Prog Issue 106 (March 2020)

Rundle. Mono fans might have caught
her collaboration with the Japanese
post-rockers on the stunning new
single Exit In Darkness. Williams will
be supporting Nordic Giants on tour
in March.
Listen to: Exit In Darkness, taken from
Exit In Darkness (Pelagic)
Website: www.aawilliamsmusic.com
NATASHA SCHARF

BONNIESONGS
Out last September was Energetic
Mind, the debut album from
Australian/Irish Art-Folk virtuoso
Bonniesongs, aka Bonnie Stewart.
Dreamy, sweetly layered vocals flutter
with gossamer wings over guitar
loops as the listener ambles past
songs like Dreamy Dreams, Coo Coo
and Ice Cream as if following the
trail of old friends, but all is not as
it seems. Off-kilter bassline time-
bombs add to a sense of unease, of
things not only hidden but waiting.
The track Barbara marks the point
where the footprints stop.
PRESS Listen to: Barbara, taken from

Energetic Mind (Small Pond).
Above: Bonniesongs. AA WILLIAMS Website: www.bonniesongs.com
Left: the three members This London-based singer-songwriter RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER
of Fassine.
Below: Mountain Caller. is a new voice in the growing dark
prog movement. Sounding like a cross FASSINE
between Nico and Sonja Kristina, A London-based progressive pop
Williams’ elegant, melodic, airy vocals trio fronted by Sarah Palmer who
and gothic-tinged progressive folk is might not be new new (they were
showcased on her self-titled debut EP, founded in 2014), but they’re new to
which will appeal to fans of Louise Prog, with two albums out already
Lemón, Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth and connections to Swindon and
XTC – they appeared in the latter’s
2018 documentary This Is Pop as
acolytes and musicians inspired by
them. March 27 sees the release of their
third album, Forge, an intriguingly
cinematic, psychedelic art-rockin’
work that should prick the ear of
curious listeners.
Listen to: Limbs, taken from Forge
(Trapped Animal).
Website: www.fassine.com
JO KENDALL

MOUNTAIN CALLER
With their debut album tentatively
due for release this year, Mountain
Caller are a band to keep your eyes on.
In late 2018 they released their EP,
The Monolith Session, with three
instrumental tracks that blend
complex rhythms with heavy riffing.
The band’s intense yet intelligent
style has already seen them share
stages with post-rock favourites
Ohhms and Pijn, and their appearance
at ArcTanGent in August will surely
herald big things for the trio.
Listen to: Beyond This Black Horizon,
taken from The Monolith Session
PRESS/DEREK BREMNER (self-released).
Website: www.mountaincaller.

PRESS bandcamp.com
MATT MILLS

progmagazine.com 51

WILDERUN
The quick way to ensure that
discerning prog fans check out
Wilderun’s extraordinary 2019 album
Veil Of Imagination is to simply repeat
the phrase ‘Opeth meets Cardiacs!’
over and over again until the
astonishing reality of that equation
kicks in. There is more to the
Bostonian virtuosos’ sound than
that, and fans of wild orchestral
indulgence and twinkly eyed folk
metal have plenty to savour too.
But, you know… Opeth meets
Cardiacs! Prog metal’s sparkling PRESS PRESS
future has arrived.
Listen to: The Tyranny Of Imagination,
taken from Veil Of Imagination
(self-released).
Website: www.wilderun.com
DOM LAWSON
NOLAN POTTER’S
NIGHTMARE BAND

With songtitles like Elf Curse and
Seahorse Retreat, you could be forgiven
for thinking that Texan eight-piece
Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band might PRESS/AM FORKER
not be an entirely serious proposition, PRESS
but debut album Nightmare Forever
tells a different story. A hallucinogenic,
cartwheeling gumbo assembled from
spiritual jazz rock and 70s prog at its
most stellar, it also heralds the return
of the flute as a lead instrument.
Trippy as.
Listen to: Caberfae Peaks, taken from
Nightmare Forever (Castle Face).
Website: www.facebook.com/
nolanpottersnightmareband
FRASER LEWRY
OAK PRESS/ PAWEL JÓZWIAK

Solid, dignified and with a veneer
of the timeless, Oak are certainly PRESS
well named. With roots buried deep
in folk and classical music, their This page, clockwise SEVEN SPIRES
sound offers an emotive fusion of from top left: Wilderun, After spending much of last year
haunting, melancholy prog and Nolan Potter’s touring with Avantasia, American
Nightmare Band, Seven
crystalline pop, so far best Spires, Lonker See, The vocalist Adrienne Cowan will continue
encapsulated by 2018’s sophomore Enigma Division, Real to pound the pavement extensively
set, False Memory Archive. The Terms and Oak. in 2020 with her Berklee School
Norwegian trio are looking to repeat Of Music-trained symphonic prog
the spectacular creative leap they band Seven Spires, whose theatrical,
took following 2013’s introductory Sascha Paeth-produced new concept
opus Lighthouse with a third album album Emerald Skies serves as a prequel
that’s due for release later this year. to the group’s 2017 debut, Solveig.
It should be very special indeed. The Boston quartet will spend the
Listen to: False Memory Archive, taken spring supporting Insomnium and
from False Memory Archive (Karisma). PRESS Omnium Gatherum before joining
Website: www.oakinoslo.com forces with Amaranthe and Battle
DAVE LING only released three singles to date. Beast in the autumn.
They’ve just released their first EP, Listen to: Drowner of Worlds, taken
REAL TERMS Housework, a slick and refined from Emerald Seas (Frontiers).
Since snagging a slot at 2017’s statement of intent that will hopefully Website: www.sevenspiresband.com
ArcTanGent Festival on the basis set the tone for a successful year for CLAY MARSHALL
of the single track they’d released these Liverpudlian lads.
up to that point, melodic math Listen to: Esperanza, taken from LONKER SEE
upstarts Real Terms have been Housework (Vested Interest). Having played some 80 shows across
playing occasional tours to refine Website: www.realterms. Europe in 2019 – including a slot at
new material. Despite an increasing bandcamp.com the prestigious Primavera Sound
buzz around the band, they have ALEX LYNHAM festival in Spain – cosmic space-jazz

52 progmagazine.com

at the Boerderij, their Oracle Live
concert is out on DVD in February
and shows just what a unique prospect
they are, for this year and beyond.
Listen to: Rulers, taken from Oracle
Live (Butler).
Website: www.mayraorchestra.com
GRANT MOON

VIRIDITAS

Ambition is certainly not something
that Hampshire’s Viriditas lack.
After releasing their sci-fi inspired
debut album, Red Mars, last year, the
follow-up double feature, Green Planet,
is currently under way, and highlights
their distinctive three-vocalist form
as well as intricate instrumental
passages. Currently their one live
date in 2020 is supporting the David
Cross Band at Southampton’s 1865
on February 2, at which they will
play some of the new songs, one
“an exceptionally difficult one” with
lots of dissonant harmonies inspired
by Magma.
Listen to: The Killing, taken from
Red Mars (Darkplace).
Website: www.facebook.com/
viriditasband
ALISON REIJMAN
ECHOREC

Led by lead vocalist, guitarist and
keyboardist Julian Kirk and with debut
album The Island set for release at the
end of February, trio Echorec tout
PRESS/ JULIE COTTRELL themselves as post-progressive rock.

First single The Island harnesses
youthful exuberance and a ton of
PRESS
musical ideas with a strong melodic
sensibility. Echorec’s ambition is
THE ENIGMA evidenced by their debut album being
DIVISION  a concept work about a young teenage
From the ashes of melodic tech girl’s journey of self-discovery. On this
metallers Xerath rise Dublin-based showing Echorec deserve to go far.
guitar supremo and Allan Holdsworth Listen to: The Island, taken from The
scholar Conor McGouran and Island (self-released)
drummer Ben Wanders (also of Website: www.facebook.com/
echorec.official
Limerick instrumental proggers
PRESS/ JULIE COTTRELL Shardborne). With Sam Bell from NICK SHILTON
Mask Of Judas guesting on second
ELEPHANT GYM
guitar, and additional keyboards
from Derek Sherinian, The Enigma
become breakthrough prog stars in
Division have all the pedigree and Can a math rock trio from Taiwan
rockers Lonker See’s appeal is reaching Top: Mayra Orchestra. promise to make a huge impact on 2020? Anyone who saw Elephant
out far beyond their native Poland. Middle left: Viriditas. the prog metal scene in 2020 with Gym rocking out in London last year
As suggested by the pumped-up, Middle right: Elephant their debut album. already knows the level of adulation
Gym.
wigged-out and deliciously immediate Above: Echorec. Listen to: 1977, taken from The Enigma and excitement the band generates
Open & Close – a taster from their Division (self-released). when they play live. Odd time
forthcoming album, Hamza – the band Website: www.facebook.com/ signatures have never been so much
have flipped their usual modus TheEnigmaDivision fun, and bassist KT Chang is a marvel
operandi of finding melody from CHRIS MCGAREL instrumentalist, often playing the
jammed chaos to going the opposite lead melody, leaving guitarist brother
way. Having already reached the outer MAYRA ORCHESTRA Tell Chang and drummer Chia-Chin
limits, hitting British audiences Few groups sound – or look – like Tu to carry the infectious grooves.
shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Holland’s Mayra Orchestra. Maartje Listen to: Finger – Live At Audiotree,
Listen to: Open & Close, taken from Dekker’s rock-group-meets-circus- taken from Elephant Gym On Audiotree
Hamza (Antena Krzyku). troupe have two beautifully produced Live (Audiotree).
Website: www.lonkersee. cinematic prog albums to their name, Website: www.elephant-gym.
bandcamp.com and won over a lot of new fans at last bandcamp.com
JULIAN MARSZALEK year’s Summer’s End Festival. Recorded DAVID WEST

progmagazine.com 53

Russell Mann Hayley McDonnell
(bass). (vocals).

































































steamroller effect that got me into what I’ve
been interested in for the last 20 years.”
That interest has been made manifest in
a band whose bracing mix of sharp, spiky riffs,
abrupt time and timbre gear-shifts topped
with vocals whose pristine articulation cuts
through the power-trio dynamics with a side
portion of Canterbury-esque whimsy has
CRAZY
been winning fans since its formation in
Southampton in 2013. While some groups
have a penchant for getting out as much
material as they can, A Formal Horse have
been taking things not so much at a gallop but

HORSES more of a canter. Their discography may be
modest in appearance: three short EPs over
It’s been six years since A Formal Horse released their first EP, a five-year period and only now, a full-length
and now the Southampton avant-rockers are back with their album, but it’s the quality that counts.
“We put out three EPs in that time mostly
long-awaited debut album. They’ve faced plenty of challenges because being human beings with jobs and
but, as Prog discovers, their perseverance has paid off. family making 20 minutes of music is pretty

easy,” explains Short. “Making 45 minutes
Words: Sid Smith Images: Julia Soboleva of music is not pretty easy, which is probably
reflected in the fact that it’s taken well over
two years to put the album together.”
travinsky saved from a skip’ himself revelling in the rich harmonies and its Working with engineer and producer Rob
could easily pass as a lyric from complex melange of tonal colours. Aubrey, whose credits over the years include
‘
A Formal Horse’s powerful “This was in the 90s when I was in my teens. Jadis, John Wetton and Geoff Downes’ Icon,
2019 debut album, Here Comes It opened my ears to 20th-century classical and Big Big Train, the band have developed
S Man From The Council With music. From that, I realised that this music is a quirky yet impactful sound that somehow

A
A Flamethrower, but is, in fact, a scene from what influenced the stuff I’d been listening to, manages to be both challenging and
guitarist Ben Short’s schooldays. Chancing such as Pink Floyd, Genesis and so on.” Nor deceptively accessible.
upon an LP of Stravinsky’s The Firebird in was the fact that Yes deployed the finale of Their writing has evolved over the years
a box destined for the skip, Short recalls The Firebird as their grand entrance music lost too, says Short, with everything aiming for
rescuing the album and once home found on him. “That freak encounter was part of the more concision than when they first started

54 progmagazine.com

Mike Stringfellow Benjamin Short
(drums). (guitar).

































































out. That urgent, hurtling energy is expertly of Here Comes A Man From The Council With That love of the opaque and the enigmatic
handled and guided to its target without any A Flamethrower. Created by Julia Soboleva, also finds expression in the band’s lyrics. Penned
waste, mess or fuss. Highly focused, they responsible for the artwork on their last EPs, by Short and beautifully articulated by Hayley
execute what others would regard as difficult and like those more famous enigmatic visages McDonnell’s near-operatic vocals that either
musical manoeuvres with an insouciant adorning Zappa’s Hot Rats or King Crimson’s cleave or coax their way through the power-
disregard for their awe-inducing fireworks In The Court of The Crimson King, it possesses trio barrage of the Horse at full pelt. They
that burst open in their wake. a penetrating intensity; a sense of there having variously hint at some unspecified deviation,
“The songs tend to be relatively short with been some interrupted furtive movement, the the subversion of once-safe assumptions, or of
the rambly bits split off on their own,” he subject having been caught in the act of doing bridges being burnt though there’s no clear
explains, “which hopefully helps the record something unsavoury and not entirely fit for evidence as to who might have built or even
hum along at a better rate rather than getting publication in a family periodical such as Prog. crossed them in the first place. Short stoutly
bogged down on defends his embrace
anything too long.” Not of the obscure in his
that such brevity has “Making 20 minutes of music wordplay, arguing that
led to any diminution it’s better for listeners
to the scope and scale is pretty easy. Making 45 to make up their own
of what the band sense of meaning to
delivers. Each track is minutes of music is not what they hear.
honed and sharpened “The main thing is to
pretty easy.”
to a fine point for be compassionate and
maximum impact, it’s engage with people in
the result of a lot of sifting as they work Ben Short scoffs at any direct comparisons a loving way. Yet somehow I write lyrics that
through the writing process, another reason for to those covers from the 1960s but agrees point out very strange, and often the worst,
them taking their time. Remotely sharing files, there’s nothing accidental whatsoever about things in people,” he says with a laugh, before
ideas bounce backwards and forwards between the choice of such a striking image to house revealing that A Formal Horse are already hard
the other members of the band: bassist Russell their first full-length release. at work on the next album. Though pleased at
Mann, drummer, Mike Stringfellow, and “We talked a lot about covers and getting the positive reception to their debut, they’ve
vocalist Hayley McDonnell. “If they stop the design right and we picked something, not definitely got the bit between their teeth.
bouncing back and forth, it means one of two accidentally, that looks really good as a small “Anybody who’s worth anything is constantly
things: either we’ve given up on them because thumbnail on things like Spotify and Apple moving, aiming to do the next thing.”
they are crap and nobody wants to go back and Music. You want something that’s effective in
look at it again or it means that it’s finished.” that sense but which also looks good on a CD or Here Comes A Man From The Council With
There’s something very disconcerting about vinyl. There’s so much subtext in that picture, A Flamethrower is available now from Bandcamp.
the face that stares out at you from the cover without a doubt, and I love the ambiguity of it.” See www.aformalhorse.com for more.

progmagazine.com 55

Pre-Raphaelite
songbird: Mariana
Semkina in repose.






























































































































5 6 p r o g m a g a z i n e . c o m
56 progmagazine.com

Dark

Tales



Prog

























As the singer of melancholic Russian duo Iamthemorning,
Mariana Semkina knows a thing or two about beautifully

crafted lyrics. Reverting to the original spelling of her first name,
the vocalist with a passion for the macabre ventures further down
the rabbit hole of progressive pop with her debut solo recording.



