THE BEATLES - A New Look at "Let It Be"
The Beatles' farewell album "Let It Be" stands for the attempt to patch up something that could no longer be repaired: four tired music pioneers who could no longer work in a group dynamic, let alone wanted to, and who nevertheless embarked on an experiment that was as costly as it was nerve-wracking, and which was doomed to fail from the start. In conversation with eclipsed, Giles Martin not only reports on his remix of the album and the compilation of never-before-released studio recordings, but also takes a personal look - and at the same time that of his late father - at a work that needs to be reassessed.
THE DOORS - From chaos to magic
It's been 50 years since "L.A. Woman" was released. On the occasion of the anniversary, for which a box set with the remastered album including numerous outtakes has been released, we talked to Doors drummer John Densmore about, among other things, recording vocals in the bathroom and a singer who got slightly out of control, who nevertheless knew how to control himself.
ALAN PARSONS - Show without end
With "LiveSpan", the legendary Abbey Road studio sound engineer Alan Parsons already presented a pretty definitive live album in 2013, which captured the great art rock tracks of the Alan Parsons Project well in the crisp stage garb. "Live In Colombia" under the banner The Alan Parsons Symphonic Project 2016 brought the once bold sound dreams then even famously with a large orchestra on the live stage. What can "The NeverEnding Show: Live In The Netherlands" add to that? We also asked Alan Parsons about other projects such as an upcoming studio album and remaster boxes in the Zoom interview.
DEEP PURPLE "Keep your hands off Beatles songs!"
Also DEEP PURPLE have used the tourless time of the pandemic to record new music. However, the songs on "Turning To Crime" are not really new: Like many others before them, the band has recorded an album that consists exclusively of new interpretations of well-known songs. These are not their own songs in new versions, but songs by other artists who were formative or important for the band members. IAN PAICE and DON AIREY explained to the eclipsed author which conditions applied to the selection.
THE TEA PARTY - The great unknowns
The Canadian trio The Tea Party anticipated the retro rock of Wolfmother and others by a decade, stood several times before the big breakthrough and is good friends with Jimmy Page. Still, Jeff Martin & Co. have recently threatened to fade into obscurity. Until now: With "Blood Moon Rising" they dare a renewed attempt at the rock Olympus.
DAVID BOWIE - Treasures from the Toy Box
January 8, 2022 is David Bowie's 75th birthday, and two days later marks the sixth anniversary of his death. So it's no coincidence that on the day before the work is officially released for the first time, with which the musician in 2000 reflected on his still unsuccessful early years and reinvented old songs from that time: the legendary album "Toy", which is released in a 3-CD box set documenting the recordings in detail. Just six weeks before that, the fifth box set of the artist's major retrospective will be released under the title "Brilliant Adventure", which covers his work in the sometimes turbulent years from 1992 to 2001.
ELBOW - The healing power of music
The great feeling has always been the special strength of the British alternative rockers Elbow. On their new album "Flight Dream 1" they surpass themselves in this respect. The reason for this is obvious. With the times, customs change. This is especially true for music: Before the Corona crisis, the motto "the more trivial, the more mass-compatible" seemed to have prevailed. 18 months later, most songwriters have piled up so much that they now want to make themselves heard with content
STING - One for all
He's not a rock-animal and doesn't fit into any other pigeonhole either. Even more: Gordon Sumner aka Sting does everything to remain unpredictable. This includes musicals, reggae albums, duets, Vegas engagements and endless tours, but also entertaining statements on various topics. To mark the release of his 15th studio album, "The Bridge," we caught up with the former chief cop. Here's Sting on ..
POPOL VUH - An eternally searching visionary
After five groundbreaking albums by the Krautrock project Popol Vuh around the spiritual visionary Florian Fricke were re-released two years ago in the LP boxset "Vol. 1: The Essential Collection", a second one now follows with "Vol. 2: Acoustic & Ambient Spheres", which contains four more works by the music collective: two soundtracks for films by Werner Herzog ("Herz aus Glas" and "Cobra Verde"), plus the classic "Seligpreisung" as well as the lesser-known album "Agape - Agape". Reason enough for eclipsed to take a closer look at the phenomenon Popol Vuh: What makes Florian Fricke's music so unique?
