Born and raised in Sweden, multi-instrumentalist Kristoffer now lives in The Netherlands, playing in Kayak. Many people still think of him as being associated with his brother Daniel, and he played on the first six Pain of Salvation studio albums but since leaving in 2006 has built a reputation working with many different artists. ‘Let Me Be A Ghost’ is his fourth solo album, released towards the end of 2021, following on from ‘Rust’ (2012), ‘The Rain’ (2016) and ‘Homebound’ (2020). I reviewed the last, and I was intrigued at just how much at home he sounded with the one cover, Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2”
I many ways this is a logical extension of that album, as it is melancholic, and is something which really needs to be played on headphones. The songs are more like soundscapes, with a huge use of space and a slow tempo which really lets the listener into what in many ways feels likes quite a private world. Yes, there are a few additional singers and a drummer, but for the most part this is one person sat quietly, crafting something which is magical and mystical. “Lean On Me” is a case in point, gentle percussion, acoustic guitar, electric solo, and loads and loads of vocals including a wonderful high female from Erna auf der Haar who provides the perfect cut through.
This is not something designed to be played on the radio, nor can I imagine it ever being played in an arena, but is designed for small places, in the dark where the listener can really let their mind wander where it will. This is a marvellous piece of work and I look forward to the next album with great interest indeed. 9/10 Kev Rowland
As is my preference when listening to music, I read the press release only when it was time to write the review, so when playing this I was intrigued to hear the neo/melodic rock crossover sound of this new band and my thoughts immediately when to late Nineties Galahad. The keyboards are an important part of the overall sound, the guitars crunch nicely, and there are great vocals while the production is superb. I soon realised why the latter was the case as Karl Groom (Threshold) was involved, and I have been a fan of his skills behind the desk for 30 years. Then I looked at the band itself which was formed by André Saint (vocals) and Aaron Gidney (guitars, Chapman Stick) who then brought in Tim Ashton on bass and drummer Graham Brown. I know Brown from the excellent Cairo, but Tim Ashton? I first heard Tim on Galahad’s wonderful ‘Nothing Is Written’ and saw him play a few times back then before he moved to Japan, only to return later and rejoin the band for ‘Seas of Change’ before departing again. I honestly thought Tim had left music behind, so to see him on this was somewhat surprising. He was not in Galahad during the musical period this band reminds me of, but there are some obvious influences. No keyboard player though, even though it is important to their sound (and their website shows five members), so we have guests in Gary Marsh (Tiger Moth Tales/Red Bazar) and Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater/Sons of Apollo) while there are also two additional guest singers in Göran Edman (Yngwie Malmsteen) and Mark Boals (Yngwie Malmsteen among many others).
Given the background of all those involved it is no surprise whatsoever that this is a polished release, what is more surprising is the lack of reviews for it on PA! True, this is a hybrid and it is possible it is too prog for those who enjoy melodic rock, and too rock for those into prog, but to me it is a very fine album indeed. This never comes across as a debut, but from a seasoned band who have been honing their craft for many years. It is a very easy album to listen to, and I discovered the more I played it the more layers there are to discover. At times we have both piano and keyboards, and virtually no guitars, while at others that is the instrument which is right in your face. All singers take lead roles, with André obviously being the main, but they use the different vocal styles to great effect to add harshness or take the music in a slightly different direction.
This is an album which I am sure is going to be even punchier and more dramatic in a live environment and is something which fans of this music hybrid is sure to enjoy as it is forceful, powerful, dynamic and packed full of real songs with great hooks. 8/10 by Kev Rowland
2021 saw the release of the second album from GorMusik, following on from 2015’s ‘Fun In OuterSpace’. This is primarily the solo project of Gordon Bennett who originally recorded and sang everything himself, but then brought in some guests who added their talents to the record in Joseph Frick (bass), Jay T McGuinn (drums) and Peter Jones (vocals and Irish whistles) – how Peter Jones manages to contribute so much to so many albums is beyond me, but he does and is always amazing. GorMusik is a Christian prog band, and what we have here is a concept album which attempts to work through the timeline of the Bible, which is a huge task in just 67 minutes (broken into five songs).
Musically there is huge variety on this, as we have heavy sections which would not sound too out of place on a Rush release, and then we have others which are acoustic with multiple guitars. This variety means one is never quite sure where the music is going to lead, and there does at times appear to be a lack of direction, meandering without a final destination in mind. In many ways this does indeed feel like a solo project as opposed to a band, as there is quite a bit of repetition, and the ending of opening 18-minute long “The Beginning” feels as if he is run out of ideas and painted himself into a corner where he is not sure quite how to get out.
