Last year Fates Warning celebrated the 30th birthday of their masterpiece "Awaken The Guardian". To pay tribute to this progmetal milestone, guitarist Jim Matheos reactivated the original line-up for two festival shows in Germany and the USA. The recordings of both performances are now available as "Awaken The Guardian Live". We grabbed singer John Arch to chat about the shows. "The preparations took over a year," explains the 57-year-old, who lives just under two and a half hours by car northeast of New York.

AYREON - Deathcry Of A Race (4:43)
Album: The Source (2CD) (2017)
Label/Distribution: Music Theories/Mascot/Rough Trade
www.arjenlucassen.com

With AYREON, Arjen Lucassen is focusing more on catchability this time without running into shallow waters. His recipe for success: exquisite melodies, stylistic variety from metal to folk and medieval, opulent arrangements and, as always, a top group of singers led by Dream Theaters James LaBrie.

Twelve years have passed since the musicians of My Sleeping Karma got together. On five studio albums, the Aschaffenburg quartet has created a powerful new art rock, which has an unmistakable character due to discreetly interwoven Indian elements. Now his first live album "Mela Ananda" is available. My Sleeping Karma's down-to-earth bassist Matte proves in conversation that the band is still firmly rooted in the here and now, i.e. in family and career, and that they enjoy their own music very much.

eclipsed: The term Mela Ananda means in Sanskrit as much as happy gathering. Are your concerts happy gatherings?

Matte: Yes, we think so. We get together with friends, play our music for the people, are close to the people. Also after the concert we love the contact to the fans. The album title is therefore chosen this way.

eclipsed: Is the album also a "Best of" by My Sleeping Karma?

Maybe one or the other still remembers the Frankfurt band S/T, who have released countless albums in the field of Neokrautrock, Psychedelic and Post Wave since the mid-1990s and especially in the 2000s. Unfortunately, the duo Martin Brauner (guitar, vocals) and Joachim Gaertner (keyboards) were denied the recognition and attention they deserved for their highly original do-it-yourself charm, their exuberant creativity - which not only concerns the musical side but also the artwork and packaging - and their humorous character.

Deep Purple belong to those bands that just can't stop. Some may be happy, others more compassionate. At least it's been that way for a long time. In the meantime, two members of the group, founded in 1968, have crossed the seventy mark, and two others are about to do so next year. Guitarist Steve Morse with his sixty-two Lenzen makes himself out like a young boy among his colleagues. Meanwhile, Purple's new CD "Infinite" has nothing to say about Alterszipperlein. With strength and esprit the slaughter-tested troupe fights their way through ten songs, of which certainly not all have what it takes to become classics, but some can at least be put painlessly between the train numbers of the band.

"Brain. Some sit on it - we stand on it", is the slogan, thick, big, black on white on top of the very first print advertisement that Brain Records placed in March 1972. "Every album DM 22,- without obligation. Guide price incl. VAT" is very small at the bottom left. 22 DM for "Lonesome Crow" by the Scorpions, "Together" by Jane, for Gomorrah's "I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was", for "Neu!" by Neu! and Spirogyras "St. Radigunds". The covers of these five albums are shown on the advertisement, they are the first ones ever released on Brain Records. They are the beginning of a perhaps non-commercial, but certainly artistic success story.

They haven't heard it in one piece for a long time, John Densmore and Robby Krieger smile at the eclipsed date in Los Angeles. That would certainly not be because the Doors' debut would be unpleasant for them today. "We played the pieces so often that we could even take them backwards," Krieger laughs. And the 71-year-old continues: "When I happen to hear us driving a car on the radio, I turn up the volume because I'm incredibly proud of it." Which the guitarist has every reason to do. Because what the group recorded in August 1966 on just six days is a milestone. A work that has sold twenty million copies, has been reprinted several times and still sounds magical.

In the spring of 1972 Yes returned home after giving a series of concerts in America to promote the album "Fragile". Immediately afterwards, Jon Anderson and Steve Howe worked out the material they had gathered at soundchecks, in hotel rooms and backstage when the band toured the Northeast and Midwest. They had eagerly exchanged ideas and recorded their writing sessions. The community spirit that had shaped "Fragile" reached its peak on "Close To The Edge". […]