Words: Fraser Lewry Images: Eggor Kree







spent 10 years of my life
dressing up as a Slavic warrior
every summer, running around
forests, fighting with swords and
learning archery,” says Mariana
“The album asked to when her parents would pack her off to
Semkina, reminiscing about her youth,

historical camp every year. “They did a lot
of really interesting educational things. I was
be made. I had so very bad at most of them, except for fighting

and shooting and archery.”
Semkina is nothing if not a history nut.
much material I felt Prog meets her in the opulent lobby of

London’s Landmark Hotel, a bread roll’s toss
from groups of well-heeled guests enjoying
I was wasting.” sumptuous dinners beneath a towering
atrium, and Semkina immediately tells us the
history of the building. How it was originally
proposed by the visionary Victorian railway
entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin. How the
building fell into disrepair and was used as
a convalescent home during the Second
World War. How it was purchased by
a Japanese company in the 80s and returned
to its original use. How it changed hands
again the following decade.
She talks more about Watkin: how he
established what eventually became the
Metropolitan Line on London’s Underground
system. How he was behind a doomed first
attempt to dig a rail tunnel under the English
Channel to connect the English and French
railway network (2,000 metres were bored out
of the earth before the project was abandoned
in the interests of national security). How he
started a tower at Wembley to rival the Eiffel
Tower in Paris, but it was never completed
and the skeleton torn down in 1907, paving
the way for Wembley Stadium.

progmagazine.com 57


7
5
.
e
n
m
o
c
g
m
o
p
r
z
i
a
a
g

Semkina learnt about Watkin and about “I need it to be disturbing, and I need it to
The Landmark while researching for be thought-provoking,” Semkina explains.
Iamthemorning’s last album. It’s what “I need to be grim. Otherwise, it’s not fun.”
she calls her ‘Victorian Studies’. This is perhaps inevitable for a woman who,
“I was completely obsessed while as a six-year-old, told her mother she wanted
we were working on The Bell,” to study coffin-making at university when she
she says. “I was this girl from grew up. “To sleep in,” she clarifies.
a Communist country coming Sleepwalking may be dark, but, like The Bell,
over to England and telling the sorrow and the torment is tempered by
English people about their exquisite delivery. It’s an album of sweeping
own history.” beauty, rendered in deft turns and surprisingly
So you might expect her uplifting arrangements. Even at its gloomiest
to be just as well-prepared – Ars Longa Vita Brevis is formed of ominous
when talking about her debut strings and haunting acoustic guitar, while
solo album, Sleepwalking. But Invisible has a desolate, almost industrial feel
she isn’t. – the prettiness of Semkina’s voice gives the
“I have nothing interesting songs a celestial sheen. It’s also an album
to say about the solo album,” where there’s plenty of devilment in the detail.
she says, only half-joking. “It’s not People who buy the Collector’s Bundle version
something I can talk about for hours, of the album receive – among more regular
like I could with The Bell. This is just artefacts – a message in a bottle, a butterfly
an album written by someone who’s encased in an acrylic crystal, an origami bird
very depressed.” made from the score of the album’s string
“If I ever start writing songs



about unicorns and cupcakes,



that means



something’s

Fortunately, Mariana is
better at singing than
very wrong

she is the hard sell.
with me.



It’ll be time to



send me off to


the asylum.”








If there’s a direct arrangements, and a postcard inscribed with
connection to The Bell, it’s “a personal Shakespearean curse, just for you”.
the bleakness of the material. Meanwhile, the LP artwork features the singer
“To be honest, I don’t think reposed on a bed of fresh and wilting flowers,
I can ever step away from the eyes open, the corpse of a small bird by her
dark subject matter,” says Semkina. side. On the CD, her eyes are closed.
“If I ever start writing songs about “I might be sleeping, or I might be dead,”
unicorns and cupcakes, that means she says. “I like that duality.”
something’s very wrong with me. It’ll She explains: “The album asked to be made.
be time to send me off to the asylum.” I had so much material I felt I was wasting.
So no unicorns, and no cupcakes. For many years I was very insecure about
Instead you’ll find misery, and heartache, releasing stuff under my own name, and if
and despair, and mental anguish, and (of I did something it was anonymously thrown
course) death. ‘It’s okay to be afraid when the onto the interwebs. I never thought of myself
whole world’s on fire,’ she sings on Turn Back much, so releasing a solo album felt a little bit
Time. On Dark Matter it’s: ‘In time, with peace, too self-absorbed.
I will find release/The soil will cover me with moss “Talking about it also feels self-absorbed.
and flowers.’ And on Everything Burns, she Maybe that’s why I don’t like interviews about
sings: ‘The suffering is sealed in my bones/And it, because it’s like talking about yourself for
I thought it’ll go away if I burn/So I set myself hours. I really don’t like this at all.
on fire.’ Lyrically speaking, Sleepwalking is “I’ve been told for many years that I’m not
absolutely desolate. good enough, and that’s imprinted on me,” she

58 progmagazine.com

continues. “I work with classically trained business of selling the thing. “If they like my
musicians, and of course they’re going to be voice they’ll probably like the album.”
condescending. Gleb [Kolyadin, Semkina’s And on that note, she’s probably got nothing
partner in Iamthemorning] is great, but he to worry about. Semkina was recently voted
can say some really tough stuff sometimes. female vocalist of the year by Prog readers, and
Crippling self-doubt is something I’ve that, at least, is grounds for enthusiasm. “It’s
always carried with me, so I decided to get motivation to work even harder in 2020 to
out of my comfort zone and start fighting live up to the title I’ve been accidentally
this shit. So I did. And I’m not liking it so far.” given,” she says. “And I’m definitely intending
To make the album, Semkina worked with to do so.
two Iamthemorning collaborators: Canadian “I knew that I could do two things in
guitarist Vlad Avy and Siberian composer my life: speak English and sing,” she adds.
Grigoriy Losenkov, and with special guests “So I never actually faced a choice in what
including Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess, I wanted to do. I was just gradually led to
drummer Craig Blundell (Steven Wilson/ where I am now.”
Steve Hackett) and bassist Nick Beggs (ditto). And where is she now? Well, she’s given
“I decided that this project would only herself a new/old name, swapping the familiar
involve people that I like,” says Semkina. Marjana for the name she was actually born
“Something that would be filled with mutual with: Mariana.
respect. I needed for the environment to be “That’s my original name in official
non-toxic. The whole idea was for the album documents, so it’s like returning to my roots,”
to be sort of a therapy.” she says. “I didn’t like it when I got Facebook,
Has it worked? so I spelled it with ‘j’ as an act of rebellion.
“I don’t think so.” And then it just stuck with me. Now that I get
What did she think it might achieve? a fresh start with the solo project I thought it
“I think you should ask me again in six would be appropriate to draw a symbolical line
months, when the album is out, and I don’t between my solo project and the band this
hate it entirely.” way. Besides, I really love how it reminds me
Again, she’s half-joking. Drill down a little of Tennyson and works of the Pre-Raphaelites
and it’s pretty clear Semkina’s proud of the – Mariana was his poem, and they made a lot
album’s component parts, even if the overall of beautiful paintings based on it.”
result has yet to be fully digested. When we She’s also finally left St Petersburg
talk about Everything Burns, one of the album’s for the UK, that Exceptional Talent
highlights – and a truly atmospheric piece visa in her passport and an
of music, reminiscent of Portishead at their exceptional solo album under her
spookiest – she actually admits to liking it, belt, one that she’ll surely learn to
talking excitedly about the contribution to love. She’s been a Prog magazine
the track made by drummer Svetlana cover star – she and Kolyadin
Shumkova, and about the video that appeared on a bespoke edition
accompanies the song. of issue 101 (“I had to send it to
“I found a wonderful actress from Theatre my parents, to let them think
Masterskaya in St Petersburg, and she made that I’m actually successful”).
this whole video very special to me. Looking And she is looking for
at her on the set was a very special feeling. a place to live.
She was there to display exactly the sort of “I don’t study and
feelings I was thinking of when coming up I don’t go to the office,”
with the video idea: the feeling of being says Semkina. “I just
trapped and needing a fresh start.” need a quiet place to
She wants to play the album live, but there write. I used to go
are obstacles: “I really want to, but first I have back to Russia to
no idea how, second I have no idea who with, seclude myself for
and third I don’t know when I’ll be able to get writing because
to it because my schedule is just insane. My I have this empty
original plan was to make an album that I’d apartment with
be able to tour with, but I ended up using a huge window
a chamber orchestra and all sorts of different overlooking
instruments. So replicating it on stage with the forest. It’s
less than we had during the recording would a tiny box, but
be sort of underwhelming. I don’t think it it’s enough.
would sound as good. But I have to try.” “So I want to find
Suddenly Semkina hesitates, then asks a tiny box here, with
what Prog thinks of the album. And she seems a big window to look out
surprised that we like it. of, like a prisoner, hopefully
“I’m a little bit wary of this whole thing,” overlooking the sea, writing
she says. “I use every opportunity to tell sad songs forever.”
people that it’s not going to be a prog Ars longa, vita brevis. Art is long,
album. I’m not sure what it is. Dreampop? life is short. Edward Watkin would
Sadcore? Deathpop? I think people will surely approve.
be disappointed.
“Although if people like Iamthemorning Sleepwalking is out on Kscope on
for specific reasons, then they might enjoy February 14. Visit www.facebook.com/
this album,” she adds, brightening up to the marjanasemkina for more.

progmagazine.com 59

WAKING UP THE









NEIGHBOURS









































































“IT DOESN’T HAVE


TO BE JUST JAZZ OR


JUST METAL. WE



MAKE MUSIC THAT


WE WANT TO MAKE.


WE’RE A MODERN


BAND RATHER THAN



AN OLD-SCHOOL


PROG BAND.”



Andrew Lawrence



60 progmagazine.com

They’ve won high praise Grant Moon hailing closing track band is really hard to classify. If
from Bill Bruford and Ghost Girl as sounding ‘like a Jim somebody’s doing something unique,
experimental and interesting, you
Steinman-Robert Fripp co-write’.
even toured with the But District 97 don’t yet top the should be able to hear branches from
late John Wetton. But prog popularity league tables. That’s multiple genres.”
Such genre spanning may be
will their latest album, perhaps a consequence of them being a function of District 97’s own
challenging to pigeonhole.
Screens, win District 97 “We are told all the time that we’re demography. An age range of 32 to 37
a bigger audience? not necessarily prog. We’re not all the places them squarely within the iPod
way metal either, but we’re a little more generation. “We grew up with all our
Words: Nick Shilton metal than prog usually is,” vocalist music living in the same little box,”
and former American Idol finalist Leslie
keyboardist Andrew Lawrence explains.
Images: Tammy Vega
Hunt theorises. She declares that “That informs the music we make
Screens is more experimental than the without those rigid classifications.
n a sunny autumn band’s previous albums. “There’s more It doesn’t have to be just jazz or just
afternoon in London, improvisation and space. But also it’s metal. We make music that we want
Prog convenes with our most accessible album. We’re hard to make. We’re a modern band rather
Chicago’s District 97 to classify, but we bring in people than an old-school prog band.”
a
O d their third who appreciate various qualities of The band’s own musical tastes are
i
m
European tour. Their shows have prog and metal.” wildly diverse, with Pantera, Miles
been well-received and their fourth While being difficult to categorise Davis and Dolly Parton name-checked
album, Screens, earned a very is double-edged, guitarist Jim Tashjian as recent tour bus listening. Tashjian
enthusiastic review in Prog 104, with accentuates the positive: “Any good cites Nirvana as one of his favourite
bands and also mentions a penchant
for Appalachian folk music. “That
doesn’t quite make it into the 97 bag
very often,” he says with a laugh. “But
I’m probably influenced by it in my
writing, whether I realise it or not.
We’re just unapologetically trying to
be ourselves. We grew up as teenagers
listening to King Crimson and The
Beatles as well hip-hop and punk.”
The District 97 songwriting MO
involves a no-holds-barred approach.
“If you bring an idea in and it seems
it’s not going to work out, we have
a dialogue about what we can change
or trim,” bassist Tim Seisser explains.
“There’s respect among everybody
to be open to criticism and not be
hurt by it.”
According to drummer Jonathan
Schang, as such the arrangements
of a number of songs on Screens
mutated significantly from the original
versions, taking opener Forest Fire as
an example.
“Some parts of that song were
excised,” he says. “Then we had to
rewrite the verses, and the choruses
took on a new character. Our songs
morph once everyone throws in their
two pence. Our approach is similar
to those who gave birth to prog in the
late 60s. Prog at that time was tearing
down lines between genres and
allowing influences from anywhere
to be put into a rock or pop context.”
Nevertheless, District 97’s current
following remains – for now at least –
primarily a traditional prog one. Songs
such as Sea I Provide, described by Hunt
as “a little more weird pop”, may help
the band to broaden their appeal.
Screens is wonderfully rich both
musically and lyrically. According to
Hunt, the feverish Forest Fire explores
low tolerance for the mundane. “It’s
about needing things to be a certain
heat but it gets out of control and



progmagazine.com 61

“WE ARE TOLD ALL THE TIME THAT WE’RE


NOT NECESSARILY PROG. WE’RE NOT ALL



THE WAY METAL EITHER.”



