel my hair moving, and my pant legs had the signature quiver of a good subwoofer. With my earplugs in, I found it hard to hear some of the more dynamic elements, so I pulled them out for probably 60-70% of the entire show (both TesseracT and Devin). Taking them in and out may have been a bit awkward, but it worked out well and I left without the fuzzy head feeling. That’s a testament (ha!) to the sound engineer and whoever designed the sound system at the venue. There was no unpleasant distortion like I was expecting when I took the plugs out. The sound was clear and loud, but not overly loud. For it to sound so good when I was so close to the action was quite surprising.

TesseracT are a serious outfit and put on a serious show. Their stage is clean, and their lighting show it pristine, befitting the technical prowess present on stage. Tompkins had a serious demeanor, but he also clearly plays the role of the showman well, with precise movements on stage that mirror the riffs the band is playing. He had dark makeup on the upper part of his face (eyes up), fitting the aesthetic of War of Being. He talked to the crowd a little bit, at one point commenting that they opened for Devin fifteen years ago on his first solo headlining tour. That was probably one of their first tours as well, so it was cool to see them together again. Devin generously gave them an hour to play, which was a pleasant surprise. I figured they would have a 45 minute set, so when they played three songs more than I was expecting, I was thrilled. That was a switch from when I saw them headline in 2023, when they had two opening bands and only played an hour 15 minute headlining set. I enjoyed that show, but I was disappointed they didn’t play more. Here they played a little less than that but more than I expected, so I left very happy. All in perspective, I suppose. I look forward to seeing them live again someday.

Amos Williams Playing

I think they deserved more love than they got, although I saw a much longer line at their merch desk than there had been before the show started (Devin’s line was massive before the show), so hopefully they gained new fans. I, for one, bought my copy of the newly re-released CD of Concealing Fate before the show. It hasn’t been issued since it’s initial release, and it is darn near impossible to find, so it was great to pick up an overpriced copy at the merch desk.

Devin Townsend

Devin Townsend’s show is somewhat of a stark contrast to TesseracT’s, or to most other heavy metal or prog metal bands. Anyone who has seen Devin before or followed him at all could attest to that. I had never seen him live in-person before, and I was surprised at just how engaging he is with the crowd. And how much of a goof he is. He’s absolutely hilarious on top of being extremely talented. Right off the bat he came onstage without any kind of intro and started talking to the audience. He made it sound like there was some sort of issue with the intro music, but he may have been kidding. Whatever the issue was, he lightened the mood.

Devin Townsend playing live

This was obviously Devin’s crowd. TesseracT put on a fantastic show, but most of the people were there to see Devin, and it showed with the energy level once he took the stage. That energy was infectious, but truth be told I couldn’t sustain the energy myself for very long. I used up a lot of my energy in TesseracT’s show, but it has also been a long few weeks. After a few hours of standing, I found myself wishing I had brought along my roll-on Icy-Hot for my lower back, and my feet were killing me. That put a damper on my enjoyment of Devin’s set, but it didn’t impact how good his set was and how much fun it was to see him live.

Since this was the first show of the tour and he didn’t play his Powernerd material on his more recent European shows, it was the live debut for the two songs he played off his new record (“Powernerd” and “Gratitude”). The title track was a great way to start the show, getting the audience revved up right away. I was thrilled he followed it with a Strapping Young Lad song (“Love?”), one of my favorite SYL songs. I overheard some people before the show commenting on how Devin doesn’t play the Strapping stuff anymore, but they clearly haven’t been paying attention the last several years because he re-introduced some of that material to his live shows, including three songs at this show (“Love?”, “Aftermath,” and “Almost Again”).

This was a very balanced set displaying the many sides of Devin. His heavy side dominated with tracks like “Powernerd,” “Love?”, and “Kingdom,” but his softer and sometimes spacier sides showed themselves in “Lightworker,” “Why?”, and the impromptu acoustic version of “Ih-Ah!”. He said that particular track wasn’t actually on the setlist, and I saw he didn’t play it at last night’s show in Georgia.

