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Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album Review Part Two: ‘Objects Outlive us’

The Cover of The Overview by Steven Wilson, designed by Hajo Müller

This is an analysis of the first half of Steven Wilson’s eighth solo album, The Overview. For an introduction to the album, click here. Analysis of the second half of the album to follow.

OBJECTS OUTLIVE US  

No Monkey’s Paw  

The opening describes an eerie meeting on a misty moor. Wilson refers to two ghost stories that may have occurred on the moor (recalling the ghost stories on which his 2013 album The Raven that Refused to Sing is based) but says that neither happened here.   

First, there is ‘no ghost on the moor’/no open window’. This appears to reference Kate Bush’s 1978 song Wuthering Heights, set ‘Out on the wily, windy moors’, when the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw haunts Heathcliff at his window. Bush, of whose music Wilson is a huge fan, memorably sings,  

‘Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy 
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in your window.’  

Second, there is ‘no monkey’s paw’. The Monkey’s Paw is a ghost story by the English author W.W. Jacobs, first published in 1902. It describes a magical monkey’s paw, which provides three wishes that lead to unforeseen and terrible consequences. According to the story, the holy man who put the spell on the paw, ‘wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.’  

The Alien on the Moor. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight

Instead, Wilson’s protagonist looks beyond Earthbound ghost stories and into space, encountering an alien on the moor. The alien pointedly says, ‘Did you forget I exist?’ The protagonist blames the alien for playing ‘too hard to get.’ In the BFI roundtable discussion to launch the album, Wilson said the reference to the alien is ‘a bit tongue in cheek’, but that there was a ‘serious point’, which is that we spend too much time looking down at our digital devices, and not enough time looking up ‘with a sense of awe’ at the sky and the stars, as he did when he was a child. We have lost our sense of curiosity and wonder and are obsessed with chasing likes and followers on social media, a central theme of Wilson’s 2020 album The Future Bites. The theme that technology has changed the course of human evolution, and not necessarily for the better, goes back to Fear of a Blank Planet, the 2007 album Wilson wrote for Porcupine Tree.  

The track opens with Wilson singing in a gorgeous falsetto, showing how strong his upper register has become since he started developing this part of his vocal range on The Future Bites. His voice is bathed in echo, evoking the ethereal rather than the Earthbound. His voice is gentle and intimate, beautifully contemplative, enriched by the sound design and spacey effects created by Randy McStine, who also plays guitar and sings backing vocals on the album. Wilson plays the soft-edged bass line on an acoustic bass. The alien’s voice is Wilson’s own, transposed to a lower register using the same effect as on ‘King Ghost’ from The Future Bites. 

The Buddha Of The Modern Age 

The Buddha of the title refers to Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist teaching, the Buddha will be succeeded by Maitreya, sometimes referred to as ‘The Buddha of the modern age.’ Wilson’s lyrics refer to a contemporary Buddha, who is ‘barely paid minimum wage’ for doling out ‘truth and healthy karma.’ Wilson says his teaching is ignored. In a poetic line, he refers to humanity ignoring the truths revealed by the wise men of the past, who are now mere shadows to us, ‘the blurred photos of the ghosts of men’.  

The lyrics in this section are the most personal on the album. Wilson’s lyrics about his views are rarely so open and direct. He told Anil Prasad of Innerviews, ‘I’ve always been slightly wary of being too preachy or holier than thou,’ but he feels so strongly about the effect of meat eating not just on animals but on the planet that he’s ‘becoming a little more forthright about my veganism.’ Here’s an example of the anger he feels,  

‘Slaughter our sacred cow
To stuff our stupid mouths 
Already fit to burst  
Still the insatiable thirst 
To kill over and over’  

Wilson is highly critical of what he sees as the failure of our stewardship of the planet, which we regard as ours to treat however we want. The phrase ‘insatiable thirst’ refers to our appetite for food, our obsessive consumerism, and our destruction of the planet, ‘We interlopers, the inferior species/Wallow in our own faeces.’  

The Destruction of our Planet. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight

The track begins with a resolute piano motif which matches the stridency of Wilson’s opinions, soon joined by drummer Russell Holzman on icy cymbals – the first time we hear him on the album. Randy McStine and Willow Beggs soon join him on rich, layered backing vocals. Willow is a singer-songwriter and the daughter of bass player Nick Beggs. The backing vocals are reminiscent of those on Porcupine Tree songs like ‘Heartattack in a Layby’ from In Absentia (2002), which ends with 38 tracks of multi-tracked voices. The song builds to a climax, with thundering drums, then drops away on the word ‘try’, creating a moment of compassion for humanity as a gentler piano melody ends the track. 

Objects: Meanwhile

The lyrics for this section were written by Andy Partridge of the English rock band XTC, who also wrote the lyrics for the title track of Wilson’s 2017 album To The Bone (2017) and for his 2018 single How Big the Space. Wilson’s admiration for Partridge dates back to XTC’s formation of the fictitious band The Dukes of Stratosphear, which inspired Wilson to form his own fictional band, Porcupine Tree, which eventually became a real band.   

Wilson has said that Partridge and Ray Davies of the Kinks are the best at describing everyday lives in their lyrics. While writing The Overview, he was remixing XTC’s 1984 album The Big Express in surround sound. The Big Express is a concept album about life in Swindon, a town in Wiltshire in the southwest of England. The song that interested Wilson particularly was ‘The Everyday Story of Smalltown’. Partridge told Todd Bernhardt of XTC’s Blogs that ‘there’s a little vein of [Welsh poet] Dylan Thomas in there.’ Wilson told Stephen Humphries of Under the Radar that the song has ‘some of the most divine Little England observational lyric writing.’

He told Dave Everley of Prog that he rang Partridge with a challenge, ‘I want smalltown soap operas juxtaposed with cosmic phenomena.’ He wanted to put our ordinary lives in perspective – a central theme of the album – by providing links or contrasts with what was happening ‘meanwhile, on the other side of the universe.’ The two men entered a productive dialogue. Wilson was fascinated by Partridge’s comment that the lyrics make a significant difference in how you produce a track, particularly the vocals.   

A Teenager with his First Telescope. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight

Partridge fulfilled the brief perfectly. Events on Earth are sometimes linked with cosmic events,

‘As you queue at the bank for an hour
’Cause a solar flare blew out the power.’

Sometimes people on Earth are oblivious to the effect of cosmic events,

‘The driver in tears ‘bout his payment arrears 
Still nobody hears when a sun disappears
In a galaxy afar.’  

Sometimes the link is metaphorical, 

‘Her shopping bag broke, sending eggs and flour crashing
Down to the ground like star clusters smashing.’  

One of the verses refers to a ‘teenager with his first telescope’, which reflects Wilson’s nostalgia for his own teenage years, looking up at the sky, fascinated with space, before smartphones were invented. Robert Smith of The Cure shares that nostalgia. The track ‘Endsong’ from Songs of a Lost World (2024) was inspired by his memories of looking up at the sky with his father around the time of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969. In another verse, a young man cleaning cars wonders, ‘Is there life on Mars?’, the title of David Bowie’s 1973 single.  

Some of the politics from To the Bone creeps in. That album addressed what some have described as a ‘post-truth’ world. Patridge’s lyric describes humans bickering about ‘fences’ – petty disputes between neighbours, and about ‘borders’ – between countries, often leading to war. The lyric wryly states that it’s best not to think about those disputes, an understandable reaction to the conflicts that have blighted the early years of the 2020s. There is deep sarcasm in the line, ‘It’s better to live without facts.’   

The track begins with a clear statement of an important musical theme. It’s a 19-note piano motif that restlessly snakes back on itself, returning every three beats to the same note (F#). It sounds straightforward when broken down into three-note segments, but the complete theme helps restore Wilson’s prog credentials due its length. Wilson told Prasad that the basic melody is like a Shepard Tone, ‘in that it constantly ascends in whole tones.’ A Shepard Tone is an auditory illusion in which a repeated musical pattern appears to be constantly rising even though it remains in the same octave. Examples of its use are at the end of Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ from Meddle (1971) and Hans Zimmer’s score for Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk.  

‘A bit of a masterpiece.’ Variations by Andrew LLoyd Webber

Wilson said the 19-note motif returns in different musical forms throughout Objects Outlive Us, like the use of the leitmotif (leading motif) in Richard Wagner’s operas or the musical formula in the works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, such as his massive opera cycle Licht (Light) (1977 – 2003). Wilson also referred to repeated themes in Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (1973) and Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’. He told Humphries that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1978 album Variations, which repeatedly used a theme by the composer Niccolò Paganini, was ‘overlooked… [but] I think it’s a bit of a masterpiece, actually.’ The second track on the album was used as the theme tune for the television arts series The South Bank Show, which ran on ITV from 1978 to 2010, before moving to Sky Arts. 