Leslie Hunt




turns into a forest fire. It was a bit overwhelmed.’ She just tells everybody. District 97, L-R: of a catharsis after Trump was elected,”
about my divorce too.” I think it’s cool.” Jonathan Schang, Schang declares. “I was in a state of
Hunt reveals more about her Elsewhere District 97 venture into Andrew Lawrence, shock initially.”
Leslie Hunt, Jim
personal life elsewhere. “I wrote Sea more contentious territory. The lyrics Tashjian, Tim Seisser. The song was then adapted with
I Provide a long time ago about this of Bread & Yarn, a striking duet Hunt’s input: “It started out about
crush I had on somebody, who was between Tashjian and Hunt, carry Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton
emotionally unavailable, that I had to a hard-hitting message. thing. I then made it a little more
keep hidden.” “This song is about being beaten veiled, homing in on Trump’s
Blueprint provides a further insight down,” Tashjian says. “There’s a line: unhealthy Twitter habit. But it could
into Hunt’s life. “My 10-year-old ‘My eyes are black and swollen shut and also work for anybody that has a lot
daughter has high-functioning autism,” I’m in bliss.’ You’ve been beaten down of influence and takes to social media
Hunt reveals. “There is the blueprint to where you can’t see things in front very carelessly, putting us all at risk.”
of society: what’s acceptable and what of you and you’re fine with it, because So are District 97 a political band?
we expect from one another. I wrote seeing it every day is too hard to deal Lawrence says not and that the band
Blueprint as a frustration piece from her with. There are lots of problems in are primarily focused on their music:
perspective. ‘Why can’t you guys just our country, and one is gun violence,” “We’re just really civic aware people,
embrace what I’m doing that’s so he states. “It’s just astounding and who follow the news, have opinions
amazing? Can people just let me live eats away at me every day.” and all vote.”
the way I’m designed?’ Tashjian cites the horrors of the To zero dissenting voices, Prog
“There are benefits for her learning Sandy Hook Elementary School assumes that all five are Democrat
social nuance,” Hunt continues. “My shooting in 2012 in Connecticut. District 97’s Screens, voters. With their lyrics being an
four-year-old son watches how other “After Sandy Hook 89 per cent of which is out now. intrinsic element of their work, there
people behave, which my daughter voters wanted insane people not is a danger of alienating some current
has never done. But she also has to have access to guns and to have or prospective fans, whose political
certain superpowers. Her imagination criminal background checks. Because views may be diametrically opposed
is amazing. She’s been writing of both sides of government it didn’t to the band’s ones.
books since she was a kid, has this go through: it’s a game of chicken “Trigger used to be a very different
unbelievable scientific mind and her and nobody swerved. Citizens United and explicit song,” Lawrence answers.
memory is infinite. Kids her age are doesn’t limit political campaign “We actually had people walk out
so boring compared to her. She rules! contributions. It’s a money game of shows, leaving their merch behind.
“I love being her mom and wanted in America. Nothing will ever be We want to be on the right side
to write a song in tribute to her. She done right when people are paying of history, but we don’t want to
understands that she has something for influence.” contribute to the divisiveness that is
that gives her certain benefits but Prog notes that Seisser is sporting poisoning our country.”
also certain things she needs to work a T-shirt with a pithy anti-Trump
harder at. She’ll have a meltdown slogan, which prompts Schang and Screens is out now via Mindscan.
and say: ‘Guys, I’m sorry. I have Hunt to provide an insight into Head to www.district97.net for
Asperger’s. Sometimes I just get Trigger. “I wrote it originally as sort more information.

62 progmagazine.com



The Man Who















Waved At Trains


















Fifty years ago, Soft Machine brought in double bassist Roy Babbington as a hired hand.
Within the space of a few years, he’d become a permanent member. Here he recalls those

early years and his subsequent return to the revived Canterbury band.


Words: Sid Smith Old Portrait: Tony Russell/Redferns/Getty Images


n the autumn of 1970 Robert Wyatt, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper and enough in France that, upon hearing the news that the Softs were busy
Mike Ratledge were ensconced in Barnes, London at Olympic Studios. with a new record, TV executives immediately dispatched a news crew
The quartet spent six days in the smaller of the two studios, adjacent to south-west London in order to document the band as they recorded
to the space where pop and rock royalty such as The Beatles, The the follow-up album to their recently released Third. The already cosy
I ho, The Rolling Stones and others had recorded. It was common space became a lot more cramped by the time the TV crew arrived to
W
enough for those acts to be find the quartet working with guest
photographed or be interviewed “Playing with Allan [Holdsworth] was lots of double bassist, Roy Babbington. The
while they were recording at fly-on-the-wall footage, available
Olympic. While Soft Machine may fun, actually. When he picked his guitar up now on YouTube, captures keyboard
not have had the kind of visibility player Ratledge sat at the studio’s
of those illustrious acts or able to for the first time with us and started we grand piano going through the
command of column inches in the charts for his composition Teeth,
music press in their native UK, all said: ’Shit! Nobody can do that.’” so-called, it is rumoured, because
their reputation and stock was high it was so hard to play that musicians


Still going strong:
Roy Babbington
strums away.





























PRESS/SOFT MACHINE/GD CORPORATE PHOTOGRAPHY



















64 progmagazine.com

In their pomp: clockwise from
top left: Roy Babbington, Mike
Ratledge, John Marshall, Allan
Holdsworth and Karl Jenkins.




























































































































progmagazine.com 65

HULTON-DEUTSCH/HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
offering musical advice. “I mean, sometimes you’d ask him a question
and he’d just shrug and say: ‘Wherever you are, wherever you find you
want to be within this, go there.’”
Babbington’s extraordinary double bass playing was once again
required for 1972’s Fifth. Arguably the most enigmatic and occluded
of all Soft Machine albums, the music on the first side pierces through
Phil Howard’s storm-squall cymbal work not unlike the steam engine
emerging into the foreground on Turner’s Rain, Steam And Speed.
Howard, who joined after Robert Wyatt’s departure in 1971, was
himself replaced midway through the album sessions by ex-Nucleus
drummer John Marshall. Although this was a group clearly pulling in
starkly different directions, Fifth emanates a strangely uneasy and
puzzling beauty. As If, exploding with a terse outburst of Ratledge-
composed spiky abstraction, coalesces into a see-saw rhythm against
which Echoplexed Fender Rhodes notes creep like lichen covering the
pitted angularities of Dean’s sax. Babbington’s bass stalks the scene,
manifesting in the timbral gloom, mournful, harried ghost-notes arcing
from his frantic bowed bass. That dizzying arco, says Roy, comes from
his admiration of classical bassist François Rabbath of the Paris Opera,
and whose 1963 album The Sound Of A Bass had captivated Babbington.
Being able to apply that sound to Soft Machine was something he

The classic line-up: Mike would exclaim “Hell’s teeth!” as they attempted to obviously relished on As If.
Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, grapple with dizzying cascade of notes on the page. “I didn’t get much of a chance to experiment in that kind of way of
Robert Wyatt and Elton Prog caught up with Roy Babbington in the playing but the opportunity was there with Soft Machine. When I hear
Dean in 1970.
dressing room at The Cluny, Newcastle last that piece now, the way Elton Dean complements what I do in some of
November as Soft Machine were about to play one of the last UK gigs those places on sax, there are things, conceptual ideas of harmonic
of their autumn tour. With a bright sparkle in his eyes and looking a lot things that are totally off the wall,” he says with a smile.
younger than his 79 years, Babbington vividly recalls that
day in Olympic Studios, being confronted with the music
on the stand.
“That track was a monster,” he laughs, remarking on
the event 49 years after it was filmed. Though he appears
outwardly calm on the footage, inside Babbington admits
to feeling daunted at what he was being asked to do. This
despite being a veteran sight reader since turning
professional in 1958 at the age of 17,
Soft Machine’s Fourth
album, including when, with his parents’ tacit though
‘monster’ track Teeth. not quite expressed approval, he left
his native Bedford for Aberdeen to join
a dance band.
“There’s such a thing as reading and
then transferring what’s in the dots
onto the instrument…” He sighs
and laughs at the distance on the
bass’ fingerboard the piece required
him to cover while attempting to
make it flow. “Ratledge’s manner of playing is what holds Babbington is playing PRESS/SOFT MACHINE
the time together and not only in that piece, but other new material, but also
paying respects to his past.
elements of Soft Machine’s playing,” says Babbington in
admiration. “He’s holding that whole rhythm section in
place. There’s an attack in the way he plays it. You can see his whole Unhappy at the direction of travel, Dean would be the next to depart
body is doing it. It’s totally physical with him.” Soft Machine. He was replaced by sax and keyboardist Karl Jenkins,
Ratledge was, he says, a great bloke with a fantastic vocabulary, whose first Softs album, 1973’s Six, would be the last studio recording
though he could sometimes be given to gnomic utterances when with Hugh Hopper.
Though Babbington was used to bass guitar through his work with
the late-60s proto-Canterbury outfit Delivery, and session work and
appearances with Ian Carr’s Nucleus, it was Hopper’s playing that really
caught his ear and made him focus more seriously on the instrument.
“I loved what Hugh did in the band,” he says. “Double bass you’ve got
a shape, you got something to hold on to, something that moves with
you. Whereas bass guitar is just four strings and a knob. Now, Hugh
Hopper changed that for me. He was the first bass guitarist whose
playing had a personality that appealed to me as far as the instrument
was concerned and where it might go. He had a recognisable style and,
PRESS/ COURTESY OF CUNEIFORM RECORDS Nucleus in 1971, containing future Softs Karl from last night’s gig in Glasgow I was listening to some of the old BBC
of course, his use of pedals. Wow! On the way down here to Newcastle


sessions. Pieces like Hugh’s Mousetrap are formidable compositions.”
With Hopper heading off to work with Stomu Yamashta and Gary
Boyle in Isotope, it was perhaps inevitable that Babbington would
become a full-time member of Soft Machine. Recording Seven in July
1973 over the course of a week, the album remains one of his favourites.
Jenkins, John Marshall and Roy Babbington.


66 progmagazine.com He utilised the Fender VI six-string bass, complete with a whammy bar,

acquired a few months before moving to London origins and Terry Riley-inspired experimentation,
as a session player, and its nimble, sinuous quality which some critics have been unable to forgive
adds a deft touch to Jenkins’ and Ratledge’s riff- them for. With any long-lived band, opinion as to
centric compositions. what counts as the best line-up will be split along
Seven bristles with persuasive solos that spark party lines. In Soft Machine’s case, that’s usually
with rapid-fire invention. The sawing harmonics of Wyatt’s ’71 departure and/or Jenkins’ arrival and
Babbington’s arc-bass in the dying embers of Down subsequent dominance as principal composer
Seven: Roy’s first album The Road, Marshall’s continually shifting grooves, in 1972. Sentiment and personal taste aside, it’s Hidden Details from 2018.
as a full-time member and the spluttering, razor-sharp fuzzed-organ of difficult to say that one version of any group with a
of the band.
Day’s Eye stand as Ratledge at his very best. Yet, as constantly evolving line-up at its core is inherently better than another.
outstanding as these moments may be, the cosseted ambient glow and It’s simply different and should be evaluated on that basis.
textures permeating what is arguably the best-produced album of their In August 1976, the band shared a concert billing with Soft Machine
entire career are just as vital. co-founder Kevin Ayers as
The twinkling constellations “Sometimes you’d ask [Mike Ratledge] a question and support. If history seemed like
of high-register notes and it was coming full circle, that
purring, bass-end loops he’d just shrug and say: ‘Wherever you are, wherever symmetry was abruptly
elicited from massed Fender broken, with Babbington
Rhodes swirl in mesmeric, you find you want to be within this, go there.’” quitting the band the next
snow-globe patterns. Given day. Tired of management
the degree of affection in incompetence that effectively
which the album is held by all members of the current band, it’s no starved the bandmembers of a living wage, Roy returned to jazz and the
coincidence that the stately themes of Snodland/Penny Hitch and the double bass, notching up some remarkable albums and performances
rollercoaster rifferama of Nettle Bed also bolster the present-day setlist. with pianist Stan Tracey’s groups. While Soft Machine came to an end
Closing their live set is Hazard Profile, the conceptual centrepiece of in the 80s, interest in the group never really fell away and in 2004, Soft
1975’s Bundles, their debut album for the Harvest label and the only Machine Legacy was born. Elton Dean’s death in 2006 saw long-time
studio record featuring Allan Holdsworth’s incendiary guitar soloing. fan Theo Travis join and, with Hugh Hopper’s passing in 2009 and



























PRESS/SOFT MACHINE/GEOFF DENNISON A modern incarnation,







L-R: Babbington, John
Etheridge, Theo Travis
and John Marshall.


“Playing with Allan was lots of fun, actually,” he reveals. “When he a curious case of history almost repeating itself, Babbington stepped
picked his guitar up for the first time with us and started we all said: in. Dropping the ‘Legacy’ part of the name in 2015 has enabled the quartet
Bundles (Allan ‘Shit! Nobody can do that.’ Allan for me was the to get out from under the common misapprehension that they were in
Holdsworth’s only studio Coltrane of the guitar.” some way a tribute band, says Babbington. Anyone seeing Soft Machine
album with them) and As he talks, Babbington reaches down into his in action now can have absolutely no doubt regarding this particular
Softs, two of the albums
from Soft Machine’s bag and retrieves a copy of Floating World Live, a live line-up’s authenticity.
Harvest years. concert recorded for Bremen Radio in January 1975 Their 2018 album, Hidden Details, is their strongest recording to date.
and released in 2006. It shows the band letting And when Babbington, the 78-year-old Marshall, the 71-year-old John
their collective hair down to great effect. Etheridge and Theo Travis – a mere 50-something whippersnapper
“This CD, to me, is the best example of that – play tracks from the album, the response from the Newcastle crowd
band. It’s a shining example of the impossibility is equally as enthusiastic as when the quartet perform their older,
of some of the high-trapeze work that Allan did on venerated material.
the instrument. Frightening. As far as the rhythm Nor is it the band’s collective years that draw astonished admiration
section goes, John Marshall and I locked together. but rather the intensity and drive of their performance, something
It doesn’t matter if you go over the top, you know? players half their age would be envious of. Babbington smiles, his eyes
With somebody like Allan, you can’t. I mean he twinkling, and says: “We’re enjoying it because we’re stretching things
just rides on you and encourages you to push.” to the limit, if you like. We’re using new material and paying our
Bundles and its 1976 successor, Softs, which respects to the past, but not necessarily being shackled by it. When
marked John Etheridge’s debut after Holdsworth we’re up there we like to kick shit.”
unexpectedly left for America to work with Tony
Williams, is a sound that’s unquestionably far- Soft Machine: The Harvest Albums is out now via Esoteric. For more
removed from Soft Machine’s 60s psychedelic information, visit www.softmachine.org.

progmagazine.com 67

Architecture isn’t an obvious theme for a concept album, but Air’s
Nicolas Godin has turned his passion for construction into the
building blocks for his second solo release, Concrete And Glass.