Devin’s humor was sprinkled throughout, whether it be through his belching, forgetting lyrics to the new songs, his balls jokes, inappropriate maneuvers with the theremin, air humping behind the security guy, briefly twerking, or the way he knelt down and wistfully looked at Keneally as that master played a keyboard solo with one hand and played some guitar notes with the other. In talking with the audience, Devin brought up the weird feeling of playing live after having been cooped up in the studio for so long. He lets his fans in on how he’s feeling, which helps create a connection between fan and artist.

Devin Townsend kneels before Mike Keneally

I was over on the same side of the stage as Mike Keneally, and he was really fun to watch. He looks older than he is (he’s 63 but easily looks 70), which could be because of his borderline business-casual attire, in sharp contrast to both Devin’s hoody and the brutal riffs of much of the music. He was clearly having a blast, and watching him play those heavy Strapping riffs was hilarious. It is fitting that he’s playing with Devin now after playing a similar role for Frank Zappa many years ago; Devin reminds me a little of Zappa with his talent, quirkiness, and prodigious output.

The fun thing about this setlist is just how deep it is. Devin covered the length and breadth of his career. Despite the decades of music under his belt, his voice sounds as good as ever. From the operatic styling of “Why?” to the emotional distortion of “Deadhead,” Devin seemingly hasn’t aged a day. His voice really is a rare talent. Speaking of “Why?”, I’m so glad he played that. I love that song, and so did the crowd, judging by the unanimous sing-along that ensued. “Kingdom” is obviously always a hit, but I especially enjoyed hearing “Deadhead” live. It is probably my favorite Devin song, combining the best elements of his different styles. A perfect choice for an encore.

Encore

The show ended close to 11pm, with Devin giving us close to 2 hours of music – a surprise considering TesseracT played an hour. With Devin’s goofiness and chill personality the perfect balance to TesseracT’s seriousness and technical prowess, it was a stellar pairing, one I am glad I decided to go and see. They are only touring together for a couple weeks, so catch them if you can before they part ways on their respective tours.

hevydevy.com
www.tesseractband.co.uk

kruekutt’s Lightning Round Reviews!

On By kruekuttIn art rock, Big Big Train, folk music, Heavy metal, Insideout Music, jazz rock, Kscope, post punk, progressive metal, progressive rock, Radiant RecordsLeave a comment

With new releases from the first third of 2025 piling up, a desperate attempt to answer the question “Can album reviews convey the essential info listeners need in haiku form?” For example, about the format used below:

Streams linked in titles;
Brief poetic impressions;
Shopping links follow.

FROM PROGGY FOUNDERS . . .

Dream Theater, Parasomnia:

Amps set to full shred;
Portnoy destroys his poor drums.
No band more metal. (Available at InsideOut)

Jethro Tull, Curious Ruminant:

Sardonic legend
Wittily skewers us fools.
Elegant farewell? (Available at InsideOut)

Andy Summers and Robert Fripp, The Complete Recordings 1981-1984:

Oddball guitarists
Tease out eccentric duets.
Fav’rite reissue! (Available at Burning Shed)

. . . FROM PLAYERS WHO FOLLOWED . . .

Big Big Train, Bard:

Spawton’s young heartache
Sparked this grandiose concept –
Well-wrought remaster. (CDs sold out; vinyl available at Burning Shed and The Band Wagon USA)

Cosmic Cathedral, Deep Water:

Thompson and House swing;
Keaggy’s guitars bite and dance;
And Morse – he cuts loose! (Available at InsideOut)

Glass Hammer, Rogue:

Life’s-end confession
Soundtracked by gripping synthpop.
Lush, welcome throwback. (Available from the artist)

Karmakanic, Transmutation:
Stellar bassist’s new
Tunes; great John Mitchell vocals.
(Plus, there’s an epic.) (Available from Jonas Reingold)

. . . FROM FRESH HOT TALENT!

