ROUND-UP: Prog
Thumpermonkey
Make Me Young Again, Etc
roCKosmos
oh, how things have changed since this quartet were making intriguing prog noises under the name Thumpermonkey lives!. after a decade, the london quartet shortened their name in 2012 and hurtled towards a new musical future. There’s modern classical, metal, jazz and post-rock in the complicated theatre of this scott Walkeresque, fin-de-siecle fever dream that loops in magma, Peter Hammill, gentle giant and shudder To Think for a challenging yet beautifully constructed listen. Deckchair For Your ghost might be the most accessible track, with its piano arpeggios underpinning unsettling musings, and is the track that most
reflects the compositional hand of guitarist, keyboard player (and sherlock soundtrack creator) rael Jones.
on Veldt, michael Woodman sings:
‘When i try to describe the noise in this room, words that come to me sound like entomology/and that’s when i’m furthest away from naming it again.’ minus the insect stuff, let’s put a ‘zoo’ in ‘zeuhl’ and go ape to celebrate this unique group.
The Tangent
Proxy
insideout
Ten albums along, and Brit keyboard maestro andy Tillison takes his golden-era-inspired jazz prog to new heights, throwing funk, metal, fusion and rave into the pot along with pointed political prose. Best of all is the vitriolic and fantastically titled supper’s off, quality turns from Jonas reingold (bountiful bass), Theo Travis (silvery flute) and luke machin (fleetfingered guitarin’) throughout.
Slift
La Planete Inexploree
stolen Body
Where free jazz and krautrock collide, you’ll find the epic, speedfuelled fuzz of this Toulouse crew. Fans of Hawkwind and garage nut-jobs Thee oh sees will swoon at full-pelt wig-out Heavy
road, Trapezohedron agitates the ol’ Hallogallo hook, and the title track takes the improv and flute route to a wonderfully bluesy Third stone From The sun spot.
Jean-michel Jarre
Equinoxe Infinity
sony
after 2016’s disappointing oxygène
3, J-mJ returns with something more in the spirit of its 1978 predecessor. With its two-sleeve cover concept (updating the classic binoculared ‘Watcher’ motif) it might reference evil mech vs wholesome nature, but the lush analogue sweep pervades, stalling only slightly at the ace of Base-ish cheese of
infinity. The rest is groovily moody.
Custard Flux
Helium
CustardFlux.BandCamp.Com
Here’s a different sound coming down the road out of motor city. more swindon by way of canterbury with its XTc-chiming 60s charm, Detroit artist gregory curvey (aka frontman for pop-sike band the luck of eden Hall) gives his Harmonium a kinksy Village green workout on The Hit Parade and sleepy and kicking out a jazzy 3/4 jam through The
shire of gingin.