“I can feel their souls,” he tells a curious Prog.


Words: Jeremy Allen Images: Camille Vivier

















































































































Musique


68 progmagazine.com
Concrète

“Sexy Boy was a big single but if you


listen to it, it doesn’t sound very
commercial. It’s not very fast and it’s





kind of creepy as well.”






























































riting about music is like dancing about architecture,” said Frank
Zappa, or Elvis Costello, or possibly Martin Mull. At the risk of
deconstructing that quip and taking all of the joy out of it, it’s
survived for 40 years or more despite its disputed provenance
b
e
“W ause of the absurdity of the image. Dancing and architecture are
c
set up as a juxtaposition with one regarded as frivolous, freeform and fun: the other rigid,
angular and very serious.
Nicolas Godin, the unshaven one from French downtempo giants Air, may turn this
idea on its head with his new album, Concrete And Glass. It’s a record that started out
being about architecture, and turned into one you can definitely dance to. What’s more,
buildings aren’t just inanimate, functional structures – they have vibrancy and personality
and they even have souls. Oh hang about, perhaps souls is taking it a bit too far.
“Yeah, yeah, buildings have souls,” Godin concurs, sat at a huge oak table in his French
record label’s airy London boardroom. “I hadn’t thought of it like that but you’re right.
They’re very soulful.” He pauses to reflect, and you can almost see the idea land as the
expression on his face changes. “Of course! That’s why it’s so easy to make music about
them. I can feel their souls. I can feel something strongly. Buildings definitely have souls.”
Godin’s second solo album hadn’t been intended as a follow-up to his classical-inspired
2015 opus, Contrepoint. The original instrumentals had started life as part of an art project
by the Paris-based, Lyonnais contemporary artist Xavier Veilhan. Architectones spread
across prime locations all over the planet: Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in
Marseilles, Konstantin Melnikov’s cylindrical house in Moscow, Pierre Koenig’s Case
Study House No. 21 in Los Angeles and so on.
Godin’s role involved flying to the locations, hanging out in these architectural
masterworks by modernist legends, and then composing music to accompany each of
Veilhan’s installations. What’s more, the places where the buildings are situated became
as important as the buildings themselves.
“Locations are one of my biggest inspirations,” he says. “If you listen to Moon Safari it
has a lot to do with landscape. When you go to the gardens of Versailles [where Air hail
from] it’s very soundtrack-y to me, the landscape and how things are. And I think all of
the buildings I had the occasion to work on with Xavier were in amazing locations.”





progmagazine.com 69


9
6
.
e
n
m
o
c
g
m
o
p
r
z
i
a
a
g

As tough as his job sounds, Godin came to metallic. You can hear it on the title track that
the realisation he wasn’t finished with the opens the album; the bass on the first line
project after Architectones was completed. announces my new sound!”
Voices began to suggest themselves over the If the bass offers something new then the
instrumentals, and slowly he sought out general feel of this record is likely to transport
collaborators like Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, you back to Air’s mid-90s downtempo heyday.
Cola Boyy and Kate NV. How did the selection There’s a pop simplicity mixed in with the
process work? “I hired people I liked,” he says kind of atmospheric film score simulation that
matter-of-factly. “I liked what they do and launched the duo up the UK charts, which was
I liked their voices so it was spontaneous. no mean feat at the time. Even more unusually,
I don’t say that to sound lazy, but the original Sexy Boy and Moon Safari actually did better
choices were people whose records I liked, and across La Manche than they did in their home
it proved to be fun collaborating with them.” country. This was at a time when French pop
The fresh impetus brought new life to the was still associated with Joe Dassin and Sacha
songs, moving them in directions Godin Distel, and Daft Punk had only just begun to
wouldn’t necessarily have gone in on his own. make inroads minus their crash helmets.
“So when they came and laid down their “It took us a long time to be accepted in
vocals I was like, ‘Ahhhh!’ I wasn’t bored with France,” says Godin, whose band took off in
the tracks but I thought I knew what they were the US before anything happened for them in
about. The collaborators were very important Paris. “I’d almost given up my dream of being
to the development of the songs.” a musician but we had a lot of luck. The
The musician says that while he needs Portishead album [Dummy] was released with
a concept when beginning work on a new all these samples from John Barry and suddenly
album, once a project is underway it doesn’t there was a window for soundtrack-influenced
matter if the original idea is all but forgotten music because that record was so huge.
as the music starts to take shape. With that in “And then there was French filter disco and
mind, he dismisses the architectural theme of all the UK journalists came to Paris and there



“Locations are one of my biggest

inspirations. If you listen to Moon Safari


it has a lot to do with landscape.”




Concrete And Glass as unimportant: “I like music was suddenly this link between London and
to be spontaneous and sexy without a whole Paris… It was a moment with a very narrow
fucking explanation behind it, you know?” window and I jumped into it.”
Godin’s first solo record took it’s initial That kind of thing probably couldn’t happen
inspiration not only from Johann Sebastian nowadays then? “Sexy Boy was a big single
Bach, but also the maverick Canadian pianist but if you listen to it, it doesn’t sound very
Glenn Gould and his game-changing commercial. It’s not very fast and it’s kind of
interpretations of the maestro. While creepy as well,” he says with a chuckle.
Contrepoint was musically dexterous, the As well as the vocoders, the samplers, the
Frenchman admits it was a combination of delay effects and the rhythm loops that are
scoring his own work and allowing digital a reminder of earlier sonic adventures, the
technology to do the rest: “I played it and then former architecture student has come full
I synched it, so it’s as much me as it is the circle thematically too, especially with closing
mouse and the computer”. instrumental track Cité Radieuse, inspired by
On Concrete And Glass, things have been the aforementioned Le Corbusier. By chance,
simplified, with a sonic texture that harks Air’s first single, Modular Mix, had also been
back to his early records with bandmate Jean- written with Corbu in mind. It seems Godin’s
Benoît Dunckel. Something that may need been dancing about architecture for a while.
explaining on the new record, however – at Which makes us wonder, will there be any
least for those with sharp hearing – is the more records from Air in the future?
change in bass sound, with his famous Höfner “If I felt there was the inspiration to make
meanderings on songs like La Femme D’argent a great record, we’d do it,” says Godin. “But it’s
retired for now. Godin explains: “That kind of not something that’s worked well in the history
muted 60s bass sound was my trademark and of music. Bands make three or four great
now, because I’m getting old and I’ve made albums: Talking Heads, Kraftwerk… maybe
many records in my life, I thought I just can’t not The Beatles, but you know what I mean…
go on with that sound again.” “Because I’m French I like panache,” he
The 50-year-old says he enjoys the playing adds, “so the idea of making a record that isn’t
of the late, great Mick Karn from Japan great is depressing. When I start to think
although, like with Paul McCartney, he’s about Air I wonder if maybe we shouldn’t
happy to admit he’s not strictly an influence make any more. I want the glory and the
because he doesn’t have the musical chops to prestige and the panache and making a record
emulate such virtuosity. “So I found this that nobody cares about isn’t very sexy.”
Music Man Sabre and I put new strings on it.
Horrible sounding!” he laughs. “New strings Concrete And Glass is out now via Because Music.
are the enemy of cool 60s basslines. It’s very See www.nicolasgodin.com for more information.

70 progmagazine.com



“It all started in my first week of uni. I saw this


girl with a Genesis T-shirt on and knew I had


to talk to her.”



Matt Harrison






















With their highly anticipated

debut EP, The Thing With Feathers,
piano-powered prog-pop act

Exploring Birdsong have flown
the nest, showing the world what
they’re capable of. Prog spoke to

the band to detail their journey
from university hopefuls to one

of the brightest new acts.


Words: Phil Weller
Images: Tom Pallant





Spreading
















Their







Wings
































72 progmagazine.com

Exploring Birdsong, L-R:
Lynsey Ward, Matt
Harrison, Jonny Knight.























































































n recent years, few bands have captured it, but it’s amazing for the fans who have “It all started in my first week of uni,”
the prog world’s imagination quite like supported us for all this time to have their remembers Harrison, reflecting on their
Exploring Birdsong. Eschewing the patience rewarded.” time together at the Liverpool Institute
typical rock band set-up in favour of “We’ve been so eager to do things with For Performing Arts. “I saw this girl with
a
u
l
d
I pianos, bass, drums and Lynsey the music we’ve got,” acknowledges bassist a Genesis T-shirt on and knew I had to talk
Ward’s divine iced, chorally backed vocals, Jonny Knight, “and there’s a lot of stuff that to her. At first we just wanted to write piano-
the band have nestled within a sound that we’re excited for, but it’s been a case of doing based music; it was only when Jonny joined
is distinctly their own. It’s haunting yet things properly and at the right time. And that things began to take shape.”
beautiful, gothic and uplifting all in the that time is now.” Since those first singles burst into life,
same breath, with elements of Steven Wilson, Releasing The Thing With Feathers via the praise has swept in from all angles with
Kate Bush and Agent Fresco tastefully much-respected German imprint Long Branch thanks to their almost uncategorisable
colouring their plumage without ever – label manager Manuel Schönfeld called sound. Beneath Lynsey Ward’s stirring vocals
undermining their own personality. Now, them “one of the most interesting new bands and sparkling, melodically focused piano
after years of tireless refinement and fine- in the British progressive music scene” – playing lays the gritty, distorted bass of Jonny
tuning, they’re ready to unveil their first Exploring Birdsong are giving fans the first Knight. His style bears more resemblance
extended release. real taste of what they can do following the to Karnivool and Caligula’s Horse than the
“We actually played the whole EP at our appetiser singles The Baptism and The classic counterparts Ward’s influences are
first ever gig more than two years ago, so Downpour, both of which dropped in 2018. steeped in, while Harrison’s understated
we have been living with these songs for Those songs earned the trio a weighty yet intelligent, robust drumming is the
a long time,” says drummer and lyricist reputation in rapid fashion, but only now can skeleton they weave their musical muscle
Matt Harrison. “It’s crazy thinking about they truly spread their wings. around. Together they’ve crafted an aural

progmagazine.com 73

Exploring Birdsong:
taking flight.






























































“It was just me and Lyns in a room


with a piano; that’s how it all started.


To the point where we didn’t need a guitar.”



Matt Harrison


landscape full of glorious juxtapositions and “It was just me and Lyns in a room with But instead of just telling his story we wanted
sharp, infectious melodies. a piano; that’s how it all started. To the point to explore what it would feel like if we were in
Looking back, the band are quick to highlight where we didn’t need a guitar,” cites Harrison that situation, because he wasn’t able to
the importance of their university days. when asked about the band’s thought process articulate what had happened. We found it to
A nurturing and developmental, but ultimately behind the lack of an instrument that many be a very sad but fascinating story.”
pivotal, period in their short history, it gave prog acts deem paramount. “I like that our The result is one of the strongest, most
them the courage to fly far from their nest. sound is a bit more refreshing. I think if we individualistic and confident debut releases in
“I came out of my shell in uni,” says Ward. had a guitar we’d probably sound a lot more recent years. There’s magnetism in their
“When I first met Matt I told him that I wasn’t typical tech metal and, as much as we do love music that draws you in, like a siren singing
a songwriter. And here we are now. I’ve come that sort of thing, we didn’t want that. on the edge of a black hole. It’s intrepid,
a long way, we all have, so we look back at Ultimately, I think we’ve got something that’s inspired and ingenuitive, breathing fresh life
those days very fondly. Our tutors were really really accessible but also a little bit weird. We into the prog scene. Ward is the Kate Bush of
aware of what we were trying to do, what we like that balance.” her generation when it comes to voice and
were trying to achieve and we were really Now, after honing the sound of their debut vision, while Knight’s dirt-flecked bass lines
encouraged to just write what we thought EP, they can finally unleash it upon a world and counterpoint keyboards gives them a
sounded nice.” that’s been desperate to hear it. Comprising noticeably modern edge. Harrison, meanwhile,
“It was a really supportive atmosphere to six tracks, including two excellently executed is their unbridled imagination, steering the
be in and a really creative period for the band,” interludes, it includes lyrics inspired by flock towards greater things that can be seen
adds Knight. “We wrote so much in Matt’s Seamus Heaney’s poem Bye-Child. It tells the on the not-too-distant horizon.
boiling-hot flat, with a mini keyboard plugged true story of a boy born out of wedlock, whose With Long Branch, Harrison says their music
into a laptop. If we were on a roll we’d write for mother, desperate not to lose him, hides him is in good hands. Under Exploring Birdsong’s
hours, if not we’d just sit and watch a film and in a henhouse at the bottom of the garden. wing, we’re confident that the future of British
just enjoy being together.” “He was about six years old when he was prog is right where it should be.
That environment helped the band embellish found,” Ward explains. “He was making bird
the uniqueness of their sound on their own noises, and had really severe rickets because The Thing With Feathers is out now. Head to
terms, without prejudice or preconceptions. he’d basically been brought up by chickens. www.facebook.com/exploringbirdsong for more.

74 progmagazine.com

CELEBRATE THE GREATEST ALBUMS




TO HAVE EVER BEEN PRESSED!






From the bands and solo artists that made the music possible, to the sleeve art and
limited edition extras, we take you on the ultimate journey of musical discovery!

































ON SALE




NOW



































































Ordering is easy. Go online at:




www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
Or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents

Computer







Love






























On their sixth album,
65daysofstatic have

stepped away from
algorithms and pushed
the boundaries

of progressive music.
Multi-instrumentalist

Paul Wolinski tells Prog
how the evolving band
reconnected with handmade

sounds to create a record
with a sense of purpose.



Words: Alex Lynham
Portrait: Danni Maibaum



































65daysofstatic: masters
of experimentation.


