Black Country, New Road, Forever Howlong:

Year’s first new Fav’rite!
Chamber rock right in yer face!
Hey nonny nonny! (Available at Bandcamp)

Imminent Sonic Destruction, Floodgate:

Metal from Motown?
Served with a wink and a growl.
Unlikely Fa’vrite! (Available at Bandcamp)

Gleb Kolyadin, Mobula

Aperitifs from
Russian post-prog pianist;
Subtle, hypnotic. (Available at Burning Shed)

McStine & Minnemann, III

Randy and Marco –
Hooks, chops, thrash in excelsis –
Their best yet rawks out. (Available at Bandcamp)

Sons of Ra, Standard Deviation:

Free jazz plus hardcore!
Late Coltrane pumped through fuzztone:
A deranged fav’rite! (Available at Bandcamp)

— Rick Krueger

Cosmic Cathedral’s Phil Keaggy: The Progarchy Interview

On By kruekuttIn Insideout Music, Neal Morse, progressive rockLeave a comment

For more than 50 years, guitarist/singer/songwriter Phil Keaggy has pursued his singular muse. Cruising under the radar of the general public and fashionable tastemakers, Keaggy’s reputation among fellow musicians and knowledgeable fans is deservedly stellar; his formidable skills in acoustic fingerpicking, stinging electric solo work, and free-flowing improv are complemented by a tasty melodic sense, a impressively broad spectrum of influences, and a singing voice that can’t help but remind you of Paul McCartney at his most yearning and wistful. His lengthly discography of first-rate albums under his own name speaks for itself.

But Phil Keaggy truly loves nothing more than collaborations – with other singers, full bands, duets, trios, ambient players, jazzers, jammers, proggers and even poets, well-known and unknown – and his latest project testifies to that. Recruited by the ever-prolific Neal Morse to join forces with ace bassist Byron House and live Genesis drummer Chester Thompson, Keaggy’s playing and singing is all over Deep Water, Cosmic Cathedral’s “prog meets yacht rock” debut on Inside Out. In advance of that album’s release this week, I had the privilege of connecting with Phil in his Nashville studio to talk about both this latest project and his eclectic career. A transcript of our interview follows the video.

So congratulations on Cosmic Cathedral’s first album!

Yeah, maybe there’ll be another album after this, yeah. 

That would be really great.

So have you had a chance to listen to it, Rick?

I have, and I really did enjoy it. And we will certainly have some conversations about that as we go on.  But the first question I kind of wanted to set up, because as I mentioned, I’ve known your work for a number of years, and you’ve had this amazingly prolific and varied career. But just on the off chance that there’s someone who picks up this album and someone says, who’s this Phil Keaggy guy? How would you describe your life in music to somebody who hasn’t necessarily heard much of what you’ve done?

Well, I started out making records when I was just in eighth, ninth grade. And then I formed a band eventually, called Glass Harp, in 1968.  And we recorded for Decca Records. We did three records and one live album. None of them did that well, but we were popular in the northeastern Ohio area – Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Pittsburgh, especially.  We did a West Coast tour in ‘71. We used to go up to Detroit a lot and play. We opened up for a lot of big bands like Humble Pie and Yes, Chicago, Grand Funk, etc.

But then I left the band and I started making albums that centered upon my faith and communicating my faith in Jesus. And so to the world, I became kind of lost to the world of music. And then when I got signed to Christian record labels, they really didn’t know exactly what to do with me because I wasn’t in the center of what CCM music was, contemporary Christian music.  I was a bit more adventurous. I was a bit more guitar oriented and not so much songwriting oriented, even though I wrote songs. And so I was too religious for the world and too worldly for the religious.

So that’s why 99 percent of the world has no idea who I am. And so, it doesn’t offend me, doesn’t bother me. It’s just the path that I’ve been on all my life.  But I’ve met up with some great players. I’ve had a chance to play with giants like Neal Morse, Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta, Byron House, Chester Thompson, and even jammed with Paul McCartney one time. So, I’ve had great highlights in my life.

But the greatest highlight is knowing God through his Son, Jesus, and also being married to a wonderful woman for almost 52 years. And we’ve got kids that have grown up and who love us. Yeah, I don’t think I feel like I suffer from any lack of anything, especially because of the love that I’ve known in my life, love of family, friends, and the love of music.

I hear that testimony, and that’s a wonderful thing to hear. In your life in music, as you’ve noted, you seem to be kind of a musician’s musician. You collaborate with a lot of people who maybe have a higher profile.  And as you say, Neal Morse is one of those talents. How did the two of you hook up originally? And what’s your history together been like?

