(47:22; Greydisc) Before I had the opportunity to review Kevin’s latest album with Sandor Szabo a new one arrived, this time featuring Carl Clements on their eighth outing together, so it is only fitting to review this one at the same time. This is a very different release to the one Kevin recently completed with Szabo as he provides 17-string Sub-contraguitar, 18-string Contraguitar, 24-string Double Sub-contraguitar, 30-string Double Contraguitar while Carl is on Tenor and Soprano saxophones plus Alto flute, so a very different musical offering indeed. Also, it follows the normal way of Kevin’s recordings in that it was undertaken in just one day, 23rd January 2025. Here we find Carl often taking the lead, with Kevin providing support in very unusual manners and configurations, allowing Carl to develop his sound and motifs, knowing that Kevin is there with his multi-stringed instruments to assist him in taking the music in directions which are both unusual and powerful. It is music w...

(52:03; Greydisc) Somewhat incredibly, here we have the 17th album from Kevin Kastning and Sandor Szabo. Longtime readers of my reviews will know how much I enjoy Kevin’s collaborations, as the emphasis is always on live composition between participants, and when two people have worked together in that fashion for so long then the results will always be fascinating. Here Kevin provides 17-string Sub-contraguitar, 18-string Contraguitar, 30-string Contra-Baritone guitar, 30-string Double Contraguitar, 24-string Double Sub-contraguitar while Sandor is on 16-string Classical guitar and 6-string Classical guitar and one thing I immediately noticed when looking at the press release was the length of time the recordings took. Normally Kevin will book just a day, or two, to record yet here we have an album which commenced in December 2024 and was not completed until the following June. The instruments played by Kevin are of his own design, so he can play the music he has long been hearing in ...

(16:30; The Bob Lazar Story) It has been way too long, but Matt Deacon (guitars, anything else he fancies) and drummer Chris Jago are back together for the first time since 2022, and if that wasn’t enough they have somehow convinced bassist Mike Fudakowski to again put his reputation on the line and return for the first time since 2019’s ‘Vanquisher’ while saxophonist Gareth Wyn Jones also plays on two numbers. As Matt says, ‘From Mouth To Ear’ “brings you a heady blend of wonketprogmellowmathcore, which has always been your favourite genre.” So now you know. What you might not understand, apart from Matt having a very British sense of humour (except like me he now lives in New Zealand), is that The Bob Lazar Story are one of the most under-rated instrumental bands around. In some ways they are a logical extension of Cardiacs, and I am sure that if Matt was in any other country than Aotearoa the band would be a major player in the scene, even if he does have any unhealthy fascination w...

(72:00; Giant Electric Pea) What we have here is a very interesting compilation, or possibly a sampler, of IQ’s music from the last 30 years, going all the way back to ‘Ever’ which was released in 1993. The idea behind this was to provide a distilled essence of the band with a series of edits so there is no song longer than five minutes, which is quite an achievement. Going through the song titles I think we have at least one song from each of the last nine albums, including this year’s ‘Dominion’, which means we also have performances from every member of the band who has ever been on a studio album in the last 40+ years apart from Paul Menel. I must confess I was not too sure what to expect, as some of the edits have been quite brutal. For example, “The Darkest Hour” has shrunk from 10:52 to 3:34, yet it still works and although we do have some fades in places, overall this album is a huge success. Somehow the songs have more intensity, and although I will always prefer the “full” ve...

(77:00; Esoteric Antenna) It is always unfortunate when main songwriters in a band have a disagreement and decide to split, never to work together again, and sadly that is the case with BJH when John Lees and Les Holroyd broke up the band in 1998. The other two founder members took a side each, Woolly Wolstenholme (who had previously left the band nearly 20 years earlier) joined with John while Mel Pritchard went with Les, since when we have had two different versions of the band doing the rounds, although both Mel and Woolly are sadly no longer with us. I always felt it was the balance between John and Les which made BJH such a vital outfit, but the spark had gone long before they finally went their separate ways, with the last truly essential BJH album being probably 1976’s ‘Octoberon’, and the final album of theirs I bought on release was 1984’s ‘Victims of Circumstance’. In my view all their albums had some excellent songs, but newer releases had fewer and fewer, so although I stil...

(111:00; InsideOut Music) King Crimson are/were a band who have continued to reinvent themselves, always with Fripp solidly at the helm. He decided in 1974 that the band was over forever, and went away and did different things, including a lot of session work, but by 1980 he decided it was time to form a new band, which he was going to call Discipline. Bruford was back onboard,  and was soon joined by Adrian Belew (Bowie, Zappa), the first time Fripp would be working with another guitarist, with the line-up finally being settled by the addition of Tony Levin who Fripp had played with in Peter Gabriel’s band. Of course, the name was soon changed to King Crimson, and this quartet recorded three groundbreaking albums in quick succession before Fripp again shut down the band, ‘Discipline’, ‘Beat’, and ‘Three of a Perfect Pair’.  In 2024 it was announced a new band had been formed by Adrian Belew and Tony Levin to recreate the songs from that period. Apparently both Bruford and Fri...

(79:08: Aural Hallucinations) Here we have the third album from Dr. Space (Øresund Space Collective, Doctors of Space, Black Moon Circle, etc.) and Matthew Couto (Kind, ex-Elder), following on from 2020’s ‘Alucinações Auditivas’ and 2021’s ‘Hearing What You See’. Scott flew to Massachusetts in March this year to record with Matt, and it was actually the first time they had even been in the same room together, with the other recordings completed remotely. Due to the two musicians working together instead of remotely the music took twists and turns they did not expect, with the heavily layered instruments also having field noises added by  Lúis Antero not far from where Scott lives in Portugal. Talking of the instruments, on this release they utilised Pittsburgh Modular, Custom Modular, MOOG Spectravox, MOOG Opus 3, Jen SX1000 synthesizer, Bastl Kastle, Bastl Drum Kastle!, MFOS mini-modular, multiple guitar effects pedals (MXR-Reverb, Phaser, Carbon Copy, RAT, Snare Trap). I have list...