76 progmagazine.com

6 inevitable that 65 would end up investigating this avenue for creative
5daysofstatic have never been a conventional rock band.
Though for most of their career their nominal line-up has
inspiration. By going to a link online, fans could see the code, play the
reimagined track and, with a little bit of trial and error, manipulate
consisted of Joe Shrewsbury and Paul Wolinski on guitar,
the song for themselves. 65 have also worked on art installations, such
Simon Wright on bass and Rob Jones on drums, this
doesn’t tell you anything about the army of keyboards,
a guitar sustainer, to accept midi input.
synths, beats and laptops getting torn up behind the scenes. They’re as Sleepwalk City and Fugue State, the latter involving hacking EBows,
most often described as a ‘post-rock’ band, though guitarist and In the middle of this period of reinvention and experimentation,
multi-instrumentalist Paul Wolinski laughs off this description. a huge opportunity came along: to write a soundtrack for the most
“It’s used so often as a shorthand to describe bands with delay pedals anticipated game in the world, No Man’s Sky. The game itself may have
that want to sound like Mogwai.” been controversial on release for over-promising and under-delivering,
That comparison is apt in at least one way however – like Mogwai, but 65’s …Music For An Infinite Universe was a sprawling masterpiece:
65 came along just early enough in the second wave of post-rock to a double album comprising a ‘normal’ 65 album, and then a second disc
be hugely influential within it. From prog faves Maybeshewill to containing structured takes on the massive library of score music
Three Trapped Tigers, there’s a broad church of bands that have been they’d made for it. In the game, like its procedurally generated universe,
influenced by 65, as they reinvent themselves from album to album. the 65 score would be chopped up and strung out infinitely, from
This reinvention has taken a more radical turn in the last seven years. countless small, interlocking parts. This built upon their work with the
After 2013’s critically acclaimed Wild Light, the band re-scored their Prisms single and ultimately led to a 2017 tour, Decomposition Theory,
single Prisms using Gibber, an online live coding tool. Live coding Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Demand The Future, where the
is where music is created with code, often with players writing it in band deconstructed their music using algorithmic and live coding
real-time, in front of an audience, as they evaluate and play it. With techniques, playing a tour where every show was different to the last.
their increasingly sophisticated electronic experiments, it’s perhaps Now, however, they’re back, with a subscription of monthly EPs that
will last a year, and a brilliant, visionary album, Replicr, 2019. It’s 14
tracks long, and out on CD and vinyl. So far, so traditional, but all is
not what it seems.
“We kind of went on quite a long journey, I suppose you’d call it,
to get to this new record,” says Wolinski. “No Man’s Sky was a very
big project, we learned so much, and on reflection it was really lucky
that we started the way that we started, by writing regular songs
to begin with, and then building on that, because my main takeaway
I suppose from that whole experience was that certain things within
the game – specifically the in-game soundtrack – were the perfect
vehicles for infinite generative music, because the music is not the
main focal point. It doesn’t have to carry itself standalone. It’s serving
a very specific role… So it was [a case of]: ‘How can we bring all these
new techniques back into our world, to make a record that has a sense
of purpose about it?’”
Purpose and intention are two ideas Wolinski keeps returning to,
discussing Decomposition Theory and how their years-long experiments
with algorithmic music didn’t quite land the knockout creative punch
they were hoping for.
“Replicr is, if anything, a reaction to all that. A lot of the songs were
born from weird, algorithmic, generative music experiments, but
actually, everything on the record itself now was built by hand,
manually, and very carefully from the ground up, and any of the
algorithmic elements that we used in the first place were killed, or
frozen in place. Any sort of life that was in them, and might have meant
that they manifested differently every time we ran the musical system,
got pulled back and reined in until we had something that was entirely
deliberate, from our end.”
The discussion moves to the potential of algorithmic music to
generate sounds that a human could not normally conceive of, but
that a computer would find trivial: complex polyrhythms, cyclical
movements and mathematically precise crescendos, built of coalescing,
interlocking parts. Did they find it depressing that these ideas didn’t
result in much creative fulfilment? “The kind of disillusionment with
failing to find a way to automate music, maybe there’s some small
sense of that,” Wolinski begins, “but what was more powerful than
the disillusionment was the realisation that all the meaning in music
is created by the social relations surrounding it. In the world of
computer music, nothing we did was particularly cutting edge, in
terms of the technology, really. There are all kinds of people doing



“A lot of the songs were born from weird,



algorithmic, generative music experiments,


but actually, everything on the record itself

now was built by hand, manually.”




progmagazine.com 77

7
7

.
e
c
m
o
g
m
o
p
r
a
i
n
z
g
a

65daysofstatic, L-R: Rob Jones, Paul Wolinski,
Joe Shrewsbury, Simon Wright.

much more intricate stuff, like [US composer]
Holly Herndon does “What was more powerful than the
really interesting
machine learning.” disillusionment was the realisation that all the
stuff with
associations triggered in the meaning in music is created by the social
Wolinski explains that the


listener by hearing music are relations surrounding it.”
really what they consider valuable. As consumers of music, listeners
have a shared understanding of what music is, what’s allowed, what
isn’t, what’s come before, and maybe, just maybe, what will come doing it as our main occupation for about a decade, so I hope that we
next. “That’s why pop music exists, you know?” he muses. This have got better at it, you know? [Laughs] We’ve made a lot of music,
context and discourse around music is what makes it a powerful we’ve made a lot of choices, so those things that anyone gathers
medium for communicating in a way that sometimes other art forms through large experience of doing something, they sink down into
struggle to match. a lower level of consciousness. It feels like intuition, but I don’t know,
“All the meaning comes from its associations. When you’ve got you can have the luxury of being pretty uncritical in that moment of
a computer making hours and hours of music, it doesn’t have those composing, like: ‘This is the right thing to do. I don’t know why, but
associations. Whereas a band like us, like anyone, really, but for 65, I feel that this is the right thing to do.’ So arbitrary is completely the
the turning point was just implanting our tastes on it, you know? wrong word. We work so well together that if someone has a strong
In many ways, those decisions to freeze the algorithms were arbitrary, feeling about something, even if they can’t explain it, it’s probably
in a sense. It’s what the majority of us in the band thought was the worth pursuing.”
right thing to do, the thing that sounded best.” So, when it comes to taking the human out of the creative process,
When pushed over whether the arbitrary decisions of a group of Wolinski isn’t too worried about the robots replacing 65. “That only
musicians are inherently better than those of a computer, Wolinski makes sense if you believe that music is this actual thing that exists in of
backtracks a little. “Maybe arbitrary was a silly word to use. It’s kind itself, and it doesn’t. It’s melodies and vibrations in the air, and sculpted
of… intuitive. I don’t think that there’s anything magical about noise. That’s all it is. There’s no inherent meaning in any of it.”
intuition. The four of us have been a band for 16 years now, or
something, and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to get away with Replicr, 2019 is out now via Superball. For more visit www.65daysofstatic.com.

78 progmagazine.com

Inside the business of music. Established 1959
Get inside the business of music





No other music business magazine stacks up




5 GREAT REASONS



TO SUBSCRIBE



1 Delivered every Monday - helps you set

your agenda for the week ahead



2 Access a wealth of news, new music
coverage, thought-leadership and chart
information in subscriber-only content


3 Read insightful opinion, analysis and


HMPCBM ţSTU MPPLT BU FYDJUJOH OFX BSUJTUTLJ


4 Stay ahead of the game with our daily

.PSOJOH #SJFţOH OFXTMFUUFSLJ


5 Get the Music Week Directory book,

worth £50 – absolutely FREE



DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO

YOUR DOOR OR ON THE GO


EVERY WEEK, ALL YEAR FROM £179





















FREE












SUBSCRIBE NOW






Call: 0208 955 7020

Online: musicweek.com/subscribe

Heart














Of















Darkness


















He’s been Nightwish’s bassist and co-vocalist since 2001, and now Marko Hietala is
making his first foray into solo waters with his debut album. He tells Prog about his

passion for Genesis, and why he’s now ready to share his black heart.


Words: Dannii Leivers Images: Andrea Beckers






ightwish were in the middle of 2001, long after having founded power metal
their 2018 Decades tour when band Tarot back in 1986 with his brother
their bassist, Marco Hietala, Zachary. Throughout his career, he’s been
decided to take his solo material involved with various projects, including

N for its first road test. a place in the star-studded cast for Ayreon’s
t
o
u
“I played them a few demo versions, and wildly ambitious opera Theory Of Everything
when Erno [Emppu Vuorinen, Nightwish in 2013. But with his debut solo album, Pyre
guitarist] came to have his morning coffee Of The Black Heart, the fork-bearded bassist
on the tour bus in his underwear, he was acknowledges that this time it feels different.
humming…” Hietala says with a chuckle, “I guess I should be scared,” he admits. “If
intoning the melody of his latest single, something sucks, or somebody thinks the


“You may think of me as


a metal guy, but as a young


guy I was already into



Jethro Tull and Genesis.”




Stones. “Then Tuomas [Holopainen, lyrics are corny or naïve, then it’s me they
Nightwish leader, songwriter and keyboard will be blaming. There’s no shield of Mr
player] came out from the bunk section and Tuomas Holopainen.”
said: ‘That song’s been playing in my head all Many of the tracks on Hietala’s album have
night!’ So I was like, okay, Stones is going to be been knocking about in fragmented form, an
a single.” idea here, a lyric there, for 10 or 15 years. But it
His bandmates are firmly on side, but as was only in 2017, when Nightwish announced
a music industry veteran in his own right this a year-long break following an extensive tour
is hardly the first time Marko (yes, now with for their 2015 album Endless Forms Most
a ‘k’) has gone it alone without Nightwish. He Beautiful, that Hietala started properly fleshing
joined the symphonic metal juggernauts in out the tracks. Similar to Opeth, who

8 0 p r o g m a g a z i n e . c o m
80 progmagazine.com

Marko Hietala: from power
metal to “hard prog”.































































































































progmagazine.com 81


1
8
.
e
n
m
o
c
g
m
o
p
r
z
i
a
a
g

released 2019’s In Cauda Venenum in both
Swedish and English, Hietala released
a Finnish version of the album, titled Mustan
Sydämen Rovio, in May 2019, the English
version following several months later.
“This was an ambitious plan. We should
have been ready earlier but there were lot of
[obstacles] along the way,” he explains.
What was the cause of the delay?
“Oh, man. There was a lot of stuff. When
we started to work on the album, I came from
a dark place. I had a divorce behind me and
there were a lot of times I had to collect myself
for the work. Now it’s some years back, I’m
way better, but still it took time.”
Struggling with bouts of depression is
something Hietala has always been very open
about. “There’s been those in the past, and
then there was one more,” he says. “The album
title refers to that darkest pyre that I’d like to
leave behind.”
Hietala has the kind of raucous howl capable
of cutting through the enormity of loss. But
although he’s emerging from a tumultuous
period in his life, on Pyre… he doesn’t wallow
in his pain. On the contrary, it’s an
unpredictable, wild ride of a record that he’s
captioned “hard prog”. It’s capable of issuing
an emotional gut punch one second, and prone
to outbursts of spontaneity the next. Runner
Of The Railways, a “folk-metal-stoner-rock
hybrid” and probably the album’s most
unpredictable track, is all over the place, while
Hietala describes Death March To Freedom as
“Finnish folk with a 60s live band vibe”.
“I just wrote whatever I liked,” he admits.
“This is more of a statement of my musical
history. I love prog music. You may think of
me as a metal guy, but as a young guy I was
already into Jethro Tull and Genesis. It is not
hard to understand prog, it’s more atmospheric
and rhythmic. It’s how we combine all the
elements that drops it to the progressive side.”
The most dramatic moment on the album is
closing track Truth Shall Set You Free. An
immersive statement of intent which rises and
rises to an apex so high it’s shrouded in cloud,
and yet never runs out of road, it draws
obvious parallels with the expansive work of
Ayreon. Did working with Arjen Lucassen on
Theory Of Everything help Hietala to develop as
a solo artist?
“No not really,” he says slowly, maintaining
that he and Lucassen have long shared
attitudes and a distaste for genre boundaries.
“He is doing what I’m doing: writing music for
yourself. Any time Arjen figures he might
have a use for me, I’ll be there.”
Nevertheless, it feels like a huge track, both
musically and lyrically, although that was
never his intention.
“It started off acoustic,” he explains,
“and then we came up with these string
arrangements and the whole thing blew up so
much, it’s hard to recognise the whole song is
acoustic. On the lyrical side, I try to remind
myself that there are things we see beyond
mundane reality; the feeling of being alive and
embracing it. There’s the line: ‘All roads can
lead away from hell if you turn away from the
smoke and the noise’. Smoke and the noise – With Pyre Of The Black
Heart, Hietala has pulled
our lives are filled with it; adverts, emails, our light from darkness.

82 progmagazine.com

Stoking the Pyre. L-R:
Tuomas Wäinölä, Anssi
Nykänen, Marko Hietala,
Vili Ollila.


“It is a solo project, but


there is definitely a new


band growing from it.”





mailboxes full, national leaders lying with “It is a solo project, but there is definitely
straight faces on TV. We are forced into these a new band growing from it,” he says. “The
narrow visions by social media and TV. album wouldn’t have been done like this if it
Everyone is taught fear. There are things in wasn’t for the guys. I may have written the
the world that are there just to fool us.” lyrics and had most of the verses and choruses
So you think we should concentrate on in my head, but the guys deserve credit. They
living and not fearing? did a hell of a lot of work for it. They surprised
“Especially not fearing.” me with some of their [arrangements] and
solutions – they were so brilliant and out of
hen Prog catches up with Hietala, the air, I never would have imagined them.”
he’s on tour with another of his Despite his palpable pride and excitement
W ng-term projects, Raskasta Joulua, for Pyre Of The Black Heart, and even with solo
o
l
an ensemble of Finnish metal vocalists and European tour dates booked for February,
musicians who annually perform metal Hietala has been clear that Nightwish, his day
renditions of traditional and contemporary job and his main job, will always take
Christmas songs. “Finnish people like to precedence. And as Nightwish’s return looms
celebrate Christmas, so it’s kind of a big large on the horizon there’s an acceptance that
thing,” he jokes. “We go there like your usual his solo career will once again be put on the
evangelists, and sing a few songs about Jesus back burner, albeit he hopes only temporarily.
without believing in him.” “I hope this won’t be the only time I go on
He’s been a member of Raskasta Joulua, a solo tour,” he says. “There’s going to be
which also includes current Nightwish singer a Nightwish album and Nightwish tour, I think
Floor Jansen and their former singer Tarja in March or April, but after that I’m going to
Turunen, for almost 15 years, and it was there have time off again. This solo stuff and playing
that he met and forged a close bond with the with the guys has been fun. If I have material
session musicians, guitarist Tuomas Wäinölä enough to write more, I will. It’s definitely
and keyboard player Vili Ollila, with whom he possible I’ll be doing this again.”
recorded Pyre… Indeed the recording sessions
for the debut went so well that they blossomed Pyre Of The Black Heart is out now via Nuclear
into something bigger than Hietala could have Blast. See www.facebook.com/markohietalaofficial
ever imagined: a brand-new start. for more.

progmagazine.com 83

Man at work: Darran
Charles, self-professed
perfectionist.






























































































































84 progmagazine.com

Past Perfect





















With Godsticks’ fifth album Inescapable, Darran Charles is confronting

and harnessing some of the issues that have both forged and
constrained him. In the process, he’s leading the Welsh rockers into
intriguing new musical territory.



