Valdez is a four piece art-rock band from Philadelphia, they released their debut album entitled ‘This’ in the spring of 2017
Bands are constantly evolving entities. When I first got together with the guys in Valdez, I had become accustomed to moving very fast when it came to recording and releasing music. Indeed, the first Valdez record was recorded in a pretty compact period of time (two weeks of tracking and one week of mixing) but we’d had the luxury of playing much of the material live before heading into the studio.
For the second record, I had planned for us to record first so that we could release the album over the summer of this year (2019). That plan has undergone a revision as both personal matters and (like Pink Floyd) the band dynamic of needing to play the tracks live beforehand, means we’re unlikely to get anything completed this year.
It’s sad but we’re all devastatingly handsome and we’ll deal with it somehow.
So for the first time in almost three years, I’m only going to be releasing one album this year and that will be the fifth and last volume of The Black Bag Archive, in December.
That’s totally cool as I’d rather we do it well as a group, rather than quickly as individuals running to my thrash metal production metronome. 🙂
It’ll be done when it’s done. Simon
The band is: Simon Godfrey, Vocals & Guitars Tom Hyatt, Bass Joe Cardillo, Keyboards Scott Miller, Drums
BREAKING NEWS: Frontiers Music Srl is thrilled to announce the signing of Alan Parsons!
Alan and Frontiers‘ relationship began in 2010 when the label released “Eye 2 Eye – Live in Madrid”. They have kept in close contact since, with the ultimate goal to release another album together. Alan wanted it to be a really special album and only recently have the right plans and ideas fallen into place where Alan felt ready to enter the studio to record what he had in mind.
“The writing and recording sessions are going incredibly well,” says Alan. “The album already has a working title, which is THE SECRET, and it will include musical and lyrical themes that are very close to my heart and my own interests and passions. I do not really want to reveal a lot about it, except that for the moment everything that surrounds THE SECRET is going to be just that….a secret!”
The overall musical approach of the album is expected to be in keeping with the symphonic rock that Alan explored on his earlier solo records and the “Project” albums. But, of course, there will be new twists and turns and robust new creative inspiration behind the album. Some special guests will be on the album, but those will be revealed later….again, in keeping with the working title of the album, “The Secret“.
Frontiers President Serafino Perugino commented, “This is pretty much a dream come true for me. For Frontiers being able to represent the artistry and the talent of such a huge artist is a magnificent opportunity. We look forward to this release as much as Alan’s fans and it will see the light of day in multiple exciting formats. Stay tuned!”.
Alan Parsons said, “I wish to thank Serafino and the team for the commitment and the patience to make this happen. To the fans…We’ll see you soon on a world tour!”
Alan Parsons‘ music career started at 19 when he earned one of his his first credits as assistant engineer on The Beatles “Abbey Road”, an album recorded in the legendary London studios of the same name. He soon become a well respected studio engineer, working for Paul McCartney,The Hollies, and many others. He is particularly renowned for his work as recording engineer on the Pink Floyd masterpiece, “The Dark Side of The Moon“. This classic album was recorded in 1972 and Parsons experimented with many of the most advanced recording techniques of the time. As a producer, he enjoyed many successes with Pilot, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, John Miles, and Al Stewart, including the masterwork, “Year Of The Cat”.
In 1975, Alan Parsons formed The Alan Parsons Project along with principal songwriter (and occasional singer) Eric Woolfson. The Project consisted of a group of studio musicians and vocalists, often involving the members of three bands Alan produced: Pilot (Ian Bairnson, Stuart Tosh and David Paton), Cockney Rebel’s Stuart Elliott on drums, and (on the first album) American progressive pop/rock band, Ambrosia.
The Alan Parsons Project released ten acclaimed studio albums, but never performed live during the heyday of the albums, even after several US and European Top 20 hits. The Project made its final album at the end of the 80’s with the album “Gaudi“. Since then, Alan has released a number of recordings under his own name using several musicians that also appeared on the “Project” releases.
As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from countless countries, Parsons has received eleven Grammy Award nominations for his engineering and production work. In 2007, he was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album for his studio album, “A Valid Path“.
In 1994, Alan Parsons started touring regularly as The Alan Parsons Live Project and has released a number of live releases in audio and video. His live concerts continue to this day, to audiences worldwide.
PÄR LINDH was scheduled to perform a special solo piano performance at ProgDay 2017. Unfortunately, travel issues prevented him from making the show. We’re happy to invite him back to ProgDay 2018.
PÄR LINDH’s musical career stretches back to 1977 when he formed Antenna Baroque. In 1979 he founded the symphonic trio Vincebus Ereptum. But with the changing musical times, he spent his following years as organist, classical pianist, harpsichordist, and drummer. While successful, he missed the calling of progressive rock.
