Tag: Richard Barbieri

Rick’s Quick Takes for January (In the Bleak Midwinter)

On By kruekuttIn art rock, avant-garde, electronic, jazz, jazz rock, progressive metal, progressive rockLeave a comment

Note: Artist/title links go to purchase options; streaming previews follow reviews.

Mary Halvorson, Cloudward: Trailblazing guitarist Halvorson gathers the sextet from her 2022 classic Amaryllis around eight new avant-jazz compositions. Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill and trombonist Jacob Garchik sizzle on opener “The Gate”; Patricia Brennan’s vibraphone lends a rich shimmer to “The Tower”; Nick Dunston launches an epic bass solo to kick off the closing “Ultramarine”. And Tomas Fujiwara? He’s everything you could imagine in one drummer — meditatively punctuating “Unscrolling”, driving the riff-fest “Tailhead” and covering all points in-between. Set these folks loose on their leader’s sinewy, elegant concoctions of yearning and abstraction, and you never know what will happen next. All the while, Halvorson sets the pace on her instrument, with a woody, delay-laced sound and a skittering, percussive style all her own. Whether Halvorson’s and company are swinging like mad on “Collapsing Mouth” or coalescing like electrical static around Laurie Anderson’s guest violin on “Incarnadine”, Cloudward is another head-spinning, laugh-out-loud delight.

Neal Morse, The Restoration — Joseph, Part Two: The conclusion of Morse’s latest rock opera takes Part One’s rough and ready swagger and turns it up to 11, with grit even in the proggiest moments (Jacob’s sons’ vocal fugue a la Gentle Giant on “The Argument”) and fresh muscle propelling the Latin groove “Everlasting”. There’s heft to the lyrics too, as the showdown between a newly-powerful Joseph and his off-balance brothers displaces Neal’s usual conversion narrative. (Don’t worry, though; reconciliation and revival are just a title track away.) With tight melodic/thematic connections to The Dreamer and a beefy sound recalling George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, The Restoration is also a spectacular vocal showcase; ensemble highlights include Ted Leonard’s emotive Judah and the Nick D’Virgilio/Ross Jennings cameos as Pharaoh’s butler and baker, and Morse puts his newly darkened tone to thrilling use at dramatic highpoints like “I Hate My Brothers”. Together, the Joseph albums are easily my favorite Morse-related releases since The Similitude of a Dream and The Great Adventure, and The Restoration goes straight to my Official Faves List for the new year.

PAKT, No Steps Left to Trace: Another year, another heaping helping of cutting-edge free improvisation from MoonJune Records, courtesy of indefatigable impresario Leonardo Pavkovic! Now in their third year as a collective, bassist Percy Jones, guitarist Alex Skolnick, drummer Kenny Grohowski and guitarist/electronicist Tim Motzer unleash their first double album, created entirely from scratch both in the studio and live. It’s a genuinely explosive set, especially when Jones (best known from Phil Collins’ 1970s fusion band Brand X) ramps up the double-time grooves and his compatriots lock on! But the intensity doesn’t slacken when the music spaces out, either; listening hard and leaning into their deep, uncanny sense of interplay, PAKT also conjures some of the most arresting ambient jams I’ve come across recently. Bursting every genre boundary you can think of, No Steps Left to Trace isn’t for the musically faint of heart — but, for those with ears to hear, it’s a trip well worth taking.

Porcupine Tree, Closure/Continuation. Live Amsterdam 7/11/22: The show I saw in Chicago a couple of months before but bigger, scaled up for packed European arenas instead of partially-filled Stateside auditoriums and rush-released on video before Christmas. The sum of all the prog-metal parts here is flat-out engaging: Gavin Harrison’s percussive impossibilities and Richard Barbieri’s synth squelches ground Steven Wilson’s driven singing and sardonic patter, while utility players supreme Randy McStine and Nate Navarro slam the songs home. Newer material stacks up well against PT’s classics, with pensive slowburns “Dignity”, “Chimera’s Wreck” and “Buying New Soul” nicely offsetting thrashy frequency-eaters “Blackest Eyes”, “Herd Culling” and “Anesthetize”. A solid introduction for anyone who missed the Tree’s initial, spiky flowering, this one will probably resonate deeper with longtime fans (like me) who took Wilson’s long-term “never again” PR onslaught at face value – until we no longer had to.