After three statements of the 19-note theme, the central song of Objects Outlive Us begins, with an earworm of a melody. It’s decorated with Floydian sliding guitars and a plucked string theme played by Wilson. McStine provides gorgeous backing vocals that evoke the sound of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). 

At around 3:30, there’s a blistering bass solo in the unusual time signature of 12/8. Each beat in the bar is divided into three semi-quaver (sixteenth note) triplets instead of the more usual two quavers (eighth notes). Perhaps surprisingly, Wilson plays it on an acoustic bass guitar. It’s heavily distorted and put through an amp with lots of overdrive. As Wilson repeats the bass riff, the track takes flight in the proggiest section of the album so far, as McStine adds an extra guitar line above the bass in the style of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) bands of the late 70s and early 80s, such as Iron Maiden and Saxon. At around 4:45, the track stalls as a metaphorical handbrake is applied, then the track rouses itself with a drum flourish into a spacey instrumental before the vocals return. At 6:00, the 19-note theme returns, now in a driving, much heavier version for full band, followed by a gentle piano version that takes us back to the beginning of this section.  

In the sleeve notes, Wilson describes Theo Travis’ saxophones in the track as ‘Jaxonsaxes’, named after David Jackson, who played saxophone with Van der Graaf Generator, often playing two at once. His nickname is ‘Jaxon’. He worked on many of their albums, including a long run of classic albums in the 1970s.  

The Cicerones/Ark

The archaic word ‘cicerones’ is from the word ‘cicerone’, meaning a tour guide, derived from the name of the great Roman orator, Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC). The track’s title comes from a short story, The Cicerones, by the English writer Robert Aickman (1914 – 1981). The protagonist, John Trant, visits the Cathedral of Saint Bavon (presumably Saint Bavo) in Belgium. He begins a self-guided tour using a guidebook but soon meets various strange figures who act as his guides to the increasingly macabre sights of the cathedral. There’s a creeping sense of unease and the surreal. The atmosphere builds in the same way as in Thomas M. Disch’s short story Descending, which inspired Wilson’s previous album and short story The Harmony Codex. The Cicerones was filmed for Film Four in 2002, in a short starring Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock, Bookish). In the context of the track, the title refers to the guides who lead the remnants of humanity into space, following the planet’s destruction so graphically described earlier in ‘The Buddha Of The Modern Age.’ 

Leaving the Planet. Image courtesy of Miles Skarin/Crystal Spotlight

The Ark represents a new start, like Noah’s escape from the Flood in his ark with two of each animal. Compared with the relaxed rhyming couplets of Partridge’s lyrics in the previous section, the lyrics of this section are breathless, broken up into short sections. It’s a technique that goes back to ‘Open Car’ from Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing (2005). After the withering invective of ‘The Buddha Of The Modern Age’, only a few who warned about Earth’s destruction survived. It’s easy to miss the story – and the message – here amongst the turbulence of the lyrics. Humanity is leaving the Earth, which is now destroyed and reduced to dust. Ironically, when Prasad asked Wilson if he would rather live on Mars, he replied, ‘Mars is a planet of red dust. Earth is incredibly diverse, geographically, ecologically, and climate-wise.’

Wilson plays all the guitar parts at the beginning of this section. It starts with a gently contemplative acoustic guitar part, gorgeously recorded, that wouldn’t have been out of place on one of his early solo albums. After a rich keyboard wash, at about a minute in, the 19-note theme returns in a version for band and piano, and the section builds to a climax with repeated melody, with a similar feel to ‘Eclipse’, the epic finale to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). It’s also the emotional climax of the album’s first half, sung with gathering, hymn-like intensity, marking the historic significance of our decision to leave Earth after destroying it. The epic guitar solo marks the beginning of our journey to the stars, to begin a new life on the other side of the universe. 

Cosmic Sons of Toil  

The title of this instrumental section is intriguing. Wilson told Stéphane Rousselot of Amarok Magazine that it’s just a play on words. Perhaps he was thinking of the phrase ‘Horny-handed sons of toil.’ That phrase was first used by Lord Salisbury, three times British Prime Minister in the nineteenth century. The manual labourers described by Salisbury, with their horny (calloused) hands, have now been replaced by cosmic labourers. Perhaps that interpretation is incorrect, but as Wilson told Rousselot, ‘That’s the fun of analysis.’ 

This section is more up-tempo after the stately, anthemic pace of previous sections. The spacey electronic noises, sounding like a cosmic ray gun, are provided by the ARP 2600 analogue synthesiser. In a YouTube Reel, Wilson described it as ‘perfect for a space-themed album… It sounds like Hawkwind in 1973.’ The track begins with a tumbling, repeated piano theme, soon joined by jerky, melodic bass and frenetic guitar. The guitar solo at around 0:45 is the first of two on the album by Randy McStine. The solo is agitated and fragmented and unusual. McStine also plays guitar on the rest of the track. At around 2:00, there’s a funky, jerky, distorted guitar riff, a variation on the fuzzy bass theme we heard earlier, with agitated drumming from Russell Holzman. At around 2:45, the track becomes so frenzied that it falls over itself. The whole section describes an out-of-control spacecraft hurtling through space. It’s reminiscent of the scenes in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film Interstellar when the spaceship flies with difficulty as it creaks, groans and shudders, reminding us that interstellar travel is difficult.

No Ghost on the Moor/Heat Death of the Universe 

The first part of this section, ‘No Ghost On The Moor’, is a reprise of the opening section, with the same lyrics and melody. The difference is that we are now on the other side of the universe. The alien has taken us as far away from Earth as possible, and in this new context, Wilson is joined by a conventional rock band. The lyrics take on a new meaning, becoming achingly tender and emotional. Wilson’s recurring nostalgia for childhood has been replaced by an existential nostalgia for the Earth we have left far behind. His previous anger about the reckless destruction of the Earth has been replaced by deep empathy for the human condition and the fragility of life

The Heat Death of the Universe. Image created by AI.

The second part of this section is an instrumental, The ‘Heat Death of the Universe’ – also known more prosaically as the Big Chill or the Big Freeze – refers to the scientific hypothesis about the ultimate slow demise of the universe. Eric Betz of Astronomy.com described it as a,   

‘Long and frigid affair… the day when all heat and energy is evenly spread over incomprehensibly vast distances. At this point, the universe’s final temperature will hover just above absolute zero…  the existence of our entire species registers as but a brief ray of sunlight before an infinite winter of darkness.’

The guitar solo at around 2:00 is McStine’s second on the album. Wilson told McStine that he didn’t want a classic rock solo of the kind played by David Gilmour on ‘Comfortably Numb’ from Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall. This is no reflection on the quality of Gilmour’s playing – he told Roie Avin and Geoff Bailie of The Prog Report that the ‘Comfortably Numb’ solo is the ‘greatest guitar solo of all time.’ McStine’s solo sounds like a synthesiser rather than a blues guitar, and the tone breaks up intermittently rather than constantly as it would with conventional distortion. Russell Holzman’s languid drumming creates a feeling of gravitas beneath.  

A Scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Touring Club Italiano

At around 2:45, there’s a lovely harmonic turn and some filigree decoration reminiscent of the great Guthrie Govan. As the guitar solo fades to nothing, the track descends into noise. Wilson told Rousselot this was a nod to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the use of ‘very atonal music’ to describe both ‘wonder’ and the feeling that the universe is ‘terrifying… an immense void of death and nothingness.’ He told John Robb at the launch of the album in Manchester that there was a ‘nod to Ligeti’. Wilson is referring to the orchestral piece Atmosphères (1961) by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, used by Kubrick in the film. The piece uses the technique he called micropolyphony, with large numbers of tiny musical themes woven together to create a constantly shifting composition with no discernible rhythm or melody. This music reminds us of, in Wilson’s words to Humphries, ‘the blackness and death of space… So you get an orchestra.’ The track ends with a wall of noise, a technique he uses compellingly on his first solo album, Insurgentes (2008), when noise rock brutally obliterates the end of various tracks. The track ‘Get All You Deserve ends with Ligeti-like noises. Wilson told Prasad that sounds from the most recent record by Bass Communion (his ‘ambient/noise /experimental project’), The Itself of Itself (2024), fed into this section of the track. 

