The Musical Odyssey: A Long and Winding Road

On By Time LordIn ProgarchyLeave a comment

Jane Monheit

Robert Sibley reflects on what the power of music has to do with nostalgia:

The word comes from the ancient Greek words “nostos,” referring to “homecoming,” and “algia,” meaning “grief or pain or suffering.” Hence, nostalgia reflects the desire “to escape pain by returning home,” or, as some etymological dictionaries have it, “to return home safely.”

What this suggests is that nostalgia can be a form of psychological therapy, a break from the madhouse vagaries of contemporary life — you know, terrorism, killer weather, crashing airplanes, exploding towns, rampaging gunmen. To listen to fondly remembered pop songs, whether on the car stereo heading to work or at a concert, nostalgia provides such a respite. …

One of the major narrative inputs for my generation was the Beatles. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were effectively members of what psychologists refer to as our “fictive kin.” We didn’t know them personally like we did family and friends, but their music — from ebullient adolescent love songs such as She Loves You and the drug-mediated experiments of A Day in the Life to the symphonic farewells of Let it Be and The Long and Winding Road (the Beatles split as a group in 1970) — made them an intimate presence in our lives. The Beatles, in short, provided the musical accompaniment for many of the most meaningful moments of our lives.

I still remember doing my homework at the kitchen table in our house in north Red Deer when I first heard that brief trill of drums that opens She Loves You, my head snapping up to look at the countertop radio as if to ask “what’s this?” An insignificant moment in a life, to be sure, but somehow embedded with epiphanic clarity in my memory. Of course, I’ll never forget working up the courage to ask Maxine Edwards for a dance at the local community hall as Lennon belted out Can’t Buy Me Love. And when I hear the lyric “Out of college, money spent/ See no future, pay no rent/ All the money’s gone, nowhere to go/ … oh that magic feeling” from 1969’s Abbey Road album, I’m once again on the veranda of a dingy seaside café in western Morocco, hypnotized by the endless wash of the Atlantic Ocean as I celebrate my 24th birthday. Sun, sand, sea and song; it was pure magic.

Is this “homesickness,” an inability to cope with the world? I think not. The Beatles once sang, “Once there was a way to get back homeward/ Once there was a way to get back home.” The way, I suggest, is in the song itself. Listening to the old songs is like visiting your hometown after a long absence. You know you’re not staying, but there’s a feeling of rejuvenation in visiting times and places past.

And there’s something truly rejuvenating about cover versions of songs, especially when they defy jaded expectations and are done well.

For example, Jane Monheit has a very cool, head-turning jazz cover of “Golden Slumbers / Long and Winding Road” on her new album, The Heart of the Matter.

Jane seems to have a gift for doing terrific covers. Explore her discography and have fun discovering all her clever musical remakes and reconfigurations.

In particular, be sure to check out her stunning versions of Eric Kaz and Libby Titus’s “Love Has No Pride” (on In the Sun) and of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” (on Come Dream with Me).

But, getting back to the Beatles, let me end by recommending a personal favorite — Laura Crema’s soaring cover of “Blackbird.”

20 Looks at The Lamb, 6: Danse Not-So-Macabre

On By Pete BlumIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

Considering castration, a certain strange displacement occurred.  It didn’t really strike me until after writing the fifth look, but it was indeed a displacement, and as I think about it since, it seems stranger and stranger.  Death is what is displaced, and the reason why its displacement is so strange is because it is normally simultaneously final and transitional.

The Death card in a Tarot deck is often understood as ending, loss, or conclusion, but also often as transition or change.

With shaving, biting and cutting given the symbolic pride of place, death — so often the BIG finality, or the BIG transition — turns out to be not that big a deal.  Its caricature in The Lamb is in “The Supernatural Anaesthetist,” with its disarmingly brief and casual lyric:

Here comes the supernatural anaesthetist.
If he wants you to snuff it,
All he has to do is puff it

— he’s such a fine dancer.

Here is a figure of death unlike the skeletal Death of Tarot, or the darkly robed Grim Reaper.  This guy sounds like someone you might like to get to know, or perhaps someone who would like to get to know you.  Think of Joe Black (Brad Pitt).  Or think of the bubbly and alluring Death of the Endless, from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.  This may be the better association, as “Anyway” voices the expectation that “she” is supposed to be riding a pale horse.  The anaesthetist merely “puffs,” presumably delivering a gaseous sort of sleep-inducing substance.  And dancing?  Why would he be a fine dancer?  Perhaps because (as in The Sandman) the delivery, though dark, is welcome and pleasant.

