The Amazing - Picture You

 

Back to business, sort of after all the arranging of my CD's and such into storage units. Still ongoing which makes me think I may have too many CD's! Just a thought! Anyway, here's something new. The third album by Swedish band The Amazing. The main point of interest for me in this band is guitarist Reine Fiske. He was originally the guitarist in legendary 90's prog band Landberk, appeared on the wonderful Morte Macabre project alongside Niklas Barker of Anekdoten, was a member of Paatos in their early days and has made extraordinary contributions to the last couple of Motorpsycho albums. He is a wonderful guitarist, with a very individual and distinctive style. This album though is quite 60's California psychedelia in style, with maybe a Red House Painters melancholic vibe. Though there are two guitarists, it's Fiskes subtle, incendiary fretwork that always shines. The band have a lovely lightness of touch and let the songs breath and develop naturally. I do miss Fiske working in a more prog rock setting and his work with Motorpsycho is more akin to what I like seeing him do, but The Amazing is another facet of his wonderful playing which really should be more appreciated.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Been busy!

No time for listening much as been busy sorting out all my CD's at last. I have had these in piles in the upstairs room for years and now that it has been tidied I bought a couple of storage units and sorted them out. Not complete but it is getting there.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Steven Wilson - Hand.Cannot.Erase

 

And I thought The Raven that Refused to Sing was good! This new opus is even better without a doubt.

The new Steven Wilson album is probably the most anticipated album this year and not just from prog rock circles. His name and reputation is such that he now even garners a 5 star review for his latest solo creation from the likes of The Guardian newspaper and deservedly so. Whereas Raven was resolutely entrenched in 70's prog rock, this new offering sees some 80's art rock entering the equation. That's no surprise as his mixing duties prior to Raven were very King Crimson centric. Recently he has been remixing XTC, Tears for Fears and Simple Minds. It's obvious that engrossing himself in those works has rubbed off in a big way.

To be honest, based on the limited listenings I have given to this new album, the initial impressions is that this is the best thing he has done. He has seamlessly mixed the pop sensibilities he brought to no-man and Blackfield and the complex prog workouts featured in recent releases. Guthrie Govan's guitar playing is even more inspired on this release, but it's Adam Holzman who really excels. His overdriven Rhodes electric piano playing is fantastic, but his moog solo on Regret #9 is absolutely inspired.

Wilson has extended his sonic palette by including boy choristers and female vocalists for the first time. So, he really has taken his ambitions to another level and it works perfectly. This album works so well as a whole, perfectly mixing pop based songs with lengthier prog epics and even a bit of electronica added into the mix for good measure. There will be comparisons to other concept works and for me it is Patrick Moraz's solo album he made during his tenure with Yes, The Story of i. The feel is similar, where Moraz mixed pop orientated songs and fusion/prog instrumentals to produce a conceptual whole and even the end pieces are similar. On Moraz's album we have Symphony in Space which is a cacophony of mellotrons and synths evoking a sense of ascendency as does Wilson's end piece, Ascendant Here On.

The concept! Well, it has been well documented in numerous interviews and pieces about how Wilson was intrigued by a documentary about a young woman who died, alone and not found for 3 years. But to me Wilson has taken that premise to a different place as documented in the extraordinary book of the special edition. The large format hardback book is typical of what Wilson has produced for all his solo albums, but here he has taken that much further by including extra material like paper clippings, fake birth certificate, letters, booklets. This is a fantastic labour of love in order to give a completely engrossing and immersive experience. The storytelling is done like a diary or blog and only hints at what is really going on. I mean, who are the visitors? Are they products of her imagination, mental apparitions or something more? What happens at the end, where has she gone? Is this an alien abduction tale, or what? It's all left to interpretation.

My expectations were high after the emphatic success of The Raven that Refused to Sing. That he has produced a work that is even better without repeating the ground covered on previous albums is extraordinary. Can he keep up this high level of productivity? Only time will tell.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sanguine Hum - Now We Have Light

 

For their third studio outing, Sanguine Hum have gone all out for a double concept album. Very 70's! This is a band I have sort of followed over the course of their last two albums and they are a very distinctive band, mixing a whole lot of influences and sounds. There is a bit of Hatfield and the North as has been mentioned in reviews of the band, Frank Zappa and more traditional prog fare like a bit of Yes and Genesis, but it all comes together in quite a nice cohesive whole. However, for me I always felt there was something that didn't quite completely gel. I couldn't put my finger on it till I heard their live album from last year. I felt the music was impressive, but a bit too "careful". It came across as a bit too studious and introverted. No such problem with this new album. Whether it's the bonkers concept of the album or realising they have something special on their hands, but this album is a complete triumph. I will be bold enough to say it could be the 21st Century's equivalent of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. In fact it reflects that albums obscure concept too. Here, rather than a protagonist Rael, we have a bloke called Don and something to do with the paradox of buttered cats. It's all clearly explained in the lengthy synopsis within the album booklet! Musically, the album is quite excellent. Mixing fusion like instrumentals and tricksy songs in a manner that keeps the dynamics of the album flowing effortlessly. The playing is full of enthusiasm and ambition from all concerned. The band do play very tightly and work off each other very nicely. This is a great album and one that has made me go back to their earlier albums and maybe those will be appreciated more now. By the way, the album is on Esoteric Antenna, who had a such a succesful year last year with the albums they released and it looks this year is going to be even better!