It is an album which is pleasant while it is being played, but even though there are some interesting passages, this is something which would have been improved if a band had worked on it together and they had undertaken some judicious editing. Not one to which I will be rapidly returning I am afraid. 6/10 Kev Rowland
It is hard to imagine, in this era of everybody being permanently connected, that there was a time not so long ago when it was hard to find out information on your favorite band, especially if they were not on the charts. Hence the advent of fanzines, which were bloody hard work for those involved (I ran Feedback for 16 years, more than 80 issues and 11,000 pages of print), yet they are now an invaluable source of information for diehard fans and researchers alike. Those who were dedicated to just one band often gained massive access and contain information that has never been made available elsewhere. Such is the case of Voyage 35, a fanzine dedicated to Porcupine Tree. Between 1995 and June 2001 Steve Freight put out 14 issues dedicated to his favorite band, and he has now lovingly collated these into a book that has just been released by Gonzo Multimedia. He made the decision to collate the fanzines, so each issue appears as a separate chapter, with the cover art and images which appeared within. However, he made the call not to include reviews and items which looking back add no value, so what we have here is a distilled version, which for fans of the band is indispensable. I was asked if I would like to interview Steve and jumped at the opportunity as there were way too few people running fanzines, and those who have taken the time and energy to now make them available in book form even more so.
When did you become interested in music, and what bands were important to you at the time and why?
My mother had a large selection of classical 78s and from an early age around 2, I was allowed to play them. Whilst I could not read I used to make up sounds to go with the music and could recognize the tunes from the labels and the shapes of the words.
The radio used to be on most of the time and growing up in the 60’s I was lucky enough to be exposed to all the pop songs the BBC would play (not much due to needle time) on getting my first radio aged 7 (1963) I found Luxemburg and listened via my headphone (just the one for one ear) under the sheets. This reminds me of visiting a great aunt who asked my mother if I had a hearing problem as she thought my trannie and headphone was hearing aid!
The first real influence was….
Cliff Richard. From there I liked Buddy Holly, and then the Beatles. She Loves You was hanging on the tree for me at Christmas.
The first single I bought with my own money was Legend of Xanadu.
Up until senior school, I was probably into more pop-orientated music but even in those days, this consisted of the Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd who have stayed with me to this day and helped forge my musical tastes. I was also lucky that bands I got into released singles in those days. Bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and The Doors were all chart entries too. Heaven.
Then a truly remarkable single assaulted my senses. Hawkwind’s Silver Machine. Loved it and bought it, but a strange thing then happened. I was more captivated by the B side, 7 by 7. Intrigued a friend and I went to see them at the Edmonton Sundown on 29th December 1972. Little did I know that I was witnessing history in the shape of the Space Ritual tour. The next day I went out and bought Doremi Fasol Latido with my Saturday job money and I’ve bought everything released since.
As to what I listen to these days, it’s an eclectic mix of 60’s pop when the radio is on, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Charlie (Love Terry Thomas’s sense of humor in the lyrics – check out Popstar), Moody Blues, The Beatles, Fish on Friday, The Who, Free, Bad Company, Ozzy, Alan Parsons, The Doors, Meatloaf / Jim Steinman related, Glen Campbell, Lindisfarne, Yes, Rumer, anything with Paul Heaton (my wife’s favorite) and early, pre In Absentia, Porcupine Tree.
How did you discover Porcupine Tree yourself?
There was a shop in Southend, where I was working, called 99th Floor that I used to visit during my lunch hour and chat with John and Tom. They would always be playing records by bands I had little knowledge of, and one day Tom said he had something he was sure I’d enjoy that had just come in. It was the Voyage 34 single. I bought it on the spot and also On the Sunday of Life.
What made them stand out for you?
I think it was the sheer variety of genres that was attempted on “Sunday” that made it a joy to listen to. It covered so much of the music I had grown up with and was a throwback of sorts, but with a “progressive” twist. I later said in the fanzine that we should call it Evolving Rock. And then when Radioactive Toy came on when listening for the first time, wow what a song.
What was the scene like back then? Were you interested in other progressive bands, how did you go out about discovering information?
Trance and sampling were big things then and Voyage 34 seemed to fit this mold quite well. Until I spoke to Steven on the phone for the first time, I always assumed that the start was a Pink Floyd sample from The Wall and he seemed surprised by this and said it was all him. He said that if it was reminiscent of The Wall it was purely unintentional. I was going to many concerts back then, mostly rock orientated, which I was enjoying more than Prog at that time.
Prog was though, very derivative, and I tended to stick with what I liked, such as Floyd and Yes. It’s a cliché, but so many bands wanted to be (early) Genesis, but I found them hard to get into, so the subculture of Genesis clones didn’t do a lot for me. I used to rave about the early Porcupine Tree albums to anyone who would listen to me, and Guy Thomas was one of these.
The lucky so-and-so was able to go to Porcupine Tree’s first live gig at the Nags Head Wycombe and as someone who has videoed a fair number of Hawkwind concerts over the years, he contacted Richard Allen and was able to get a pass to video the concert officially (yes a full video of this gig exists). For me, this led to my introduction to the band members.