Is it even clear whose death has this unassuming harbinger?  Of course, the most natural reading is that it’s Rael’s death.  But the real death that soon follows is that of the Lamia.  I’m reminded of the Tarot reading at the end of The Gunslinger, the first volume of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, when the man in black draws that ominous card and speaks to Roland:

Death, but not for you, gunslinger.

And at the end of the series, this pronouncement is repeated, with amplification:

Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.

It is as if Death, normally THE big deal, becomes no big deal.  Rael “writes Death off as an illusion.”  Yet death does come for another, and in both The Dark Tower and The Lamb, the death of the other is an immense burden on the heart of the hero (Roland/Rael).  I’m not sure how much help this is, however.  The doors come before in The Lamb, and the doors come after in The Dark Tower.  Well, maybe so.  But in each case there are doors.

This may be no more than the obverse of the previous look.  I’ve urged you to listen to the ways in which the (in)scisions mark the liminal sites, the thresholds.  The cutting is so much more significant, more to be feared than death.  Death dances, and nonchalantly puffs.

But maybe we should also remember that, as Emily Dickenson pointed out, “The distance that the dead have gone / Does not at first appear…”

The only thing that seems clear to me here is that, if you try to see death as a major theme in The Lamb, it doesn’t quite work.  I’m tempted to say that you’d be dead wrong.  But that might be too strong.

Another poet (Eliot) put in the mouth of his magus: “I should be glad of another death.”

<—- Previous Look     Prologue     Next Look —->

BillyNews: Jon Anderson

On By bradbirzerIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I continued to be mightily impressed with the skills of Billy James.  Just got this from him about 15 minutes ago.  Thanks, Billy–ed.

____

Legendary Singer/Songwriter Jon Anderson To Perform In The UK, Finland And Sweden, 
And To Be Honored In Las Vegas – August 2013
Asheville, NC – Legendary vocalist Jon Anderson, YES’s singer/songwriter for 35 years along with his successful work with Vangelis, Kitaro, and Milton Nascimento, will be performing special engagements in the UK, Finland and Sweden in August 2013. The shows promise to deliver an exciting mixture of material from Jon Anderson’s prolific solo career, collaborations with Vangelis and classic YES songs, along with new compositions, highlighted by humorous and enlightening stories told by Jon.
Says Jon, “Performing the classic YES songs I wrote for the band, and Vangelis work is always fun and rewarding… I’ll be doing some New song ideas, plus a classic Beatles song, plus a couple of surprises. I just have the best time singing on stage…Hope you find time to come and see the show!”
Jon Anderson Tour Dates:
August 04, 2013 – Royal Exchange Theatre – Manchester, UK – http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event.aspx?id=735
August 10, 2013 – Under The Bridge – London, UK – http://underthebridge.co.uk/events/jon-anderson/
August 12, 2013 – Savoy-teatteri – Helsinki, Finland – http://www.savoyteatteri.fi/EnrolmentClient/info.aspx?Key=022C5CA068DFF87F6D8293650937637B
August 15, 2013 – Taubescenen – Gothenburg, Sweden – http://liseberg.se/hem/Scen–show/Taubescenen/Jazz-pa-Liseberg/
In other news, Jon will be presented with the ‘Voice Of Progressive Music’ special award at the 4th Annual Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Awards at the Joint inside the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on Sunday, August 25th. For more information: www.vegasrocks.com. Jon has made some recent guest appearances on several new CD releases: Acoustic guitarist Jeff Pevar’s debut album ‘From The Core’; French keyboardist/composer Jean Philippe Rykiel’s new CD ‘Inner Spaces’; and guitarist Dennis Haklar’s debut CD release ‘Lizard Tale’. Says Jon, “With the internet my musical world has evolved to an amazing degree, one day I’m singing with a Brazilian dude, the next day with peeps in Liverpool, the next creating a Symphonic work with a mate in India…then singing with Steve Layton ‘down under’ – it’s an endless musical world!” Jon is currently recording new material, including the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 21-minute opus “OPEN” from 2011 titled “EVER”.
 