Words: Grant Moon Images: Eleanor Jane



arran Charles has got a pizza in they played the O2 Academy and I hate
the oven. When that’s done, he that venue. I’m quite anti-social really.
tells Prog, so is our interview. It’s why I don’t go to the cinema. People
And that’s absolutely fine. ruin it, talking and using their fucking
DIn conversation, the Godstick- phones. It’s the poor manners that
In-Chief is intense and brusque – really annoy me. Well done, idiots!
some might even say gobby – but You won! I’m not going anymore!”
he’s also interesting, honest and Also on his hit list is the poor sound
good, sarky fun. Expletives are hurled quality at some of Cardiff’s biggest
easily yet intended to land lightly. venues, the dextrous yet emotionally
He talks a mile a minute and, like inert technique of some of the new
many of us men of a certain age, he is breed of djent/shred guitarists (“Music
fond of a rant. isn’t a competition, I’d take Stevie Ray
“I don’t go to that many gigs, Vaughan’s vibrato over most of that!”),
because I don’t like many venues. I saw and the fact that people can’t seem to
Mastodon recently, I’ve watched Rufus live in the moment these days. “I was
Wainwright a few times, and I did in Italy recently and there was a choir
want to see Meshuggah in Bristol but with an orchestra performing in


























“My self-worth is still




so wrapped up in music




and playing guitar.



I see it as a battle, and




it is ongoing.”













progmagazine.com 85

this garden. It was great. And there something? I felt like that. My self-
was this guy walking around with his worth is still so wrapped up in music
camera as if to say, ‘I’ll record this now and playing guitar. I see it as a battle,
and enjoy it later.’ No! Enjoy it now! and it is ongoing.”
Later your memory will make it even He did finally pluck up the courage
better for you!” to start a band around 2007, in his
It’s just before Christmas and early 30s. He put up ads in Cardiff’s
Charles is talking to Prog from his music shops and in the freesheets:
newly extended home studio in ‘Musicians wanted to form jazz fusion
Newport. It’s a proper musician-cave, funk band.’ The resulting group, Multi-
littered with guitars, gear and hefty Storey Earthworm, lasted for a year and
FX boxes, its walls soon to be played the grand total of three shows,
festooned with A3 posters detailing covering Steely Dan, Tower Of Power,
his favourite obscure musical scales. Steve Vai and Eric Johnson. But that
There’s a definite through-line from was enough to give Charles the taste
the 43-year-old man he is now and for the gig life, and the first incarnation
the 20-something he once was. Today of Godsticks emerged soon after. Their
he’s the singer, co-guitarist and lead self-titled debut EP came in 2009 and
songwriter for a successful UK prog things progressed quickly for Charles
band with four albums under their belt and the band, in its various line-ups,
and a strong fifth, Inescapable, about from there.
to land. Some 20 years ago he was His crippling battle with
a reclusive music geek, travelling up the perfectionism is one of the many
M4 twice a week to attend the London lyrical threads woven through
Guitar Institute, and spending most of Inescapable. With powerful backing
his time at home alone surrounded by vocals from TesseracT’s Daniel
music theory books, listening to Zappa, Tompkins, the crunching opener and
Steve Vai and Mike Keneally (who is lead single Denigrate includes these
now a friend) on hard rotation. lines: ‘I’ll stay until my hands are bleeding
“I would be sat there like a nerd at numb and shot, but I know/I’ll never
my desk, counting rhythms with change the way I feel/I turn my back but

“On this album I just




wanted the four of us, and



for the songs to be strong



enough with just the



five instruments.”







a metronome. I was getting into Zappa cannot shake my own damn paranoia.’ Godsticks, L-R: Dan Despite its typically weighty and
so I’d be there tapping odd groupings The theme is also literally baked into Nelson, Tom Price, introspective themes, there’s a fresh
of notes on the table with a pencil. the odd accompanying video, which is Darran Charles and sense of musical freedom and airiness
Gavin Bushell.
I like learning on my own. I never well worth YouTubing to see Charles, to Inescapable, which was recorded at
listened in school because I was being bassist Dan Nelson, guitarist Gavin Monnow Valley Studio with trusted
told to listen.” Bushell and drummer Tom Price Emergence producer James Loughrey.
Such dedication is laudable and getting absolutely pelted with eggs, Whereas part of the Godsticks MO on,
informs Godsticks’ brand of rock. flour, milk and other cake ingredients say, 2010’s Spiral Vendetta was to soak
Intelligent, hooky, widdly and subtly over four minutes. their songs in overdubs, lately the band
complex, the quartet’s music really After early shows, while the other have focused more on capturing the
came of age on their last two albums, members were out front having a beer four of them playing together and
Emergence (2015) and Faced With Rage with the crowd, Charles would be bringing the melodies to the fore. Also,
(2017). But Charles’ passion for music sitting in the dressing room poring this line-up has been playing together
is intertwined with an altogether more over his performance – mainly his for four years and have things locked
pernicious character trait, one that mistakes – and practising. down tight.
prevented him from forming a band “That’s how obsessive I was,” he Today the Godsticks’ engine is
and playing in public until later in life. says now. “I ain’t cured by any stretch purring. Listen to Nelson’s punchy bass
“I’ve always struggled with of the imagination, but once you on the intro to Surrender. “His bass
perfectionism. I always felt that before realise that there’s no such thing sounds used to be shit!” says Charles,
I could go out and perform music I had as ‘perfect’ and it’s actually okay to with that trademark tact. “I used to
to be the perfect musician, and that make mistakes, you free yourself up have a go at him to try this, try that.
stopped me doing anything. You know a bit. Now it’s about being in the He sulked a bit, went away and worked
that character on Sesame Street who moment. I want to put on a good show, on it, and then he’d send me these
beats up his piano when he can’t play and enjoy it.” amazing new sounds saying: ‘Shove

86 progmagazine.com

me to try different things, and he
picked up where my voice was more
emotional, where I’d deliver lines with
certain inflections. It certainly changed
my approach and I think it’s paid off.”
It has. Godsticks supported The
Pineapple Thief nearly a decade ago,
and there’s a hint of Bruce Soord’s
brooding, brittle vocal approach on the
beautiful Breathe, which hits that vocal
sweet spot nicely. On the imperious,
tricky rocker Resist and wrong-footing
prog groover Numb, Charles and band
call to mind Soundgarden and their
late singer, Chris Cornell.
The comparison gets Charles
unusually bashful. “Lots of people have
said that, and while it’s a compliment
it’s embarrassing, because he’s one
of the greatest singers that ever was.
There’s no way I should be mentioned
in the same breath. I never thought of
Soundgarden as a grunge band, they
were just a great rock band. If you
analyse their stuff it’s littered with
odd time signatures, but nobody
thinks they’re prog. It’s like in folk
music – folk artists would be
expressing a lyrical idea or phrase that
just happened to be in odd time. For
us, it’s the groove that’s important.”
Wilks also challenged Charles to
amp up the big, hooky choruses this
time. Up there with the killer Surrender
is the catchy, ethereal Victim, written
while Charles was on a John Goodsall
jag, complete with great, nuanced solos
from both of Godsticks’ guitarists.
Proggy time signatures and Charles’
trademark exotic scales add spice and
surprise across the album, with Time
taking the album out on an anthemic
high, in 11/8, 9/8 and 4/4 rhythm.
Godsticks will support Inescapable
with four UK shows in April, an
appearance at Tech-Fest in July and
other festival dates across Europe.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’d
that up your arse!’ There’s a lot of a much better ear than me for guitar give up my job and tour 12 months
bass on its own here, like on Denigrate. tones, and that really irritates me! a year if I could.” Given his history as
Dan can carry it, we don’t need to I’m surrounded by gear everywhere a reclusive artist that is surprising,
layer sounds upon sounds now – and it takes him two minutes to get and perhaps testament to how well
the band’s musical foundations are a great guitar sound. In this line-up Darran Charles is doing in his ongoing
powerful enough on their own. Half everyone’s got their own strengths war against his issues.
the time on previous albums we and it would be ridiculous not to use “Everything I’ve ever done is to
wanted a mush where you couldn’t them. I know I’ve got a big mouth but spite myself,” he reflects, “because all
distinguish between the individual I do listen.” I really want to do is sit in a chair and
instruments, but on this album I just As well as listening to his eat Maltesers, so I spite myself – by
wanted the four of us, and for the bandmates, Darran Charles took starting a band, by getting up on stage,
songs to be strong enough with just counsel from Johnny Wilks, an exec playing things wrongly from time to
the five instruments.” at the band’s label, Kscope. Together time. Music actually makes me happy
Now sparse and elegant, Surrender they’d pick over the song demos, with less than one per cent of the time –
started off heaped with extra stuff, Wilks suggesting Charles break out when the album’s finished and we’re
including a Fender Rhodes piano, but of his usual vocal tropes, sing higher, all proud of it, it’s all worth it for that.”
Charles stripped it right back. “Dan softer in parts, to bring a new timbre With that, an oven timer pings
liked it,” he says, “but the other two to his voice. from a room beyond his studio. “My
weren’t sure because it was unusual “Johnny pointed out that I had pizza’s ready now,” he says, “so you
for us. Then after a couple of days we a comfort zone,” says Charles, “and can fuck off.”
were all on the same page. It took a lot he was right in a way. I would sing in And we do.
of getting used to. a certain range, not because it was
“Tom’s a very musical drummer and comfortable but I thought my voice Inescapable is out on Kscope on February 7.
knows when to leave space. Gavin’s got sounded better there. He encouraged See www.godsticks.co.uk for more.

progmagazine.com 87

Groove
LET’S




















TONIGHT





Modern psychedelia
revivalists Moon Duo are

heading in a new musical
direction with Stars Are The

Light, but has their seventh
album really turned them
into the Kyuss of stoner

disco? Prog sits down with
Ripley Johnson and Sanae
Yamada to find out more.



Words: Julian Marszalek
Portrait: Brett Johnson





In search of space:
Sanae Yamada and
Ripley Johnson.






























































88 progmagazine.com

R refining modern psychedelia. And now, just without actually being disco aficionados or
“We were influenced by the idea of disco,
ipley Johnson allows himself a gentle
laugh that sits somewhere between
under a decade since he formed the latter
trying to sound like anything that’s happened
pride and outright amusement.
outfit with musical and life partner Sanae
before,” Johnson explains. “It was about taking
Yamada, the pair have dialled back the fuzz,
The guitarist and mainman of
Wooden Shjips, San Franciscan
disco to be. And by not knowing what we were
purveyors of groove-based, fuzzed-up, garage ramped up the electronics, explored new beats what we do and applying what we imagine
and made the sharpest left turn in their
psychedelia, and concurrently the guitarist history to make… a disco album? Well, not doing, it came out the way that it did.
and co-pilot with groove-based, fuzzed-up quite, but surely no one goes off-roading quite “We wanted to be free to do something
electro-psychedelic outfit Moon Duo, Johnson like this? really different,” he continues. “A lot of bands
has been one of the key figures in reviving and “The whole concept started about me joking claim to be making a radical departure, but
about stoner rock,” Johnson says with a laugh often they don’t. It’s hard to break out of your
as he recalls the origins of Stars Are The Light, way of working, which is what we tried to do.
Moon Duo’s seventh studio album. “We were It’s scary, but we stuck with it throughout the
like: ‘What if we did a stoner disco record? We whole process.”
could be the Kyuss of stoner disco!’ And then “We see disco as a collective embracement
we thought, actually, it’s a really good idea to with a huge inclusivity vibe,” adds the
play with the tropes.” project’s synth/keyboard player Sanae
By their own admission, and barring a few Yamada. “That’s very timely and incredibly
dancefloor classics, Moon Duo know precious inspiring. So it wasn’t so much music that we
little about the music that swept out of the US were looking to for inspiration, but a feeling
underground dance and gay scenes and into and a hope. And making music that was
the mainstream in the early-to-mid 70s. moving towards that concept.”
Consequently, their new album owes less to Stars Are The Light is easily the most playful
the sounds championed by legendary New Moon Duo have ever sounded. The motorik
York DJ David Mancuso and then taken beats, throbbing pulses and guitar workouts
overground by hitmakers such as Barry White, that reached a peak in 2017 on the twin Occult
The Hues Corporation and Van McCoy, among Architecture releases have here been replaced
others, and more to re-imagining the form with a bounce and vigour that explores new
as viewed through the kaleidoscope of rhythms and textures while still cleansing the
psychedelia. The end result is an album that’s third eye. Yet for all that, menacing political
recognisably Moon Duo, while busting some factors have also played a part in the brave
surprising new moves. album’s creation.






“I personally


look to the stars


and I look to


Carl Sagan.


The cosmos is


a fantastic and


wonderful and


mysterious and


knowable thing,


and I get comfort


from that.”


