by Kev Rowland | Aug 2, 2018 | Reviews
So I had this playing in the background, but when it started with a corner shop quartet from the Forties I thought I must have put on the wrong playlist. But, what it did do was make me stop whatever else I was doing and concentrate on this, and I am so very glad indeed that I did. What we have here, boys and girls is a progressive rock album in its very truest sense that is designed to drive despair into the heart of anyone brave or stupid enough to try to write a review of it. I’ll leave you to ascertain which camp I fall into, just don’t ask my wife. Progressive rock, by sheer definition, is music that is refusing to sit within any preconceived boundaries, and will not be pigeonholed. Why? Because IT’S NOT A PIGEON!
So let’s start by hanging some labels on this thing, shall we? People like labels. So, there’s some Zappa, yes definitely Zappa, jazz, psychedelia, funk, krautrock, oooh Cardiacs, mustn’t forget Cardiacs, folk, um, kitchen sink, cuddly toy. Must have missed something somewhere. But, the joy of this album is that when it is being played it all makes total sense, and all I want to do when it is finished is to put it on again! It may be incredibly diverse, but not in the way that these guys have pulled it together. Apparently, this is the second release from the band, who comprise just Nathan James (voice, keyboards, bass, horn) and Ian Beabout (flute, editing, sound design, and production) and some assorted guests, which includes Dave Newhouse from The Muffins among others. The use of brass instruments of different types work incredibly well, and there is a passion, lightness, and sense of fun throughout this album which makes it a real joy. This is music with no preconceived ideas or formula, just being taken where it needs to go. If I had my arm twisted behind my back and was asked for a simple subgenre then I would have to plump for crossover prog, but as it is meant to be defined, as there are a real musicality and melody that pervades the whole album.
Available in multiple formats, this is a delight, and the fractured beauty of “Photograph” is required listening for anyone who is fed up with created pop stars. In some alternate universe, it is #1 on the charts.
9/10 – Kev Rowland
Buy Unfamiliar Skies
https://colouraturamrrartist.bandcamp.com/album/unfamiliar-skies
Follow
https://www.facebook.com/colouratura.album/
http://mrrmusic.com/colouratura/
by Nick | Jul 30, 2018 | New Releases, News
Devin Townsend has announced the release of the second part of the ERAS Vinyl Collection for release on August 31st, 2018. This set includes the much sought-after albums ‘Ocean Machine’, ‘Physicist’, ‘Terria’, ‘Synchestra’ & ‘Infinity’ all in gatefold sleeves across 8 pieces of vinyl, contained inside a sturdy 2-piece box with an extensive LP booklet containing liner notes and comments from Devin himself. All the albums have been mastered for vinyl for the optimal listening experience.
OCEAN MACHINE
Side A
1. Seventh Wave (06:50)
2. Life (04:31)
3. Night (04:45)
4. Hide Nowhere (05:00)
Side B
1. Sister (02:50)
2. 3 A.M. (01:55)
3. Voices In The Fan (04:39)
4. Greetings (02:53)
5. Regulator (05:06)
Side C
1. Funeral (08:05)
2. Bastard (10:17)
Not One Of The Better Days
The Girl From The Blue City
Side D
1. The Death Of Music (12:15)
2. Thing Beyond Things (04:46)
INFINITY
Side A
1. Truth (03:58)
2. Christeen (03:41)
3. Bad Devil (04:52)
4. War (06:29)
5. Soul Driven Cadillac (05:14)
Side B
1. Ants (02:01)
2. Wild Colonial Boy (03:04)
3. Life Is All Dynamics (05:08)
4. Unity (06:07)
5. Noisy Pink Bubbles (05:22)
TERRIA
Side A
1. Olives (03:21)
2. Mountain (06:32)
3. Earth Day (09:35)
Side B
1. Deep Peace (07:34)
2. Canada (06:53)
Side C
1. Down and Under (03:43)
2. The Fluke (07:16)
3. Nobody’s Here (06:54)
Side D
1. Tiny Tears (09:12)
2. Stagnant (05:25)
3. Humble (05:30)
PHYSICIST
Side A
1. Namaste (03:34)
2. Victim (03:15)
3. Material (02:47)
4. Kingdom (05:55)
5. Death (02:27)
6. Devoid (01:28)
7. The Complex (03:31)
Side B
1. Irish Maiden (02:45)
2. Jupiter (03:36)
3. Planet Rain (11:08)
4. Forgotten (05:59)
SYNCHESTRA
Side A
1. Let It Roll (02:52)
2. Hypergeek (02:20)
3. Triumph (07:08)
4. Babysong (05:30)
5. Vampolka (01:36)
6. Vampira (03:27)
Side B
1. Mental Tan (02:15)
2. Gaia (06:03)
3. Pixillate (08:17)
4. Judgement (05:55)
Side C
1. A Simple Lullaby (07:09)
2. Sunset (02:31)
3. Notes from Africa (07:42)
4. Sunshine and Happiness (02:35)
Side D
Etching
Devin comments: “It has been over 25 years since I started this professional trip of mine with music as the anchor. In that time, I have spent a fair amount of energy describing the albums, rationalizing the albums, or just trying to basically explain the motivation behind them all. This ERAS box set series is a kind of monumental way for me to do it at one time, in one place. The intent of these albums from the beginning, has not changed. Music has been the outlet to describe my experience with life, and obviously my experience is far from ‘unique’. I like to think all this music describes my point of view on things we all participate in. Life is crazy, and each step of the way offers new things, births, deaths, failures, successes, heartache, confusion, anger etc etc etc… I don’t have it figured out, but the music has helped me deal with it in my own way.
