Arts Centre, Helmsley, North Yorkshire Friday, 19th April 2024 Tonight’s adventure involves the Friday traffic on the A19 from Newcastle to the picturesque market town of Hemsley in North Yorkshire. We arrived a little earlier than planned which gave us the chance to have a wonder around the old stone buildings, surrounded by glorious scenery. Unfortunately almost all the independent shops closed at 4:00 pm so we were forced to go to the pub, before a further adventure locating the venue – discretely nestled up a small lane, surrounded by cottages. The Blackheart Orchestra’s journey however wa ..read more

Norway’s Elephant9 return with a new album, guaranteed to pique your interest, and this is certainly the case for me having been on a writing hiatus due to the loss of my great friend and TPA editor Jez Rowden. So, it is this is the album that has given me the spark to start writing again due to it being rather excellent. Elephant9 was formed in 2007 with their debut album Dodovoodoo, appearing the year after. I first came across the band when I reviewed their 2019 double live release, Psychedelic Backfire I & II, which captured their live reputation in the most wonderful way. Released in ..read more

This release caught my attention primarily because of some of the musicians and singers featured on it, and Todd Rundgren being involved was certainly a huge personal bonus for me. It is, as the title implies, a ‘tribute’ project to what most people consider the wellspring of seventies progressive music, which is the incredibly influential debut album by King Crimson, In The Court Of The Crimson King. I’m not sure why it’s being issued in 2024, as it’s hardly a landmark anniversary year, with the original album now being 54 years old. Yet regardless, somebody came up with the bright notion to ..read more

Central Theatre, Chatham Friday, 19th April 2024 I don’t often go and see tribute bands. It’s not that I’m some weird purist who disapproves of tribute acts, far from it! If the band that originally created the music is no longer around, then that isn’t the music’s fault – the music still deserves to be played. I strongly suspect that the musicians who take it on are not only enthusiasts for the band to which they pay tribute, they are (almost) always up to the task of performing the music as faithfully to the album versions as possible – and I think the fans usually love that! Nevertheless, h ..read more

Signature Brew, Blackhorse Road, London Saturday, 20th April 2024 For once in this Biblically wet year, a dry and even occasionally sunny day precedes another trip to the capital for me, where I meet up with my gig-going companion and go for some satisfying Turkish sustenance prior to this evening’s entertainment. Signature Brew swaps its day job as a brewery for its nighttime disguise as a rather fine music venue. I have no doubt that the beats from tonight’s music have enhanced the brewing process. KYLIE MONOLOGUE Not wanting to rush our Turkish culinary delights, we arrived late for this s ..read more

Ellesmere is a project masterminded by Italian multi-instrumentalist Roberto Vitelli. You may have come across them, as their last album, Wyrd, caused a bit of a stir in prog circles at the end of 2020. Latest release Stranger Skies, in many respects, carries on where Wyrd left off, but with a couple of significant differences. Of course, stylistically, we still have the recognisable influences from the usual classic prog suspects, so clear influences from Genesis, Yes, Crimson, VDGG et al, but where Wyrd was obviously Roberto plus a myriad cast of prog royalty, Stranger Skies has much more of ..read more

After being unexpectedly floored by my first listen to Recycled, I seem to have precariously placed myself as the Nektar correspondent at TPA… at least for the time being. Jumping from the band’s heyday straight into the present was probably not the most advisable idea, however Journey to the Other Side – a portmanteau of the group’s oldest and newest album titles – is an extremely long and uneven slab of music from the ageing rockers; while there is still passion for the music, the cracks in the foundations are beginning to show. A tasteful keyboard intro titled The Light Beyond plays on tape ..read more

It was so refreshing to see an album offered for review to TPA with such a pithy name. There’s none of this multisyllabic name nonsense, like Distended Algorithm or Beelzebub’s Hoover, this is the least Proggy name I’ve seen in yonks! I mean: Wheel! C’mon! Not to be confused with WHEEL from Dortmund, Germany, this Wheel was founded in 2015 by a British chap living in Helsinki. Wheel is pretty well established. Wheel have released three EPs and this will be their third album. There have been changes in personnel, the bass and guitar players have changed, though I’m led to believe Santeri Saksal ..read more

The culmination of a long period as a highly successful session musician and collaborator sees Oliver Wakeman return to solo pursuits. A window of opportunity has enabled songs that had been in development over the last decade or more to be finished, and a band to be assembled to bring them to life. Anam Cara refers to the Celtic concept of having a ‘soul’ friend and the use of pipes and whistles, lutes and mandolins, lends weight to the impression that this will be a heavily-laden Celtic-inspired album. Of course, it is more complex than that, mixing a wide range of influences, and at the hea ..read more

The Tangent have been more of a real band in recent years, with a line-up that has been fairly stable since 2013. But there is no disguising the fact that, like the heavens circling the Pole Star, everything revolves around keyboard player, singer, and songwriter Andy Tillison. Occasionally, he has had to plug the gaps in the line-up when a particular musician has been unavailable – for example, he provided the keyboard-created drums on 2017’s The Slow Rust of Forgotten Machinery. But in 2022, when Tillison started work on the band’s 13th studio album, no-one was available because they were to ..read more