Wobbler's Rites of Dawn makes the old new again

In a time when progressive rock is experiencing a strong renaissance, and countless bands namedrop the genre, it is ironic that not a single contemporary band has so far managed to recapture the thrill and excitement '70s teenagers experienced when the first thundering Rickenbacker notes and mellotron washes hit them as they drooled over Roger Dean gatefolds back in the day. Maybe it has to be that way. You can only hear Close to the Edge or Brain Salad Surgery for the first time once, and 1970something is a long time ago.

The whole proposition of a resurgent progressive movement in music is a troublesome one. Since prog has solidified into a genre since the early '70s heydays, don't you have to play by the rules of that genre to properly be "prog"? But if you play by the rules, are you truly progressive? It's all a big one-hand-clap, a conundrum wrapped in an endless enigma.

Norway's kings of symphonic prog, Wobbler, arrogantly sidestep the whole debate of "prog" versus progressive. Since it's dubious whether rock has anywhere left to progress anyway, they have instead chosen simply to celebrate the rainbow-colored fireworks, the airy-fairy themes, the danger and the drama and the joy of pure music that made prog what it really was, and still can be: An exhilarating musical spectacle, a gladiator match of major chord crescendos and mini-moog glissandos.

Wobbler's third album, Rites at Dawn, is a case in point. It's a no-holds-barred declaration of love to the progressive giants. It's all here - Lars Fredrik Frøislie's overblown arsenal of every analog synth known to man, played with Wakemanesque flair and Emersonian hubris. Andreas Prestmo's soaring vocals, delivering at times delicate, fragile melodies and at times joyous, triumphant multi-part harmonies that would make CSN proud. The vibrant, stinging guitar of Morten Eriksen, the - you guessed it - thundering Rickenbacker bass of Kristian Hultgren, and finally Martin Kneppen's drumming, which manages that neat and esoteric 70's trick of making even impossible time signatures swing and swagger.

Rites at Dawn is a major step forward for Wobbler. As songwriters they have matured. Even though the music is as complex as ever, it flows and breathes in a whole new way, and the addition of Andreas' vocals adds a very human, and dare we say emotional, element to the songs. The album somehow pulls off being both challenging and adventurous, but at the same time accessible and downright infectious. Even though this is the kind of prog connoisseurs will stroke their beards appreciatively to, it is also prog their girlfriends will like. And you really can't ask for more than that.

Riverside returns to the Laser’s Edge with its 10th anniversary release

For the band’s 10th anniversary, Riverside has prepared a special three song EP entitled Memories In My Head. The release marks the band’s return to the Laser’s Edge, which will release the EP throughout North America on June 28.

Memories In My Head contains 33 minutes of fresh music. “This new material, concerning (for obvious reasons) the themes of the passing time, will be a pleasant surprise for those who have missed the specific kind of melodies and space known from the band's early releases,” says Mariusz Duda, lead vocalist and bassist. “We have consciously gone back to our beginnings to create a certain kind of a circle. This mini-album will contain three longer compositions most resembling those from our first two albums. The result is a quite interesting, spacious, film-soundtrackish, nostalgic, and most of all rock mixture, summing up our career's first decade quite well.”

Riverside has performed at all the major progressive rock festivals in North America and Europe. Its extensive touring as a headliner and as a support act for Dream Theater has solidified the band’s place in the progressive rock pantheon while establishing a foothold with metal fans as well.

For further information, visit www.lasersedgegroup.com.

Melodic rock legends Pendragon release new CD

Pendragon formed in 1978 and over the past 30 years have built up a fanatical fanbase around the world, releasing eight albums along with countless EPs, live and mini-albums, most of which have been available via their own Toff Records label. Their recent studio album, 2008’s Pure was named Album of the Year by Classic Rock Society and described by Classic Rock magazine as “Pendragon’s finest hour so far without a doubt” and they have returned this spring with their new album Passion, out now on Madfish, a division of Snapper Music.

Frontman Nick Barrett explains the decision to work with a label after all these years: “After the success of the last album, the obvious next step was to sign to with a label who could continue this success. Snapper/Madfish are currently the best in the field at releasing and promoting creative rock music so signing up with them seemed like the perfect option and it’s something I am very excited about.”

Passion promises to build on the exciting foundations created by Pure and further expand the band’s sound, following and profile. Nick explains: “Our new album is again another step forward for us musically, the mixes sound amazing. There has been so much activity since Pure and there are a lot of new fans now but I really think Passion will reach even more new fans too.”