The albums were just snapshots of different periods in my life, and although it’s just music, they mean a lot to me. The process that drew them out has helped me move on to each consecutive project and my hope is that with these boxsets, it makes what I do in the future make a little more sense.
I really appreciate having the opportunity to present them in one place with such attention to detail. It’s such an honour to be able to do this and I thank everyone involved for the support and passion in making these box sets happen.
Cheers,
Devin.
On the September 22nd, 2017, Devin Townsend Project played a special show at the Ancient Roman Theatre in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the landmark Ocean Machine album in full, as well as a set of fan-requested tracks alongside the Orchestra of Plovdiv State Opera. This concert was filmed, and recently saw its release as ‘Ocean Machine – Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv’.
You can watch the previously released clips for ‘Regulator’, ‘Truth’ & ‘By Your Command’ below:
Regulator: https://youtu.be/MlEXMS1DRLQ
Truth: https://youtu.be/jhHxvAgjvEo
By Your Command: https://youtu.be/TDP6gNR9fAA
‘Ocean Machine – Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv’ is available as a limited deluxe 3CD/2DVD/Blu-Ray artbook (with liner notes from Devin and a special documentary on the second DVD & Blu-Ray), Special Edition 3CD/DVD Digipak, standalone Blu-Ray and as digital audio download. Order now here: https://devintownsendproject.lnk.to/OceanMachineLive
“epic, swelling bombast worthy of the old stone” – Metal Hammer
“a bold document from an incredibly ambitious artist.” – Prog Magazine
“an incredible evening of music performed with precision and passion and captured for all of us in a nearly perfect fashion.” – Metal Wani
The full track-listing is as follows:
By Request with Orchestra
“epic, swelling bombast worthy of the old stone” – Metal Hammer
“a bold document from an incredibly ambitious artist.” – Prog Magazine
“an incredible evening of music performed with precision and passion and captured for all of us in a nearly perfect fashion.” – Metal Wani
The full track-listing is as follows:
By Request with Orchestra
1.Truth
2.Stormbending
3.Om
4.Failure
5.By Your Command
6.Gaia
7.Deadhead
8.Canada
9.Bad Devil
10.Higher
11.A Simple Lullaby
12.Deep Peace
Ocean Machine
1.Seventh Wave
2.Life
3.Night
4.Hide Nowhere
5.Sister
6.3 A.M.
7.Voices in the Fan
8.Greetings
9.Regulator
10.Funeral
11.Bastard
12.The Death of Music
13.Things Beyond Things
DEVIN TOWNSEND online:
http://www.hevydevy.com
http://www.facebook.com/dvntownsend
http://www.omerch.com
https://twitter.com/dvntownsend
https://www.instagram.com/dvntownsend/
https://www.youtube.com/user/poopynuggeteer/
INSIDEOUT MUSIC online:
www.insideoutmusic.com
www.youtube.com/InsideOutMusicTV
www.facebook.com/InsideOutMusic
www.twitter.com/InsideOutUSA
www.insideoutmusicshop.com
INSIDEOUTMUSIC Spotify Playlist:
http://spotify.com/progrockessentials
by Nick | Jul 30, 2018 | Uncategorized
It’s never easy to find a guitarist with the skill and background to play the diverse range of music in our catalog, but we’re very happy to announce that we’ve found the guy. Introducing our new guitarist, Mathew Aboujaoude:
Currently studying guitar and songwriting at Berklee College of Music Online, Mathew started playing keyboards at the age of 7 and picked up the guitar at age 9. For the past 4 years, he has toured extensively in Texas, Louisiana, and the Middle East with Brick Floyd, a Lebanese Pink Floyd tribute act. Mathew has done session work with various artists in the US and abroad and is currently recording an original solo progressive rock album to be released this year.
