Donny McCaslin has been one of the hottest saxophonists in the USA since contributing to David Bowie's album legacy "★". The 52-year-old Berklee graduate gained important experience with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Since his solo album "Casting For Gravity" McCaslin has developed an independent style that draws on fusion, art rock and electronic dance music. He goes one step further with his latest work "Blow.", on which he also picks up influences from alternative rock.

Even if Nazareth has had to get along on stage for about five years without her friction voice Dan McCafferty, the real break is the new studio work "Tattooed On My Brain": for the first time in their 50-year history the Scottish band went into the studio with another singer than McCafferty. Carl Sentance has been the new frontman for a good three years now and has successfully completed his probationary period with the album. Founding member Pete Agnew raised both thumbs during the conversation.

Wolfgang Fuchs was the electron microck pioneer of the GDR. After years as a classical rock drummer he turned to electronic rock and prog with his project POND and became the eastern equivalent of the internationally acclaimed Tangerine Dream. The Berlin musician, who turns 70 on 7 December, is still active and has released the double album "40 Jahre POND (Das Jubiläumskonzert)" on his label PONDerosa on the occasion of the band's anniversary in 2018.

Even if the Flower Kings, one of the most important retro-prog bands of the nineties, no longer exist: Creative head Roine Stolt is as active as ever. Under the somewhat unwieldy project name Roine Stolt's The Flower King, the Swede has drummed together several (ex-)flower kings as well as colleagues from other groups for "Manifesto Of An Alchemist". With them he has recorded an album that is as varied as ever, the lyrics of which often reflect the world situation.

At the time of the interview, Roine Stolt is in the middle of preparing for the tour rehearsals that will take place in his hometown of Uppsala. The 62-year-old talks relaxed about the current album, but also about why the Flower Kings have reached a dead end. "Manifesto Of An Alchemist" can therefore also be understood as an artistic statement with which Stolt wants to revive the virtues of the original flower kings.

Chandeliers did not belong to the greats of the Neoprog scene of the early nineties. But the quintet from Neuss had its fans. In fact, Chandelier didn't have to hide their sound from international luminaries like Marillion, IQ or Pendragon. Now the narrow back catalogue of the band appears again in two stages, digitally mastered by Eroc.

It is a Polish label that re-releases the three albums of the North Rhine-Westphalian band Chandelier. GAD Records released "Pure" (1990) and the successor "Facing Gravity" (1992) as double CD sets with bonus tracks. At the beginning of 2019 it adds "Timecode" (1997). We spoke to three of the founding members on this occasion. Guitarist Udo Lang (53), bassist Christoph Tiber (50) and singer Martin Eden (54) look back on their band, which can now be rediscovered by a new audience.

eclipsed: Your old records are coming out new. A fine thing..

Every two years a new album and a tour: The former boss of Dire Straits is as reliable as a Swiss watch. And so persistent that nothing gets him upset - neither the reunion tour of his old band nor the introduction to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. The 69-year-old Scot just does his thing, and that, as his new album "Down The Road Wherever" shows, is still damn good.

When Roye Albrighton died in 2016 after a long illness, the future of nectar was uncertain. The surviving hull formation had with drummer Ron Howden only one founding member left in their ranks. But Howden was in bad health. Then there was bassist Tom Fry, in the band since 2014. And of course keyboarder Klaus Henatsch, who had been working with Albrighton since 2007. But would that be enough for a new edition of the band? Now she presents her latest studio work "Megalomania".

A lot has happened since four young Englishmen founded the psychedelically colored prog/rock formation Nektar in Hamburg in 1969. May the musicians and Mick Brockett, who is responsible for their spectacular light effects, never made the big commercial breakthrough - nobody in the scene denies that this formation released some extraordinary records in the seventies, among them "A Tab In The Ocean", "...Sounds Like This" and "Remeber The Future".

There is a rumour that rock music is dead or watered down by pop music, windy producers and the music industry. In this respect, the only thing that remains is a look back through back catalogue publications, reunion tours and autobiographies from a supposedly better time. All nonsense, as Greta Van Fleet proves: The quartet from Michigan proves to be the guardian of the Grail and maybe even the future of rock. eclipsed singer Josh Kiszka has been interviewed in Los Angeles.