Well, our history has been very sparse, in fact. But we did meet back at the time he did this album called One.  And he invited me because he knew of my albums, like Sunday’s Child, which is a very British rock kind of sounding album, Crimson and Blue, which was a real fun jam album with really good players on it.  In fact, John Sferra from Glass Harp played drums on that album. And also I’ve had a life of acoustic music with Beyond Nature and various albums like that.

But I think he liked the idea of the two of us singing on something together. And so I sang a little bit, “Cradle to the Grave”, “What is Life”, that George Harrison song with him. I played guitar solo on the tune called “Creation”.  And then we kind of got out of touch for many a year.

And then all of a sudden about a year and a half ago, he contacts me about the possibility of getting together with Chester Thompson and Byron House, who I’ve been in the studio with.   Chester played on my All at Once album.  And I did an album with Byron House and another friend of ours, Kyle Jones, who’s a percussionist/drummer on an album called Catz’n’Jammuz; it’s basically an improv album. So in the past, I’ve worked with all three of these good men, these good musicians, great musicians.

And so when he invited us all to join him at his studio in White House, I’d say it was about January 2024.  We just jammed and his co-producer/engineer Jerry [Guidroz], recorded everything. And some of those songs that ended up on Deep Water, the album [by] Cosmic Cathedral, were inspired by some of those jams. And then they further developed, Neal primarily arranging and developing the songs.

I helped out with the lyrics of “Walking in Daylight”, and I sang it. Actually, I proposed a vocal to it as an idea.  But I was surprised he left my vocal on the album, as a lead vocal. And that was pretty cool.

But they gave me a lot of space to play on the album.  I had ample opportunity to express myself on my electric guitar.  At that time, last fall, I did a lot of the guitar work in my own studio, because when they tracked this album in July last summer, I had just been through hand surgery. I had trigger thumb and finger, and they cut open my hand, and I was in a cast for three weeks. And so there was just no way.

But by the end of September and early October, I started getting on the guitar. And they sent me the files. They said, “hey, want to try playing on something?” And I played on a section of the “Deep Water Suite” I played a little bit of acoustic on it, and I sang. He asked me to sing on that.

That’s the first thing Neal invited me to do. I did it in my studio here. And then at the end, [sings the line] And then I did this electric thing, and that was the very first time I played on a recording for Neal.

And then they sent me “The Heart of Life”, the opening track. I spent a lot of time just learning the licks and the riffs and the changes, and then they had these beautiful open spaces for me to solo. There are two major solos in that song, and that was when I thought, even though it’s painful to play, I really dug in.  And the second solo, which is after the part when he sings about, “I thought of God as Captain Bligh”.

That’s my favorite line on that album.

I know, it stands out, doesn’t it, Rick?

It’s just so off the wall, and yet it fits perfectly.

And it’s so ominous. It’s so ominous in this section. And then when I heard that, and then there’s this big space, and I opened up my solo with this note that I reversed.  So it kind of creaks in, and then all of a sudden, I go into this Allan Holdsworth kind of mode on the tone, even though I can’t play all those licks that Allan does. But I’ve always honored his guitar playing, always thought he was a genius and a great inspiration to that feeling you get when it doesn’t sound like a typical guitar solo, and that’s what I wanted to do.

And I love also the different modes, because I’ve been influenced by various music from other cultures.  It doesn’t matter, anywhere on the earth, if it’s good, I love it. Bulgarian, Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, South American, Irish. I love the gifts that God gives to people all around the world musically.

So that kind of comes out here and there. And so when I did the five albums with Jeff Johnson, we’ve got one called Ravenna, which is inspired by the art in Italy, and Cappadocia, which is inspired by perhaps the region of Turkey; the Frio Suite album, which was inspired by the Frio River in Texas, and so on and so forth.

This newest one called Spinning on a Cosmic Dime, I mentioned to Neal, I said, you know, my last album out with Jeff Johnson has the word “cosmic” in it. He never mentioned anything about it. So everybody’s getting into a cosmic kind of mood, aren’t they? Cosmic dime, Cosmic cathedral.  Maybe somebody ought to come up with an album called Cosmic Capers.  That would be kind of interesting.

Who knows, that one might be next. So I’m hearing you say that you get a lot of your vocabulary on guitar from folk, from modal cultures.  What are some of the other sources of your style? It’s very unique, and yet you can tell there’s a lot behind it.