The Smile, Wall of Eyes: Admit it: does Stanley Donwood’s latest album cover look like a psychedelic Lord of the Rings paperback cover from the 1960s or what? And the title track kick-off of this Radiohead-facing project is every bit as disorienting: a understated bossa nova from Tom Skinner to which a balefully depressive Thom Yorke lyric, tightly wound orchestral smears and Jonny Greenwood’s arhythmic guitar plinks attach themselves like disfiguring barnacles. No forthright kicks to the head in the style of A Light for Attracting Attention here; The Smile beckon us toward dystopia ever so gently — odd-time licks over the ominous vamp “Read the Room”, Greenwood and Skinner gouging a trench below Yorke’s mewling protests on “Under Our Pillows”; the Beatlesque ballad “Friend of a Friend” delicately dissolving the boundary between courage and despair in less than five minutes. In the face of lives ever more trapped onscreen, are the only options self-destruction (as “Bending Hectic’s” dissonant strings erupting into unmistakable Greenwood power chords) or resignation to Technopoly’s embrace (the closing “You Know Me!”)? Whatever our take, Yorke, Greenwood and Skinner once again prove brutally honest guides to the expanse of beauty and abyss of horrors lying before us. 

— Rick Krueger 

Porcupine Tree In Concert: Not Closed, Continuing

On By kruekuttIn art rock, Heavy metal, progressive metal, progressive rock3 Comments

Porcupine Tree, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, September 20, 2022.

The kick-off of Porcupine Tree’s first Chicago show in twelve years was nothing if not dramatic: a deep drone booming out as automated stage lighting menacingly swept the 3,000+ plus audience, the house lights dimming at the point of maximum tension — then a full-on visual assault from lights and screen, tracking with the slashing hard rock riffs of In Absentia’s “Blackest Eyes”.

At stage left: Richard Barbieri, ensconced in his wraparound nest of keyboards, conjuring up fearsome sonic webs of mist, gloom and abrasive noise as required. At stage right: Gavin Harrison, similarly surrounded by an overwhelming array of drums, cymbals and percussive accessories — and somehow appearing to be able to hit them all at once. And at center stage: Steven Wilson, throwing shapes on guitar as the power chords crashed, scrambling toward the mike on bare feet to chime in with typically sunny lyrics about a serial killer making a move on his desired prey.

Left to right: Richard Barbieri, Steven Wilson and Gavin Harrison, live onstage in Chicago.

It was an impressive opening, but something seemed off, and Wilson quickly acknowledged the state of affairs — sickness had been running through the band, and tonight it was effecting his voice. Promising his best efforts on both the Tree’s back catalog and the whole of their new album Closure/Continuation, singer and band proceeded to a nimble, ominous reading of “Harridan” and a lilting take on “Of The New Day.” Here Wilson’s challenges for the evening became apparent, as congestion and pitching problems crept into passages sung with less than full power. By “Rats Return”, though, Wilson had his voice under control, excoriating the cowardice of political strongmen both at the top of his lungs and in chilling undertones, while vicious fuzzed riffs raged around him.

The rest of the first set was completely stunning, mixing new tracks with superbly chosen throwbacks like the Floydian angst of “Even Less” and the doomy drive of “Drown With Me”. A zesty “The Sound Of Muzak” had it all: a bitterly hilarious Wilson intro (“21 years ago, I wrote a song about how music was becoming commodified — something you picked up at the supermarket, or as part of a software application. Well, thank goodness that didn’t come to pass!”), one bewilderingly brilliant Harrison drum fill after another, and a spontaneous audience singalong to the choogling chorus. Then it was Barbieri’s turn to stoke the darkly atmospheric “Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled”, its instrumental build eerily synced with the video suicide note of Heaven’s Gate cult founder Marshall Applewhite. And after senseless death, mourning: the new “Chimera’s Wreck” finally clicked into place for me as a survivor’s lament, Wilson diving into the depths of human experience, probing extremes in search of exorcism and catharsis. But after that emotional a ride, what do you do for the second half?

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Porcupine Tree, Closure/Continuation

On By kruekuttIn art rock, progressive rockLeave a comment

A new song from Porcupine Tree (Steven Wilson, Richard Barbieri and Gavin Harrison) is now available on all major streaming services (and on video in Europe). Herewith, “Harridan”:

The skinny from porcupinetree.com:

Harridan and a few of the other new songs have been in play since shortly after the release of The Incident. They initially lived on a hard drive in a slowly growing computer file marked PT2012, later renamed PT2015, PT2018, and so on.

There were times when we even forgot they were there, and times when they nagged us to finish them to see where they would take us. Listening to the finished pieces, it was clear that this wasn’t like any of our work outside of the band – the combined DNA of the people behind the music meant these tracks were forming what was undeniably, unmistakably, obviously a Porcupine Tree record.

You’ll hear all of that DNA flowing right through Harridan.

The new album, titled Closure/Continuation, was completed in September and will be released on Music for Nations/Sony on June 24, 2022. Regular and deluxe CD and LP editions are now available for pre-order at the PT webstore and at Burning Shed. (Burning Shed’s exclusive white vinyl version is already sold out.)