Links

Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album Review – Part One – Introduction
Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album Review Part Two: ‘Objects Outlive us’
Steven Wilson’s Space Songs Part I: The Porcupine Tree Years
Steven Wilson’s Space Songs Part II: The Solo Years
Steven Wilson – The Overview Tour – Live Review
Interview – Miles Skarin: Creating ‘The Overview’ film with Steven Wilson (revised post)
Steven Wilson – The Overview – Album and Film Launch with Q & A Session – Review

Sources

Images from The Overview film by Miles Skarin of Crystal Spotlight
Prasad, Anil, Steven Wilson Cosmic Perspectives (Innerviews, 25/02/25) 
Bernhardt, Todd, Andy discusses ‘The Everyday Story of Smalltown’ (XTC’s Blog, 17 February 2008) 
Everley, Dave, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Prog, April 2025) 
Rousselot, Stéphane, Interview – Steven Wilson (Amarok Magazine, 4/3/2025)
Betz, Eric The Big Freeze: How the universe will die (Astronomy.com)  
Avin, Roie and Bailie, Geoff Steven Wilson on The Overview, the upcoming tour, the future of AI, and more. (Interview) (The Prog Report Podcast, 7/3/2025) 
Robb, John, Steven Wilson: ‘The Overview’ Audio-Visual Experience + Q&A (Cultplex Manchester, 26/02/25) 

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Manchester Collective – Shaker Loops – Live Review

Manchester Collective

Sunday 5 October 2025

RNCM, Manchester

****

A tribute to the variety of sounds that strings make, and the human connections that music brings

Manchester Collective
Manchester Collective

Some concerts are about the music only, the sheer joy of music-making. Others have an external framework, which may be emotional, intellectual, musicolgical, or even spiritual; or a mixture of all of these. Sunday afternoon’s excellent concert by Manchester Collective at the RNCM in Manchester combined all these elements.

Linda Begbie, the Collective’s new Chief Executive, introduced the concert. Last week, she had been auditioning young students for the new Manchester Collective studio at the RNCM. They expressed their fears about a world that was ‘very dark and dangerous, a very scary place.’ With evident emotion in her voice, she said that music is all about connection, ‘if we move away from this, that’s where things go wrong. ‘The Collective’s ethos, she said, was about bringing full humanity to their performances so audiences could meet them there. The concert would address life, death, and divine ecstasy.

Rakhi Singh, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Collective, and lead violinist and conductor for this concert, took up the theme, describing her arrangement of the ninth-century Christian hymn Veni Creator Spiritus as an invocation of the Holy Spirit. She said that the Collective tries to evoke its spirit in the rehearsal room, but it usually only appears in front of an audience. She echoed the feelings of Begbie’s students, that the world seems to be falling apart; we need to find our kindness and courage, and use our despair and outrage to take positive action.

I would try to imagine what a Shaker ceremony must have felt like – those normally stern souls suddenly sprung loose in a rapture of religious ecstasy as they shook in sympathetic vibration with their creator

John Adams on ‘Shaker Loops’

The John Adams piece, Shaker Loops, also has a spiritual aspect. Adams was inspired by the minimalism of pieces for tape loops, repeated looping patterns found in pieces like Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain (1965).

Adams was also inspired by the ecstatic, spiritual dancing of the Shakers religious community, which was set up in the North West of England in the eighteenth century before moving to America. Reading his works over sections of the music, Lancashire-born poet Christ Bryan celebrated the Shakers and its founder Ann Lee in the first of three poems, Genesis. He honoured Lee as ‘The Seer.. God the Mother’, who founded the Shakers as an offshoot of the Quakers, during the Industrial Revolution, when,

‘The town’s waters are no longer used for baptism
Crucified new to the crux of commerce.’

Engraving depicting a group of Shakers dancing (1840). Source: History of the Shakers

The second poem, Exodos, laments, in Bryan’s words, ‘the spiritual malaise of modernity and materialism of all forms – theological, philosophical and economical.’ It begins with evocative words describing a post-industrial landscape,

‘The provocation of concrete is now in bloom
The endless bankrupt brick blossom.’

The third and final poem, Revelation, like the other poems, takes its name from one of the books of the Bible. It’s a joyful reworking of the Shaker Hymn A Beautiful Day,

From brook and from fountain come voices of welcome
To look beyond to that region where the supernatural lay
Where beameth forever a beautiful day.’

Singh described the divine connection of music and dance in Adams’ piece; she said the Collective sought a divine connection in their playing and brought it to the audience.

The musicological aspect of Sunday’s concert was touched on by Adams in his programme note to Shaker Loops, referring to the musical meaning of to shake, ‘meaning either to make a tremolo with the bow across the string or else to trill rapidly from one note to another.’ The viola player Ruth Gibson introduced Terra Memoria for string quartet by the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho by asking players to demonstrate the varied string techniques used by the composer. This was not just a technical exercise. The piece illustrated the whole range of emotions that form part of the grieving process, from lamenting, pain, anger and resignation to moments of reconciliation and yearning, and hope.

“The title Terra Memoria refers to two words which are full of rich asso­ci­ations: to earth and memory. Here earth refers to my material, and memory to the way I’m working on it.” 

Kaija Saariaho

The concert’s opening piece, Such Different Paths by the Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova, also featured varied string techniques. The composer asks for playing at one point to sound ‘like a folk fiddle, and elsewhere asks the players to ‘think Baroque.’ The Collective, here consisting of a septet, brought out the full range of colour in this dense and complex piece.

Throughout the concert, The Collective embraced all the music’s musicological, intellectual and spiritual aspects, absorbed them, and created an emotional whole. Their playing throughout was virtuosic, passionate, precise yet emotional. They continue on their mission of communicating deeply through music.

Manchester Collective and Christ Byran
Manchester Collective and Christ Byran

Performers

Rakhi Singh Violin
Haim Choi Violin
Will Chadwick Violin
Donald Grant Violin
Rose Hinton Violin
Anna Tulchinskaya Violin
Bethan Allmand Violin
Mira Marton Violin
Eloise MacDonald Violin
Ruth Gibson Viola
Abby Bowen Viola
Gemma Dunne Viola
Ben Michaels Cello
Alex Holladay Cello
Jess Schafer Cello
Alice Durrant Double bass
Christ Bryan Live poetry

Repertoire

Dobrinka Tabakova Such Different Paths
Kaija Saariaho Terra Memoria
Hymn arr. Rakhi Singh Veni Creator Spiritus
John Adams Shaker Loops feat. Christ Bryan

Read on…

Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review
Manchester Collective, Clark and Melanie Lane – REFRACTIONS – Live Review
Manchester Collective – Sirocco – Live Review
Manchester Collective: Rothko Chapel – Live Review
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Peter Hammill – Live Review

Tuesday 1 October 2025

RNCM, Manchester

Nearly 60 years since first playing in Manchester, Hammill is still a supreme communicator and a powerful performer

****

‘The hits just keep on coming’, quipped Peter Hammill early in his set at the RNCM in Manchester this evening. In 2013, when Guy Garvey interviewed Hammill for a documentary, The Art of Sequencing, which I produced for BBC Radio 4, he asked whether he would sequence his albums by starting with the hits. ‘What hits?!’ replied Hammill. Although not known for chart success, Hammill’s music, both as a solo artist and as leader of Van der Graaf Generator, has been part of the fabric of many lives and internal imaginative landscapes over several decades. The RNCM Concert Hall was packed with appreciative fans, who listened in spellbound silence, mesmerised by the power and conviction of Hammill’s performance.

Last time Hammill was in Manchester, in February 2022, he performed with Van der Graaf Generator, but this time he took the brave but ultimately justified decision to perform completely solo, alternating between piano and guitar. His instrumental playing was compelling, as was his guitar playing on an acoustic guitar. He had to keep retuning his guitar as he hit it so hard. The RNCM’s Steinway grand piano survived his pounding, even in the early highlight, The Lie (Bernini’s Saint Theresa) from The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974), which starts with the line, ‘Genuflection, erection in church’, still startling over 50 years later. Twenty years ago, he was described as ‘the Hendrix of the voice’, and his instrument has inevitably changed as he reaches the latter half of his seventies, but it remains remarkably powerful, and his artistry and ability to communicate remain gloriously intact.

Hammill was always wise beyond his years, a deep and poetic thinker, but now some of his lyrics have gained added resonance as time passes. In Autumn from Over (1977), he wrote,

So here we are, alone –
Our children have grown up and moved away.
Living their own lives, they say…
It all seems very strange to me.

