As many of you already know, I’ve been living in a box for the last two decades so I know nothing about anything. Perhaps less. That means I didn’t know about SCHNELLERTOLLERMEIER. I can see that the name is basically…
View More Schnellertollermeier – X
This was the first big band format jazz rock album to land on my desk this year, soon followed by the rather good Cheating The Polygraph by Gavin Harrison. Is there a revival going on? Probably not, but it is…
View More Nathan Parker Smith Large Ensemble – Not Dark Yet
Mellotrons. They’re bloody great aren’t they? And guitars, big drums and massive amounts of in-your-face bass. And Mellotrons. Mmmmmmellotrons. Lots of ’em. I’m a sucker for the old “Orchestra in a Drinks Cabinet” but despite being known for their use…
View More Anekdoten – Until All The Ghosts Are Gone
I’m taking a look at the latest reissue of Anthony Phillips’s 1977 debut solo record, The Geese And The Ghost. Over the years, and to my shame, I had pieced together a kind of composite memory of Anthony Phillips’s later…
View More Anthony Phillips – The Geese And The Ghost (2CD/DVD Edition)
Sometimes you play an album and fireworks light up immediately. Others you listen to a few times and one track opens the door and you enter into the spirit of the music; this album has now been played about thirty…
View More La Coscienza di Zeno – La Notte Anche di Giorno
Sub-titled Part One of The Buttered Cat Conspiracy this epic double concept album is a fruition of ideas that Joff Winks and Mat Baber originally had back in the first few years of this century in their first band together,…
View More Sanguine Hum – Now We Have Light
Gavin Harrison is a musician who is always on the lookout for something a bit different. Since Porcupine Tree stopped he has been much in demand, and in addition to guest spots on other’s albums, and touring his drum clinic,…
View More Gavin Harrison – Cheating The Polygraph
I generally assume that others’ musical tastes are like my own, a musical bouillabaisse, and a melting pot of music for differing moods. By all means I have my favourites, Genesis and Big Big Train currently, but there are other…
View More Drifting Sun – Trip The Life Fantastic
Of this new reboot of The Tangent, Andy Tillison says “After all the different things we’ve done, this time it seemed right to come back to our prog roots and ‘stock in trade’”, and that they have certainly done. Although…
View More The Tangent – A Spark In The Aether: The Music That Died Alone, Volume II
Mandala is a Sanskrit word describing a spiritual and ritual symbol used in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the Universe. They place themselves in the genre of Folk-noir / Eastern-influenced progressive rock. But then, who doesn’t these days! Mandala initially seemed,…
View More Mandala – Midnight Twilight