THE C:LIVE COLLECTIVE

Twelfth Night man thrills with his nightmare visions.

These are anxious times. Social media generates wonder, bile and confusion in equal measure. We’re told we live in a ‘post-truth’ age full of ‘alternative facts’. The C:Live Collective – led and curated by ex-Twelfth Night maestro Clive Mitten – reckon it’s time for a counterblast.

A NIGHTMARE VISION THAT’S BOTH BEAUTIFUL AND DISTURBING.

The Age Of Insanity is a prog state-of-the-nation address: a call to distinguish fact from fiction.

Mitten’s first new music for over 30 years is welcome and bracing, drawing directly on Twelfth Night’s classic

Fact And Fiction. On that album, he and the late Geoff Mann practically predicted the troubled age we now live in. On The Age Of Insanity, he unfolds a nightmare vision in a series of movements that, like the internet itself, is simultaneously beautiful and disturbing.

Twelfth Night fans will cotton on quickly to what Mitten and co are up to, as the C:Live Collective take 1982’s Fact And Fiction as a leaping-off point for a new vision. This includes riffing on …Fiction’s We Are Sane on the album’s opening track, The Fifth Estate Part One (The Dictator Speaks). Mann’s lyrics are placed in the voice of a disembodied Big Brother figure and sung with dark urgency by Mark Spencer.

Thankfully, there’s much more to Mitten’s reworking of this classic material than nostalgia or slick production values. The C:Live Collective’s version of We Are Sane takes Twelfth Night’s intoxicating mix of new wave attitude and prog complexity and ramps it up to 11. Equally, the album closer, This City Is London, presents a bitter, witty take on Fact And Fiction’s This City. Mitten adds new layers by introducing a mournful take on the English ‘anthem’ Jerusalem, while vocals from Geoff Mann’s son, James, are crisp and sharp.

But this is much more than an album of retreads.

There are three new and massive instrumentals. Frankly, they might easily suffer next to the classic material, but they’re rich and jolting. Brimming with cinematic potential – think Vangelis on steroids – Part Three in particular is strange and disconcerting, as well as groovy and ravishing. In 17 minutes, it covers more ground than many albums. After a significant furlough from music, it’s most refreshing to hear a musician of Mitten’s quality playing with such gusto again.

In one respect, The Age Of Insanity is a mere aperitif: The C:Live Collective are due to issue a double-album, full-lyric version in the autumn. However, Age Of Insanity stands alone. In the absence of lyrics, it gives the listener space to fill up the sounds with his or her own nightmare visions.