He was a young man when he wrote these prescient words, with which many in the audience would no doubt have deeply empathised. And the grim ending to Still Life from the 1976 Van der Graaf album of the same name, when Hammill embraces death, perhaps means more to Hammill and his fans now. Despite these sentiments, this was a life-affirming experience. Hammill seemed genuinely surprised to reflect that he played his encore, Afterwards, from Van der Graaf’s debut album The Aerosol Grey Machine in Manchester 57 years ago in 1968, when the Hendrix of the voice supported the Hendrix on guitar. Two well-deserved standing ovations confirmed that the audience shared Hammill’s evident pleasure in performing for us.

More about Peter Hammill…

Off the Beaten Track # 14: A Louse is not a Home by Peter Hammill
Off the Beaten Track #4: Autumn by Peter Hammill
Van der Graaf Generator – Live Review
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – Fountain of Youth – Live Review

Saturday 20 September 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

****

A triumphant opening to the BBC Philharmonic’s new season

Violinist Augustin Hadelich with members of the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne

On Saturday evening, Manchester was plagued by heavy rain of almost biblical proportions, causing roads to flood; we saw a stranded car on the drive in. So it was a pleasure to escape the weather and take sanctuary in the Bridgewater Hall, which from the front resembles an ark. A fanfare greeted us, a prelude to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s new season. In the Gallery foyer, no fewer than nine bagpipers were assembled to perform LAD by the orchestra’s new Composer in Residence, Julia Wolfe. The last time the piece was heard in the Bridgewater Hall was when it was performed by Rakhi Singh of Manchester Collective at the Manchester Classical festival in June. The version for bagpipes began with drones, joined by wailing upwards glissandos, marked in the score as ‘slow glisses’. They called to mind the auditory illusion known as the Shepard Tone, an effect Hans Zimmer used in his Dunkirk score, where the music seems to be constantly rising when it’s actually coming back on itself. The pipers played resolutely against the backdrop of a dystopian sky visible thorugh the hall’s huge windows. There were two folky tunes, one marked ‘Slow’, which was slow, and the second marked ‘Fast’, which was fast. It was an invigorating and spectacular opening to the new season.

One of the pipers playing Julia Wolfe’s LAD. Image © Chris Payne

The main concert began with another piece by Wolfe, Fountain of Youth. Composed in 2019 for the New World Symphony youth orchestra, it was heard for the first time in the UK on Saturday. Adam Szabo, the Director of the BBC Philharmonic, announced that Wolfe is ‘our very shiny new composer in residence’, and based on her two pieces, there’s a lot to look forward to in the collaboration.

Juilia Wolfe, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence. Image © Peter Serling

Fountain of Youth began with the terrifying scraping of strings and rattling washboards, which sounded like marching soldiers or a huge robot clanking as it walked. Wolfe directed that they should be ‘played like a work ritual.’ A fractured theme rose from the chaos, and a rising string theme reached for the light. The washboards reached a frenzy as a pounding theme emerged with growling brass. A heavy metal drum kit accompanied the orchestra as it wailed and cried like a wounded animal. The music reached a painful climax, then fell away to a single held note – a ray of light amidst the chaos? The piece ended with a frenzied, bacchanalian dance. A viscerally thrilling performance

My fountain of youth is music, and in this case I offer the orchestra a sassy, rhythmic, high energy swim.

Julia Wolfe

This was followed by Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, which he wrote in 1935. It was the last piece he was commissioned to write in Western Europe before returning to Russia the following year. The violin soloist was Augustin Hadelich, another in a long line of world-class soloists booked by the orchestra. The piece began with an unaccompanied theme for solo violin, which Hadelich played with beautiful legato and a gorgeous, rich tone before the theme was passed around the orchestra. A breathtakingly beautiful melody reminded us that Prokofiev was writing his ballet score Romeo and Juliet at the same time. Hadelich provided sweet-toned, virtuosic decoration above the orchestra, before his violin scampered away with majestic ease. There was a spellbinding moment when the orchestra sang the violin’s theme back to him, and he joined in with a luminous descant. The second movement began with the orchestra playing measured pizzicato in a stately dance. Hadelich played a stunning, long-limbed melody, revealing its romantic, fragile beauty. The orchestra danced balletically while the violin pirouetted like a principal ballerina. There was a moment of whimsy and subtlety as Hadelich played a sweet melody above a gentle waltz. The third movement featured passionate precision from Hadelich, the themes rustic yet sophisticated, like a peasant dance performed by a ballet troupe. Castanets provided a Spanish flavour, perhaps added by Prokofiev to celebrate the fact that the work was premiered in Spain. There was a final reprise of the opening rondo theme as the piece dashed to the end. The audience didn’t want Hadelich to leave without an encore, so he obliged with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut, ‘A Cakewalk.’ This was a bluesy piece for fiddle, evoking a hoedown as Hadelich donned a metaphorical cowboy hat. He played it superbly, and the audience applauded warmly.

The concert’s second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, written in 1888 when the composer was plagued by self-doubt about his creative powers and his poor health. He was heartened by the success of the work’s premiere in September, writing to his brother Anatoly that ‘some even say that it is my best work.’ But by December, he wrote to his patron Nadezhda von Meck saying, ‘I am convinced that this symphony is not a success.’ By March, he told his brother Modest, ‘I love it again.’ The symphony began with a motto that haunts the work, like Banquo’s ghost appearing to Lady Macbeth at the banquet. The orchestra played it with slow, lugubrious deliberation, bringing out the emotion of the theme under John Storgårds’ superb direction. He shaped lovely dynamics and orchestral balance in the movement’s romantic theme, with twinkling woodwind. The orchestra played stylishly as Storgårds brought out colour and detail in the score. The movement ended with a sweeping, romantic theme that led to an epic climax as the players gave it their all, before a descent into the depths. The darkness continued at the start of the second movement as the strings rose from the deep. There was a lovely solo from guest principal horn Olivia Gandee, who played with a warmly nostalgic tone, intertwined with clarinet then oboe. The string playing was ravishing, as Storgårds brought out the richly romantic themes. The movement ended with a series of romantic climaxes played with yearning and longing. The third movement was a delicate waltz, played with charm and quiet joy but with perhaps a touch of sarcasm from the horns. This led immediately to the final movement, with the main motto returning in a major key. If Tchaikovsky had doubts about this movement – and some critics have criticised it as being unconvincing – the orchestra thoroughly assuaged those doubts. They played with great confidence and emotion, and the audience burst into enthusiastic applause at the end. We eagerly anticipate more delights from the orchestra this season, and from Composer in Residence Julia Wolfe.

Augustin Hadelich, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic. Image © Chris Payne

Performers

Bede Patterson, John Mulhearn, Finn MacPherson, Dougal McKiggan, Ailis Sutherland, Lorne MacDougall, Ruairidh Ian Buxon, Rory Campbell, Fionnlagh Mac A’Phiocar bagpipes
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds Conductor
Augustin Hadelich violin

Repertoire

Julia Wolfe LAD (Pre-concert performance)
Julia Wolfe Fountain of Youth (first UK performance)
Sergey Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson Louisiana Blues Strut ‘A Cakewalk’ (Encore for solo violin)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 in E minor

The concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 in Concert on Tuesday 28 October at 7.30 pm, and will be available for 30 days after broadcast on BBC Sounds

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Manchester Classical 2025 Day Two – Live Review

Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir

Sunday 29 June 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

For a review of day one of the festival click here and for the opening night click here

Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir
Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir. Image © Alex Burns

Manchester Collective: The Body Electric

The title of Sunday afternoon’s concert, The Body Electric, has been used in many cultural contexts, including music by Weather Report, Rush, The Sisters of Mercy and Lana Del Ray. The phrase comes from an 1855 poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, I Sing the Body Electric. The poem is divided into several sections, each celebrating a different aspect of human physicality. Rahki Singh, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Collective, explained that the analogy of the body electric referred to the imaginative structure of the programme – the body as a big house with lots of different rooms, with ‘something new behind each door.’

One of the joys of following the Collective’s work is that the forces always vary from one concert to another – from a fairly large ensemble with choir in Rothko Chapel to a smaller ensemble with African drums, bass guitar, and the fantastic African cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe in Sirocco. On Sunday, the Collective consisted of two musicians, Singh on violin and the cellist and composer Zoë Martlew.