Yeah, a lot of years, a lot of playing, a lot of listening, a lot of appreciation. And of course, with the level of artistic giftings that Neal Morse has and the other fellas, Chester and Byron, elevates my desire to play well, really something that must really fit and belong to the essence of this creativity.

So yeah, I just feel that because of all the years we’ve all listened to music, we just want it to be done really, really well. Not just a quick building that was erected, but as beautiful as a cathedral. And it’s ominous, you know what I’m saying?

Yes, yes, that sort of over-towering feel.  It’s like when Jacob wakes up from the dream at Bethel, and he says, how awesome or how terrible is this place, depending on what translation you use.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it’s interesting because I was not sure I was even going to be on the album because of my hand situation.  I didn’t know how long it was going to set me back. I always look at those three guys as they are the cathedral, and I’m this little chapel over to the right.

Oh, okay.

You know, a little chap. Yes. “Hello, you’re just a little chap, aren’t you?” I’m a chapel.

But because they are the foundation, you know, they are truly the foundation of this, all three of them in sync, you know, as strong as Cream was or as strong as Emerson Lake and Palmer, a threesome. And I feel like I’m on this album by invitation, for sure.

Okay.  Chester and Byron’s groove. It’s very different than most people would think of when they think of prog rock.   

Exactly. 

It does seem like there’s so much, like you say, not just space for solos, but there’s space in the beat they generate. What’s it like playing over that groove?

Well, that’s what got me excited. I didn’t know what to expect when they first sent me the files, you know.  The first file was “Fires of the Sunrise” and then “The Heart of Life”. And I was able to just sit back and listen to it. And first of all, I was blown away by the fidelity, blown away by the expertise of these guys on their instruments.  And I thought, man, this is a dream to be able to play on something like this.

Yeah, the intensity, the quality, like you mentioned, there’s a different groove going on from what people would consider prog rock, which I oftentimes think of prog rock as kind of mechanical sometimes.  It’s just kind of intellectual, cerebral, you know, right brain to the nth. But the thing is, what Chester brings into with Byron is this sense of soul.

So I think they influenced Neal and how Neal played himself.  I mean, on “Time to Fly”, for instance, it just sounds like a Steely Dan thing, Great horn. He knew what he was going for and he got it with the horn player, the sax player, the BGVs [background vocals], which has that what Donald Fagen would do.

And just the fact that there’s a nice amount of space.  It’s not just constant noise; it’s not just music that just kind of like can get irritating after a while. I mean, there’s a couple of places where it does sound a little bit like a video game to me. But that’s tongue in cheek almost, isn’t it? Yeah.

It’s deliberately over the top.

Yes. But then it gets into some fantastic grooves, you know, the kind of stuff you want to play over.  You just have to play over, you know. And so they gave me a lot of nice space to play. In fact, one of the sections, “New Revelation”, I think it was, I played a solo and then Jerry said, “we’re going to extend the solo a number of measures longer.  Would you mind playing some more?” [Both laugh] I go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Twist my arm. You know, sure.  I’d be happy to.”  And then we went back and forth and they actually, toward the end of it — because I liked one solo and Jerry liked this other one. So what he ended up doing was he put toward the end of the solo, both of my guitar solos going on.  OK. And you know what I’m talking about?

Yeah, I do. That was like “And now, in stereo!”

Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, that’s right. And that was that was great. It’s like, why not? You know, it’s like — what was that McCartney song? “Rockshow”.

Yeah. You know, it’s kind of like let everybody join in, you know, but it was just primarily the four of us, you know.  They had tasty percussion on it, too. And as I mentioned, the BGVs and the horns well, added a really nice touch to everything.

Neal has so many ideas. He is so prolific.  You and he are a really good match instrumentally, certainly. Are there any other moments we’ve talked about like “Time to Fly”?  We’ve talked about the opening track. We’ve talked about those two spots in the “Deep Water” suite.  Is there anything else that you recollect as being a special favorite of yours from the process?

I love the closing. “Heaven is opened.”

Yeah.

Opening “The Door to Heaven”. What is it called?

I do not recollect. But yes, that’s the gist of it.

You know, the piece starts beautifully. And I was influenced by Anthony Phillips.

Oh, OK.  The Genesis guy.

