Reviews of Prog Rock, Classical Music, Art Rock and Jazz
Peter Hammill performing Refugees by Van der Graaf Generator at the Prog Rock Prom in July 2026. Image © Andy Paradise/BBC The English prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator have very rarely troubled the UK charts. So, based on chart positions, all the recordings released by the band and the solo albums released by …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 18 – Refugees by Van der Graaf Generator"
The Cover of pH7 (1979) by Peter Hammill With typical sarcastic humour, Peter Hammill named his eighth solo album pH7, when it would have been more logical to name it PH (Peter Hammill) 8. He wrote, As a measure of acidity/alkalinity pH7 signifies perfect neutral balance; but these recordings are neither neutral nor balanced. The …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 16 – Mr X (Gets Tense)/Faculty X from pH7 by Peter Hammill"
The Cover of Spellbound by Shez Raja British-Asian bass player Shez Raja has been voted one of the ‘Hottest Bass Players in the World’ by readers of Bass Player magazine. His mother is Asian, and his father is English. He began playing the violin at nine years old, then replaced that instrument with the bass …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 15: Spellbound by Shez Raja – Album Review"
2024 was a stunning year for Prog Rock new and old The Cover of Living & Alive by Beatrix Players The Return of Beatrix Players Beatrix Players, led by Ms Amy Birks, made a welcome return to the progressive rock scene in late 2023 with the release of their album Living and Alive. In 2024, …
The cover of The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974) from which 'A Louse is not a Home' is taken "They don't make 'em like this any more. Actually, they didn't at the time. Then, you were a serious concrete artist, or a sensitive singer-songwriter, or an all-out rocker, or a Progmeister, or whatever. …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 14: A Louse is not a Home by Peter Hammill"
The Deluxe Edition of In Absentia (Image from Burning Shed) What happens when the music and lyrics to a song give out conflicting messages? The singer songwriter Marjana Semkina told Jeremy Allen in the July 2024 issue of Prog magazine that she likes writing songs, such as 'The Storm' from her new album Sirin, which …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track # 13: Drown With Me by Porcupine Tree"
Going through my late mother-in-law's personal effects recently, we found a pile of old 78s that belonged to her husband, who died many years ago. We decided to buy a turntable to play them, and the decades rolled back. Steven Wilson found a similar collection in his parents' loft and used them to create Ghosts …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track #12: Ghosts on Magnetic Tape by Bass Communion"
From the album Paths of Exile by Kantos Chamber Choir, conducted by Ellie Slorach An Exile in 9th Century England. The Wanderer is an anonymous Old English poem, written in Anglo Saxon, which is preserved in The Exeter Book, a collection of manuscripts which probably dates back to the late tenth century, along with other poems including The Seafarer. …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track #11: The Wanderer by Tim Benjamin"
From the album Paths of Exile by Kantos Chamber Choir, conducted by Ellie Slorach The cover of Paths of Exile The Seafarer is an Old English poem, written in Anglo Saxon, which is preserved in The Exeter Book, a collection of manuscripts which probably dates back to the late tenth century. The Exeter Book was …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten Track #10: The Seafarer by Tim Benjamin"
'Inclination', the first track on Steven Wilson's seventh solo album, The Harmony Codex was released in a limited edition 12 inch single, remixed by Ewan Pearson, on 19 January 2024. Pearson describes himself on his website as a 'Producer, Mixer and Remixer.' Pearson previously remixed Wilson's upbeat pop song 'Permanating' (from 2017's To the Bone) in …
Continue reading "Off the Beaten track #9 – Inclination by Steven Wilson (Ewan Pearson Remix)"