Zoë Martlew
Rakhi Singh and Zoë Martlew
Zoë Martlew
Rakhi Singh
Rakhi Singh and Zoë Martlew. Images © Alex Burns

The concert began with Singh ‘in outer space among the stars’, playing ‘Joy’, the first movement from David Lang’s Mystery Sonatas. Bathed in white light, with the rest of the hall in complete darkness, Singh played on the upper strings and with harmonics to create images of glacial beauty, an icy landscape in the depths of space. The piece had an almost spiritual feel, and Martlew retained the mood of a piece she described as ‘iconic… encoding geometry in sound’, the ‘Prelude’ to Bach’s Cello Suite No.1. Martlew played with a lovely tone, relatively slowly, and with expressive rubato.

Martlew’s response to Bach’s piece was her own composition, G-Lude, commissioned by Spitalfields Festival, and premiered in July 2021. She explained to the audience that she had become weary of live performance and spent lockdown in a ‘state of profound silence, looking out to sea, communing with nature.’ This marked a move from being a cellist to composing. She said her tribute to Bach’s piece was ‘based on the architecture of the original.’ G-Lude is a remarkable, unsettling work. At times, Martlew appeared to be fighting her cello, with exaggerated breathing that was written into the score. She felt like the Jimi Hendrix of the cello, playing like a rock star, with heavy metal riffs, scraped strings and gorgeous harmonics. She put the bow down and ended with a gentle, stately pizzicato.

This segued into Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for solo violin, which Singh had performed in the Rothko Chapel concert. Embellished by electronics, the amplified violin part features echoed flourishes and long, held chords in the accompaniment. Singh created a vision of light, with a recorded female voice gradually becoming more prominent, creating a cathedral of sound. It was a profoundly moving, spiritual experience, which was enhanced by Martlew’s calm performance of the ‘Allemande and Sarabande’ from Bach’s Cello Suite No.1.

It would have been easy to end the concert with something equally contemplative, but Singh had other ideas. She finished with her arrangement of LAD by Julia Wolfe, written for nine bagpipes and premiered by the Bagpipe Orchestra in New York City in June 2007. Her arrangement was for solo violin and eight pre-recorded violins. Perhaps inspired by Martlew’s rock star stylings, she announced that she would put her violin through an octave pedal, normally used by rock guitarists. She told us the piece would take us to ‘the depth of the earth’ and that the ‘gnarly’ opening always made it feel ‘like her insides had been rearranged.’ Tunes were also promised.

LAD began with a fiercely disquieting, visceral two-note theme and then a terrifying rising phrase. The combination of a drone and this rising phrase created an effect like the Shepard Tone, where an auditory illusion is created of an endless, constantly rising phrase. It’s used very effectively to ratchet up anxiety and tension in Hans Zimmer’s score for Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk, and also by Pink Floyd at the end of their track Echoes. Singh eventually played the folky tune she had promised, an ecstatic smile on her face. A second, folky tune featured an evocative swoop, which brought to mind the stunning score that Jóhann Jóhannsson wrote for Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 film Arrival. A truly cinematic ending to an excellent concert.

Finale

The festival ended with a joyous celebration of classical music in Manchester, with combined forces from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the RNCM, the Chorus of ENO and the Hallé Choir, superbly conducted by Alpesh Chauhan.

Alpesh Chauhan.
Aloesh Chauhan. Image © Alex Burns

The concert opened with the pulsating joy of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, with all the musicians playing as one with infectious exuberance under Chauhan’s passionate baton. The audience reaction at the end was highly enthusiastic. The buzz that had been palpable throughout the festival, in the outdoor events as well as those on the main stage, continued right to the end of the festival.

Perhaps the highlight of the Finale was Iain Farrington’s Street Party, which had its world premiere on Sunday. In a fascinating pre-concert talk with Elizabeth Alker, he explained that he had written the new work in a jazzy style, partly inspired by composers like Gershwin and Bernstein, continuing a musical line from Saturday evening’s concert. He said that British orchestras are now used to playing jazz; when Alker asked him whether they might improvise during his piece, he replied, ‘I hope not!’

Farrington’s brief was to write a piece for the final concert in ‘this amazing festival.’ His aimed to create something ‘joyous, celebratory, open and inclusive… with a carnival atmosphere.’ He grew up in the market town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Some of his earliest memories are of outdoor festivals and street parties, including one that was closed down by the police because it was too popular (an experience which fed directly into the piece, as we found out later). He wanted to bring ‘outdoor music to an indoor situation.’ Along the way, he gave a huge compliment to Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, ‘The most amazing concert hall… We’d kill for a hall like this in London.’

Street Party began with rollicking percussion and jazzy brass. There was a series of solo sections for wind, strings, brass and tuba. Farrington explained that this was to showcase the parts of the orchestra, a bit like Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It also sounded at times like the theme tune from an American TV series, of the kind that the late, great Quincy Jones used to write. The chorus joined, with a wordless chant of ‘Na, na, na’, which Farrington said was meant to sound like a crowd singing along at a pop festival. The piece was immediately attractive and moved the feet as well as the soul. At the end, there was an amusing coup de théâtre. Two ‘officers’, from the entertainment division of the police, walked to the front of the hall and ‘arrested’ the composer, presumably for creating excessive joy in a built up area. It was a fair cop.

The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir
The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir. Image © Alex Burns

Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances provided us with an early opportunity to hear the chorus of English National Orchestra prior to them coming to Manchester later in the year. They didn’t disappoint; the sound was huge but well-balanced. The final piece was Respighi’s Pines of Rome, a chance for the combined orchestra to shine. There was a glittering opening, perfectly describing children playing amongst the pines. In the second movement, luxurious lower strings were joined by evocative, muted horns to create the subdued atmosphere of the Roman catacombs. An offstage trumpet, played in the gallery, had a lovely limpid tone. The plainsong chant of the priests was beautifully evoked as the movement reached its climax. The third movement was a nocturne, which began with a piano motif and a mellow clarinet solo. There was a lovely moment when there was a sudden change of harmony in the strings and heart-meltingly gorgeous orchestral playing in a huge romantic sweep. The recording of a nightingale that the score demands was perfectly blended with the orchestra. To end, we went back in history to the marching of Roman soldiers along the Appian Way, gradually building to a climax with majestic inevitability. Coruscating offstage brass joined, and finally the organ, as the music reached its apotheosis. What a way to end a wonderful festival!

Artists and repertoire

Manchester Collective: The Body Electric

David Lang Mystery Sonatas, mvt 1. Joy
J.S. Bach Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 in G Major
Zoe Martlew G-Lude
Missy Mazzoli Vespers
J.S. Bach Allemande and Sarabande from Cello Suite No.1 in G major
Julia Wolfe arr. Rakhi Singh LAD

Rakhi Singh violin (Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Manchester Collective)
Zoë Martlew cello

Pre-concert talk – Iain Farrington and Elizabeth Alker

Iain Farrington composer
Elizabeth Alker presenter

Finale

John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Iain Farrington Street Party (world premiere)
Borodin Polovtsian Dances
Respighi Pines of Rome

Alpesh Chauhan conductor
Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir

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Manchester Classical 2025 Day One – Live Review

Riot Ensemble

Saturday 28 June 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

For a review of the opening night of Manchester Classical, click here and for day two click here

Riot Ensemble
Riot Ensemble. Image © Alex Burns

RNCM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus – Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’

Manchester has a long association with Mahler’s music. His Symphony No. 1 was performed in Manchester as long ago as 1913, conducted by Michael Balling, only two years after the composer’s death. Later, Sir John Barbirolli became a great advocate of Mahler with the Hallé, apparently spending nearly 50 hours rehearsing the Ninth Symphony. In 2010, there was an epic cycle of all his symphonies in the Mahler in Manchester series, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. And one of the early concerts in the newly refurbished RNCM concert hall about a decade ago was a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, with RNCM forces so big that the chorus had to perform from the balcony above the audience.

Manchester continues to showcase Mahler. The most recent concerts of his symphonies I have heard in the last year are Symphony No. 5 (Sir Mark Elder’s last concert with the Hallé) and the BBC Philharmonic performing Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 9 . Mahler famously said, ‘a symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything’, so his Second Symphony, with a vast orchestra, choir and two female soloists, was an excellent way of ensuring that as many members of the RNCM as possible could pack the stage and the Choir seats. The Dutch conductor Antony Hermus gave an insightful analysis of the five movements of the symphony and ended by quoting a Dutch saying, ‘who has the youth has the future’, which certainly applied here.