For more information: www.jonanderson.com, 
 
 
 
Jon Anderson ‘Survival & Other Stories’ available through Gonzo MultiMedia:
 
Press Inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158, glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Interview requests please contact Billy James at Glass Onyon PR

Happy Birthday, America

On By bradbirzerIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Every summer growing up, we walked down to the Kansas State Fairgrounds on the Fourth of July.  As the fireworks started, these songs always played.  Soundtracks of my childhood–Brad

Polar Kraut folks…Polar Kraut

On By Tobbe JansonIn 2013, Progarchy, progressive rock music1 Comment

Mattias Olsson, drummer/percussionist extraordinaire formerly in Änglagård, is a busy man. He runs his own studio in Stockholm, called Roth Händle Studios, he collaborates musically with lots of people, he lends his talents to other progressive rock outfits such as Norway’s finest – White Willow and he kicks off projects in many directions.

One of the newest projects of his is Walrus – a band which in a tongue-in-cheek manner is described like this on its Facebook-page.

Kraut Rock / Progressive Rock Group from Stockholm, Sweden. Instigators and prime movers of that immensly popular style, Polar Kraut. Two drummers, one bass player, one cello player, one keyboard player, and one chord – what more do you need?
bakgrund
September, 2010 A.DThe scene:A dark bar at the End of the World, on the shores of the Polar Sea, in the Far North of Norway. The result of some highly spirited, wine induced bragging, five strangers find themselves sharing a stage under the assumed name WALRUS. The lights go on, and there, on the spot, they have to make up some music that can live up to the brazen boasts that got them on stage.The cast:An Organ Player who can turn from lyrical to mechanical in a moment, from shimmering to abrasive, from the dead calm of the ocean to the death rattle of an orca. A remarkable Cello Player with angelic features, who seems to be having a loud on-stage argument with his instrument, always teetering on the brink of a sonic fist-fight. A Bass Player who plays in an almost geometrically meditative fashion, angular, repetitive and hypnotic, and whose fuzzed out sounds could turn iron into rust. And then there’s the two-headed beast: Two manic Drummers playing the same, sprawling double drum kit, but attacking it from different sides and angles.The sound:While early German Electronic Kraut Rock seems to be in the band’s collective DNA, that’s just a small part of it. The roots of their music may be firmly planted in age old Psychedelic and Progressive Rock, but their branches reach well into the future – to a new kind of Post-Rock perhaps. And theirs is a sound that changes constantly. Going from pastoral and emotional to jugular aggression in mere seconds, the band ebbs and flows, back and forth, creating spectacular atmospheres and moods. Building tension and tearing it down, telling stories and painting pictures. There is nothing quite like it.The denouement:

Well, shaking their heads in disbelief after the show, they quickly decided that this group, albeit still half imaginary, was too good not to be true. And in tribute to the remote part of the world where their band and their music had been born, they named their particular brand of music ‘Polar Kraut.’

Epilogue:

Some time later they reconvened in one of Stockholm’s oldest and finest active recording studios to capture the music they had been improvising on their first few concerts, using equipment from the Golden Age of Recording on both sides of the glass. And after months of meticulous editing, Bitches Brew-style, four stately compositions had been thawed out of the ice (as it were) and were ready to be let out into the World South Of The Arctic Circle.

Beskrivning

Renowned film music composer and piano player Matti Bye on Hammond & Farfisa Organs, Mellotron and Wurlitzer Piano. The Tiny and Gul 3 member Leo Svensson on Cello and Minimoog. Producer and composer Kristian Holmgren on Electric Bass and Fuzz Bass. Mattias Olsson of Änglagård on drums, with Henrik Olsson of Gul 3 and Harr joining him at their double drum kit, The Sprawl.

The studio mentioned is the legendary Atlantis studio which really is a survivor in the music biz providing real old-school recording facilities.

Mattias is a funny guy regularly posting somewhat crazy YouTube-snippets from ongoing recording projects (right now Necromonkey) from his own Roth Händle studios. Matti Bye  who is also in Walrus is a renowned Swedish composer of film scores. He’s a fine pianist with great improvisational skills! The film Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick which he wrote the score for was an Academy Award nominee 2008.

For listening and buying Bandcamp is a great place to go!

.

