AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Fearlessly experimental and uncompromising, it’s hard to imagine Jenny Hval existing in any other period in time. The Norwegian artist’s ambient, softly subversive long-players Apocalypse Girl and Blood Bitch are both empowered and empowering works, and the new EP The Long Sleep (Sacred Bones) will similarly stretch the minds of some listeners and the patience of others. Elements of jazz, electro-drone and spoken word punctuate four variations on a theme, with identity, consciousness and the concept of creativity all in the ether. It’s slightly pretentious and strangely enchanting stuff that you’ll keep coming back to.
Produced by Billy Sherwood, Ben Craven’s 2016 album Last Chance To Hear was a fine piece of trad prog, with the spacey Spy In The Sky Pt.3 even featuring vocals from one William Shatner. That song features on The Single Edits (bencraven.com), a set of 11 highlights from the Brisbane artist’s solid, melodic back catalogue, all cut down to bite-sized, streaming-friendly morsels. This taster might well entice fans of John Mitchell, Spock’s Beard, Cosmograf et al to sample Craven’s three albums in full.
Keeping the flag of instrumental prog flying in Limerick, Ireland, Zombie Picnic return with their second album, Rise Of A New Ideology (Golden Shred). Using portentous soundbites from TV news and interviews, they do for overpopulation and futurism what Public Service Broadcasting did for the space race and miners. Leader Jim Griffin’s lyrical guitar dominates bold, engaging arrangements that drift from Floydian space rock to Crimsonesque clangour to the squalling punk of a Television or Wire. It’s compelling, well-measured stuff from a band who clearly have something exciting on the go.
The second album by German group Subsignal, La Muerta is their first for their new label, Gentle Art Of Music, a fitting home for their accomplished brand of melodic/neo-prog. This is surely their most immediate and confident record to date, replete with big vocal harmonies, sterling keyboard/guitar solos, catchy tunes and big, polished production. If Lifesigns, IQ or even Panic Room feature in your life, then stare La Muerta in the face.
Queen, Bigelf, Jellyfish and Jim Steinman came to mind while enjoying Book II, the highly personal second album from Philadelphia’s Rausch, led by eccentric and singular keyboardist/vocalist Don Rausch. Cheeky musical theatre, prog metal pyrotechnics and Blue October levels of introspection combine on an irresistible work that plays like a rock opera and runs the gamut of emotions, from elation to anger to melancholy and back. Transfixing stuff. Finally this month, just a reminder that Tangerine Dream are bundling in their utterly mesmerising 2015 EP Quantum Key with the upcoming reissue of 2017’s Quantum Gate (Kscope), which makes this a double helping of reassurance that Edgar Froese’s musical legacy is in safe, sympathetic hands.
GRANT MOON has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away…