Members of the RNCM Symphony Orchestra
Members of the RNCM Symphony Orchestra. Image © Alex Burns

Hermus was an undemonstrative conductor but very clear. He brought out the pacing in the first movement with a lovely, slow unfolding of its Wagnerian lines. The audience respected the short silence he requested at the end of the movement (Mahler asked for five minutes). The second movement began with a beautifully controlled Ländler, before a second, more anxious theme, teeming with intense life. It was lovely to see the smiles on the faces of the musicians as they gently plucked the returning Ländler theme. The Scherzo captured the movement’s uplifting joy, lightness, and sarcastic, almost outlandish spirit. After this, we headed without a break to the triumphant final movement. The mezzo-soprano Yvonne Howard, who studied at the RNCM and now teaches there, brought smooth legato lines, with clear diction and a calm stage presence. Scottish soprano Ellie Forrester, who is studying at the RNCM under Mary Plazas, sang with incredible, Wagnerian power, soaring majestically above the huge forces. The two singers were well-matched in their duet. The excellent RNCM Symphony Chorus began singing while seated, with a gorgeous sotto voce. Later, when they stood up, they showed that their voices could match those of the ENO Chorus (who we heard later in the festival) in operatic power and precision. The offstage brass parts brought an evocative depth to the sound. After a series of sensational climaxes from the orchestra, we reached the moment of resurrection. At the end, Hermus thanked the performers for their passion. There was a well-deserved standing ovation from the audience, and a cheer for each section as Hermus asked them to take a bow.

Riot Ensemble: Coral Formations

Riot Ensemble is an international collective of virtuoso musicians, with members and projects across the UK, Germany, Iceland, and beyond. It specialises in contemporary classical music and has given over 350 World and UK premieres by composers from more than 35 countries since 2012. The good news for Mancunian music lovers is that the Ensemble has chosen Manchester as their home base. This was the first concert to mark their new home. As they say on their website,

‘Why Manchester? Because the classical music scene here is simply electric: welcoming, ambitious, and fiercely creative.‘

Violinist and Co-Artistic Director Marie Schreer introduced the two works, both UK premieres. The first was Shrimp BIT Babyface by Alex Paxton, born and bred in Manchester. Schreer said it was a mix of ‘bonkers disco’ and folk music. It started with an eerie violin solo, then an explosion of free jazz cacophony, followed by a gentle electronic section, feeling its way towards a tune. A collection of alarming noises led to more free jazz, and a sound of a tape machine speeding up. There was sometimes a 1960s avant-garde vibe, like John Lennon’s Revolution 9 from The Beatles’ White Album (1968). There was a sudden pause, and the music tried to come together as if the score for a string quartet had been smudged while still wet, accompanied by bleeping electronics. Then there was a jolly folk tune. Followed by frenzied, contrapuntal gaming music. An unhinged disco section with heavy electronic percussion collapsed into utter chaos. All the while, Aaron Holloway-Nahum conducted with admirable resolution and precision. An invigorating performance of a fantastically unnerving and colourful piece, which brought joy and confusion in equal measure – a riotous explosion of euphoria.

Riot Ensemble
Riot Ensemble. Image © Alex Burns

The second, much shorter piece was Seafloor Dawn Chorus by the Norwegian composer Kristine Tjøgerse, who has worked with biologists researching at the Barrier Reef.  Schreer explained that the fish have dawn and dusk choruses, although sadly, they are quieter now. The piece began with slow, contemplative electronics and evocative sound effects. Scraped cello strings, string harmonics and Whirly Tubes created the noises of undersea creatures. Analogue noises replaced the electronics of Paxton’s piece. It gradually gained momentum, then suddenly stopped. If this programme is typical of Riot Ensemble, we have much to look forward to.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Gershwin, Bernstein and Strauss

The BBC Philharmonic has had a superb season. On Saturday evening, German conductor Anja Bihlmaier conducted them in a programme of Strauss, Gershwin and Bernstein, titled ‘Music from Beginnings and Endings’. The concert began with Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Death and Transfiguration, which Bihlmaier described as a natural successor to Mahler 2, with its themes of ‘passion, life, death, and life after death.’ Her conducting was calm at first, as warm strings played at a measured pace with the smooth, luxurious sound we have associated with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra this season, with perfect ensemble. As the piece reached its first climax, Bihlmaier became more animated, expressive and communicative, dancing on the platform. She combined passion with precision, drawing out stunning detail in the orchestral parts. The orchestra responded superbly to her direction, and this was a compelling performance.

Piamist Hayato Sumino with members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Piamist Hayato Sumino with members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Image © Alex Burns

The concert continued in a jazzier style with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra. The soloist was the Japanese pianist and composer Hayato Sumino, whose playing was a revelation. He had a lovely touch, with an even tone and impressive weight in the lower register, but also brought out the jazzy elements of the score. At one point, he brought out a small keyboard and perched it on top of the piano, playing solos with his right hand with a clarinet-like sound that matched the famous opening clarinet solo. The orchestra was an able partner, with characterful solos and syncopation so joyful it was difficult to sit still. At the end, Sumino showed the more romantic side of his playing – it would be fascinating to hear him play a romantic piano concerto. He played delicately at the top of the piano, with fantastic speed and precision. Bihlmaier pulled the orchestra tempo back at the end for one final, ecstatic statement of the main theme, and Sumino received a well-deserved standing ovation and roars of ‘bravo.’

The concert ended with more jazz, this time a description of, in the conductor’s words, the very different style of Leonard Bernstein – the grooving vibes of ‘flashy New York’. She reminded us also that Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story are not just ‘nice’ to listen to, but also describe the fight between two gangs from different worlds; universal themes are brought to life by the kaleidoscopic colours of Latin American percussion and rhythms. Like a close-knit jazz band, the orchestra played the syncopated rhythms with style and grace. Bihlmaier swayed to the rhythms, and it was difficult for the audience not to sway with her. They did join in with an ecstatic chant of ‘Mambo’, which she turned round to conduct. The orchestra showed its versatility by playing the romantic melody at the end of the piece like a symphony orchestra performing a romantic symphony. There was another standing ovation, ending a joyful evening.

Anja Bihlmaier told Elizabeth Alker that she had performed at the first Manchester Classical festival in 2023, and that one of her hobbies was collecting t-shirts (worn by staff and volunteers) from the festival. She expressed the popular view that ‘Manchester is second only to London now’ for classical music. Many proud Mancunians – and others from outside the city – would agree.

Artists and repertoire

RNCM Symphony Orchestra: Mahler 2 ‘Resurrection’

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’

Antony Hermus conductor
Ellie Forrester soprano
Yvonne Howard mezzo-soprano
RNCM Symphony Chorus
RNCM Symphony Orchestra

Riot Ensemble: Coral Formations

Alex Paxton Shrimp BIT Babyface (UK premiere)
Kristine Tjøgersen Seafloor Dawn Chorus (UK premiere)

Riot Ensemble
Aaron Holloway-Nahum conductor

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Gershwin, Bernstein and Strauss

Strauss Death and Transfiguration
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Anja Bihlmaier conductor
Hayato Sumino piano

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Manchester Classical 2025 Opening Night – Live Review

Friday 27 June 2025

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

For a review of day one click here and for day two click here

Jonny Greenwood performs Reich with the Hallé

The first Manchester Classical music festival took place two years ago, in June 2023. The festival won the RPS (Royal Philharmonic Society) ‘Series and Events’ award in 2024. The panel said,

‘We all know music’s power to bring us together. This was stupendously evident as the classical organisations of this very city united for Manchester Classical. It was a marvellous weekend of the finest music-making…

Mancunians came out in force to discover and take pride in the remarkable musical forces on their doorstep.‘

This year’s festival opened with music by Steve Reich. The Hallé was conducted by Colin Currie, who curated last year’s Reich Festival. Jonny Greenwood, guitarist with Radiohead and now an Oscar and BAFTA-nominated film composer, joined to play bass guitar on Pulse. Currie told BBC Radio 3 presenter Elizabeth Alker that Greenwood is a great fan of the American composer and brings ‘great serenity’ to Reich’s music.

Greenwood has previously performed Reich’s Electric Counterpoint on guitar with the Hallé, but his bass playing was immaculate, with a lovely tone, particularly on the lower notes. The bass part occupies its own acoustic space below the other instruments – upper strings, woodwind and piano – and provides the emotional heart of the piece. His bass and the interlaced strings had a lovely interaction, with gorgeous melancholy and joyous harmonies. The serene pulsing of his line became more adventurous as the piece progressed. The audience sat in rapt attention, so quiet that when it finished, you could hear the air conditioning (essential during such a hot weekend) before the applause. Greenwood, an intensely self-effacing stage presence, gave a shy wave as he left the stage.     

