The birth of his first child was a dramatic experience for crossover progmusician Rhys Marsh in many ways. On "October After All", the new album of the Englishman, who lives in Norway, prominent musical guests and unusual optimistic tones can be heard.

At some point even the biggest workaholic reaches his limits. And multi-talented Rhys Marsh would probably even reject this designation. He simply does everything that has to do with music, passionately with pleasure, with 100% commitment. "On my other two solo albums, I literally played everything myself. This time I wanted other musicians with me," he says about the process of creating "October After All".

At the beginning of the 1980s there were a lot of bands that went through a rapid development within a very short time. Examples are XTC, Prefab Sprout, The The or Julian Cope: artists who don't just deliver nice chart food, wear the latest fashion and are easy to market, but develop their own ideas and rebel in a creative way. If they don't make as much money as their record companies expect from them, they often react with thumbscrews and lawyer's letters - an experience that Mark Hollis, Lee Harris, Paul Webb and their producer and unofficial fourth band member Tim Friese-Greene also have to make at some point.

"Love Remains" is such a mature work that it's hard to believe that it's the debut of the 32-year-old Australian: "Debut is basically true, although I released my first album under my name twelve years ago" It was called "Transformation" and was an instrumental fusion album. Tal Wilkenfeld had packed her things in Sydney a few years earlier as a teenager and had entered the jazz scene of New York City via Los Angeles. "No one had ever waited for a little girl from Down Under to play an electric bass. But I was there and I wanted to bite my way through. Later, through contact with the Allman Brothers, I got my job in Jeff Beck's band."

The lives of Jim Matheos and John Arch have developed very differently over the past three and a half decades. While Matheos has been touring the world and releasing albums since the mid-1980s as guitarist for the prog metal band Fates Warning, the singer Arch still works full-time as a carpenter. Both are connected by their time with Fates Warning between 1982 and 1986, which they also celebrated live in 2016 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the album "Awaken The Guardian". In addition, Arch himself has been active as a musician again since 2003. In 2011 the first album of their project Arch/Matheos was released. We talked to the singer about the successor "Winter Ethereal", his new way of singing and his life as a part-time musician.

eclipsed: Could you imagine working full-time as a musician after all, or are you happy that your life went like this?

I catch Krissy Matthews, 26 year old English-Norwegian guitarist and singer, on his mobile phone on the motorway just before he boarded the ferry from England to Germany. I myself am standing with my car on a supermarket parking lot in Frankfurt. Matthews is on his way to Bonn. In the local club Harmonie the "Rockpalast" will record a concert of his solo band for the "Crossroads" series on 21 March.

eclipsed: Are you more nervous before such gigs than at normal concerts?

Krissy Matthews: Of course. That's why we rehearsed a lot. We are very well prepared and will leave nothing to chance.

eclipsed: Doesn't that contradict what you otherwise offer live? You're often experienced as a free improviser, at least with solos.

Since his million-seller "The Way It Is" (1986) and "Scenes From The Southside" (1988) the singer and pianist Bruce Hornsby has developed into a musical chameleon. In addition to a one-and-a-half-year guest appearance with Grateful Dead, the man from Williamsburg in Virginia has been releasing Americana, jazz and bluegrass records since the nineties. His most recent work "Absolute Zero" is largely based on so-called "cues", short, functional pieces of music for films by his buddy Spike Lee, to whose strip "Clockers" he contributed the duet "Love Me Still" together with Chaka Khan in 1995. "My entry into the movie world," as Hornsby says. "Since the documentary 'Kobe Doin' Work', I've written music for six of Spike's films, most recently his Netflix series 'She's Gotta Have It'." In an interview with eclipsed, the 64-year-old ranges from his literary interests to modern classical music, which also influenced his new album "Absolute Zero".

"Outside The Dream", the new, second album of the Dutch band No Man's Valley, is a fantastic work full of 70s retro rock: guitars, organs, feverish, blurry moments, cool grooves, catchy melodies. eclipsed spoke with singer Jasper Hesselink about the background.

eclipsed: Has "Outside The Dream" become the infamous "difficult second album", or what it is simply to record and produce the album?

Jasper Hesselink: It doesn't feel like our second album at all, because our debut was a torn work, characterized by line-up changes and many recording sessions. This time we went into the studio like a well-oiled machine. We had a pre-production phase in which we prepared ourselves well. We made sure that we were all 100% satisfied with our new songs and their forms before we went into the studio. It wasn't always easy, but it went much smoother than the first album.