RUSH - 40 years of "MovingPictures"
When talking about "Moving Pictures", superlatives are quickly at hand: It is Rush's best-selling album. The album that made sure that even casual listeners couldn't help but devote themselves to this phenomenon - in front of the home stereo as well as in the packed arenas. The album that contains the band's most famous song and the only album that the Canadian trio performed live in its entirety. But what lies behind the 40 minutes that saw the light of the record shelves on February 12, 1981?
KRAUTROCK, PART 3 - When jazz shoots into the kraut
Jazz was one of the self-evident influences of many Krautrock acts. But what about traces of Krautrock in jazz? In fact, there were definitely tendencies in German jazz between 1968 and 1976 that were comparable to the developments in German rock music at the time
DAVID GILMOUR turns 75 - The Buddha of Brighton
No tours, no albums, no stress - just family and fresh air: On his 75th birthday, David Gilmour is taking it easy and visibly mutating into a Buddha. A man who has finished with the music business, with band hierarchies and his own status as a rock star and wants to spend his retirement in the most contemplative way possible. He is allowed to do so...
SAGA - Warm wood instead of cold oscillators
An acoustic album by Saga? This is unexpected and can be considered a small sensation - the Canadian melodic-proggers usually work fully electric, with a veritable fleet of synthesizers and up to three keyboardists at the same time. Nevertheless, they present a convincing work with "Symmetry".
MOGWAI - "Times are so shitty, we just wanted to make a positive statement"
When the Scotsman Stuart Braithwaite founded his band Mogwai, he was still a teenager. Exactly 25 years ago, the group recorded their first single. A lot of water has flowed down the Clyde since then. Their tenth studio album "As The Love Continues" is far more than an anniversary work.
ALICE COOPER - Return to Detroit
Vincent Damon Furnier has always been proud of his native city: even when his musical projects were not yet under the name Alice Cooper, he saw them in the tradition of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels or MC5. His new album "Detroit Stories", recorded with such illustrious musicians as Joe Bonamassa and MC5 co-founder Wayne Kramer, is a homage to the sound of the former Motor City in the late 1960s: It celebrates early American hard rock, but doesn't forget Motown pop and soul.
SOEN - "We love to mix styles"
The reviews are overflowing. With their fifth studio album "Imperial" the Swedish prog metallers Soen are definitely in a row with bands like Opeth or Katatonia. There has long been talk of a reference work. In the interview, band leader Martín López explains how meticulously he and singer Joel Ekelöf work on the songs and how they try to touch the listeners emotionally again and again.
STEVE LUKATHER & JOSEPH WILLIAMS - 1+1=3
Even though the recently reformed Toto will probably not release another studio album in the foreseeable future, fans of the American AOR band currently have reason to rejoice: On February 26, both guitarist STEVE LUKATHER and singer JOSEPH WILLIAMS will release their new solo albums. The clou about it: During the productions, the childhood friends supported each other, and keyboardist David Paich was also involved in each case, so that both records together almost make a Toto album, according to Lukather
REINHARD LAKOMY & TANGERINE DREAM - Electronic East-West-Connection
In 1980, Tangerine Dream became the first West German rock band to perform in the GDR. That it came about was also thanks to East German composer, pianist and singer Reinhard Lakomy. As a result, he was even offered the chance to join the group. This did not happen, but there was a West-East transfer of a Moog synthesizer that had once belonged to Mick Jagger.
RICHARD BARBIERI about his fourth solo album and his biggest influence
He helped the new wave band Japan to world fame. With the trio Jansen-Barbieri-Karn he cultivated his very own avant-garde ambient jazz. He was an integral part of Porcupine Tree and wrote (new) art rock history with them - Richard Barbieri has experienced a lot in his 40-year career. For more than ten years now, the keyboard artist has been pushing his solo career. Latest strike: "Under A Spell", his fourth solo album.
FRATERNITY - An almost forgotten band with two world famous singers
Bon Scott is certainly one of the most individual and style-defining rock singers of the 20th century - even though his time with AC/DC only lasted a little more than half a decade. However, the hard rock shouter had already left his musical mark before joining the now legendary Australian outfit: After the breakup of The Valentines, he became lead singer of the band Fraternity in 1971....
STEVE HACKETT takes a cultural journey through the Mediterranean on his new acoustic album
"Under A Mediterranean Sky" is the now seventh acoustic work of the ex-Genesis guitarist. This time he pours the experiences he and his wife Jo Lehmann-Hackett made on extensive travels through the Mediterranean region, which is characterized by different cultures, into colorful musical images. In Corona-Lockdown times, the album title also awakens the longing for destinations that are unreachable for the time being
DeWOLFF go for the big drama again with the new album "Wolffpack
Zoom calls are in and in Corona times one of the technical possibilities, so that you at least know what the other person looks like: Pablo van de Poel and his brother Luka, along with fellow Corona member Robin Piso, lounge on a sofa in their studio in Utrecht, Holland, looking a little pale, but the three, between their mid-20s and early 30s, rarely give their answers without a smug grin flitting across their faces. "We take the bizarre Corona circumstances as they are," they say in unison. "As long as we have each other and make music day after day, the virus can lick us anywhere else..."
After three albums it was the end for the Jazz-Psych-Krautrockers OUT OF FOCUS
Two flute solos simultaneously, one from the right, one from the left stereo channel - this is how the 48-minute track "Huchen 55", spread over LP sides 3 and 4, begins on Out Of Focus' third album "Four Letter Monday Afternoon" (1972, released on the Kuckuck label). As I said, 48 minutes and 1972, which is only marginally shorter, but a year earlier than Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells"! To avoid misunderstandings: Apart from the stringing together of various musical themes, "Huchen 55" has stylistically nothing in common with Oldfield's masterpiece...
The TINDERSTICKS use the Corona forced break for a Krautrock excursion
The collective around Stuart A. Staples is always good for surprises - be it with cover versions, soundtracks, solo and side projects or bold stylistic lunges. This is also the case on their 13th album "Distractions", on which the Brits try their hand at pieces by Neil Young, the Television Personalities and Dory Previn, but also at French chansons and a concentrated load of Krautrock.
SYRINX CALL surprise with progressive sounds, Eloy musicians and a sci-fi story
If Ian Anderson established the flute in rock, the same could soon be true for Volker Kuinke's recorder on Syrinx Call's albums. But their new, now third release goes even one step further. More Prog than before, but less World Music and New Age. And with three musicians from the Eloy camp, including mastermind Frank Bornemann, they are also musically prepared for a highly sophisticated work about the evolutionary step of an artificial intelligence towards human empathy.
...and much more!