Beginning with his return to Sweden in 1989, he resurrected his early symphonic spirit with a band called Manticore, built the Crimsonian Label studio, and chaired The Swedish Art Rock Society. In 1994 he released the first Pär Lindh Project album, Gothic Impressions. The rest, as they say, is history.
PÄR LINDH has a long-established reputation as a composer, master keyboardist, and musical interpreter. For his ProgDay appearance, PÄR will be performing solo and paying tribute to the late Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, performing music from ELP, the Pär Lindh Project, and more.
KING LLAMA at ProgDay 2018!
Photo Credit: Lauren Elle Jaye
This California instrumental fusion power trio came together with the idea of combining eclectic stylings from the history of adventurous music. What resulted is a mix of rock, jazz, funk, fusion, and a touch of hip-hop that brings to mind a range of music from King Crimson and Phish, to Yes and Rush. The band has toured extensively, taking their music from Illinois to Argentina, and honing their sound at individual shows and numerous festivals. KING LLAMA will be performing music from their album Return To Ox.
FRIDAY NIGHT PRESHOW: INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE with special guest JIMMY ROBINSON!
INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE is committed to presenting the full Pink Floyd audio/visual experience with music spanning the band’s entire history. This year’s pre-show will feature full album performances of Animals and Dark Side Of The Moon.
ProgDay attendees will remember ProgDay alumni JIMMY ROBINSON not only for his wonderful fusion band Woodenhead but also as a master guitarist known for his impressive and emotional performances on acoustic guitar. Jimmy will be opening the preshow with a 45-minute solo performance.
As part of the 2018 ProgDay Program, we are pleased to announce a FREE screening of a 30-minute segment of the upcoming feature documentary, Romantic Warriors 4 – Krautrock (Part 1), by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder. The screening is part of an IndieGoGo Fundraising Campaign that the filmmakers will launch in late August to raise finishing funds for the film. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
When: Saturday, September 1, 9:30 pm.
Where: Hotel Comfort Inn University Durham,
3508 Mt. Moriah Rd., Durham, NC 27707
Join PÄR LINDH, KING LLAMA, EDENSONG, OVRFWRD, GEPH, KARMIC JUGGERNAUT, ALEC K. REDFEARN & THE EYESORES, FERNANDO PERDOMO & THE OUT TO SEA BAND, PIXIE NINJA and SOFTEN THE GLARE for the twenty-fourth edition of ProgDay. ProgDay is a two day outdoor festival of progressive rock. ProgDay 2018 will take place on Saturday and Sunday, September 1st and 2nd, at Storybook Farm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For more information, please visit us at www.progday.net.
Brussels, Belgium – “Monty” is the new album by Italian music artist Emiliano Deferrari, conceived, written and recorded in Brussels, Belgium, where he lives since 2015. The album was recorded between November 2016 and September 2017 at his Monty Studio. It was mixed in Valencia, Spain by Matteo Nahum, music composer, film scorer, and musical partner of Emiliano in their art-rock oriented project Nanaue. Finally, it was mastered in Brooklyn, NY by internationally acclaimed drummer, bass player, and sound engineer Nate Wood.
All songs are written by Emiliano with Italian lyrics. Emiliano plays all instruments heard on the tracks (piano and keys, fretless bass, drums, classical, acoustic and electric guitars, violins, pocket sax, voices, and programming), like on all his solo releases.
Matteo Nahum mixed creatively the album, indulging with some of his preferred effects and reverberations. Nate Wood mastered the album with a balance between deep bass and the subtle textures of cymbals. Great presence but no big compression, maintaining a coherent ratio between loudest and lower sounds, giving the album a jazzier listening experience. Three different masters were made for the CD/downloads, the vinyl and a special “mastered for iTunes” version. The cover photo for the album was shot by celebrated Italian visual artist Pietro Fortuna. The album is produced for Emiliano’s personal label Rattsburg Records.
Says Emiliano, “In 2016, after 1 year of life in Belgium, I started producing music with a new mood. I recorded and published 2 new singles with Nanaue, one of which, “As Love is Naked,” was featured on the English movie “Hanging In There” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3822076/?ref_=ttsnd_snd_tt). During the recordings, I realized that my last solo work was dated 2010, and I had the urgency of a catharsis from some of my deepest emotions and fears. So I closed myself in the studio for long sessions of writing and improvising (heritage of my first moves in jazz). Most of the songs came out in less than a month, and for the first time in years, I used Italian lyrics. Then I started with a work of ‘selection’, ‘subtraction’, and recording instruments playing in a less conventional way (like the deconstructed and expressionist drums in the first tracks of the album, or combined with samples and drum-machine in the second part), and forcing myself on new territories (like the extensive use of fretless bass and electric piano clusters, counterbalanced by a sparse and rare use of guitar throughout the album). I also wanted to use the voice differently, to underline the visions showed with the lyrics. The lyrics are in general brief, with cut-ups and direct speech, helping to express the two moods of the album.”