The Genesis guy. And when I did my album, The Master and the Musician in 1978, he was, [his] album was on my turntable a lot, you know.

Oh, OK.

He and [British guitarist] John Renbourn were real influences to me.  [That part of the suite is] just so pretty.

And the way it develops, you know. “You’re the water, the deepest place I know”. Neal has me singing that latter part of it because he said, “I can’t reach those notes.  I thought you could”. And it pushed me. It modulates to another higher key before the very ending.

And then you got that “big life” which sounds like a chorus of voices. That’s the payoff. That whole ending is just so powerful to the the epic piece.  I think the ending is epic and powerful. It’s spiritual. It’s musical.  It’s fulfilling. But but I love every song. I mean, every song holds its own, even the ballad.  “I Won’t Make It” that Neal wrote with the strings in it. And yeah, it’s just an honest — it’s like Emerson Lake and Palmer’s “Oh, what a lucky man he was”. For a prog guy into to create such an honest and beautiful melodic piece like that. That’s a really sweet place where it sits in the album, too. So, yeah, what a great album.

[After the jump: Phil Keaggy tells how his wildest dream came true, muses on Cosmic Cathedral playing live, and reflects on his power trio improv album with Tony Levin & Jerry Marotta.]

Continue reading “Cosmic Cathedral’s Phil Keaggy: The Progarchy Interview” →

Prog matinee idols

On By alisonscolumnIn progressive rockLeave a comment

While proggers on Cruise to the Edge were taking advantage of some shore leave in Puerto Plata, something was stirring a 12 hour flight away in one of London’s most perpetually hip and happening quarters.

Camden has long been famous for its eclectic, diverse music clubs and venues, as well as its ever-packed market by the Regents Canal. Its most famous venue is the legendary Roundhouse, a former railway engine shed, where, once upon a time, The Doors made of one of their only two British appearances.

Opposite this iconic edifice is the smaller, intimate Camden Club, which is gaining momentum as a regular haunt for capital-based Prog fans.

The gatherings are organised by London Prog Gigs, a hard-working, dedicated group of volunteers who put on regular concerts and festivals at a handful of venues in north London, as well as organising the annual Prog Walk. This is when a group of seasoned music fans enjoy a leisurely afternoon stroll along a section of the nine mile long Regents Canal, which winds through north London. Without this group, it would be hard to imagine Prog finding a regular presence in the Metropolis.

Speaking of afternoons, this particular gig at the Camden Club is a matinee, designed to attract prog fans not just from London but also further afield so they do not struggle home late evening having missed either the final song or the last train.

This matinee concept is also ideal for some of the regular bands on the British circuit to showcase their music, especially when there’s a new album to promote.

It was a double bill made in Prog heaven when Ghost of the Machine, an upcoming band based in Yorkshire teamed up with the remarkably named Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate for a joint album launch.

Musically, the bands complement each other beautifully. GOTM occupy the dramatic, darker chambers as exemplified by their second album, the cinematic concept-driven Empires Must Fall.

It’s fair to say HOGIA are the Prog equivalent of The Big Bang Theory. Edgy, eloquent, articulate and often eccentric, the new album The Uncertainty Principle is named after German quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg’s existential theory that the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time. They apply this principle to interpersonal uncertainty in some of their songs.

Debut

Making their London debut, GOTM comprise five seasoned former members of This Winter Machine who are fronted by the very lively, personable cherubic faced vocalist/flautist Charlie Bramald. Charlie is a fast emerging new star who has already appeared on as many other people’s albums as he has with his own band.

With a background in drama as well as music, he is not adverse to donning a cape and throwing some shapes when the parts absolutely demand it.

Primer

Today, Bramald is more sombrely attired but in ebullient mood when he and HOGIA’s multi-instrumentalist/composer Malcolm Galloway start the matinee with a light-hearted Q&A session. The iconic venue across the street is mentioned in passing and questions touch on their respective songwriting processes. With around 120 Prog fans present, it’s a great primer for what’s to come.

GOTM take the stage first and literally gallop through the new album, the follow-up to their 2022 debut Scissorgames that carries on the main theme of tyranny and ultimately, redemption.

Beginning with the punchy, hard-hitting opener Keepers of the Light, GOTM are indeed a well-oiled machine, at the band’s heart, the muscular rhythm section comprising the metronomic drummer Andy Milner and the behatted bassist Stuart McAuley.