Ripley Johnson





















progmagazine.com 89


9
8
.
e
n
m
o
c
g
m
o
p
r
z
i
a
a
g

Moon Duo: living Warming to the theme, he expounds
to the beat.
further: “If you’re beat-oriented, like we are,
then you find these common grounds with
disco music. For me personally, with dance
music there are so many elements that I like
about it, but almost none of it has to do
with the sounds. It’s more about the trance
elements and the way they aim to take you
out of your body and whatever present state
you’re in.
“People go to discos and dance clubs to lose
themselves. And that’s similar to psychedelic
music in that it takes you outside of your
immediate reality. And maybe that then opens
up new ways of seeing things, or just a new
way of experiencing the present moment.
Hopefully it allows you to see something
better in the world.”
Of course, this being Moon Duo – the clue
is in the name – the pair are also looking
beyond earthbound confines and constraints
to how the universe impacts upon both their
lives and their art.
“We were batting around different titles,
and the word ‘stardust’ came up, mainly to
express a form of collectivism, because
we’re all made from the same stuff,” explains
Yamada. “Not just us: the trees, the stars, the
animals, everything, and we’re all part of this
grand dance of sorts.”
“We’ve explored Johnson. “Since we seem to be living in pre-
“We’re always looking to the cosmic,” adds

the trance aspect apocalyptic times, I personally look to the
stars and I look to [celebrated astronomer/
of music since cosmologist] Carl Sagan. The cosmos is
a fantastic and wonderful and mysterious and

the beginning. knowable thing, and I get comfort from that.
We’re just trying to find some optimism in
these very trying times. We’re trying to find
And we’ve also some light.”
What’s also remarkable about Moon Duo is
played with that, for what was seemingly a side project,
they’ve now overtaken Wooden Shjips in
repetition since terms of recorded output. So is Moon Duo
Johnson’s primary project?
“I don’t think of it in that way,” he says. “It
the beginning.” goes back to who I’m working with; you know,

who’s available, who’s ready to work and so on.
Ripley Johnson And promoting a record is a big commitment.
With the Shjips we draw boundaries; with the
last record [V], we rehearsed a couple of
“We’re reacting more to the mood in the and labels that our society is so insistent on weekends and then recorded it in a week. And
United States and our personal feelings about slapping on. We’re trying to push against that was what everyone could do, so that’s
it,” says Johnson. “Things are changing these categories and boundaries because the what we did. With Moon Duo, Sanae and I can
socially in the United States; more and more best thing about humanity is the actual do it more, which is great.”
people are talking about issues of identity and diversity of it. There are so many of us, and Although they remain uncertain of where
sexuality and power dynamics and privilege. each of us is a unique iteration of this life they’ll head to next, Moon Duo are intent on
And all the while that these conversations are form. Putting everything into boxes enjoying their music quest.
going on, we have this clown dictator running diminishes our ability as a species to be who “I like playing with the idea of genre,”
the country. So it’s a really confused time. We we are.” Johnson says. “When you talk about the
didn’t want to be overly political, but we Moon Duo are quick to point out the commonality between beat-based and trance
wanted to make something that was similarities the between psychedelia and music, it almost doesn’t matter what genre it
a statement of inclusivity.” dance music, and it’s easy to see where they’re is in.”
“We’re in the middle of this crazy time in coming from. Shamanic cultures have long Yamada agrees: “We tried to be totally
our society and there’s a lot of unbelievably used dance to attain altered states of undiscriminating in terms of category. We
horrible shit going on,” agrees Yamada. “We consciousness in their ceremonies, and for reached for what felt right for the song and we
have this horrible, oppressive force alongside Moon Duo, Stars Are The Light is a continuation left ourselves open to what could come of it.”
a new consciousness. of a journey they started at their inception. Which leaves just one question: are you
“As far as disco as a cultural space goes, the “We’ve explored the trance aspect of music dancing yet?
thing I find most inspiring about it is that it’s since the beginning,” acknowledges Johnson.
a place for true expression of a genuine self. “And we’ve also played with repetition since Stars Are The Light is out now via Sacred Bones.
Especially as it doesn’t fit into those categories the beginning.” See www.moonduo.org for more information.

90 progmagazine.com

www.classicrockmagazine.com

The Far Meadow: forging
ahead in their field.



















































FAR FROM THE








MADDING

Crowd





























e had to ensure we got symphonic prog artistry and contemporary Alexandrou’s ringing, mellifluous voice. One
everything right, and flourishes, bookended by the epic opener of them, Travelogue, gave the band their Close
being picky about the Travelogue, which checks in at over 18 minutes, To The Edge moment, although originally they
sounds and stuff really and the classic 70s vibe of the title track. had no plans to compose a near-20-minute
p
d
i
“W off,” says Paul Bringloe and Minn formed The Far Meadow song. “The danger with this is that when we
a
Bringloe, The Far Meadow’s affable drummer, after the demise of Blind Panic, who both had play it live, people might start clapping halfway
reflecting on Foreign Land, the band’s much- been part of. Their first album, Where Joys through. So far they haven’t,” Bringloe says
admired third album. Abound, was released at the end of 2012, after with a laugh.
While it was being made, the London-based which three band members left. Then in came Sulis Rise sees Bringloe on a more lyrical
group were indecisive about its eventual bassist Keith Buckman, guitarist Denis Warren flight of fancy.
release format, and were focused on achieving and vocalist Marguerita Alexandrou, the latter “It is all about a goddess,” he explains.
the optimum sound. Then keyboard player having taken up singing and songwriting in “What was going on in my head when I wrote
Eliot Minn suffered a devastating family her native Cyprus only seven years previously. it was the amount of blandness currently
bereavement, which put a temporary halt to It was this line-up that recorded the band’s being passed off as creativity, especially in the
its progress. second album, 2016’s Given The Impossible. music industry. People are being handed stuff
However, since its release the plaudits have For Foreign Land’s foundation, three old and are expected to like it because they don’t
come thick and fast for its elegant swathes of tracks were recycled and remodelled to suit know any better. I was lucky when I was a kid,

92 progmagazine.com

The fluid playing of Brazil-born Denis
Warren is one of the album’s unique selling
points. He’s a music scholar and, as well as
giving guitar lessons over Skype to pupils in
Brazil – typically at around 2am UK time –
he has a BMus degree from the Institute Of
Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP) in
London where he’s been finishing a master’s
degree in music. He now plans to start a PhD
in music, social aesthetics and politics.
The title song is one of Alexandrou’s own
compositions, and is about the opportunity to
start again in a psychological foreign land. She
then gave it to the rest of the band to prog up,
including her original chords and timing.
Serendipity also played a role in the album.
“The older tunes fit the Foreign Land mould
with themes of alienation, emotional distance
and creative dissonance,” says Bringloe. “So
maybe we’ve been lucky with that.
“Also, I think we all worked so hard getting
our parts right for the album. Now, when I hear
Travelogue going on, you think: ‘Oh yeah, it
was worth it.’ And when you hear your track
on the radio, you know you’ve cracked it.”
Consequently, the first run of the album
sold out, and it’s steadily shifting more copies.
“Sales are very good for a band our size and
weight, so it’s pretty clear we got the mix of
songs right this time. We’ve also expanded
our audience quite considerably through this.”
To top it all, in 2019 they played at two of
the UK’s premier festivals: Cambridge, and
Summer’s End, where they made their debut.
“We absolutely loved Summer’s End,”
Bringloe enthuses. “The stage management
and the audience were brilliant, and we played
to a packed house even though we were the
first on. We would happily do that one every
year if we could.”

“People are being


handed stuff and
The Far Meadow’s third album, Foreign Land, was
one of 2019’s ‘dark horse’ records, receiving widespread are expected to
acclaim despite its completion being fraught with like it because

personal tragedy. Now the band are writing material
for the follow-up and gearing up for a busy 2020. they don’t know
any better.”
Words: Alison Reijman Image: Daniel Craig Williams
Paul Bringloe


because I got handed Close To The Edge, Fragile, “Nok lived in the shadows and was into the Material for the next album is now in
The Beatles and, a bit later, Stanley Clarke and Illuminati and banking families running the progress, and gigs in Southampton and
the rest of that jazz rock. The track is about world,” Bringloe muses. “He saw money as Leicester in February are followed by a trip to
how agonisingly dull some stuff is these days completely unnecessary. And he does make Greece in March to headline a mini-festival at
and how it doesn’t have to be that way. It got some good points about it. I think it might the Zoo Club in Athens. Appearances at both
personified so that this goddess comes out of ultimately be about ‘mushroom syndrome’, Resonate 2 and Prog The Forest follow later in
a strange fold in the earth to rescue us from all where all of us are kept in the dark and fed the year.
this dullness.” shit. There’s a reality in it that’s not discussed Interestingly, given the date in Athens and
A clue to the wellspring for this lyrical very often. And it’s as close to metal as we Marguerita’s roots, the other act with whom
erudition is Bringloe’s day job: the drummer is have come recently.” they would most like to appear is Verbal
a crossword compiler for several newspapers. However, penultimate number The Fugitive Delirium. “They’re a great Greek band,” says
Mud’s provenance comes from the band’s is a completely different entity. “Back in the Bringloe, “so maybe they might like to come
previous singer, known as Nok, whose day, we were more jazz rock than prog rock, and see us in March, and who knows what
reluctance to perform live or appear in band so it’s good to have a song like that on the might happen after that.”
photographs was an obvious drawback. It’s album,” says Bringloe. “It really is at the edge
also the song Alexandrou had to learn for her of what will fit, and is a good opportunity for Foreign Land is out now via BEM. For more,
audition with The Far Meadow. our guitarist Denis to let rip.” see www.facebook.com/thefarmeadow.

progmagazine.com 93

OLIVER



WAKEMAN








The Prog Interview is just that: every month That collaboration proved the
catalyst for Wakeman replacing
we get inside the mind of one of the biggest his father in Yes in 2008 and
names in music. This issue, it’s Oliver touring extensively with the prog
Wakeman. While there’s no escaping the fact giants before making way for the
that he’s the eldest child of Yes keyboard legend returning Geoff Downes on 2011’s “It was only in
Fly From Here album. Wakeman
Rick Wakeman, Oliver has carved out his own Jnr’s involvement with Yes my early teens
significant career. Since cutting his teeth in appeared destined to be confined

a blues group, he’s played a diverse range of primarily to live performance, as that I really got
documented on the In The Present
music with a broad array of bands, including – Live From Lyon album, recorded to know what
of course Yes, with whom he toured for three in December 2009. dad did. Also, in
However, there’s another twist
years between 2008 and 2011. The recently in the convoluted Yes tale. Late 1984/85, prog
issued From A Page, featuring four previously 2019 saw the release of From rock really

unreleased studio tracks from the Benoît David/ A Page, comprising four splendid
Oliver Wakeman/Steve Howe/Chris Squire/Alan tracks initially recorded during wasn’t what
2010, which Wakeman has
White incarnation of the band, cements finalised. Three of those songs teenagers

his position in Yes history. are written by Wakeman, while talked about!”
The Gift Of Love is credited to
Words: Nick Shilton New Portraits: Duncan Everson the whole band.
From A Page provides
a fascinating insight
n encounter and hard graft to into a bygone Yes
with his excellent use. era and is a credit
father’s Wakeman came to Wakeman’s
grand piano to prominence with sometimes release, which features material
Aat the age of 1997’s Heaven’s Isle overlooked from a recently rediscovered
four represents Oliver album. He followed contribution to improvised session from 2010
Wakeman’s earliest that with a pair of the band. with David Cross and late Yes
musical memory. Having albums with Arena/ From A Page, with Roger Dean art. Since leaving guitarist Peter Banks, as well
managed to play a chord by guess Pendragon keyboardist Yes, Wakeman as working on a large-scale
work, he tried and failed to repeat Clive Nolan. The 3 has recorded and/or toured musical project and reissues
the trick, realising that he would Ages Of Magick in 2001 found with the Strawbs, Gordon Giltrap of his earlier albums.
have to learn the instrument Wakeman working alongside his and Magnum artist Rodney Wakeman will be performing
properly. Subsequently he has put father’s sometime Yes bandmate Matthews. He’s been involved in some of the From A Page material
the combination of musical genes Steve Howe for the first time. readying the Crossover album for on May 9 in London.


Filling big shoes: Do you think that it was
Oliver performing preordained that you would
on stage with Yes.
play keyboards?
Heredity means I’m built in a way
that allows me the dexterity that
a keyboard player needs. I also
have a brain that works for it
quite well and genuinely enjoy
it. I enjoy playing guitar too,
but some people have a natural
affinity for it and I didn’t have
the same passion as for piano.
PRESS/YES/HUGUES BERGEVIN completely different feel and
With the guitar there’s a

mindset. Whenever I’m writing
and feel myself getting repetitive
or nothing’s coming, I switch
to guitar.



9 4 p r o g m a g a z i n e . c o m
94 progmagazine.com

Playing around: Wakeman
strikes a pose for Prog,
January 2020.






























































































































progmagazine.com 95




5
5
9
9
.
.
e
n
e
c
m
m
o
c
o
n
g
g
m
m
o
r
p p
o
r
a
z
z
i
i
a
g
a
a
g

Did you have piano lessons and
did your dad ever teach you?
The first time my dad and I ever
played together was in 2005 when
I did an album launch and we
jammed on a song. I took lessons
for a long time when I was a child. “In my time in
After that I wanted to learn how Yes there was
to play in front of people. When
I was doing piano lessons I noticed a lot of interplay
that in recitals, everyone sat
there, read the music and played. [socially]. That
I liked looking at the audience, came across
not being tied to looking at music.
So at a relatively young age, musically. The
I started going to local pubs and magic happens
jamming with musicians who
were a lot older than me. I learned when people
how to be on stage and watch
other musicians play, which really enjoy working
helped with improvisation. After with each other.”
that, I went back and did more
classical lessons to improve my
technique. That worked nicely
because I never got pinned down
to being just classical or just
playing with bands – I got a good
grounding in both.


’Twas brillig: with artist
Rodney Matthews and his
Jabberwocky painting.




























PRESS/RODNEY MATTHEWS










As a child in the 70s, how aware Earthly Connection, which is still have a lot of memories from money behind my first project
were you of your dad’s work? my favourite record of dad’s. that period about Yes. But I do in 1997, Heaven’s Isle, which was
I was born in 1972. My mum and When Nina told me dad was remember that we had part of the written for the Landmark Trust
dad split up in 1978. By the time going to do a show and play Tales From Topographic Oceans for the island of Lundy. Having
I was six, dad had moved out. Journey To The Centre Of The stage set in our garden! a theme to write for – a very
He was away throughout the late Earth, I asked: “What’s that?!” Wakeman thing – crystallised
70s and the early 80s living in It was only in my early teens When did you decide that you something for me. I was never
Switzerland and I didn’t see him that I really got to know what dad wanted to be a professional interested in writing just for
much. When he married his third did. Also, in 1984/85, prog rock musician? the sake of it.
wife, Nina, he had my brother really wasn’t what teenagers I joined a blues band. We did Then I started
and I over for weekends. My mum talked about! four-hour sets, with working with Clive
got some records out of the loft, People think because dad was the bar keeping us Nolan and we put
which dad had left at home. The in Yes, that all of Yes would come fuelled with alcohol! together the
first records she gave me were round. But dad had left Yes by ’74. Then I started to
Tales From Topographic Oceans, And though he rejoined in ’77, write some music. Nolan and Wakeman’s
Styx’s Grand Illusion and No he’d gone again by ’78. So I don’t A friend put some Jabberwocky (1999).



