Miguel Kertsman - 2025 - Paradoxes

(66:00; Aurua Sounds)

This is the first time I have come across American-Brazilian composer Miguel Kertsman, who apparently has composed, produced, engineered, arranged, conducted and played keyboards across a diversity of genres such as contemporary classical, jazz, rock, and world music, but here he has gone straight into progressive rock from the Seventies. He has obviously been highly influenced by both Rick Wakeman and Patrick Moraz, but Richard Wright has also been brought into the mix and while it does mean we also hear the likes of Yes and Pink Floyd there is also plenty of Gentle Giant and even some Camel. It is mostly an instrumental release, where the musicians all played live together (I do not have any details of who else is involved), while “Red Blue Sky” is one of the few vocal numbers and is both an absolute delight and also at some odds to the rest of the album which is much more like a classic Wakeman and his work with The English Rock Ensemble (or one of its many iterations). The singer on this is Drew Sarich, who is best known for his theatrical work, but here he nails it and I would love to hear more collaborations between the pair.

As well as piano we get plenty of Minimoogs, Mellotron, and Prophet 10 workouts, and the result is an album which definitely sounds dated both in its approach and the sounds being utilised, but as many progheads will tell you, in this genre it is normally seen as a positive and that is definitely the case here. Given the breadth of his career to date, and the way he has his feet in multiple musical camps, I am not sure if Miguel will look to follow this experiment with another, but I for one certainly hope he does as this is a very interesting album indeed which fans of Wakeman in particular will do well to seek out. 

Kev Rowland, January 2026

Links:
https://miguelkertsman.com/