You can't help it! The two Mael brothers, better known as Sparks (alluding to the Marx Brothers), once again tease the music world with their album "A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip". Now in their eighth decade of life, they are still among the most creative minds in progressive pop music.
An outcry of indignation went through Switzerland in the summer of 1977: on 31 July of all days, on the eve of the Swiss National Day, the musical "Tell!" premiered in Zurich - a modern, rocky version of the story about the national hero of the Swiss Confederates. After only one month, Tell Musical AG - Udo Jürgens was one of the shareholders - had to pull out all the stops: The negative press response was too much, the audience stayed away.
Who are the Residents? With absolute certainty this question will probably never be answered, because they will probably take their secret with them to the grave or have already taken it with them. The Beatles have been mythologized into the group just like Captain Beefheart. Homer Flynn describes himself as the spokesman for the eyeball band, which has been surprising with one new concept after another since the early 1970s, and it is to be assumed that he is the only remaining leader of the group after the death of Hardy Fox alias Charles Bobuck.
Pink Floyd were once their initial spark. With their own songs the tribute band The Pink Floyd Experience became airbag from 2004 on. Since then, wonderfully floating sounds in the range between Floyd, Porcupine Tree and Talk Talk came from Oslo. Now, with "A Day At The Beach" the fans hold in their hands the first new sign of life since "Disconnected" (2016), recorded as a trio with singer/keyboardist Asle Tostrup, guitarist/keyboardist Bjørn Riis and drummer Henrik Fossum. Even before the Corona crisis the Norwegians finished their gloomy beach vision.
Right at the beginning of Shaman Elephant's second seven-track album, the listener is put into a time machine: "Wide Awake But Still Asleep", the title of the album, rumbles away towards the late 60s and early 70s. We stop at early prog and wild psychedelic, at Scandinavian rock and bizarre dreamy Canterbury sound. "We play a rather crude style mix," keyboardist Jonas Særsten readily admits.
They smile beaming with joy into the camera: Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth and next to him Kevin McCarthy and Iain Clark, bassist and drummer of Cressida respectively. The joy is justified, as Cressida's performance at the Melloboat Festival in September 2013 was something very special for all three of them, as the group is one of Åkerfeldt's absolute favourites - and in 2013 Cressida's active musical career began more than 40 years ago. But who is the band that Mikael Åkerfeldt described in 2004 as "Cressida are absolutely fascinating, but totally unknown. No one has heard of them.
The current prog scene is alive and kicking, as the Bremen-based formation Rubber Tea shows with their debut "Infusion": Canterbury reminiscences, dark crimson sonic clouds and female vocals reminiscent of the Renaissance. Already the album cover with its imaginative colours, psychedelic sunrise as well as animal and fable figures invites to an exciting journey. Keyboarder Lennart Hinz, guitarist Jonas Roustai, bassist David Erzmann, drummer Henri Pink and singer Vanessa Gross explain what awaits us.
eclipsed: How do you come up with a band name like Rubber Tea?
Of the great prog acts of the 1970s, KANSAS is now the only one who still releases studio albums with new material. "The Absence Of Presence", the current longplayer of the American septet, shows that the band is still extremely vital and has not swept its progressive side under the table. Guitarist Zak Rizvi, who has been the band's main songwriter and co-producer for five years, played a major role in the new songs. We reached the man from the US state of New Jersey in the middle of a Corona-related tour break
Ex-Beatle RINGO STARR turns 80 on July 7th - and finally gets the recognition he always wanted
Richard Starkey alias Ringo Starr has been in disagreement - and that for decades. For his fans, he is one of the most important drummers in rock history. Between 1962 and 1970, he recorded twelve albums with the Fab Four and sold 600 million copies. "John, Paul, George and Ringo have turned the world upside down," Lemmy von Motörhead once mused. "Just the way people listened to music and thought about rock bands."
