Category: Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets

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Review of the Year – 2024 – Prog Rock

2024 was a stunning year for Prog Rock new and old

The Cover of Living and Alive by Beatrix Players
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, they brought the complete album to Manchester’s Band on the Wall and then to a triumphant home gig in the village of Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent. Birks was heavily pregnant and jokingly complained of ‘baby brain’; she has since given birth to a baby daughter. In the meantime, Birks and her band were superb live. Birks was a charismatic leader, her wonderfully expressive voice ranging from a warm, low mezzo to a high soprano, sometimes urgent in her delivery and at other times quietly intimate – often in the same song. She was a powerful stage presence, drawing the audience in, as their enthusiastic response showed. 

Myrkur - image by Gobinder Jhitta
Amalie Bruun (Myrkur)

Myrkur – Danish Black Metal and Scandinavian folk music

The Danish composer, vocalist, and classically trained multi-instrumentalist Amalie Bruun released her debut album under her own name in 2006. In 2011, she formed the indie pop duo Ex Cops with Brian Harding. The band split in 2014, and she started releasing music under the name Myrkur, Icelandic for darkness. In late 2023, she released Spine, which combines many of the styles of previous albums into a sophisticated whole, graced by her remarkably versatile voice. The album was partly based on her experience of being pregnant with her son Otto, who was born in 2019.

But the song My Blood is Gold, reviewed here in the ongoing Off the Beaten Track series, is a product of another significant life event: the death of her beloved father, Michael Bruun, in 2021. This profoundly moving track perfectly describes Bruun’s despair at her father’s death and her resolve for his memory to live on through her music.

Bruun brought her music to London in April 2024, demonstrating her versatility as a singer and songwriter in an eclectic set. Over the course of four albums and various EPs and singles, she has combined black metal with Scandinavian folk music, sometimes on the same album. Her latest album, Spine, her most eclectic yet, formed the bulk of the setlist, including a run of six songs at the start of the show. Bruun was joined on stage by Swedish folk singer Jonathan Hultén, the support act, in a gorgeous version of House Carpenter, a traditional Nordic folk song, attracting the most excited applause of the evening.

The front cover of SIRIN by Marjana Semkina
Marjana Semkina on the cover of her second solo album, SIRIN

Marjana Semkina and iamthemorning – a difficult but artistically successful year

Marjana Semkina is a member of the prog rock group iamthemorning with her Russian-born compatriot, the pianist Gleb Kolyadin, both of whom are now resident in the UK. The duo have released several records, the most recent being The Bell (2019) and the EP Counting The Ghosts (2020).

Semkina has recently pursued a parallel solo career, releasing her first solo LP, Sleepwalking, in 2020 and her EP, Disillusioned, in 2021. In 2024 she sang on the Moonflower EP with Zora Cock of Blackbriar, and released SIRIN, her second solo album. Semkina created this album without the support of a record label, raising tens of thousands of pounds for the project via crowd funding. She is an exceptional talent, as a singer and a songwriter, and a passionate promoter of her poetic and profound vision of the world through her music.

Semkina had a challenging year. Her bandmate Kolyadin was arrested and imprisoned in Thailand while on tour as a session musician with the Russian dissident rock band Bi-2. He faced deportation to Russia, where the band could have been persecuted for anti-war sentiments. Semkina highlighted the story via social media and an online petition.

Kolyadin was released after a week in prison and returned to England via Israel. A few days after his release, the duo performed an emotional comeback show at Piano Smithfield in London. Later in the year, the duo were joined by a full band to perform iamthemorning songs at St. Matthias Church in Stoke Newington, London. Semkina began with an evocative selection of her solo material, and Kolyadin demonstrated his supreme skill as an improviser in a solo piano set before the iamthemorning band played a superb band set.

The Cover of Harmonic Divergence by Steven Wilson

An Overview of Steven Wilson’s Year

While fans of Steven Wilson eagerly await his new album The Overview due in March, in 2024 he released a Record Store Day album Harmonic Divergence based on his 2023 album The Harmony Codex. Producer Ewan Pearson also remixed ‘Inclination’ from that album. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote, ‘Ewan Pearson sprinkles sunlit Balearic euphoria’, and Wilson described the remix as ‘a hypnotic cosmic disco odyssey.’

The year also saw the re-release of Storm Corrosion, the collaboration between Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt of Swedish progressive metal band Opeth, in a new Dolby Atmos remix. Wilson has been making surround mixes of his own and other bands’ albums for so long now that he has been asked to do a surround sound mix of King Crimson’s Red for the second time after he did his first surround mix of the album in 2009. He decided to teach himself the art of surround sound mixing after Elliot Scheiner created 5.1 mixes of the Porcupine Tree albums In Absentia and Deadwing.