Over this, dual lead guitarists Scott Owens and Graham Garbett, together with keyboards player Mark Hagan weave the instrumental magic and intrigue, leaving Bramald to relay the compelling stories.

Most intriguing is the swirling Panopticon, (a circular prison) one of the central songs, its intro section Real Eyes seeing Hagan coming to the fore. Bramald’s thoughtful lyrics include the line: “It’s only in the dark where we truly see ourselves”.

There’s an air of uncertainty and reflection exuding throughout Falling Through Time, heightened by its choppy staccato beat.

Gem

The shortest song The One, the first single released not surprisingly on 1st January 2025 is a little prog gem into which so much is packed into under five minutes, from the compulsive rhythm and Bramald’s stream of consciousness singing to the soaring synth solo and rapier-sharp riffs.

They end with the epic After The War, a magnum opus comprising six movements including the resonant guitars of the instrumental sections The Bells and later Sorrow In The Silence. Again, Bramald shows himself to be the consummate storyteller.

Accessible, enjoyable and entertaining, they really should be considered for a future Cruise to the Edge, Bramald’s engaging, expressive personality guaranteed to win over many new followers as he leads the line in one of the UK’s current “must see (and hear)” bands.

HOGIA occupy a unique space in the Prog universe, Galloway and Mark Gatland, his long time friend, musical collaborator and ever-animate, sometimes leaping bassist, conjuring up some compelling soundscapes that hint at Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Pink Floyd and King Crimson.

Majestic

However, from the outset with the album’s often bleak opener Certainty, they’re a band who happily defy comparisons, making their own majestic, multi-layered sound.

The convergence of history and outcomes is brilliantly expressed in One Word That Means The World, inspired by the refusal of Soviet naval officer Vasily Arkhipov to agree to an action during the Cuban missile crisis that could have led to nuclear war. Galloway’s plaintive questioning voice rings out especially during the lines: “I didn’t know what was inside, I found out when I said no.”

And you thought The Hunt For Red October was purely a work of fiction!

In complete contrast, the brief instrumental The Ultraviolet Catastrophe races along before Copenhagen hits the sweet spot of the album’s concept, inspired by a meeting between quantum physicist Niels Bohr and Heisenberg, his friend and former student in September 1941 in Copenhagen.

Galloway’s haunted vocals offers insights into the uncertain nature of this meeting and what outcome was reached during their discussions.

Meditation

Between Two Worlds is their most beautiful song this afternoon, Galloway’s emotional vocals and piano offer a meditation on those he knows and loves living with cancer and the MRI scans they have undergone to discover if the disease has spread. Galloway, a retired neuropathologist, has also been candid about his ongoing health issues and you feel some of his personal uncertainty is embedded in here.

The Light of Ancient Mistakes has them in ambient, languid Floydian mood, this the title track of their previous album, again with a very intricate theme about artificial intelligence and preventing atrocities from taking place before they actually happen.

Nuclear

Returning to the current album, The Think Tank recounts another true story relating to Daniel Ellsberg. He was key figure in US military strategy and this relates to The Doomsday Machine. In it, he talks about working for the eponymous think tank Rand Corporation in the 1950s, especially the setting of the nuclear codes to 00000 for the destruction of both Russia and China. This was just in case the codes got mislaid!

For the album’s title track, they are joined by Galloway’s wife Kathryn Thomas on flute. Again, there’s a massive story behind this song about professional baseball catcher Moe Berg, who became a World War 2 spy sent to Italy to find out about the German nuclear research programme. His orders included attending a public lecture by Heisenberg and shooting him if Berg thought he was close to developing a nuclear weapon.

It’s a dramatic explosive way to end an impactful set, all performed against a backdrop of images from the album’s cover art. The concepts and machinations of their sound are more than enough to absorb the enormity of their mind-blowing themes.

Their encore is the atmospheric Century Rain from their album Nostalgia For Infinity, dedicated to an audience member who had travelled from mainland Europe to attend this matinee.

As I write, there’s another Sunday matinee currently taking place in the same club, this time featuring IAmTheMorning

It looks as though these Sundays of Prog heaven are here to stay.