96 progmagazine.com

“I liked looking at the
audience, not being tied
to looking at music.”


Jabberwocky album. What was the coincidentally just done a picture How did The 3 Ages Of Magick
When I was working background to of the Jabberwocky. It was one of album with Steve Howe
on my album 3 Ages Jabberwocky those moments that makes you come about?
Of Magick, I met and The Hound Of think you’re on the right path. When I was 16, I had gone on
Lisa, who’s now my The Baskervilles I loved writing different the Anderson Bruford Wakeman
wife. I was still albums, both of musical styles and for different Howe tour with dad. I chatted
playing with the which featured singers. When my dad was to Steve a lot and we got on well.
blues band. She former Yes guitarist growing up, his dad told him to Years later, my mum lived in
asked: “Why are Peter Banks? play as many different things north Devon and I got off the
you playing with Holmesian treat: The Hound Clive Nolan and I came with as many different people train at Tiverton. Steve was
a blues band? You Of The Baskervilles (1999). up with the idea of as possible because you’re always there, waiting for his son to
should be playing to doing something with learning. I’ve followed that arrive. I reintroduced myself and
people that want to hear Lewis Carroll or Sir mantra. I write everything as if later sent him a copy of Heaven’s
what you write now.” I did a few Arthur Conan Doyle about I’m the only person that will ever Isle. We would meet up whenever
shows and people started to Sherlock Holmes. I got in touch hear it. You have to enjoy what he was back from tour. I started
come along. with Rodney Matthews, who’d you’re writing. playing him bits of music and



progmagazine.com 97

singing 70 per cent of the set I’m a bit of an insomniac and
regularly. Benoît always used to Chris always stayed up late.
say he thought I had the hardest When everybody else went off
job. I just knuckled down; I was to bed, I’d be chatting late at night
in the rehearsal room before to Chris. He said: “I really enjoy
anybody else and stayed there this band. I want us to go into the
after everyone had gone. studio and record a new album.”
I said I’d love to do that. Steve
Did you receive any advice initially wasn’t so keen – he felt
from your dad, unsolicited we needed a few more tours
or otherwise?
Nothing at all. He just said: “Have
fun.” Dad knew I was capable of
doing it and Steve had worked
with me enough to know that
I had the ability. It wouldn’t
have felt right phoning dad and
asking how he played certain bits. “Heredity means
I thought I just had to approach I’m built in a way
it like any other musician lucky
enough to get this gig. that allows me

the dexterity that
With Jon Anderson absent,
you and Benoît David were the a keyboard
new boys in Yes. What was
the dynamic within the band player needs.”
during that three-year period
of touring?
It was a very happy time. It’s not
a huge spoiler to anybody that
Yes had arguments in the past.
With Jon not working with the
band, there was a lot more
responsibility on Chris, Steve and under our belt to really gel before
Alan to make this new version of we went into the studio.
Yes successful. They had to act as We started to talk about it
Benoît David reckoned a unit to make it work. It was nice more, and Chris said: “Who
Oliver had the “hardest to watch them interact properly. would we get to produce it?”
job” on their tour.
I had seen the band play when dad I suggested Trevor Horn. Fast-
and Jon were there and they’d be forward four or five months and
he talked about whether we us playing together but was off in separate dressing rooms as we started to get together for
should do something together. mainly emails between Jon and soon as the show finished, go writing sessions in a house in
He realised he didn’t have time myself where he talked about separately to the restaurant and Phoenix, which was very
to do a joint album but said he what he wanted to play on tour. sit on different tables. But in my enjoyable. We all brought the
would like to play guitar on Then he got ill and things ground time in Yes there was a lot of songs that we had. Steve and
some tracks. Then he suggested to a halt. interplay [socially]. That came I had got together in the UK
executive-producing it. A month or so later, Steve across musically. The magic beforehand to work on songs.
The album was recorded in said they had a new singer they happens when people enjoy We worked on these pieces on
a huge barn on a farm in wanted to tour with and asked if working with each other. and off over a six-month period.
Cornwall. I had an old I would still like to be Then we turned up in Beverly
Yamaha keyboard involved. I didn’t have Were you surprised to learn that Hills to record with Trevor. We
and when I was much time to learn Geoff Downes was replacing you? went to his house and played
trying to do a solo, everything. When Yeah. That was awkward. In 2009 all the songs. He said he really
a clicking sound I asked Steve to we toured Europe on a tour bus. wanted to do We Can Fly From
kept coming send me what they
through. It was the thought of doing for Masters of their art: Wakeman
voltage pulsing from the setlist, it was with Gordon Giltrap.
the electric fence about three-and-
keeping the cattle in! a-half hours long.
They had to turn off The 3 Ages Of Magick (2001). I had never heard
all the fences to get some of it before,
my solo done quickly contrary to what people might
so the cattle didn’t get out! think. We only had a couple of
weeks together before we walked
What were your feelings about on stage, so it was a very steep
joining Yes? learning curve.
The first call came from Steve in Steve, Chris and Alan had been
late 2007, when Jon Anderson playing these pieces for years.
was still in the band. My first few Benoît [David] had come from PRESS/ANDY SMY
months in the band didn’t involve a Yes tribute band and been



98 progmagazine.com

put To The Moment on. Within
Yes Rehearsal
the first few notes, he put the pen
and paper down, and started
tapping his foot. When the song
finished, he said: “These aren’t
demos; we’ve got to make
something more of these.”


Is more material from those
sessions sitting in the vaults
awaiting release?
Steve and I agreed to make From
A Page the best it could be, rather
than make it too long and pad it
out with demos and other stuff.
I wanted it to be something to sit
alongside the Yes catalogue rather
than a compilation outtakes
record. It was lovely when Roger
Dean got involved and provided
the wonderful cover, because
Yes album artwork is so
important. I wanted to make sure
that every element of this project
had care lavished on it. Which
was why I searched through my
archives to find new photos of the
band for the booklet.


Is From A Page a bittersweet
The Yes years, L-R: Oliver release for you?
Wakeman, Chris Squire, I’m very happy with it and that
PRESS/YES Benoît David, Alan White people get to hear it. Obviously,
and Steve Howe.
there’s a tinge of regret that I’m
not out there playing it with the
Here, which had been a Buggles “I’m afraid it’s all changed. Geoff from Chris saying how sorry he band, because that would have
song. I asked Steve and Chris is coming into the band and was about the way things turned been lovely, particularly with
a few times: “Why are we doing you’re not in the band anymore.” out and that we should stay in Chris when he was around. But
a Buggles song?” It didn’t seem to touch. When I heard that he’d got you can’t ever really plan life and
fit with the thoughts that maybe How did you feel about your sick, I dropped him a line and we it adds validation to the period
naïvely I had about the Yes record, departure from Yes? exchanged emails. that Benoît and I had in the band.
that the touring band would go It wasn’t easy. But they made When I was about to move We came in and helped make
into the studio to see what we a business decision about working house, I was listening to Live In Yes a happy touring entity again.
were capable of. with Trevor. Obviously Trevor Lyon as I was packing and received It’s nice to prove that we were
In gaps when Trevor would wanted to bring in more pieces an email from Paul Silveira, who in the studio coming up with
head back to London, we’d work that he’d written with Geoff. was the tour manager, which good music.
on some of the pieces that ended They felt that was the right read: “Chris passed away this
up on From A Page. Then we direction for the band. I always morning.” It floored me – I could Is the Wakeman surname
toured South America with the try to be professional and hear Chris playing upstairs. a blessing, a curse or both?
intention of getting back together respectful about people’s Once I moved into the new When I started working with
in January. And I sort of got told decisions. It was their band, house, I wondered what state Yes, people thought I got the job
never to come back. It wasn’t so I had to go along with it. those old sessions were in. There because of the surname. It might
quite those words, but it ended Contractually I had to finish one were loads of takes and parts of open the door, but in a band like
up with someone finally saying: tour around America and then a song: it was a jumbled mess. Yes, unless you can prove that
a second set of shows in Mexico I slowly pulled all the bits and you can do the job, the door is
knowing that I was out of the pieces together, almost as going to be swiftly closed in your
band. But I genuinely really a personal memory of my time face. My brother Adam and I try
enjoyed that last tour. with the band to give me some to uphold the quality of what
validation of what I had done, we think the Wakeman name
How did the exhumation of the and also to remember Chris. stands for. We’ve learned from
four tracks on From A Page I kept listening to it over and over dad about quality and working
come about? again. I thought: “This is quite with audiences. I have to uphold
After the last shows in Mexico, fun, I’ve got a piece of Yes music what people would expect from
I had no involvement with the that no one knows about.” seeing something with the name
Fly From Here record. Steve said After another year, I found Wakeman on it.
my songs were mine to do what Words On A Page and To The
I wanted with. They sent me back Moment. I sent a tweet about it From A Page is out now via
the studio sessions on a couple of and it all snowballed. I met Steve www.burningshed.com.
discs, which sat on my shelf for and the Yes management. Steve For more information, visit
several years. Then I got an email sat with a pen and paper as we www.oliverwakeman.co.uk.



progmagazine.com 99

Edited by Jo Kendall
[email protected]




















New spins…










MARIANA SEMKINA
Iamthemorning’s co-founder goes solo with an emotional and therapeutic work that aims for personal

transcendence and healing. It’s goth, Jim, but not as we know it.



Words: Chris Roberts Illustration: Stephen Kelly



ariana Semkina’s debut solo Sleepwalking of the early 80s who were satirised by non-
album begins with her singing believers as women in floaty white dresses
KSCOPE
‘One day I’ll find the hole inside cooing ethereally. Yet one mentions all these
what used to be my dark heart’ and references only to make sure you have the right
M ends with ‘I am laced in sadness’. boots – and mindset – on before wading in.
As you might imagine, what occurs in-between For all Sleepwalking’s lightness of touch in
isn’t exactly a frolicking funk-fest of upbeat terms of musicianship and arrangements, it
party bangers. As with her mothership, St is, to put it bluntly, profoundly heavy stuff.
Petersburg duo Iamthemorning, melancholy Like a film (Tarkovsky, anyone?), it’s best
sighs and swoops dominate the mood, creating experienced as a whole, its individual tracks
a landscape that’s broody, introspective, part of an immersive process bent on pathos
melodramatic and deeply intense. Yet as and poignancy. It’s rich with engrossing
Semkina herself has said, raising a toast to passages: the way the keening strings flow
human misery is entirely normal in Russia, from Everything Burns into Mermaid Song as
and when her influences aren’t patriotically almost subliminal rhythms skitter and scatter;
stern, they’re jolly japers like Sylvia Plath the vocal call and response section on the
and Virginia Woolf. “Dead girls” have been gripping Lost At Sea; the piano rivulets from
a recurring theme; others have ranged from Rudess on closing ballad Still Life which feel as
fairy tales to mental illness to horror stories. transporting as Mike Garson’s Aladdin Sane
All of which might make this sound contributions. And there’s a sense of resolution
a depressing prospect, but like all the best by the end, a calm after the tempest. We’ve
sad-hearted music it ultimately lifts you up. Like all the best sad- been tossed around by the album’s ocean like
Having given you a good wallow, a vessel in hearted music, tiny humans in a Turner painting. Spiritually,
which to vent, it pats you on the back and sets Sleepwalking Semkina’s creations are, on the surface, very
you off refreshed on your road. Sleepwalking ultimately lifts you up. Pre-Raphaelite, but the longer you spend
turns the screw as it progresses, but that mood with them the closer they veer to the eerie
gets cranked up (or should we say down) until surrealism of Dora Maar or Dorothea Tanning.
it reaches a point of catharsis. gathering songs “too personal” to record under The ruminations of the emotionally troubled
It feels as if Iamthemorning arrived fully any name but her own. “Mortality” is another complement and clash throughout. On the raw
formed with 2016’s Lighthouse, which won key motor to her muse. Am I Sleeping Or Am I Dead, she sings ‘All I find
acclaim and awards here. In fact they’ve The world in which this music exists – are beautiful dead things around’, while on the
been crafting their shadowy chamber-prog poetic, nocturnal, and for want of a less-abused arresting Ars Longa Vita Brevis she describes
constructions for a decade, with four studio word, arty – has been explored in the past by her own “death” as ‘magnificent – you can’t put
albums, culminating in last year’s The Bell, one or two Kate Bush albums, but the frequent it any other way’. Obviously, she is inhabiting
another album about “human cruelty and comparisons made between Semkina and that characters and personae, telling stories,
pain”. Her pianist partner Gleb Kolyadin icon seem somehow ill-fitting. Bush also imagining herself into other women. In that
released an uncompromisingly stern, gothic allows her positivity, her joie de vivre, to flower sense, she’s simply fulfilling the role of the
solo album in 2018, mildly leavened by guest in her work. Semkina is more focused on facing fearless artist. As she sings on Skin, ‘Pandora’s
appearances from Steve Hogarth and Jordan the tides of midnight. The piano-led backing box is open, nightmares are set free’. However, as
Rudess, and now it appears it’s the singer’s places her closer to Tori Amos, though this is often the case with the Gothic, whether born
turn. She too calls in a host of impressive record, thanks to its musicians, offers more of Poe or Lovecraft or Mary Shelley, the beasts
players: Dream Theater’s keyboardist Rudess, skip and swing and undulating undercurrents. thus released turn out to have a radiant,
bassist Nick Beggs, drummer Craig Blundell There’s undoubtedly a folk-formed presence shocking beauty to which something inside
and, for good measure, the St Petersburg too, with spells recalling Renaissance or the us relates and responds. Sleepwalking leads us
Orchestra. She’s called it a therapeutic album more reflective, pensive moments of All About down some ghostly corridors to a new way of
“to help me get through some hard times”, Eve. One is also minded to cite the 4AD acts looking at the light.


100 progmagazine.com