Ed’s Letter

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. Always a strange issue, this one. It’s officially out in 2022, but already we’re looking to 2023. A celebration of the 12 months passed, if you will, and the building of excitement for what the next 12 months will bring. We have the results of the Readers’ Poll in this issue to reward those artists that have found favour with so many of you over the last year. There’s some expected and some very unexpected results, so thank you to the masses of you all who voted. You can see wh0 has won what on p28.

Hawkwind grace this month’s cover and we tell the story of their mighty Space Ritual, both the album and tour, which really did take their space rock strand of progressive music to the outer limits. As our writer Joe Banks was working on the cover story, the news arrived that Nik Turner, such a pivotal force in the band during those early years, had sadly passed, so we also pay tribute to the Mighty Thunder Rider on p36.

While we so very often look back with Prog magazine cover stories, I’d like to think this issue is about looking forward too: to the newer bands making a splash in the Readers’ Poll, and to what awaits us in 2023. 2022 might have been another rubbish year for many, we can only hope for better in 2023. Musically, we’ve heard new albums from Haken, Riverside, Katatonia, eMolecule, Klone and Enslaved that will be out in the early part of the year. With all honestly, you’re unlikely to be disappointed.

To end on a brighter note, I’d like to wish Prog reader Rob Moss a very happy 60th birthday for Dec 25. You’d be hard pushed to find a more supportive member of the prog community. And although we don’t normally do birthday shout-outs on this page, anyone who knows his wife Susie will be aware of what a compact but formidable woman she can be!

Thank you for all your support in 2022. We truly appreciate it. And let’s prog 2023 with all the force we can muster…