We’re looking forward to working with Mathew as we gear up for more live shows this fall and beyond. Mathew will be making his live debut with us at our September 27 show at One 2 One Bar in Austin, so please be sure to come out and welcome him to the ACE family!
by Kev Rowland | Jul 29, 2018 | Reviews
Some years ago I was lucky enough to come across the debut album from Yagull, ‘Films’. At that point in their career the band was Sasha Markovic on guitars, bass, percussion, voice and keyboards with a few guests on some of the songs. There were a couple of co-writes, two cover versions (incredible takes on “White Room” and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”) , but the rest were all written by Markovic. I was immediately taken by the acoustic “post-rock chamber soundtrack”, and likened them to Karda Estra. But when they returned with their second album, ‘Kai’, the group had doubled in size to a duo as Markovic had been joined by pianist Kana Kamitsubo, who is also his wife (they names the album and title track after their son, who was born in 2014). This time around there is only one song credited just to Markovic, and sometimes he is credited after his wife, plus there are another couple of covers.
Guests again feature on some of the songs, most notably Moonjune artists Beledo and Dewa Budjana, but I found that it is the songs where it is just the two of them where they come across best. There is no need at all for anything special, just an acoustic guitar and piano, played by two people who know each other intimately and can accompany the other in perfect harmony. This is restful music, and when Budjana made his appearance on electric guitar on “Blossom” I was actually quite disappointed. I have been a fan of Budjana’s for years, but to my ears his delicate electric guitar was out of place on this acoustic album. The interplay between the two musicians in simply beautiful, there is no other word for it, and I would have preferred to have heard an album filled just with their songs, with no other musicians, as there is no need for the purity of their sound to be messed with. Again there are two cover versions of classic rock songs, but this time they don’t work quite as well. Of the two, “Wishing Well” is well worth hearing, with some wonderful guitar, but “Burn” doesn’t really gel as it should.
But overall this is still an incredible album, and if they trust themselves and record a full album of their own material, with no outside “help”, then the next one could be very, very special indeed. http://www.yagull.com/
8/10 by Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jul 29, 2018 | Reviews
Right, here is my third attempt at writing this review, as so far I have ditched every attempt as it either comes across as too fawning or doesn’t really portray exactly what this album means to me. What we have here is the debut album from Michael-Alan Taylor of Nth Ascension, on which he provides lead vocals, guitars, and keyboards. He is joined by Darrel Treece-Birch (piano, additional keys, and guitar), Craig Martin Walker (low flute), David Austin Taylor (spoken word) and Melissa Brown (spoken word). This is a concept album, detailing the last days of the brave Knight Lancelot who recalls the battles for Camelot, his devotion to his King and his love of the Lady Guinevere.
To say that it is a cinematic atmospheric soundscape doesn’t really do this album justice, and for once an album cover manages to portray exactly the right feeling, as the way that the misty early morning sun finds its way down to the forest floor is a wonderful representation of an album that is beguiling and entrancing. In some ways it reminds me of some of Wakeman’s great concept albums, except that the keyboards are far more delicate: Taylor’s vocals capture the emotion of the music and are a perfect fit. There are times when I find myself thinking of Camel’s mighty ‘The Snow Goose’, and I can see myself playing this album a great many times late in the evening, as the mystical and magical atmosphere is so relaxing, and it takes me to a land far away in time. Delicate, but with a hidden strength and power, there is no need at all for drums, as the layered keyboards create a swirling curtain which moves like a magician’s cloak, never really sure what is going to happen next, but confident that it will be incredible. I can only hope that this release gets the acclaim it so richly deserves, as it is one of the most important releases I have come across for some time, and there is no doubt that it will feature in my Top Ten of 2018, no matter what the genre. This is an album that enriches the musical soul, and I love it. http://melodicrevolution.com/
10/10 by Kev Rowland
Buy it in the US and Canada
https://melodicrevolutionvinyl.bandcamp.com/album/avalonia-the-sonnets-of-guinevere
Buy it in the Europe
http://michael-alantaylor.bandcamp.com/album/avalonia-the-sonnets-of-guinevere
