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The Gardening Club - 2024 - Another Country

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(57:08; Melodic Revolution Records) I often think the music business is a cruel place, and how it discards those who should be feted and reveres those who are not creative at all. That is the case with Martin Springett, whose debut album, ‘The Gardening Club’ in 1983 never received anything like the acclaim it should have done at the time, and it wasn’t until the reissue in 2017 that many people (including me) became aware that Martin had a musical interest alongside his artistic one, with just two albums more since the first one. The reviews he achieved in 2017 lit a fire under Martin, and this is the sixth album since then. He has also developed two different sets of musicians to work with, one on the east coast of Canada and one on the west, and this album again finds Martin working with both on different songs. The vast majority of those involved have appeared on other albums with him, but a special mention should be made of new member Danie Friesen who provides both “normal” vocal
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Captain Of The Lost Waves - 2024 - Beautiful Ugly

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(41:15; Melodic Revolution Records) In 2022, the Captain released his fourth album, the absolutely amazing ‘Hidden Gems Chapter 3 - Mysterium Tremendum’ which I gave maximum marks to and declared it to be a “review killer” in that once it hit my player, I was unable to listen to anything else, greatly reducing my output for a time. It has taken longer than expected for Shaun to come back with his next album, because he and his family were the innocent victims of a road traffic accident where someone fleeing police drove into their car. It has taken eighteen very long months for everyone to work through the physical and mental injuries, which also had a huge impact on them in other ways as Shaun is a working musician as opposed to someone doing this as a hobby. Through these terrible times, the Captain still had the need to create music,  albeit in a very slow, laboured, and somewhat sedate ‘late-night fashion’. Musically this is a very different release to what we have come to expect f
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Phil Mercy - 2024 - Blind Convergence Volume 1

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(43:00; Phil Mercy) I was in contact with Phil Mercy recently, and I was asking what was happening with the wonderful Thieves’ Kitchen. Sadly, the band has been put on hold mostly due to Brexit and COVID – not easy to play together when the band is in Sweden and there is no longer any freedom of movement. Phil has been keeping busy by working on a new project, Blind Convergence, which is a combination of ambient electronica and improvised guitar. So far, he has released one album, with another recorded, and he asked if I would like to have a listen so here it is. The album is available in two versions, either as a continuous piece of music or with it broken down into individual tracks, but given it was recorded live and in one take it made more sense for me to play the continuous version. It was recorded on 22nd December 2022 and there are no overdubs, with minimal post-processing of the files. There are a few samples, all of which are credited, and the overall result is something whic
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Long Earth - 2024 - An Ordinary Life

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(63:10; Grand Tour Music) Here we have the third album from Long Earth, a band who piqued the curiosity of many old-time proggers given it contained three musicians from the early Scottish scene, but I notice that since the last release the old Abel Ganz rhythm section has departed with neither Gordon Mackie nor Ken Weir still involved. David McLachlan (bass) and Alex Smith (drums, triangle) have been brought into the fill those gaps, with the rest of the line-up still Martin Haggarty (lead & backing vocals), Renaldo McKim (electric, acoustic & ambient guitars) and Mike Baxter (piano, synthesizers, Hammond C3). It never ceases to amaze me that different progheads can listen to the same album and come up with quite different ideas on what it sounds like, but I have been following my own path for more than three decades so am not going to change how I write now. This is quite a basic neo prog album, which is okay but is never more than that, and there are large parts where I find
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Kevin Kastning & Phil Grenadier - 2024 - In Visible Ascent

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(46:18; Greydisc) For his next album,  Kevin restricted himself to just playing 36-string Double Contraguitar and this time was joined by trumpeter Phil Grenadier. This is the first time he has worked with Phil, a well-known band leader and collaborator who is also on faculty at Berklee College of Music. Most of Kevin’s albums comprise a series of pieces, yet this album contains just two, one which is more than 30 minutes in length and one which is more than fifteen. Also, the trumpet is a powerful instrument, and one which will generally take the lead when being played with an acoustic guitar and that is exactly what we have here so Phil can often be found providing the melody while Kevin concentrates on accompaniment and nuances. This album sounds far less improvised and much more like modern classical music, and Kevin even describes it as “symphonic compositional scale” and that it marks a new direction for both musicians. The reverb on both instruments means that space is a very im
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Kevin Kastning & Bruno Raaberg - 2024 - Silent Dimensions

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(32:43; Greydisc) I have long been a fan of Kevin Kastning and his incredible mastery of massively stringed guitars (here he plays 36-string Double Contraguitar, 16-string Subcontraguitar, 24-string Subcontraguitar, and 28-string Contraguitar), but also what makes his music so interesting is the way he continues to find different musicians to improvise with. Here we have his first work (although it will not be the last) with double bassist Bruno Råberg, a Swedish musician who has been living in the States for more than 40 years and is a teacher at both the Berklee Global Jazz Institute and at Berklee College of Music. He has also recorded 12 albums as band leader and another 30 as a sideman, so he has quite a reputation, and deservedly so. Bruno has a wonderful tone, and there are times (such as “Memory Present Echo”) where Kevin sits back and waits for the right moment to come in and add his nuances. There are times when so many strings sound less like a guitar and more like a harpsic
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HFMC - 2024 - Eternal Snapshots

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(47:18; Glassville Records) Hasse Fröberg first came to prominence in Swedish hard rock band Spellbound during the Eighties, but it will be for the last two decades he has spent with The Flower Kings which must progheads will know him for. He came up with the idea of forming a band in 2008, with Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion starting to play the following year, and this is the sixth album since then. There has been a minor line-up change since 2021’s ‘We Are The Truth’, with the band now being Hasse Fröberg (vocals, electric & acoustic guitars), Sampo Axelsson (bass guitar), Kjell Haraldsson (keyboards, piano, organs), Anton Lindsjö (guitars) and Ola Strandberg (drums, backing vocals). I have only heard the last two albums, and I do find it strange that they are the only reviews for those on PA so they must have slipped under the radar, and while I enjoyed them, I must admit I felt they could have done with some judicious editing as they were both over an hour in length and
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