Johnny Unicorn–Aerobic Prog

On By bradbirzerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

johnny unicornYou know that Prog–as a genre–is healthy and thriving when a band can devote itself to what it calls “progressive rock exercise.”  Yes, I’m not joking.  Yesterday, a review copy of a new cd, Sadness and Companionship, arrived from Seattle in the Progarchy mailbox.

The CD consists of four songs–two 14-plus minute songs and a radio-length remix of each.

How to describe this?  I’ve only given it one listen, but it’s. .  . fun.  Really fun.  Imagine a lot of mid-80s acts such as Madness, Yaz, Erasure, B-Movie, or Pet Shop Boys, and then prog them up.

A card accompanying the CD states:

Johnny Unicorn has been making progressive rock, art pop, and silly music since childhood.  He currently operates out of Seattle, WA, where he performs with his three-piece band, which is made up of songwriter Jesse Plack, and keyboardist Naomi Adele Smith (Autumn Electric).  Johnny Unicorn also performs and recordes with Phideaux (L.A.) and Horace Pickett (Seattle).

The packaging, by the way, is rather charming.  The cd packaging incorporates lots of houndstooth mixed with bright yellows, funny glasses, vicious looking animals, and what appears to be a Darwinian evolutionary chart from fish to man to alien to death to devils.  I wouldn’t decorate my house in it, but I do like it.  It’s playfully quirky.

To listen to the music online, click here.

Happy Dominion Day, Eh!

On By Time LordIn Progarchy2 Comments

Today’s despatch from the Great White North, land of Rush and other wonders of prog:

Happy Dominion Day, eh!

(Oh, did you say “Canada Day“? Take off, eh!)
 

A shiny new addition to a glorious year of prog

On By alisonscolumnIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Simon Godfrey hears an early playback of Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed.
Simon Godfrey hears an early playback of Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed.

Today endeth the first half of an extraordinary year in prog, one that will go down as another milestone in the resurgence and regeneration of this much maligned and often misunderstood genre of music.

Tomorrow is July 1, the first day of the second half of the year and notable because it happens to be Canada Day. It was also the day in 1879 when American evangelist Charles Taze Russell published the first edition of The Watchtower, the world’s most widely circulated magazine and the British Government revealed in 1963 that former MI6 agent Kim Philby had been spying for the Russians.

So obviously, with Philby, 50 years on, now yesterday’s man, something epic has had to happen to make July 1 memorable again.

This was probably the train of thought which emerged during the first board, or should that be bored, meeting of the newly formed Bad Elephant Music founded by David Elliott, the esteemed producer of the progressive rock podcast, The European Perspective, broadcast on The Dividing Line Broadcast Network.

For reasons best known to himself and his accountant, he decided to dip his toes into the murky waters of record label ownership and to help him achieve this, he enlisted the expertise of legal eagle, and prolific blogger James Allen along with Tim “Mouse” Lawrie, a ridiculously talented young music producer and erstwhile Merch Desk sales assistant – such is his latent versatility.

Of course, if you are going to start a record label, the one crucial thing you need is “product” and if it is going to be your debut release, it needs to be a bit of a beast.

Well, it just so happened there was a certain progressive rock troubadour, Simon Godfrey, who was in need of a suitable platform from which to launch a new solo project under a brand new shiny title. It was a match made in heaven, surely.

As a result, tomorrow will see a new epoch in progressive rock begin as Shineback’s Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed goes on general release on the Bad Elephant Music label.

Simon, as most of you know, was the frontman of those great English eccentrics, Tinyfish, who ennobled themselves with the title of the world’s smallest prog band. However, they built up a formidable following borne out by the antics in the Fishtank, their fans’ forum, some extraordinary music, culminating in the cult album The Big Red Spark and the general mayhem which ensued during their live gigs.

Cue July 8 last year and the band reluctantly performed their last live gig at the inaugural Celebr8 festival in south west London. This was due to Godfrey’s worsening hearing problems through tinnitus. It was a memorable performance which involved a Princess of Prog tee-shirt, talcum powder and gaffer tape. You had to be there.

Anyway, this may have been the end in one regard, but in another way, it was a new beginning for Godfrey, who decided he wanted to make an album of his own on which he could indulge his passion for electronica.

So, he packed away his guitar and set about writing an album with a suitably far-fetched theme, the story of Dora, a young girl who films her dreams, based on Godfrey’s own childhood experiences in and out of the Land of Nod. For it to be far-fetched required the lyric writing services of his long time friend and Tinyfish’s iconic narrator – as he likes me calling him – Robert Ramsay, or as Godfrey describes their collaboration, the Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin of Prog without the hair transplants of course.