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Unthanks - Mount the Air

 

This is one of those albums that defy categorisation and transcends genres. The Unthanks may be classed as a folk group, but they have always plowed a much wider path, adapting songs by the likes of Robert Wyatt and King Crimson. With this latest album they have ventured even further away from traditional folk songs. Sounding more jazzy, with pronounced trumpet and brushed drums, they do evoke Gil Evans period Miles Davis but on epic tracks like Foundling and the title track there is more of the spirit of Islands and Starless by King Crimson. Which is no coincidence as the band covered Starless on their last album.

The Unthank sisters both have a light, wistful air to their voices which is enhanced by the spacious and sparse production. This is all enhanced by the empathic and expert mastering of Denis Blackham.

The album may be classed as eclectic folk, but this is one album that can't be easily pigeonholed and rightly so. The quality of these heartfelt songs is sublime and has to be enjoyed on its own terms. In some ways they are not a million miles away from what Big Big Train have been doing lately, but coming at a traditional form of English songwriting from somewhat different directions, but somehow meeting in the middle.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Rick Wakeman - Reissues

 

Well, these have been a long time coming. It is hard to believe that this is the first time that Wakeman's A&M catalogue has been properly remastered since the albums were first released on CD around 1990. Those were also poorly packaged as was the norm in those days, which didn't do justice at all to the flamboyant packaging of the original vinyl LP's. The catalogue however was reissued in Japan around 2003 as papersleeve editions which did mention a remastering. But what the source of the tapes they used for this is unknown. I have them as shown below and they are an improvement over the original.

There were plans to re-release the catalogue by Esoteric many years ago, but Wakeman decided to do them himself. But, again a few years dragged on and nothing. But now at last, Universal have picked up the reigns and we now have the first fruits of this reissue program. Strangely not the first two albums that were chronologically released, but the first two studio albums. So, Journey to the Centre of the Earth is not included in this first batch of releases. What we have is Six Wives and King Arthur. The format of these re-issues is a CD of the remastered album plus a DVD with high resolution stereo and quad mixes. Some may argue that it's a shame they didn't go back to the original multitracks, if available and produce a new 5.1 surround mix. There is still some discussion on the origin of these quad mixes, whether they are from tapes or transfers from vinyl sources. However, the MLP 24/96 stereo is very good.

 

Both albums have been remastered at Abbey Road and sound really clear and detailed, especially King Arthur where the vocals of the choir, orchestra and low synth notes are very impressively presented. The menus on both discs has been authored by Neil Wilkes, who has been involved in projects such as the King Crimson and Yes archival releases and I have the feeling it was him who guided the decision to have these discs released in lossless high resolution. The packaging of these reissues is quite good, with the original artwork reproduced within the booklet which includes, notes by Jerry Ewing and even the full lyric book from King Arthur.

 

For me, these are pretty good upgrades of Wakeman's albums. It's especially good they have them not just as CD but in high resolution stereo on the DVD. It's that which gives the best representation of the classical, orchestral grandeur of Wakemans music, especially on King Arthur.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Grand Tour - Heavy on the Beach

Being Scottish myself, I am always on the look out for prog from my homeland. There never was a prog scene in Scotland as such. In fact it wasn't really till the time of neo-prog that a band from Scotland got any notice. Pallas sort of followed the template of Marillion, by initially signing with a major label. In Pallas's case this was the legendary Harvest label, where they released The Sentinel album. Produced by Eddie Offord of Yes and ELP fame and sporting a cover by Patrick Woodroffe, this was a major prog statement. Well, maybe in the 70's it would have been, but this was 1984 and times had changed.

Anyway, back to 2015 and here we have an album by a new Scottish band Grand Tour, which is the brainchild of ex-Abel Ganz keyboard player, Hew Montgomery, backed by musicians from excellent Scottish band Comedy of Errors. Both bands existed in the mid 80's but failed to make much impact as prog was off the radar. But now, prog has come out of the shadows and both bands have become active and produced some very good music. This new project is in a similar territory to both Abel Ganz and Comedy of Errors which is not surprising. It is very strong melodically, musically tight, with Montgomery's keyboards very much to the fore and the guitar of Mark Spalding adding a harder edge. Vocals by Joe Cairney are excellent and it is good to hear a slight Scottish accent in the delivery. I do hope Montgomery can develop this project further as bands like this and others are showing that Scotland can produce very good and distinctive prog.

Here is a quick list of some of my favourite Scottish prog.

Abel Ganz - Abel Ganz

Comedy of Errors - Fanfare & Fantasy

Pallas - The Sentinel

Citizen Cain - Somewhere But Yesterday

Crooked Mouth - Hold in the Sun

Posted with Blogsy