As Mikael Åkerfeldt admitted, Storm Corrosion isn’t an easy listen. However, it is certainly not as challenging to listen to as the albums Wilson has produced for his Bass Communion project, such as Ghosts on Magnetic Tape. Both albums take a while to give up their secrets and bring joy to the listener. In the Dolby Atmos mix of Storm Corrosion, the opening track makes the most startling use of the new technology. On other tracks, the effect is more muted, but when surround sound is used, it’s more effective as it is used sparingly.

Finally, in 2024, Wilson brought festive greetings to his fans with a physical release of his 2023 Christmas song, December Skies, complete with two Wilson-themed Christmas cards. The year also marked the fifth anniversary of the release of love you to bits, Wilson’s album with his no-man bandmate Tim Bowness, a melancholy disco masterpiece.                                        

Cover of Perpetual Motions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard
Perpetual Motions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard

Perpetual Change with Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard

Gavin Harrison, the drummer in Steven Wilson’s band Porcupine Tree, released Perpetual Motions, his second album with bass player Antoine Fafard, a collection of inventive musical explorations and collaborations from the virtuosic duo and several friends. The album’s title describes the perpetual change of musical arrangement from one of Fafard’s compositions to the next, the only constant being the playing of Fafard and Harrison on every piece. Remarkably, Fafard presented Harrison with complete recordings to add drums and percussion later; Harrison’s playing perfectly matches the pieces so it’s impossible to tell that his recordings were done separately. 

Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland
Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland of Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate

Malcolm Galloway had a more than Adequate Year

Malcolm Galloway of Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate provided deep insights into his health condition and his writing process in a fascinating two-part interview: Part One and Part Two are here. Galloway and his bandmate Mark Gatland have a new album out in March, The Uncertainty Principle. In the meantime, One Word That Means The World (Arkhipov), one of the singles from the album, was released in 2024. It’s a compelling snapshot of a moral dilemma in which one man’s brave decision probably averted World War III. Hats Off shared the bill in Camden, London with a new discovery for me, the band EBB, who have a wonderful stage presence.

Prog the Forest at the Fiddler’s Elbow

Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland, with the promoter London Prog Gigs, hosted a charity prog festival, Prog the Forest, at the Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden. All performers gave their services for free to support the rainforest and wildlife conservation charity, World Land Trust, which ‘protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats.’ This was the sixth year of Prog the Forest and the most successful to date, raising £2750 to protect nearly 26 acres of rainforest and other threatened habitats.

The eclectic line-up was made up of: Spriggan Mist, a ‘pagan progressive rock band’; singer-songwriter Leoni Jane Kennedy, who was hand-picked by members of Queen for the Freddie Mercury Scholarship and plays acoustic Rush covers as well as her own songs; The Mighty Handful who include a ‘former music director of Strictly; Mountainscape who play instrumental post-metal; Theo Travis of Soft Machine, who has played saxophone and flute with numerous jazz and prog bands; Tim Bowness and Butterfly Mind; and Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate.

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Manchester Apollo
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets

Prog History Brought to Life

The late 1960s to the mid-1970s were arguably the golden era of Prog Rock, particularly in the UK, but as can be seen from the reviews above, the genre continues to thrive, with superb new music being produced both on record and live.

New life has also been breathed into prog rock classics, with the return of Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets with live interpretations of early Pink Floyd songs. Robin A Smith continued to tour Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells – the 50th anniversary, with a stunning new arrangement of the classic album; 2024 was also the 50th anniversary of the release of Peter Hammill’s solo album The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage, from which the epic track ‘A Louse is not a Home‘ is taken.

Special Thanks

With thanks to Jerry Ewing and Prog magazine for keeping the prog flag flying, and to Chris Parkins of London Prog Gigs for his tireless contribution to the live scene in London.

For an overview of the year in classical music in 2024, click here.

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Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets – Live Review

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Manchester Apollo

Wednesday 19 June 2024

O2 Apollo Manchester

****

Early Pink Floyd imaginatively reinvented

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Manchester Apollo

Last Wednesday morning, the first tickets went on sale for performances in Manchester by a music legend/national treasure now in his eighties, Sir Paul McCartney. That evening, another musical institution – also in his eighties – Nick Mason, was in town with his band A Saucerful of Secrets. Mason said the first time they played in Manchester, Pink Floyd were on the bill with another music legend, Jimi Hendrix. That was in 1967, and Mason quipped that only three people in Wednesday night’s audience would remember that.

It would have been easy for Mason to have retired from performing years ago, and spend his time driving his collection of vintage cars. There are plenty of Pink Floyd tribute acts on the touring circuit, not least The Australian Pink Floyd who bring stunning musicianship and antipodean artwork to Manchester Apollo every year on their annual tour.

Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd Poster for their Performance in Manchester in November 1967
Poster for the Jimi Hendrix/Pink Floyd tour in 1967 from JHE 2nd UK Tour Blog

When Mason was curating the Pink Floyd exhibition Their Mortal Remains, which opened at the V&A in London in May 2017 and then toured Europe and North America, he began to worry that he could spend the rest of his life cataloguing his past rather than playing music. At the same time, guitarist Lee Harris (The Blockheads) had approached Guy Pratt who had played bass on several Pink Floyd tours after Roger Waters left. The result was a new band, called Saucerful of Secrets after The Floyd’s second album from 1968. Mason’s band started touring in 2018 and last came to Manchester in May 2022. Mason avoided comparisons with other Pink Floyd tribute acts by only playing less familiar music from the pre-Dark Side of the Moon era, sometimes playing songs that Pink Floyd rarely if ever played live. He also asked his band to improvise during live performances, rather than re-creating the original songs note-for-note. So the show was a mixture of improvisation and nostalgia.

The evening began unfashionably early at precisely 19.30, following a countdown of the kind used to launch a rocket (‘T minus 3 minutes and 3 seconds’… etc.) that introduced the band to the stage. The opening version of Astronomy Domine demonstrated the band’s intent not to replicate the original, with loose-limbed drumming, improvised guitar chords and an additional guitar solo. Pink Floyd’s second single See Emily Play included a new keyboard solo and an instrumental jam. A fascinating early highlight of the show was Remember Me, a demo which Pink Floyd performed at the Melody Maker National Beat Contest in 1965 (an early form of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ for those who don’t remember it, but without the dancing dogs).

News of the Melody Maker National Beat Contest from August 1967
A clip from Melody Maker provided by Brian Long to the Radio London website

The band, still called The Pink Floyd, failed to reach the semi-final, losing out to The St Louis Union, Phil Hunter and the Jaguars, the Ravens and the Poachers. Mason quipped that this spectacular failure set back the band’s career by five years, although in reality by late 1970 they had their first UK number one with Atom Heart Mother.

Poignantly, Syd Barrett’s vocals original vocals were used, while the band added instrumental parts and backing vocals. Barrett’s family provided some lovely images of the tragic hero, whose story was told recently in the moving documentary Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd.

Another highlight of the first half also seemed to reference Barrett, the song If which included the line, ‘If I go insane, please don’t put your wires in my brain’. Guitarist and vocalist Gary Kemp (introduced by Mason as ‘New Romantic turned Kray brother turned Prog Rock God’) provided a gorgeous acoustic guitar solo while Guy Pratt added a melodic bass line and Beken brought a warm keyboard wash. Fierce drumming from Mason led to the Atom Heart Mother suite, starting with evocative slide guitar from Lee Harris, who also provided a thunderous solo in the funky section later in the piece. A brief reprise of If ended the song.

There was humour when Mason who took a spoof phone call from Roger Waters who used to play the gong in the live version of Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. Mason told ‘Roger’ that he was just watching Coronation Street with some friends and had no idea where Roger’s gong was. The band played a magnificent version of the song; there was a new keyboard improvisation above the opening guitar riff, and the track was played at a slower speed – anthemic but still psychedelic. A new, almost middle eastern-sounding guitar solo was added then another extended jam. Pratt added a gong part before the song unwound itself with sound effects and waves of electronics from Kemp on guitar. A section that was almost musique concrète faded into silence before the opening theme returned. As the track ended, an audience member shouted a satisfied, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Well, exactly!

  • Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Manchester Apollo

The second half, like the first, was introduced by ambient music and speech. We heard the infamous quote from a BBC TV interview in 1967 when Hans Keller asked Roger Waters, ‘Why has it all got to be so terribly loud?’ The opening song, which wasn’t so terribly loud, was The Scarecrow from Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, played for the first time by Mason’s band on this tour, with its whimsical vocal line reminding us how strange some of Barrett’s melodies were, in songs that appeared simple on the surface. Fearless, from Meddle was introduced in a much jazzier version, with a languorous keyboard solo from Dom Beken. Childhood’s End from Obscured by Clouds featured a lovely, heavy blues guitar solo from Lee Harris. In Lucifer Sam, also from The Piper, Pratt and Gary Kemp almost locked horns as they faced each other in a heavy rock’n’roll version, whilst Beken added a bluesy Hammond solo.