(37:44; Esoteric Antenna) I surely cannot be the only person who was stunned to hear that a brand-new Atomic Rooster album was being released as I had thought the band had broken up in the Eighties, being permanently laid to rest with the death of Vincent Crane in 1989, as how could there be a band without him? Through all the membership trials and tribulations he was the only constant, and I consider myself highly fortunate that the band played the student union at my university more than 40 years ago when he was again joined by John Du Cann and Paul Hammond (and were incredible). In 2016, Vincent’s widow apparently let ex-members Pete French (‘In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster’) and Steve "Boltz" Bolton (‘Made In England’) resurrect the name, even though the former was in the band only in 1971 and the latter 1971-1972. Since then they have been touring and there have been some changes with the current line-up now Bolton (guitars, vocals), Adrian Gautrey (keyboards, vocals), Shug...

(5xCD Box Set; Hear No Evil Recordings) I have always had a huge soft spot for this band, as they refused to die when Mick Box should have given it up many times, and they are still going today! Arguably, the line-up from 1972-1974, which produced four studio and one live album, namely David Byron (vocals), Mick Box (guitar, vocals), Ken Hensley (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Lee Kerslake (drums, vocals) and Gary Thain (bass, vocals), is the one which many think of as the premier band. However, I have always felt it is better to think of Heep by albums, and to me it is the first five plus ‘Abominog’, ‘Head First’, and ‘Sea of Light’ which are the ones to go for. What we have here is a five CD set containing music recorded in 73-74, so we get ‘Sweet Freedom’ and ‘Wonderworld’, both with additional  cuts, and the set opens with the 2003 expanded version of the 1973 live album which includes film mixes of material recorded at a special set in 1974. So there are four discs, and then ther...

(62:00; Karisma Records [2025 Edition] ) Here we have the last in the White Willow remaster and reissue series from Karisma with their sixth album, 2011’s ‘Terminal Twilight’. Following from 2006’s ‘Signal to Noise’ the band felt somewhat burned out and Jacob Holm-Lupo took a break to work on his art pop band The Opium Cartel and other projects and it was only after this that he decided to work again on White Willow (the next album took even longer, and there has been nothing since 2017). This time the band decided to record and produce the album on their own while ex-drummer Mattias Olsson returned for the first time since 1998’s ‘Ex Tenebris’.  Holm-Lupo later stated that prior to working on the material he had been gorging himself on Italian prog rock, especially Le Orme, and that some of those influences came into his writing.   I wonder if he had also been listening to no-man, as is somewhat surprising to find Tim Bowness guesting on lead vocals on “Kansas Regrets”, ...

(44:41, Friends of the Fish) A small child has fallen asleep in the safe embrace of cuddly toys, a lamp provides light to the darkness, removing all thoughts of monsters and instead imbuing a gentle and calming glow to the scene. Even before I started listening to the fourth album from Swedish duo Britt Ronnholm (vocals) and Anders Haakanson (instruments) I was intrigued to hear it, and for the most part I was not disappointed. I have long been a fan of folk, folk rock and folk psyche, loving the vocals of such great singers as Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee, Judy Dyble, Maddy Prior and more, and when the arrangements are atmospheric there is something beautiful taking place, and that is what we have here. Anders is a master of multiple instruments, and he takes care to build fragile tapestries for Britt to place her vocals against, structures which are barely there, but provide just the right amount of support for us to fall under Britt’s spell. This never sounds like an album from 2025, ...

(62:00; Roxx Records) I don’t think I will ever get fed up of being contacted by musicians who have been told to get in touch with me by another musician, and that is the case here when Jef Bek told Thomas McKeown to send me his debut release. Here Thomas provides lead and backup vocals, guitar, bass, piano, organ, synth and percussion and he is joined by Patrick Culligan (drums), Heather Humphrey (choir vocals) and Gary Jacklin (violin and viola). Apparently, Thomas used to be in a progressive rock band called Damascus, and he says this is a return to his progressive roots, and it seems to me that he has been listening to a great deal of Neal Morse, as well as some of Neal’s influences (particularly Kansas). Somehow this album has passed PA by as he is not listed there (I’m doing something about that) which shows just how hard it can be for quality music to get to the right areas, even in the small world which is progdom, as this is a delight from beginning to end. It never sounds lik...

(150:00; Cherry Red [2025 Edition] ) There is no doubt that the original line-up of The Pentangle were hugely influential, releasing six albums between 1968 and 1972, with this being the final one until the band reformed in the Eighties and then went through different iterations. Jacqui McShee (vocals), John Renbourn (vocals and guitar),  Bert Jansch (vocals and guitar),  Danny Thompson (double bass) and Terry Cox (drums) had a very English sound, and instead of folk rock described it themselves as folk jazz (while they are also regarded as prog folk by some). The interplay of Jansch and Renbourn was intense while Thompson has long been regarded as one of the finest double bassists ever, Cox was a widely sought after drummer (later spending years with Charles Aznavour!) and McShee was one of the most important singers in the scene. I am sure that most people who enjoy this style of music already have this album in their collection, but this has been put together in such a mann...