The album, which will be packaged in a deluxe digibook, is accompanied by a DVD featuring a behind-the-scenes ‘Progumentary’ filmed by the band themselves while recording the album.

Following two weekend-long launch events in UK and Holland, the band will be embarking on an extensive European tour in April which will see them playing 38 dates in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the UK.

Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins to release new King Crimson ProjeKct

DGM/Inner Knot Records announce the upcoming release of A Scarcity of Miracles, a new release in the King Crimson ProjeKct series. The ProjeKct features Robert Fripp, Jakko Jakszyk and Mel Collins with a rhythm section of Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison.

A Scarcity of Miracles will be released on May 30, 2011. Information and merchandise for the release can be found at www.dgmlive.com.

When Fripp (King Crimson founder and guitarist) and Jakszyk (Level 42) got together in February 2009 neither expected that their initial sessions of guitar-only improvisations would result in a full-blown album, or that it would ultimately be deemed to be a King Crimson ProjeKct. As the material from those first sessions developed, it was obviously becoming much wider in scope and scale. The arrival of sax player and former King Crimson member, Collins, added further colour and texture to the emerging songs. The line-up was completed with the addition of bassist Levin and Porcupine Tree’s drummer, Harrison (both members of the 2008 incarnation of King Crimson), adding their parts to the material in their respective studios.

What had begun as an exchange of ideas grew into an album of heartfelt songs, an album that is immediately accessible on first hearing but reveals fresh detail and depth with each subsequent play, as one might expect from musicians of this calibre.

A Scarcity of Miracles (A King Crimson ProjeKct) features artwork by PJ Crook and will be released simultaneously as a CD/DVD-A package, a 200gm limited edition vinyl album with a gatefold sleeve and a standard CD. The CD/DVD-A pack features the album mixed in 5.1 surround sound, the album in high definition 24/96 stereo, an album’s worth of alternate mixes, improvisations from the original sessions and the video for the title track, along with the CD album in a slipcase.

Many fans have read about the evolution of this King Crimson ProjeKct through Fripp’s widely read online diary at www.dgmlive.com - where he has updated progress on the recording, mixing and mastering of the album at regular intervals.

“JFC [Jaksyk, Fripp, Collin] is a superb album. I have not heard stereo quite like this since the early 1970s, and much of that was not of this quality, “ writes Fripp in his December 15th entry to his online diary. “JFC is one of my favouritist albums, of those where I am a determining element. It has the Crimson gene, but is not quite KC [King Crimson].”

Markus Reuter releases digital download of his contemporary classical composition ‘Todmorden 513’

Producer, musician, composer and sound designer Markus Reuter has just released the first performance of his contemporary classical piece ‘Todmorden 513’. The piece is an algorithmic composition for live instruments and electronics. This recording of the piece is available for digital download (and on CD, see below) at http://www.markusreuter.com.

‘Todmorden 513’ is an hour-long composition based on a cycle of 513 evenly spaced chords that were strictly derived from systematic combinations of pitches and recursive definition (i.e. the repeated application of a set of rules).

As Henry Warwick explains in the liner notes, “It is a continuous movement and sequence of five hundred and thirteen harmonies and triads generated by a combinatorial compositional technique of Reuter's own design.

The notes of each harmony or triad is then fed back into the same algorithm, resulting in a progression of chords and note clusters of highly varied density, ranging from simple two note harmonies to dense twelve note chords spread across several octaves. Starting on an A flat, the sequences of pitches form a kind of melodic or thematic line throughout. The rhythms of the performing instrumental trios and quartets were derived from the chord sequences themselves, which were looped across the whole piece, mapped to the notes of each chord, then mixed together. From there it was split into three or four independent voices respectively. The result is a shifting set of harmonic densities -- at times quite spare -- ranging from a harmony of two instruments to other moments of thick and lush instrumentation."

Critically acclaimed composer Nik Bärtsch says of the piece, "The composition sounds like a totally liberated Richard Wagner after an intense week of meditation in a space station behind Mars in the year 2050."

This performance of ‘Todmorden 513’ features a string and recorder ensemble and is intended as a starting point as Reuter intends for many more performances of the work in the future.

