After leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel released four solo albums (1977, 1978, 1980, and 1982), all originally simply entitled Peter Gabriel.  The first three earned nicknames based on their covers, and the fourth was dubbed Security when it was released in the U. S.  (I remember thinking at the time that this album-titling strategy, surely frustrating to marketers, was one of the coolest things imaginable.)

Ever since its release in 1978, the second Peter Gabriel (“Scratch”) has been one of my very favorite albums.  It would make my top 25 list not only of “prog” albums, but of any albums of any genre.  I’ve often been strongly tempted to think that this was due to those idiosyncratic associations we all have with some of the albums from youth.  But I’ve both listened to and thought about it again lately, and I’ve decided that I will still boldly proclaim that it is, as an album, the best of the four.

This feels like a strange judgment to make.  While about as critically successful as its companions at the time, generally speaking, it now sometimes seems to be the least enduringly “visible” of the four.  I have certainly run into a lot of folks who know Gabriel’s work generally but who do not remember “Scratch” well.  (Perhaps this is different across the pond?)  And my judgement does not negate the high points of the other three, arguably higher in some ways than any particular moment on “Scratch.”  But “Scratch” is not about high points as much as it is about a compelling sort of quasi-operatic profundity, sustained with remarkable consistency all the way through both sides of the original vinyl.

Now, putting it that way, in terms of the “operatic,” may make it sound “over-the-top,” but that is precisely what “Scratch” is not.  The profundity has always sounded, and still does sound, wholly genuine to me.  It has a remarkable textural subtlety that, as far as I can tell, has a lot to do with the way in which Robert Fripp’s production places just the right amount of restraint on Gabriel’s 70’s envelope-pushing ethos.  (If you know the album, but haven’t done it recently, listen to it again alongside the other two albums in the Fripp “trilogy,” Fripp’s Exposure and Daryl Hall’s Sacred Songs.)

With Fripp’s production and the marvelous synergy of the musicians (yes, I have to use that word, and not just because of Larry Fast), Gabriel’s voice on this album (sometimes treated, sometimes multiplied, sometimes fragile, sometimes exquisitely abrasive) is at its most Genesis-glory-days “Gabrielesque.”  I tend to see it as the last truly great whole-album surge of the “early” Gabriel.  Again, this is not to cast particular aspersions upon the “later” Gabriel.  (I think the last single-song surge may have been “Shock the Monkey,” but that judgment may be clouded by its delightful music video.)  So (1986) is amazing in completely different ways.

I haven’t yet been able to bring myself to discuss the individual songs.  Do you remember them?  If so, I’m guessing you remember some more than others, but I’ll surrender to the impulse and not go there.  I’ll stick with my focus on the album as album.  Listen again to the whole thing.  Listen to it as a sustained, single work.

To my ears, it holds up as well as anything Gabriel has ever done.

It is going to be another vintage year for prog and if you do not know when or where it is going to start, then may I suggest you put Monday January 28 2013 into your diary?

Why? Because on that day, the first wave in the tsunami of brilliant new British prog rock will be available to the discerning listening community in the form of Lifesigns.

Let me tell you a little bit about it. First, it is another prog-ject following on from Kompendium’s Beneath the Waves and Genesis Revisited II that both had guest lists straight out of prog central casting. Also, three of the main players from those albums, Steve Hackett, Nick Beggs and Jakko Jakszyk will be appearing on Lifesigns.

Heading up this album is John Young, the classically trained composer, keyboards player and vocalist whose CV includes stints with Asia, the Strawbs, Greenslade, Fish, Uli Jon Roth and his own John Young Band. He also tours with Bonnie “Total Eclipse of the Heart” Tyler.

After such an illustrious career, John decided six years ago he ought to write a prog album which would draw together all the musical influences in his life including classic bands of the 70s such as Yes and Focus.

To cut a long story short, John moved to the delightfully named town of Leighton Buzzard in the Home Counties of England where his next door neighbour was music producer Steve Rispin to whom he started playing some of his musical ideas, usually late at night. Nick Beggs is also resident in this town and John invited him to be a central collaborator to Lifesigns. Frosty Beedle, drummer with Cutting Crew, who had a huge hit with (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight, became the third musical member of the core Lifesigns group with John and Nick.

So where is this all leading? Well last January, John and Nick invited Martin Reijman, my prog partner in crime, and me to come and hear an early version of the album.

By way of explanation, Nick and I go back a long long way – over 30 years – back to when I was working as a reporter on the local paper in Leighton Buzzard, but that’s a story for another time.

We had also met John both via Facebook and at a gig so it was an real honor to be among the first to hear the genesis of Lifesigns. Eighty five per cent of the album had been completed then and we were both struck by its classic British prog style, full of uplifting melodies, harmonies and instrumentation. By then, Steve Hackett had also added a couple of his signature flourishes to the arrangements.

After that, John also secured the services of one of his heroes, the legendary Thijs Van Leer of Focus who provided some lovely flutelines, then guitarists Jakko from King Crimson and Robin Boult, who has played with Fish.

The months passed and John got back in contact to say the album had been completed and Esoteric Records would be releasing it.  He invited us back to hear the finished article but unfortunately Martin was unwell on the day in question and is still to hear it.  So I returned alone to Steve Rispin’s studio in a beautiful part of rural Buckinghamshire to hear the album and meet Frosty, and John of course.

Well, the finished article was sensational. It was quite mind-blowing to think of the various processes and mixes the music had been through to achieve the final sound. Lifesigns is one of those quintessentially classic British prog albums (with a dash of Dutch artistry) which takes you on a long and memorable journey through some very special sonic landscapes.

The opener Lighthouse nearly knocked me off my chair with its wall of sound that conjured up crashing waves. As John is keen to point out, the theme of the album is life itself and is open to any interpretation the listener may want to put on it.

The three of us ended up at the local bar in the neighboring village where John recounted an extraordinary story of a meeting he had with another of his heroes, the brilliant Patrick Moraz of  Refugee, Yes and the Moody Blues in the bar of the Los Angeles’ Hilton Hotel. Maybe one day, I will take a verbatim note from John of the story and share it with you here.

Anyway, that’s the background to Lifesigns which I hope you will all  hear and adore, made by a group of incredibly charming guys who genuinely love making the music. It was a real privilege to have been a party to its progress last year.

http://www.facebook.com/Signslife?fref=ts