ROBERT REED - A musician with 1000 faces
Rob Reed is one of the most versatile and prolific progressive sound tinkerers of our time. He recently released the album "The Ringmaster: Part One", which follows his Mike Oldfield bows, which he has been releasing since 2014 under the project title "Sanctuary". However, he is best known to the prog community as the founder of the neo-prog band Magenta, whose debut "Revolutions" was released in 2001. Other projects include Cyan, Chimpan A and Kompendium. How does this man do it?
BRÖSELMASCHINE - From Folk and Protest Song to Krautrock
Peter Bursch has helped generations of guitarists get started in making music with his books, which have been printed in millions of copies (completely without sheet music). Back in 1968, he and friends in Duisburg founded BRÖSELMASCHINE, one of Germany's first progressive rock bands. In 2021, their highly acclaimed debut album celebrates its 50th birthday; this summer it was re-released in a sonically reworked form. Together with the band leader, eclipsed looks back at the early years of the now re-active group to shed light on the genesis of one of the most interesting musical productions of early German rock history.
Every ELECTRIC ORANGE album is an adventure - also the new wonder "Psi-Hybrid"
Electric Orange, active since the early 90s and with many releases on their credit side, are an integral part of the German neo-psychedelic and neo-krautrock scene that can no longer be imagined without. The quartet from Aachen, consisting of keyboarder Dirk Jan Müller, guitarist Dirk Bittner, drummer Georg Monheim and new bassist Werner Wieczorek, plays big with the current album "Psi-Hybrid" and reveals the background.
MASTODON - Martial sound medicine
Many people make noise - after all, that's not a great art per se. Noise with brains, on the other hand, is something completely different - and currently no one masters it better than MASTODON. The quartet from Atlanta outranks their colleagues from Tool - and gives much more exciting interviews by the way
PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI - Artificial intelligence and real emotions
Premiata Forneria Marconi, PFM for short, have been the musical figurehead of so-called Italo-Prog, along with Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, since the early 1970s. Now their new album "I Dreamed Of Electric Sheep" has been released, which refers to a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick and the movie "Blade Runner" based on it.
DION celebrates the blues (-rock) with his friends and uses it as a fountain of youth
"I think I've written the best songs of my career in the last three years," the 82-year-old declares right at the beginning of the interview. An astonishing statement for someone who can look back on a musical career spanning more than 60 years, which gave him some megahits right at the beginning: "Runaround Sue" and especially "The Wanderer" from 1961 are real evergreens and probably the best-known songs of Dion Francis DiMucci, who was born in 1939 in the New York Bronx
SCHILLER alias mastermind Christopher von Deylen comes up trumps in a big way on "Epic
The Lower Saxon has never made a secret of the fact that Christopher von Deylen, whose project is called "Schiller", is an ardent cineaste. Nor has he ever made a secret of his love of film music. But in contrast to his earlier, incidentally highly successful albums, this time the 51-year-old has realised all the acoustic requirements for imaginary soundtracks. He composed epic clouds of sound, in the spirit of Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh or, in places, Ennio Morricone, to record them with a 40-piece symphonic orchestra at Vienna's Synchron Stage Studio.
The essence of THE SPACELORDS are spacy melodies and powerful riffs
"Reutlingen was a home game, so to speak, and we were really looking forward to it. Finally performing live again is food for the soul," says Marcus Schnitzler, drummer of the Reutlingen psych'n'space trio The Spacelords, about the first concert after a long, long time. Bassist Ekhard "Akee" Kazmeier's joy about the first show in mid-November is also clear to see: "After 20 months on the sidelines, it naturally feels wonderful to be booked again. Suddenly you're standing in front of a great audience and playing live - wonderful!"
... and much more!