European tour dates have been announced for October/November 2022, with tickets on sale Friday, November 5. Pre-ordering the album through the PT webstore (or just registering there) guarantees pre-sale access this Wednesday, November 3. US and Canada tour dates for autumn 2022 will be announced early next year.

All details above are available via PT’s website. Let the anticipation (and/or the bellyaching) commence …

— Rick Krueger

Tad’s Favorites of 2017

On By Thaddeus WertIn progressive rock9 Comments

10. KXM- Scatterbrain

If you’re missing King’s X, then this one will satisfy your craving. Ray Luzier (KoRn) is on drums, George Lynch (Dokken & Lynch Mob) is on guitar, and Doug Pinnock (King’s X) is on bass and vocals. This is their second album, and it is much more varied in its music styles than their debut. I never was into Dokken, but George Lynch’s guitar work is killer -especially on “Breakout”.

 

9. Big Big Train – Grimspound

I give Grimspound the edge over its sister album, The Second Brightest Star. What a great collection of tributes and vignettes of everything that is good about Great Britain. Using small details to convey big ideas is really difficult, but BBT are masters and make it look easy.

 

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Richard Barbieri’s Prog-Electronica Genius

On By carleolsonIn Ambient, electronic, progressive rock2 Comments

richardbarbieriI was first exposed to that exotic, amorphous musical genre called “electronica” in junior high by a friend who listened to what we called “weird stuff”. I’m not even sure what it was; some of it was from Japan. It made a dent in my memory banks, however, because until then my musical interests had been confined to some classical (Brahms! Mozart! Good!), Top 40 rock (Queen! Also good!), and lots of mediocre CCM (Not good!). During my high school years I listened to a good deal of The Alan Parsons Project, in part because of the huge hit “Eye In the Sky”; I eventually collected all of the APP albums. Parsons, of course, has straddled the worlds of progressive rock and mainstream pop/rock with his production prowess, writing, and work with keyboards and Fairlight programming. In hindsight, his music opened the door in various ways to music that was more overtly electronic.

(A quick, semi-related aside: A good friend in high school, who spent a lot of money on a fabulous car stereo system, liked to alternate between playing—very loudly—the raunchy rap of 2 Live Crew and the muzak of Yanni: the first to demonstrate his system’s bass; the latter to show off it’s high end. I’m not sure which music scarred me more.)

In the late Eighties and early Nineties there was an explosion of so-called “New Age” music (which had been around since the Sixties and whose identity has been hotly debated for decades), much of which was ambient or involved whales bellowing, birds chirping, and flowers clapping their petals. I mostly  ignored it, but did eventually latch onto the music of Patrick O’Hearn, whose solo albums on the Private Music label were lush, complex, mysterious, evocative, and never boring, even at their most sedate. O’Hearn, like all of the finest electronica artists, is the master of tone and mood; the music is rarely about virtuosity—unlike wide swaths of prog rock—but about constructing layers and movements. I liken it to a painter who builds layers of luminosity into his work through patient precision (more on the visual arts parallel in a moment).

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of cross-pollination going on between some “New Age” artists and various progressive rock groups and musicians. O’Hearn, who has legit jazz chops—he studied with jazz giant and bassist Gary Peacock—played with Frank Zappa as a youngster, and then with the new-wave band Missing Persons; the Private Music label featured a number of musicians with deep ties to progressive rock. (Another good example of this relationship can be found in Jon Anderson’s albums with Kitaro and Vangelis.) In the 1990s I bought several albums by Moby, Portishead, Björk, Aphex Twin, and Massive Attack, even while I ignored (for whatever reason) other key artists (Brian Eno, for instance).

Richard Barbieri is, of course, no stranger to prog fans, being a key member of Japan and Porcupine Tree and having worked in a number of other settings. His new album “Planets + Persona” [Kscope Music] is his third solo album, following 2005’s “Things Buried” and 2008’s “Stranger Inside”, both of which I enjoyed quite a bit. The three albums are similar in many ways, but this new album seems, to me, to be warmer, more organic (or acoustic), and more contemplative. Geno Thackara, at AllAboutJazz.com, explains it so: Continue reading “Richard Barbieri’s Prog-Electronica Genius” →

Richard Barbieri News from Kscope

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rockLeave a comment

Richard Barbieri

Richard Barbieri’s third solo album ‘Planets + Persona’ is OUT NOW, check out the 360° video for “Solar Sea”.

“What other planets are out there? Could there be any life 40 light-years away?” – The new 360° video for Richard Barbieri’s track “Solar Sea”, explores these questions, imagines these new worlds – colliding planets, ice crystals inside a hollow comet, volcanic asteroids spewing molten lava into open space and a breathtaking finale.

Richard Barbieri

WATCH HERE www.kscopemusic.com/rb

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