They gave us a taste at Celebr8.2 in May with a suitably chaotic performance which also involved a duck, but that’s a different story for another time.

The album owes a huge debt to some of the influential bands from Godfrey’s formative years such as XTC and Japan, as well as incorporating the discipline, excuse the pun, of projects by the likes of King Crimson.

You cannot make an album like this without having a tight-knit group of some of prog’s most “happening” musicians, such as guitarists extraordinaire, Matt Stevens, Dec Burke and from Dec’s band Hywel Bennett plus Andy Ditchfield from DeeExpus, plus much in demand drummer Henry Rogers.

The result is ground-breaking, a techno album made in a progressive idiom which never sounds like any of the traditionally inspirational giants of the past. Instead, you can hear Japan, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, a smattering of 70s glam rock rhythms, a hint of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and even a touch of Bjōrk without the histrionics.

Bjōrk? Yes, indeed, because Godfrey discovered some samples made by Bulgarian dance singer Danny Claire in his files and without her knowing, he made her his Dora. Her breathy, spacey samples are included as blogs on the album to which he has added instrumental section to make them relevant to the story. Apparently, she is delighted with the results as well she may be.

So groundbreaking is this as a prog album that is humanly possible to either dance or throw shapes along to tracks such as the stand-out Crush Culture. Other songs such as Passengers channels The Twilight Zone while the title track, the longest on the album, brings together all the players for one huge techno workout with added progginess.

Co-produced by Godfrey and Lawrie, Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed is a bit of a game changer in terms of what it brings to the progressive rock table this year.

The first half of this year has brought us a cavalcade of classic prog compositions, courtesy of The Tangent, Big Big Train, Lifesigns, Spock’s Beard and Comedy of Errors to name but a few personal favourites.

Shineback offers none of the above.

What it does instead is to start an entirely new chapter and therefore, it too is at least worthy of a mention on the Wikipedia page devoted to significant anniversaries of events which took place on July 1.

Sounds of Day and Night by Dodson and Fogg

On By Craig BreadenIn Uncategorized2 Comments

ImageI remember reading an interview with Peter Buck sometime in the late 1980s, right as R.E.M. was beginning to peak, in which he insisted it was much harder to write/play slow ballad-y songs than fast pop songs.  A greater risk of dead space, more chances for messing up a tempo, less reliance on a two- or three-note riff.  I thought it was funny at the time, because I was trying to learn guitar (an instrument that confounds me to this day) and thought, shit, I can’t do anything BUT slow.  As I’ve thought about it over the years, though, and as I have put my mind to writing my own songs, I think what Buck was saying is that in the wider genre of guitar-based rock and roll, slower songs tend to be far more reliant on a vocal melody and therefore also the words, that is, real songcraft.  And real songcraft, in performance, can’t be successful if you sound like you’re rushing it or that you’re trying too hard.  Go listen to John Prine.  Spin up Joe Henry.  There is a lean restraint, a kind of patient heart.

I thought again about what Buck said as I listened to the mid-tempo pleasures afforded by Sounds of Day and Night, Dodson and Fogg’s third record.  The band is a project of Chris Wade, an independent artist whose second record, Derring Do, I reviewed on Progarchy earlier this year (https://progarchy.com/2013/02/10/steamfolk-the-derring-do-of-dodson-and-fogg/).  Wade’s Dodson and Fogg intentionally visited early 70s British folk rock on the first two records, even drafting in bona fide players from the period to help out.  The surprising thing was that a young man, working in his home studio, could so effectively evoke that period while making original music so distinctively his own.  While Dodson and Fogg continues to explore these roots on Sounds of Day and Night, the new album is a more relaxed and natural, less finessed effort that may have as much in common with Iron and Wine, Devendra Banhart, and modern American/Scots/Irish singer-songwriters, as with a romanticized past inhabited by shades of Drake, Thompson, and Denny.  Over the course of a year in which Wade has released three Dodson and Fogg records, his music has become increasingly limber.  A mandolin picker/oldtime musician/RT-loving friend of mine describes this phenomenon as the difference between learning the song and knowing the song.  I think Chris Wade increasingly knows his songs, and it’s showing.