Why did you decide to write your own fanzine? How did it come about? How big was the first issue (pages) and how many did you print?
I had been helping Doug Smith (Hawkwind manager) to promote the Alien 4 album, by taking flyers and posters around the local record shops in my area. My reward was a backstage pass to the Brixton all-nighter. Porcupine Tree was also on the bill and had an early 30-minute slot. Somehow, our (mine and Guy’s) backstage passes morphed into access to all area ones (don’t ask)!
Guy had transcribed the Nags Head gig onto a broadcast-quality videotape, and he wanted to get this to Steven. We negotiated the corridors of the Academy looking for the band’s dressing room. Finding this we went in and had a chat with them. I remember mentioning Steven’s bum note played on the Radio One Session for some reason, but Steven said these things happen and he wasn’t worried by it and that if he was he wouldn’t be putting it out on record. All four were pleasant even though we had crashed their dressing room and I then thought I’d contact Richard Allen and see if anyone had approached the band regarding a fanzine.
At the time my wife worked evenings, and once I’d put our daughters to bed I listened to music or tinkered with making my own mash-up videos, nicking bits from films or TV shows and overlaying them with Hawkwind music. I used scenes from Bladerunner and set this to It Is The Business Of The Future to be Dangerous, Legend I set to Magnu and Danger Man (US Secret Agent) to Secret Agent, among others. I sent copies to Dave Brock and when I met him years later at the Take Me To Your Leader launch party he asked if I was the guy who had set Danger Man to Secret Agent. He’d have liked to have used it, but it was a copywriter’s nightmare!
With all this free time I felt I could produce a fanzine and Richard agreed if Steven was OK with it. He said he’d get Steven to call me. He did but I wasn’t expecting the call at 11:30 at night! We spoke for around 30 minutes and some of this I recalled in the first issue. Putting it together was not easy for the first few issues as I used my trusty writer program on the Atari, and these were initially printed out on my Dot Matrix printer. Before they went to print though I found thanks to my work IT department, they could convert this to Word Perfect and master pages were printed.
I then had to cut and paste the photos into the required places and then photocopy and reduce them from A4 to A5 master. Very time-consuming. Then came the photocopying. I used my work resources out of hours on the first couple of issues and then my in-laws said I could use the printing facilities at their church for a charitable donation, which was how the later issues were done.
The first issue was 24 pages and I sold them at concerts and gave many away to promote the fanzine and the band. 99th Floor in Southend had a supply they sold or gave away. In all 14 issues were produced, but by the last issue around 30 were produced on a print-by-order basis, as the fan base now got their information much quicker via the internet.
What were the reaction of the band, label, and other fans?
Richard Allen was pleased with the fact he had something to help promote the band with. He sent out flyers with his Freakbeat mail order business mailouts and I got a very good response from this too and had a mail list of over 100 for issue 2. Steven found a couple of minor errors in the first issue and offered to proofread all future issues and agreed to himself and the other band members being interviewed for future issues. These are all in the book.
How did the book come about?
The book came about by accident. I had not intended to publish it. I had however thought about consolidating the articles and interviews into one document for my own benefit and to pass on to anyone who was interested. I’d seen some old Voyage 35’s selling on eBay for over £20 an issue, so thought there might be some interest as a historical document in the early days of the band.
Rich Wilson, Charles Beterams, and Guy Tkach, had all contacted me for information for their books on Porcupine Tree and this gave me a push to provide this to them.
Coincidentally, my wife was in the process of leaving her employment and with very little to do took on the task of typing up the articles from the early issues I had no digital files (those produced on the Atari or which had been on floppy discs). I made a conscious decision not to include reviews of the albums including my own as there were many reviews out there and most are personal opinions. Once I’d consolidated the articles I sent this out to friends and some contacts I still had from the old Fanzine days. This included Jon at Gonzo.
Jon felt this had potential as a published book and he would run with this and do the necessary, which is where we are at today. The one thing I wanted though was the Mutant Baby inspired by Radioactive Toy and drawn by John Chase as the cover illustration.
The book still has very much a fanzine feel, including being broken by issues. The approach works very well but why did you choose this format?
It just seemed logical to keep the issue approach as it gave a sense of historical progression on the evolution of the band at the time. I thought that anyone wanting to see what was being said about saying The Sky Moves Sideways at the time of release could easily find the references within the book.
All music reviews are subjective to a lesser or greater degree, and given that, yours would have captured a moment in time do you regret not including them?
Not really. I did as said, consider including them but in the end, decided to leave them out. Maybe in hindsight keeping them in would have added to the historical nature of the book that I intended.
After Voyage 35 did you still write, or did you put that behind you?