Clapping Music, performed by Colin Currie (left) and David Hext
Clapping Music, performed by Colin Currie (left) and David Hext. Image © Alex Burns

The concert began with Reich’s iconic Clapping Music, deftly executed by Currie and David Hext. The subtle phasing of the four clapping hands created a mesmerising effect, and they gave each other a high five at the end. Runner, for two pianos, two vibraphones, strings and woodwind, relies on the two pianos to provide (for want of a better word) a running commentary throughout the piece, and the amplified sound slightly obscured their parts. Otherwise, though, it was an excellent performance. Currie brought out the jazzy elements and flourishes with his precise conducting. The music became quietly ecstatic, with heart-stopping key changes and a moment of profound stasis at the end. The final piece was Variations for Vibes, Piano and Strings, driven by syncopated bass lines from two pianos, with three string quartets and four vibraphones creating a unique sound world. The amplified sound was more transparent now, and the intricate lines were played with great precision. At the end, Currie held the score to his chest as if to acknowledge Reich’s mastery.

Artists and Repertoire

Steve Reich
Clapping Music
Runner
Pulse
Variations for Vibes, Piano and Strings

Colin Currie conductor
Jonny Greenwood bass guitar

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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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Off the Beaten Track # 14: A Louse is not a Home by Peter Hammill

The Cover of The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage by Peter Hammill
The Cover of The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage by Peter Hammill
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. Weren’t you? As now…aren’t you? Get in your cage or box! I begged, I beg, to differ.“

Peter Hammill writing about his 1974 album In Camera on his Sofa Sound website

Fifty years ago, in 1974, Peter Hammill had a prolific year, releasing two solo albums In Camera in July and The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage in February. The latter album at times feels like an album recorded by his group Van der Graaf Generator, rather than a solo effort. The song ‘A Louse is not a Home’ was originally meant for the band’s follow-up album after Pawn Hearts (1971) and although the band performed the song on tour in 1972 they split for a while before recording another album. But with Hugh Banton on bass and organ, Guy Evans on drums and David Jackson on saxophone this song feels like a joint enterprise. Hammill has resisted his music being categorised, as shown in the quote above, and his output is notable for its variety, from long-form prog epics to heartfelt love songs, moving ballads (like ‘Autumn‘ from his 1977 solo album Over), heavy rock, the experimental and proto-punk. This track lands firmly in the progressive rock category – it’s over 12 minutes long and is divided into several instrumental and vocal sections.

The song is a supreme example of the range and power of Hammill’s remarkable voice. As Nick Hasted of The Independent on Sunday wrote in 2004,

It’s his singing that always gets talked about first. Hammill once aspired to be “the Hendrix of the voice” and to that end in the late Sixties he blew out amplifiers as if on a mission. John Lydon [Johnny Rotten] admitted partly basing his punk howl on him. 

Each section is given a title in Hammill’s book, KILLERS, ANGELS, REFUGEES published in 1974. The song contains some of Hammill’s most profound lyrics, which stand up well when set out on the page as poetry in his book. It’s a meditation on the nature of modern existence, and the house (or ‘louse’ of the title, a play on the words ‘a house is not a home’) becomes a metaphor for the protagonist’s varying mental condition, creating a work of art that is exhilarating, terrifying, poignant and occasionally optimistic.

Part I The Mirror on the Landing (0:00 – 3:00)

The track begins with Hammill singing very low in his range, like Nick Cave or Tom Waits, with ominous piano chords. This creates a gothic atmosphere which continues throughout the opening section. There’s a touch of madness and melodrama here, with demented saxophone fanfares winding round Hammill’s voice. The language and imagery are gothic too – Hammill uses archaic language such as ‘betimes’. The line ‘a cracked mirror ‘mid the drapes’, creates an image of the protagonist withdrawn from life, like the Victorian poet Lord Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, who lives in a high tower in a castle on the river that flows to Camelot,

'The mirror cracked from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
 The Lady of Shalott.'

From The Lady of Shalott (1832) by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

The protagonist thinks he could make his home in another castle, a ‘lofty, lonely Lohengrinic castle in the clouds’, a reference to Neuschwanstein (literally ‘new swan stone’) Castle in Bavaria, named by King Ludwig II (1845 – 1886) after the Swan Knight, the title character in Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin (1850).

Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Bavaria, Germany.
The ‘Lohengrinic castle in the clouds’ – Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria. Image © Thomas Wolf. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

A pastoral passage with gentle flute poignantly evokes the protagonist’s desire to ‘find a place to hide my home’, somewhere to withdraw from the world. Earlier in this section Hammill’s voice becomes so menacing and distorted that it’s reminiscent of one of Hendrix’s distorted guitars, but his voice is much quieter and more contemplative here. A short, elegant, almost Baroque section for piano and woodwind leads to Part II.

Part II The Mental Ferule (3:00 – 7:00)

After the brief moment of respite, the second part leads to a brutal bass line and weighty drums, with syncopated rhythms, very characteristic of Van der Graaf at their most progressive and extreme. Hammill’s vocals are so agitated and unsettled that they almost fail to keep time with the backing instruments. The first ‘house’ in this section is made of glass, adapted from the expression ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’, used to describe hypocrisy. But Hammill instead uses the glass house as a metaphor for paranoia, a place where ‘every movement is charted.’ The monitor screens – now dark – which usually watch his every move, remind us of the ‘telescreens’, the two-way video screens in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) through which Big Brother surveilles the population. But even when the video screen is switched off, there’s another presence in the house,

'Sometimes I get the feeling
There's someone else there:
The faceless watcher, he makes me uneasy
I can feel him through the floorboards
And his presence is creepy'

It appears at first that the ‘presence’ could be a ghost, or even a supernatural being or presence, a common trope of horror films such as Paranormal Activity (2007). But the next ‘house’ suggests a religious presence, the human soul or conscience, or perhaps even God himself. Although the house is now made of ‘brick or lead’ like a traditional English home, there’s overtly religious imagery here, describing a spiritual journey to a higher existence. This relates to the state of religious ecstasy described in another track on the album ‘The Lie (Bernini’s St Theresa)’. (See ‘Peter Hammill and the Jesuits’ below). On the current track, Hammill describes devouring fruit, presumably the Biblical fruit of knowledge, and laying your body before the shrine.’ But instead of reaching St Theresa’s swooning state of grace, as shown in the image below, the protagonist worships at the altar of high art, ‘with poems and posies and papers.’

But the religious image soon returns. The title of this section, ‘The Mental Ferule’ may need a little explanation, particularly as googling the word ‘ferule’ brings up the word ‘ferrule’, a piece of rubber or metal that protects the end of a walking stick or umbrella. A ‘ferule’ according to Collins English Dictionary, is an instrument of punishment, ‘a flat piece of wood, such as a ruler, used in some schools to cane children on the hand.’ The protagonist asks what home is, and one possibility is a, ‘beating at the hands of your Protector’. This could refer to being beaten at school, although the capitalisation of the word Protector1 suggests that Jesus, who is often known as the Defender and Protector of Christians, is inflicting the punishment. The religious ‘idol’ may have ‘feet of clay’, or in other words have human faults. The strange presence referred to earlier is now also given capitals, ‘I’ve never actually seen Him, but I know He’s in my home.’ This image relates back to the gothic imagery of Part I – it’s revealed that it’s a religious Force (again with a capital) that ‘cracks the mirror.’ The whole section is a frightening but invigorating description of the deepest of existential and religious crises. Although the protagonist’s relationship with God is ambiguous at best, he fears what might happen if He (God) leaves the house. In one of the most poignant moments in the whole song, the protagonist, very sweetly voiced here by Hammill, breaks down, no longer knowing what he believes,

'And if He goes away
I can't stay here either
I believe... er... I think...
Well, I don't know...'
Closer view of central figures, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Bernini

Peter Hammill and The Jesuits

Peter Hammill spent nine years at a Jesuit boarding school. He told Nick Hasted of The Independent on Sunday that in his view the Jesuit brotherhood rarely produced faithful Catholics because, ‘they’re too fierce … It’s the SAS of Catholicism.’ But he respected their intellectual rigour, their questioning of everything. ‘I’m not remotely Catholic’, he told Hasted, ‘But my daughters have all gone to Catholic schools, partly because they’ll have that questioning too.’

