Album Reviews View More

Elephant Planet - Elephant Emoji

Elephant Planet – Elephant Emoji

With 50+ album offers arriving each week at TPA, there’s simply never enough time to listen to all of them, so quite often it’s just a phrase or the suggested ‘genre tags’ that sparks the initial: ‘take a listen’, or…

Tempus Cucumis - Rêves

Tempus Cucumis – Rêves

I love the unpredictable power of music to take you completely by surprise. I knew absolutely nothing about Belgian duo Jeroen De Brauwer and Lukas Huisman apart from the briefest of messages which arrived in an email along with a…

Melanie Mau & Martin Schnella – The Rainbow Tree

Melanie Mau & Martin Schnella – The Rainbow Tree

My first experience with the German acoustic duo of Melanie Mau and Martin Schnella was at New Jersey’s Progstock festival. Mau (vocals) and Schnella (acoustic guitar & vocals) are typically abetted onstage by percussionist Simon Schroder, performing on various hand…

The Aristocrats - DUCK

The Aristocrats – DUCK

The Aristocrats… is there really anything left to be said about this obscenely talented band? Guthrie Govan, Marco Minnemann and Bryan Beller have spent more than a decade releasing albums of mind-bending – but always with a point – content…

A Different Aspect (ADA) View More

A Different Aspect #92

Featured artists: Cédric Theys | Great North Star | Siobhan McCrudden | Daniel Crommie | Exowst Scotland Rounding off the ADA section for 2023 we have five bite-sized reviews taking a snapshot of just some of the albums, EPs and…

A Different Aspect #91

Featured artists: Steve Broomhead | Teea Aarnio | Nathanaël Larochette | Exowst Scotland In this ADA update of bite-sized reviews, we take a snapshot of just some of the albums, EPs and singles to land at TPA: • Steve Broomhead…

Concert Reviews View More

Fusion 5: Music Without Frontiers - Day Three TPA banner

Fusion 5: Day Two

The Civic Hall, Stourport Saturday, 2nd March 2024 RUBY DAWN (David Edwards) Carola Baer’s Ruby Dawn started proceedings wonderfully on Day 2 of Fusion 5 – with another captivating, dreamy and hypnotic set of prog and groove-led rhythm, focusing on…

Fusion 5: Music Without Frontiers - Day Three TPA banner

Fusion 5: Day One

The Civic Hall, Stourport Friday, 1st March 2024 The ever growing Fusion Festival was held at the beginning of March with attendees gathering from around the U.K., Europe and even the U.S.A., such is the growing attraction of this excellent…

John Hackett Band (with Heather Findlay) at Darlington Forum 15 March 2024

John Hackett Band / Heather Findlay

The Forum Music Centre, Darlington Friday, 15th March 2024 John Hackett and his band returned to the Forum in Darlington after 18 months and gave a truly exceptional performance of progressive rock full of diversity, swirling with a myriad of…

Soft Machine

Soft Machine

Acapela Studio, Pentyrch, Cardiff Thursday, 22nd February 2024 It’s cold and wet outside, but inside the cosy confines of Acapela it’s warm and filled with the smell of freshly baked pizza. Arriving fairly early to make sure I could grab…

Richard Wileman & Chantelle Smith

Richard Wileman & Chantelle Smith / VÄLVĒ

The Victoria, Swindon Sunday 18th February 2024 The Vic is a lovely venue, friendly and welcoming with an excellent stage room downstairs, today laid out with seats to rest the weary bones of the 30+ lucky audients who have assembled…

The Pineapple Thief at SWX Bristol February 2024

The Pineapple Thief / Randy McStine

SWX, Bristol Thursday, 22nd February 2024 The Pineapple Thief return to home territory in Bristol on a damp February night for only the second date of their European Tour, performing much of their excellent new album It Leads to This,…

Supersister & Residentie Orkest at Amare Theatre, The Hague 2024 TPA banner

Supersister & Residentie Orkest

Amare Theatre, The Hague, The Netherlands Thursday, 8th February 2024 I was somewhat surprised by the last-minute invitation from a good friend to witness a unique performance by legendary Dutch band Supersister together with the renowned Residentie Orchestra in their…

Godsticks

Godsticks / Karmen Field / Edit The Tide

The Bunkhouse, Swansea Friday, 9th February 2024 Swansea… breaker of dreams and, for a long time, the cultural equivalent of putting the bins out. But wait! Things are beginning to change, and we’re now seeing bands from as far away…

Interviews View More

Nick D'Virgilio (Big Big Train)

Nick D’Virgilio – Big Big Train

Following the release of Big Big Train‘s (BBT) fifteenth studio album, The Likes of Us, TPA’s Alex Driessen was given the opportunity to interview one of the members of this originally British band. The choice fell on American drummer/singer Nick…

Storm Deva

Storm Deva

A week or two before Christmas, TPA’s Roger Trenwith sat down with Carollyn Eden and Stuart Clark, a.k.a Storm Deva, and they had a good old natter, discussing their backgrounds, how the band formed, their influences and the recently released…

V Ä L V Ē, Chloe Herington (right)

Chlöe Herington – V Ä L V Ē

Chlöe Herington is a woman with a long history on the prog-adjacent fringes of this weird scene we inhabit. TPA’s Roger Trenwith had a chance to chat with her about her project V Ä L V Ē, their imminent new…

Peter Horvath - The Anderson Council

Peter Horvath – The Anderson Council

After seeing The Anderson Council’s incendiary performance at a local venue in New Jersey, TPA’s John Giordano was able to grab a few words with vocalist/guitarist Peter Horvath and lead guitarist Michael Potenza. The two were both warm and engaging,…

John Boegehold – Pattern-Seeking Animals

John Boegehold – Pattern-Seeking Animals

Not only is John Boegehold of Pattern-Seeking Animals one of the more prolific artists working in any genre today, he is one of the warmest, most gregarious persons you could hope to meet. The following is an edited (no, really)…

Fat Grapple

Fat Grapple

About two months ago, I received two reissues of Stackridge’s albums to review. One of them, Extravaganza, delighted me so much that I decided to go back and cover all five of Stackridge’s 1970s albums, reissued this year by Esoteric…