I occasionally did reviews for other fanzines such as Brian Tawn’s HawkFan, Hawkeye, and Wondrous Stories, and did a booklet, primarily for my daughters, but it has gone a bit wider over the years, on my memories of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, covering my childhood years. I’ve not written anything for some while now though.
Apart from Hawkwind, who really excites you musically today?
There is not a lot of new music I get overly excited about these days. Fish On Friday is probably the “newest” band I really enjoy listening to, along with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (never really that keen on Oasis though). Other artists I have gotten into seem to run out of steam quite quickly and get derivative or lose their way. It’s as if they have a lot of good ideas and put them into one good debut release. I’m forever donating CDs to charity shops that have disappointed me. Most CD purchases (and yes, I prefer to own the music and I think they sound better than streaming) these days tend to be remastered or new material by bands I collect.
I see you have covered Steven’s output other than Porcupine Tree. How did you track down these bands?
Once I did the first issue Steven’s past came to light from various readers, including a live tape that Steven didn’t have in his possession. These readers had been lucky enough to live in Steven’s area and had seen previous bands he had played in. Also, Steven had issued tapes with these bands.
No-Man was of course already well known and a number of people who were fans of this band transitioned across to Porcupine Tree. It was always my intention to cover Steven’s offshoots and one issue became a No-Man special, covering a timeline and all known releases up to that time. Phil Harwood helped with the discography whilst I researched the history as best I could.
The only time I deviated from the straight Issue approach in the book, was in bringing forward a letter from Tim Bowness that I published in the next issue as I felt it better to keep the No-Man info together.
What are your thoughts now that Porcupine Tree has reformed for a new CD and Tour?
I’m pleased for them (although disappointed for Colin (and Chris) that they missed out on this stage of the band’s popularity). They went out on a high with the Royal Albert Hall gig, but that was also tainted as there were obvious tensions within the band and they just faded away. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the latest album, and having seen the set list there wasn’t enough from the early years to satisfy me, but again, I’m pleased with the recognition they have finally achieved from all corners of the press, even those that ignored them in the early days.
Playing to sell-out crowds across the globe justifies the direction Steven eventually took, even though it left me (and others) behind. I am proud of the part I played in those early formative years in helping promote the band and pleased Richard Allen (the band’s first manager) took the time to write the forward to the book for me.
I hope people who buy the book find it an interesting testament to those early days and will be inspired to revisit the early albums and see what inspired such loyalty from the fans at the time in Porcupine Tree.
I was chatting to keyboard player Kai Esbensen recently and mentioned I had never heard their 2001 debut, and he said he would send me a copy. I demurred, saying a download would be fine, but he was keen for me to have a physical version and as soon as it arrived I could see why. The rear cover shows the periodic table, but some are missing, and by running a finger over it one can feel that it is not that they have not been printed, but rather they have been cut out. Turn the digipak back to the front and there are the missing elements making up the album title, and again when running a finger over the name one can feel they have been added, while the band’s name is also embossed. I was impressed and I hadn’t even opened it yet, let alone listened to it! A huge amount of work has gone into the booklet, with each page containing the lyrics but very different in style to the rest and if this amount of work had gone into the presentation what on earth would the music be like?
The line-up in 2001 was exactly the same as it is today, namely Jonathan Smith (vocals, xylophone, guitar, flute), Blake Albinson (guitars), Kai Esbensen (keyboards), Jay Burritt (bass) and James Swensen-Flagg (drums), and even though this was the debut they were already demonstrating the ridiculous amount of talent they have, while also showing that progheads have a sense of humour (honest!). The throwaway “She’s No Vegetarian” is a blast of fun at less then 3 minutes long (and is not the shortest song on the album), taking us into the late Sixties yet is very much the only song of that type on the album as though they refuse to settle within any one area for too long. Musically they were already demonstrating their love of experimentation and pushing boundaries in a way associated in the US with the likes of Zappa while in the UK we would look to Cardiacs, whose classic ‘Sing To God’ came out only five years before this.
However, Bubblemath are a band who have resolutely stuck to their own musical path and have continued to do so to this day, even though this has impacted on their output, and we have only had three albums in total in more than 20 years. But when music is as fine as this then who are we to complain? One never knows what is going to come next, but with songs generally quite short (there are 12 songs on the album which is only 45:23 in length and only one is longer than six minutes), one knows there is not too long to wait, and that intricacy will be involved. The music is complex, complicated and incredibly intricate, yet at the same time it is an album which can be enjoyed the very first time of playing with hidden depths being uncovered the more one listens to it. The arrangements are unreal, with musicians going off at tangents only for it to all make sense later, the result being both experimental and adventurous. Undoubtedly this will frighten off those who want their prog to be delivered in a carefully manicured Genesis/Floyd manner, but those who want their music to be running straight past any perceived boundaries would do well to give this a listen. 10/10 Kev Rowland
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