As for the album’s concept, Emiliano explains, “The album describes a slow descent into hell, followed by a slow resurgence in search of a balance between the diverting forces, attitudes, and wills of a man. It is evidently an autobiographic representation of common states of mind of mankind. As always the place in which the album is recorded affects the music. The recording studio is placed inside the old Brussels cinema studios Sonart, in a room which still keeps the original audio isolation and some of the equipment. It was a great place to concentrate and listen to your deafening silence, in search of some of your monsters. After an experience like that, it is crucial to find your balance, to reset your mind and body. Meditation helps, but the tendency of building infinite layers of superstructures makes your exercises hard and frustrating. The last resort is surviving in light of this indispensable instability.
“Over the album sounds and instruments perform specific and recurrent characters of the play (the acoustic drums represent the human unpredictable touch, while the drum machines represent the mantras we use to fine-tune our weighted minds; brasses represent Brussels, or more precisely remind of the band’s parade of James Ensor’s ‘Christ’s Entry Into Brussels’. After all, it is quite easy to divide the album into two parts, the first musically jazzier and apparently improvised, while the second is mainly more rhythm driven, with recurrent chorus and mantras bringing to the last song ‘Fuoco’ (fire), the musical zenith of the album. There is also space for improvised drones (the short intro ‘Aria’, made with looped guitar effected with mellotron-like sounds), and a classical guitar piece, the eponymous ‘Monty’ (disturbed by field recordings of a tram).”
Everything was recorded and premixed by Emiliano in solitude. Tracks were passed to Matteo Nahum in Valencia, where he spent November and December 2017 mixing creatively. “He knows me very well, as we work together since 2008, and he could get the best of the tracks. I credit him in every song for his work at the mixing desk, as it was crucial for the album, like an added musician. As well crucial was the master by Nate Wood. I had already listened to his great masters of the albums of Donny McCaslin, Kneebody, and Tigran Hamasyan, so I am honored he accepted to work for ‘Monty’.”
When it came to finding a name and a visual identity for the album, “I had my studio in mind, and Monty is the nickname of Montgomery, the area of Brussels where the studio is. I wanted the cover to show what I could see every day from the window in front of the recording booth. Pietro Fortuna was so nice to shoot a photo for the cover and the Italian film-maker Alessandra Populin directed the video-clip of ‘Fuoco’.”
Emiliano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1977. He started playing guitar at 6 and recording his own music at 11. He played and sang jazz, rock and world music with different bands in Italy. In 2005, after settling in Rome, he produced his first solo album “SO_LO” with Rattsburg Records, with good reviews. Since then he started touring Italy with his solo show with guitar, voice, and effects. Between 2007/2011, Emiliano toured as The Loop Duo with Adriano Arena, with guitars, voices and live loops, producing an album (THE LOOP DUO/BMA and Rattsburg, 2009). In 2009/2010, he produced a new EP (O.S.T./Rattsburg, 2009) and LP “LIGHT EARS” (Rattsburg 2010). Since 2008 he’s been working on the project Nanaue with Matteo Nahum. Between 2011 and 2017 they published 8 singles (Rattsburg Records and Gutenberg Music) and 1 album (Nanaue/Gutenberg Music, 2013) plus 3 recordings for tribute albums of Italian prog label Mellow Records. In 2014 Emiliano moved to Brussels, Belgium. In September 2017 he re-published his seminal album “Small Engines” (2002, Rattsburg).
2018 is the year of “Monty”! In support of his new solo release, Emiliano will work hard to perform the album live, recruiting a small group of talented musicians, able to improvise and to recreate both the brooding atmospheres and the uprising against the brink.
The video clip of “Fuoco”, the last song of the album, by Italian film-maker Alessandra Populin was filmed at Monty Studio and around in a “mad day out” in Brussels
Here’s what the press has said about Emiliano:
“For his debut, Genoese multi-instrumentalist Emiliano Deferrari, based in Rome for his musical activities, shows on more than one occasion brilliant skills as composer and performer, skills he could cultivate in his important past experiences…the voice works, the guitars work, the rhythms work, the mix works in this personal reflection in the form of music. Inspired, humble, really pleasant.” – Rockerilla
“You listen to the first song and you feel like falling down on an enchanted land between Genesis’ “the lamb” and the first Gabriel. With Gilmour’s Floydian guitars. Unknown land, sinuous and fascinating. Nanaue is a duo of composers and multi-instrumentalists, often active in completely different musical contexts, but when they go for art-rock, they adhere strictly to what it should be: a memory of a unique past melted altogether with the sounds of the future.” – Il Manifesto
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