Kevan Furbank

Focus – Focus 12

CONFUSINGLY, Focus 12 is the veteran Dutch proggers’ 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th or 17th studio album, depending on how you count them. As an additional headscratcher, the track named after the band (there’s one on nearly every album) is…

The Tangent (For One) – To Follow Polaris

The Tangent have been more of a real band in recent years, with a line-up that has been fairly stable since 2013. But there is no disguising the fact that, like the heavens circling the Pole Star, everything revolves around…

Andy Tillison – The Tangent

Andy Tillison has just come out of lockdown. Not a Covid lockdown but 20 months of self-imposed isolation in a compact studio at his remote Yorkshire farmhouse while he single-handedly (well, both hands and feet) created the 13th Tangent album,…

PAKT – No Steps Left to Trace

The ‘P’ in PAKT is Mrs Jones’s lad Percy, the virtuoso fretless bass player on all the Brand X albums from Unorthodox Behaviour in 1976 to Manifest Destiny 21 years later. On one of those albums – I think 1982’s…

Jane Getter Premonition – Division World

It’s probably fair to say that most of our guitar heroes are hairy-arsed men, so I really value the talented guitarists working in the prog field who boast a pair of X chromosomes, people like Hedvig Mollestad and Jane Getter.…

Ancient Veil – Puer Aeternus

I have reviewed two live albums by this entertaining Italian band, which inspired me to discover their back catalogue and left me hankering for a new studio release. Well, here it is, a lovely example of Ancient Veil’s pastoral prog…

Gong – Unending Ascending

Captain’s Log: Star Date 02102023. About lunchtime. Our sensors have detected soundwaves from a mysterious green planet populated by little men with propellors on their pointy heads. The Chief Science Officer believes this is the mysterious Planet Gong, which is…

Various Artists – When the Alarm Clock Rings

Hey, maaan. We’re putting on our multi-coloured bell-bottoms and phosphorescent tie-dyes, daubing our faces with day-glo paint and dropping acid here at TPA in preparation for 90-minutes of British psychedelic rock. Hang out, just been told we’re out of acid…

Arnaud Quevedo & Friends – 2^nd Life

Monsieur Quevedo, who lectures on Current Music at the Conservatory in La Rochelle on the west coast of France, releases his third full-length studio album packed full of influences from the bands on his syllabus, including Magma, King Crimson and…

Amoeba Split – Quiet Euphoria

Those of us who enjoy the Canterbury sound have long realised that geography has little to do with it. The quirky, melodic jazz-rock of Soft Machine, National Health and Hatfield And The North has spread far beyond the Kent cathedral…

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Author: Kevan Furbank