But the highlight of the second half was the final song, Echoes (Meddle), first introduced to the band’s set on the previous tour. The distinctive piano note at the very start raised an immediate cheer; this was a majestic but vital version of a song that showed Pink Floyd beginning to move towards the rich style of The Dark Side of the Moon, while still embracing some of their early psychedelia. There was a stunning funky section where Beken on Hammond organ again and Kemp on delicate lead guitar Kemp duetted above superbly syncopated drumming from Mason. The song attracted a well-deserved standing ovation at the end.

The encore featured two songs. First, familiar swirling winds introduced a blistering version of the instrumental One of These Days (Meddle) in which Pratt’s bass descended into the stygian depths, and Mason’s stentorian drums seemed to be knocking on the gates of Hell. The concert ended with an enthralling version of A Saucerful of Secrets, moving from an avant -garde, almost King Crimson-like anxiety with skittering guitars and spidery keyboard lines – accompanied by Mason’s military drumming – to a calm, anthemic section, a secular wordless hymn, with a melodic bass solo from Pratt and a timeless guitar solo from Kemp. A stunning ending to an excellent evening.

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Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets – Live Review

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Manchester Apollo

Friday 6 May 2022

O₂ Apollo Manchester

Nick Mason’s band are more than just an echo of the past

*****

Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason announced that the band shared a stage in Manchester with Jimi Hendrix 55 years ago in 1967. It seems unlikely that the original band will ever tour again, not least because the band would no longer be complete – keyboard player Rick Wright went to the great gig in the sky in 2008. After curating the exhibition Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains at the V&A in 2017, Mason was worried that he would spend the rest of life as a branch of English Heritage, lovingly tending to a past that had happened decades before. Instead, he started a new band, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, to play some of Pink Floyd’s music. He deliberately avoided playing any music from the band’s classic run of albums that began with Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. Instead, he decided only to play songs from the early Syd Barrett era, and some material from the later albums after David Gilmour joined the band. The most recent album the band now perform is Meddle from 1971, including for the first time on this tour the epic 20-minute track Echoes which provides the title of the tour.

Mason is the only member of Pink Floyd to play in his Saucerful of Secrets band, although bass player Guy Pratt did play with the band in the 1990s after original bass player Roger Waters left. Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet sings and plays guitar – at one point Mason joked that Kemp had expected to play with Roger Waters and that Mason himself had expected to play with Tony Hadley. Lee Harris, previously of Ian Dury’s band The Blockheads plays guitar and composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Dom Beken is on keyboards.

It would have been tempting for the band to be a high quality tribute band, like The Australian Pink Floyd who last played at the Apollo in November 2021. They give audiences the chance to hear classic Pink Floyd songs live, played to a very high standard. But Mason’s band offer something different and fresh, bringing new life to music that is over 50 years old. The songs are delivered with propulsive enthusiasm, sometimes approaching joy. None of the band members attempt to recreate the exact sound of the original band – except Mason himself who is playing his own parts. Whilst they are respectful to the original songs, the other band members add their own touches, often subtle but always inspiring. Guy Pratt provides lovely, melodic basslines and can also drive the band to be deliciously funky at times. He also provides heartfelt vocals. Gary Kemp brings his acting skills to his vocals, colouring the sound to match each song. He’s also a fine guitarist. Lee Harris on guitar is a superb player, bringing his own style rather than merely copying David Gilmour’s soulful string-bending or Syd Barrett’s eccentric playing. Dom Beken contributes excellent keyboard solos that are more blues-tinged than the jazz stylings of Rick Wright.

The highlight of the first set was a tightly-constructed series extracts from the Atom Heart Mother suite from the 1970 album of the same name. It was bookended by If from the same album, a beautifully delicate ballad on which Kemp and Pratt shared vocals, which includes the incredibly moving line ‘If I go insane, please don’t put your wires in my brain.’ The highlight of the second set was Echoes, which forms side two of Meddle. This is a fascinating track in the original Pink Floyd catalogue, the first time they had successfully created a long-form prog track after the departure of Syd Barrett, pointing forward to the new style that would mature of the next album Dark Side of the Moon. Nick Mason’s band at times turned it into a psychedelic track so that fitted perfectly with the other songs in the gig. There was a wonderfully funky swagger to the passage around six minutes in, and near the end a lovely, spacious guitar jam. Another second-set highlight was the instrumental Interstellar Overdrive, which the original band played in Manchester in 1969. Guy Pratt said Manchester is his favourite city – his son is at university here – and for a brief moment he and Lee Harris improvised around another song associated with Manchester, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

The Encore began with a lively version of See Emily Play, and a melodic Saucerful of Secrets. The final track was Bike which ends with the words,

I know a room of musical tunes…

Let’s go into the other room and make them work

Rather than sitting at home curating his past, Nick Mason has decided to go into the other room, and make early Pink Floyd songs work again.