Prog

Hello and welcome to issue 102 of Prog Magazine. As I sit here typing this and the team beaver away closing this issue, the Progressive Music Awards are just one week away. It goes without saying it’s our favourite night of the year, getting to honou

@JakkoJ A review of Saturdays Mexico City show starts “The light green color of Gavin’s face and Jakko’s sweaty visage made it clear these two gentlemen were still suffering the consequences of the previous day’s food poisoning, but they struggled ma

The Electronium was an early synthesiser designed to generate “instant compositions”, and consisted of a mass of buttons set into a colossal wooden unit. It was created by electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott over the course of 11 years and paid fo

Whoever came up with the saying, ‘It’s not the destination, but the journey that matters’ has never shared a taxi or two with me. Depending on where I am, and who’s behind the wheel, conversation can veer from the sublime to the ridiculous. Take, for

“I began cooking properly when I was about 18 or 19 years old, using dishes my grandmother and mother had made. My mother wrote down all her recipes in a book and gave it to me on one of my birthdays. Another big inspiration was wanting to adopt a he

Sure, the record-breaking, multi-award-winning West End/Broadway musical isn’t the kind of thing people would generally think of as prog with its wizards, witches, potions, time travel, transfiguration and… oh, hang on! Okay, Harry Potter And The Cur

A recent thread on the Prog Magazine Readers Facebook group conjured up memories of comedian Harry Enfield’s classic sketch, Women: Know Your Limits!, a 1950s-style public information film where a female dinner party guest is castigated for holding i

Karl Jenkins’ riff-orientated compositions are the cornerstone of the album’s success, with the cascading 1916 theme lending a sense of harmonic and structural continuity. From Torrid Zone’s mesmeric pulse to a series of freely improvised vignettes,

“Everyone was saying it’s great, it’s gonna do well, but it got no radio play… story of my life, really.” Tony Banks is recounting a familiar tale about one of the seven solo albums he released between 1979 and 1995 – commercially neglected but often

“I love Heilung! They create such a powerful atmosphere at their shows. Like they’re performing some ancient ritual and the audience members are all conduits for whatever sorcery they’re conjuring.” Emily Watson “Bit too weird for me but I really lov

Hang up the bunting, blow out the candles and bust open the party pack of Skol lager: 2019 is the year that Opeth turn 30. You couldn’t blame Mikael Åkerfeldt for stopping, looking back and thinking, “What the hell happened there?” No one could have

Haken’s six-string swordsman embarks on a solo mission. With Haken still firmly in the ascendancy, guitarist Richard Henshall can release his first solo album secure in the knowledge that lots of people will want to hear it. Pleasingly, he hasn’t tak

If travel broadens the mind, it can also broaden the sound. This is evidently true for Allah Las, who describe their terrific fourth album LAHS (Mexican Summer) as both an audio postcard and “a soundtrack to the past five years or so”. The Los Angele

Mikey Young is a name on the Aussie post-punk scene, but there was a proggy mind evident on his 2017, cassette-only solo album You Feelin’ Me?. Now issued on CD and vinyl via Castle Face, it’s worth seeking out if you enjoy the cosmic synth melodies

Texan post-rockers’ under-the-radar first flight reissued on vinyl. Some special extra ingredient is essential to make purely instrumental music work in a band context, and Austin’s Explosions In The Sky hit their own magic seam immediately when they

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Socks and drugs and rock’n’roll. As you read both the actual lines and the subtext between them contained within this book’s 512 pages, it’s clear that life in Henry Cow was anything but easy. That’s not to say Benjamin Piekut’s

Venue THE SHACKLEWELL ARMS, LONDON Date 19/08/2019 A palpable sense of relief permeates throughout the packed environs of The Shacklewell Arms as the last notes of Lonely People fade and vanish. Looking up from his extensive pedal board, singer-guita

Venue ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON Date 25/07/2019 From the Selkirk pub in Tooting to the Royal Albert Hall might only be a six mile journey, but as a 10-year career arc it’s remarkable. Almost a decade to the day since that South London debut, Public S

VENUE BORRE, NORWAY DATE 15-17/08/2019 Now in its fifth year, Midgardsblot is a music festival meets Viking reenactment extravaganza. Surrounded by a forest, the Oslo fjord and the Viking burial mounds of Borre, the festival is wonderfully curated, f

VENUE STUDIO 9294, LONDON DATE 28/08/2019 SUPPORT VANISHING TWIN There’s a distinct whiff of hipsterdom blending with the traces of patchouli and more exotic fragrances floating through the air tonight. There are even the kind of mullets that haven’t

VENUE SELLERSVILLE THEATER 1894, SELLERSVILLE, PA DATE 23/08/2019 Whether it’s his time with King Crimson, Frank Zappa or David Bowie, his myriad other collaborations or his abundant solo work, Adrian Belew’s expansive voice and proficient yet zany g

VENUE PACIPHONIC (EARTH), LONDON DATE 14/08/2019 The highlight of Russian Circles’ set is the result of an accident. It comes early, during second song Deficit, as bass player Brian Cook battles with his bass rig. Something’s amiss, and he can’t figu

VENUE CATTON HALL DATE 06-09/08/2019 The days when Bloodstock was purely an extreme metal festival are long gone. Now, every year the bill is diverse and interesting, with progressive bands being warmly embraced by the audience. On Friday, however, i