The new album is bookended by instrumentals, parts 1 and 2 of the title track, which are only distantly related, one being an entrance and the other the door out.  I have a soft spot for this approach, something not many singer-songwriters are comfortable with, and for the melodies Wade works.  The outro also features a sitar, which, given the slow trajectory of the record towards the acoustic psychedelia of “Clocking Off,” makes a certain Harrison-esque sense.  These instrumentals set the tone for the production of the record, which, like Derring Do before it, evokes a balance of the pastoral and the urban, with acoustic guitars to the fore but electrics winding their way down the lanes, atop smart, spare, brushy drumming.  With woodwinds and brass appearing here and there, Sounds of Day and Night offers a classic folk rock listening experience within a newer framework suggesting the airier approach of the solo work of Sam Prekop or Archer Prewitt (both of Chicago’s The Sea and Cake), or the Kingsbury Manx (https://progarchy.com/tag/kingsbury-manx/).  Like most great music that inhabits a cultural continuum, there are subtle hints and quotes along the way, a bass out of Green Day (“Sounds of Day and Night”), a keyboard out of the Doors (“Night Train”), and a  British vibe that resists pinpointing but steers more towards the Kinks than Donovan.  I think the feel of the album is best encapsulated on “Hear It In The Morning Still,” a medium tempo drift, with nice vocal hook, that builds to a relaxed electric crescendo and gently rides out with a pretty groovy trumpet.

Sounds of Day and Night is an easy record to like.  It shows an independent artist building his own catalogue using his own steam, on his own schedule, doing what he wants to do without hindrance (or help, it should be noted) from a record or management company.  Chris Wade is on a progress, a trajectory that I don’t think has peaked, even with three increasingly strong albums behind him.  (I think he’s still finding confidence in his very capable voice — his tendency to double track his vocal is rarely necessary.  Plus I’d like to hear this music live with a band, because his songs have evolved into vehicles that could sustain jamming live).  But this band is in a good place:  with two solid albums behind it and the current record outdoing its predecessors, Dodson and Fogg is a musican/band/project demanding attention.

I asked Chris about the new album, recording on his own, and Dodson and Fogg’s growing reputation.

Sounds of Day and Night followed closely on the heels of Derring Do — tell us about its evolution.

Well I had started this new album right after I had finished Derring Do in January I believe. With me working at home like this, I am free to go into the office and put ideas down everyday if I feel like it, so there’s no set dates for writing and recording. This album just came together over January/ February to June, more songs came, others went that weren’t really up to scratch. Also I had left them for a couple of months and gone back, listened again and decided what else needed putting in. It was a really satisfying process for this album. I really enjoyed piecing it together.

Although trumpeter Colin Jones is present, the rest of this record is just you (or is it? are you drumming?).  Did this have an effect on your songwriting?

Actually it was the same because all these songs are written on an acoustic with my vocal, then I add bits and pieces in, and I usually sent them off to Celia Humphris (singer from folk rock band Trees) and the others and they normally choose which ones they fancy doing, Celia mostly. She picked them out on Derring Do and then sent them back to me when she had some ideas, which were always brilliant. This time I did send them off to her but she was quite busy and preoccupied with other things, which is cool, just a shame. Some of the other contributors that were lined up to appear didn’t really work out, so I decided to do more instrumentation myself. The light drumming is me also, but I’m not a massive drum fan so I kept it quiet and subtle, little taps and ride cymbals. I like that kind of percussion sound, and bongos, tambourines, things like that to accompany a song without blasting away all over it. Learned a bit more on the flute and used more keyboards to broaden the sound a bit. And also I had been ready to release it for a while, and didn’t fancy waiting around for longer. I like to get these albums out, and because people who are getting into the records know another one will be coming along soon, they are all ready for a new record. It’s cool getting to a stage where I know there are a loyal selection of people who are going to be interested in listening to my music, getting what I am doing and knowing what to expect to a certain degree. It’s bloody brilliant actually.

I feel like Sounds of Day and Night, while it still shows an influence of classic, early 70s British folk rock, has a more contemporary feel than Derring Do.  A lot more free flowing, perhaps a deeper psychedelic strain happening.  What do you think?