Personnel for this original recording include Reuter, Tobias Reber, Karina Bellmann, Uta Maria Lempert, Wiebke Tschöpe, Juliane Gilbert, Ulrich Pollmann, Frieder Zimmermann, and Robert Rich.

Todmorden 513 is also an experiment in distribution: for a minimum price of 4 EUR for the download from Bandcamp, a CD hardcopy (signed if requested) will be sent to the buyer. The small cost covers shipping and handling of the CD to anywhere in the world.

Punk Sanderson is locked inside Facebook

PUNK SANDERSON,
creator of THE VICAR CHRONICLES,
locks himself in FACEBOOK

In a bizarre feat of online dexterity, Punk Sanderson, creator of The Vicar Chronicles, has locked himself in his FACEBOOK page, ranting about his boss, the enigmatic record producer, The Vicar, and trying to escape.

The Vicar Chronicles - “whodunits about the music industry” - encompass Videoblogs, Novels, Audiobooks, Graphic novels and music, based on the adventures of the mysterious, English record producer, The Vicar - “Sherlock Holmes meets Spinal Tap.” Surreal tales of lip-syncing
singers, concert sabotage, villains with Orange Eyebrows, groupies with ghosts in their bedrooms, and CDs flying out of shops.

The Vicar’s assistant, Punk Sanderson, has been squirreling away writing these stories for seven years. The first Vicar Chronicle - The Mysterious Case of Billy’s G String - was serialized online with about 7,000 readers, but, despite promises from large literary agents, two
more books, three film scripts, a proposed Channel 4 TV show, powerful music managers, album deals... absolutely nothing has happened.

So The Vicar has locked Punk into Facebook, where he will be spending the coming weeks until he has collected 10,000 fans to watch his Videobooks, the first stage in a wider launch this autumn.

Footage of Punk's Facebook lock-in can be seen at http://on.fb.me/agu2VR or via Youtube at http://bit.ly/bdDjhA.

Oteri and Laczko release next WD-41 project

Willie Oteri and Dave Laczko’s

WD-41+2

Temi Per Cinema

Following their critically acclaimed and well received 2009 release, WD-41, the duo of Willie Oteri and Dave Laczko, have teamed with the talents of beat jockey and multi-instrumentalist Dino J.A. Deane (John Zorn, Jon Hassell, Bill Frisell) and drummer Scott Amendola (Nels Cline, Charlie Hunter) for an extension of their exploratory sonic trip.

The readers of All About Jazz, the largest and most quoted Jazz publication in the world, voted WD-41 to the number 24 spot in the “Top 50 Most Recommended Reviews of 2009.” WD-41 also has reached 55 and climbing in the “Top 100 Most Recommended Reviews of All Time,” also at AAJ.

The new release, Temi Per Cinema, brings us another exciting, totally improvised, exploratory journey based on live loops by Willie Oteri with live trumpet and effects created by Dave Laczko. It will be released digitally on July 13, 2010 with the CD release following on August 24, 2010. Temi Per Cinema was recorded direct to two tracks in Oteri’s home with Deane and Amendola’s improvised tracks added later while still retaining that “live vibe.” Editing is kept to a minimum, a fade in here, a fade out there, leaving a raw energy and excitement that can only happen in an improvised setting.

Glenn Astarita at All About Jazz wrote about WD-41; “…a spacey trip; chock full of loops, streaming synth noises, and fractured sojourns into the cosmic void. The musicians fuse maniacal psychedelia with free-form improvisation. Oteri makes his guitar weep in concert with otherworldly implementations…”

Temi Per Cinema promises to take the listener even farther on this journey.

Willie Oteri’s musical versatility and talent has propelled him to collaborations and performances with J. A. Deane, Scott Amendola, Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, XTC), Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel), Stu Hamm (Joe Satriani, SteveVai) Ronan Chris Murphy (producer/mixer), Brannen Temple (Sheena Easton, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson), Chris Maresh (Eric Johnson, Abra Moore, Mitch Watkins), Mike Malone (Jimmy Smith) and Ephraim Owens (Erika Badu). In recent years, it is Oteri's role as an improviser, composer and band leader which has garnered him increasing notoriety, coupled with his notable unique style on guitar.

WD-41 and WD-41+2 Temi Per Cinema are available at CDBaby, iTunes, Discipline Global Mobile (DGM), and Abstract Logix.

Band web site: www.myspace.com/wd41music

EPK and downloads for review at: www.reverbnation.com/wd41

Publicity: www.pr4music.com