The song ‘The Lie’ (Bernini’s St Theresa)’ describes an emotional and spiritual reaction to the statue Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, by the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini ( 1598 – 1680). The statue shows the Saint in a state of religious ecstasy. The protagonist is tempted by all that she offers, but ultimately rejects her,

You took me, gave me reasons for
Saints and missals, vigils
All the more holy martyrs
I’d embrace you and walk through
The one-way door
I’d embrace you
But it would be just another lie

Image: Detail of Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Bernini. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Part III Home is (7.45 – 12.31)

Part II segues into the final part, Hammill’s gentle falsetto voice drifting disturbingly upwards as other instruments join and the song slowly rallies itself. Instrumentally, Part III is very much a Van der Graaf song, sounding like the prog rock epic ‘A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’ from Pawn Hearts (1971). This section takes the protagonist even deeper into his existential crisis. He finally realises that his home could be inside him,

'Home is home is home is home is home is home is home is me!'

The sentiment is similar to that of the poet T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets

'Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living.'

From East Coker, Four Quartets (1943) by T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

But despite this realisation about home, the protagonist’s existential, crisis gets even worse,

Day is just a word I use
To keep the dark at bay
People are imaginary, nothing else exists
Except the room I'm sitting in
And, of course, the all-pervading mist -
Sometimes I wonder if even that's real

There is at least a moment of truth when he wonders whether even the mist is real, but he has reached a very low point. The track ends with an anthemic section, similar in musical feel to the end of ‘A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’. But whereas that track ends on a note of hope, ‘Begin to fell very glad now…’, the current track poignantly collapses into ruins, with organ chords that feel they are about to resolve into a concrete ending but never do,

'Sometimes I think I'll disappear, sometimes I think...
I... I... I...I...'

This final failed attempt to assert an identity, after over 12 minutes of existential angst, is very moving, ending one of Hammill’s finest songs.

The Back Cover of KILLERS ANGELS REFUGESS by Peter Hammill
The back cover of the book KILLERS, ANGELS, REFUGEES Words 1966 – 1973. Image © Anton Corbijn/Peter Hammill/Sofa Sound

Sources

KILLERS, ANGELS, REFUGEES Words 1966 – 1973 (Second Edition Sofa Sound, 1980)
Hasted, Nick Peter Hammill: Heart attack music (The Independent on Sunday 27 June 2004)
sofasound.com

  1. It should be noted that there is inconsistency in the use of capitalisation. For instance the lyrics on Hammill’s website capitalise the word ‘Protector’ whereas the book uses the form ‘protector’. ↩︎

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SIRIN by Marjana Semkina – Album Review

Marjana Semkina

Semkina’s haunting and eclectic second solo album

*****

The front cover of SIRIN by Marjana Semkina

Singer songwriter 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). More recently, Semkina has pursued a parallel solo career, releasing her first solo LP, Sleepwalking in 2020 and her EP Disillusioned in 2021. Earlier this year she sang on the Moonflower EP with Zora Cock of Blackbriar, and she has now released SIRIN, her second solo album.

Sirin and Alkonost Birds of Joy and Sorrow by Viktor Vasnetsov (1896)
Sirin and Alkonost -Birds of Joy and Sorrow (1896) by Viktor Vasnetsov. Source: Wikimedia

The album takes its title from Sirin, a creature from Slavic mythology, with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. Semkina describes the bird as,

“… a harbinger of bad luck and death… if you meet the Sirin bird it’s believed you will lose a battle or a big catastrophe will happen... Sirin cries and mourns for humankind, and nothing can be more appropriate in this day and age.”

Semkina feels that the ‘bad luck and death’ predicted by Sirin has already happened, in particular the War in Ukraine. Her previous songs have been embedded in folklore, the imagination and literature, with a strong preference for the 19th century. On X (Twitter) she amusingly describes herself as ‘dead Victorian girl.’ But her resistance to the war prompted her to become more political. She was on her way to an anti-war protest in Trafalgar Square when she wrote the lyrics to the opening song, ‘We are the Ocean’, with the poignant final chorus, ‘Bring them home’, a plea to bring the soldiers back home from war. The song also includes the lines,

Louder our voices will ring
Through the walls of this prison
And I sing louder
The louder we sing
The harder they'll fall

These words gained further resonance when Gleb Kolyadin was arrested and imprisoned in Thailand while on tour as a session musician with the Russian dissident rock band Bi-2, facing 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.

Marjana Semkina – We Are The Ocean (Official Lyric Video)

As well as war, Semkina embraces other dark themes on the album, but in a rather unexpected way. For instance, the ninth song, ‘Swan Song’ sounds like a deeply-felt love ballad, with a stirring chorus and rich, yearning strings. But the lyrics are, in Semkina’s words, a ‘meditation on death’, and what may happen after death, ‘Soul is taking off, but where will it land?’ In the July issue of Prog, Semkina told Jeremy Allen that she enjoys writing songs like the eighth track ‘The Storm’ which sound happy but are ‘anything but.’ One of the major influences in writing in this style is Steven Wilson, who she says,

“… writes in a similar manner in some of his songs, like ‘Drown With Me‘, which is an exceptionally happy-sounding song about somebody who’s drowning.”

Marjana Semkina – Swan Song 

The album also features a sequence of songs about the end a bad relationship, starting with the fourth track, Pygmalion. The dedication on the YouTube video reads, 

This is for the one that tried to bury me, but instead dug his own grave.

It’s a haunting song, reminiscent of the way Steven Wilson’s songs for Porcupine Tree often start quietly and move towards a climax, like a short story or a film. It also demonstrates the full dynamic and emotional range of Semkina’s remarkable voice, from soft, almost whispered at the start to anguished, powerful bitterness at the end, where Semkina almost shouts the final words ‘we/Will be together to the end’, before the track brutally cuts off. The song begins with lovely, ambivalent chords and a simple melody, before a brief electronic blast that leads to the deeply bitter chorus.

Marjana Semkina – Pygmalion (Official Music Video)

The song adapts the myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a life-size statue he made of a woman, brought to life by Aphrodite the goddess of love. Semkina’s lyrics suggest that the woman created in the myth is a perfect, passive object, created by a man entirely for his own pleasure, made up of all the elements that appeal to him, including obedience and only speaking when spoken to. The lines ‘And stories will be told/Of my exceptional betrothed’ are deeply bitter and sarcastic. The depth of feeling is similar to Porcupine Tree’s ‘Hatesong’ (from the 2000 album Lightbulb Sun) which drips with vitriol,

This is a hate song just meant for you
I thought that I'd write it down while I still could
I hope when you hear this you'll want to sue

Wilson’s song is part of a collection of four or five tracks on Lightbulb Sun which he referred to as ‘divorce songs’, written after a bitter breakup.

The next song in Semkina’s bitter trio of songs is ‘Angel Street’, the title of the 1941 American version of the play Gas Light, written in 1938 by British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton, from which the term ‘gaslighting’ is derived. Semkina’s lyrics refer to the ‘mind games’ played by her Ex. Again, this a song which is attractive on the surface, beginning with gentle acoustic guitars and contemplative vocals, followed by a jaunty chorus in 3/4 (the dance rhythm in which waltzes are usually written) and a folky instrumental accompaniment. But don’t be deceived by the song’s pretty exterior – the lyrics are vicious,

All your words are empty shells
Nothing exonerates lies
There's not a shadow of truth in your eyes
Nothing saves you from yourself

The final track in this stunning sequence of ‘hatesongs’ is ‘Gone’. Again, the words are savage, 

Your poison in my veins takes its toll
Your thorns piercing my soul
I'm fabric sewn with pain
All in vain

But there is beautiful music here, with undulating piano and brooding strings, and a sense of hope arising from the bitterness. Semkina’s tenderly fragile voice is gentler than on the other tracks in this sequence. The song ends on a note of optimism, ‘I’m not alone/I’m not.’

Although this a solo album, Semkina is joined by several collaborators, enhancing the record’s rich and varied sound world. Grigoriy Losenkov plays piano, bass and synths. Vlad Avy plays electric guitar, synths. Keli Guðjónsson (Agent Fresco) plays drums on most tracks. Charlie Cawood (Mediæval Bæbes, Knifeworld) provides multiple instruments, including exotic instruments such as bouzouki (Greek long-necked lute), hammered dulcimer (a favourite of Steven Wilson on some of the Porcupine Tree albums), zither, liuqin (Chinese mandolin) and guzheng (Chinese plucked zither). There’s also a string quartet – Margarita Chernyshevskaya and Petr Chepelev (violins), Julia Uliashcenkova (viola) and Julia Romashko (cello). Semkina is also joined by two guest vocalists Jim Grey (Caligula’s Horse) on the beguiling song ‘Anything but Sleep’ and Mick Moss (Antimatter) on the achingly gorgeous ‘Death and the Maiden’.

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.

SIRIN is available to stream and to buy via Bandcamp. iamthemorning will be performing live at St Matthias’ Church, Stoke Newington on Friday 1st November 2024.