I think you could be right, especially about the free psychedelic elements. This must be because I handled all the instruments and was just having fun playing some weirder stuff on certain instruments, doing whatever came into my head. There were melodies coming up all the time and I was adapting them to different instruments and building full songs out of little bits of melody. It was an addictive experience, spending a day drinking coffee and shutting myself in the office all day. But there was no conscious decision at all, this was all just straight out, but it’s my personal favourite of the three records I have made so far. I also think the production is better on the new one, the mixing and the quality of it. I am very proud of the cover art that my girlfriend Linzi Napier has done. Her first exhibition is in July at Otley Togs Gallery, and the piece from this album cover is set to be the one on the main advertising banner outside the venue. Really exciting and very proud of her!

Derring Do got some attention in the British music press. How do you feel about the album’s reception?

I was overwhelmed by the reactions to it. There are publications like the CRS, a chap called James R Turner reviews my things for them and he is really complimentary to my music and a site called Pennyblack Music has a writer named Malcolm Carter and he has said some very kind things about Dodson and Fogg and he really loved Derring Do. Also Brian Watson on DPRP gave it a glowing review. For me it’s so rewarding to see how other people view my songs and how they have taken them seriously, to see what they got out of them. I like people who really get music, understand what you were doing. But I still am really surprised by all the positive reviews. I knew I had made a good album though, otherwise I wouldn’t have dared release it three months after the debut, but still I was overwhelmed by some of the comments.

What are you listening too lately?

Lately I’ve been listening to Caravan a lot, a band called Skin Alley (one of their members, Ksrysztof, played accordion on my first album), Jethro Tull, especially the Thick as a Brick album, Beatles, Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album (one of my favourites since I was about 9) and also some Tom Petty.

Are you performing live?

Not yet no. I haven’t managed to get any like minded musicians from Leeds together for shows and I definitely don’t really want to do a solo acoustic gig, There’s too much stuff on the albums that adds character that I think a  solo acoustic thing would be dull. I’d probably fall asleep on stage. But I do want to get a band together for shows one day because people keep asking me if I am playing live soon.

Last time we talked to you, we asked you about the business of getting to listeners, as an independent musician who records and markets his own music.  Have your thoughts on this changed much at all? Any label interest since the release of Derring Do?

I’ve had no label interest because I don’t think it is too common these days. An obscure cult band like this isn’t going to attract a big label and the genres people tag on it like prog folk and acid folk, don’t make it sound very commercial, not that i am interested at all in being commercial but you know what I mean. Besides I love doing it myself, all the business and promo side as well, and setting up distribution deals for abroad and sending the discs all over the place to those familiar names, it’s like living a dream, I love it. I think if someone else was in charge of my artwork, my royalties, my PRS, the promotional side, I would be a bit nervous. I like to have it all in front of me. I’ve recently discovered a band called The Tangent, when I met the band leader Andy Tillison and his partner Sally Collyer at an art gallery and got on with them. I think he is great to his fans and he and Sally have a great relationship with them, and look how big that band is. Their new record has been a massive event to many people all over the world, so you can only admire them both. I think a lot of artists could learn from that approach. People are parting with money to get your music, which is an honour, so I always email back and forth with people who are buying my albums, and have a laugh with them, because being friendly and open is so much better, and more fun,  than being up your own bottom and unapproachable. Saying that, I’m not well known at all so maybe I see it from a different side than to someone who is famous.

It’s been less than six months since I reviewed Derring Do.  Can I expect another one in October? What’s next for you?

Definitely not October, haha. I’d be knackered. Got to get some fresh air and not breathe in jostick fumes all day… for a while at least.  I think that will be it for the year, I want to take a little break from recording, get some fresh ideas and take a step back. I’ve got loads more ideas, some of them are acoustic like the first album, and some are more of a full band sound. But I want to take my time as well, get Celia back in for the next one and hopefully some other guests. Next up will be another Dodson and Fogg album, and the first album is also getting a vinyl release by a US company which I am excited about. It’s been a dream all my life to have an album on vinyl and I can’t believe I’ll be getting it. I am basically just loving this music project. I have done other stuff, audiobooks and non fiction books, but i have never had a reaction like this. it’s always moving forward and is so positive.

Is there a link to a sample/YouTube vid for readers?

This is my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sofaguard

There’s some free tracks up there from each of the 3 albums and a couple of videos too, one starring my father in law as odd ball cretin roaming through the woods.

[Also check out Dodson and Fogg’s webpage: http://wisdomtwinsbooks.weebly.com/dodson-and-fogg.html]