AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
GRANT MOON has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away…
Along with Wire, Pere Ubu were one of the bands who successfully broke free from the shackles of punk and ascended into the more rarefied air of progressive music. Trouble On Big Beat Street (Cherry Red) sees David Thomas and group continue to push the barriers almost 50 years deep into their career. Their firsttake approach keeps things spontaneous and edgy, making for thrilling, beguiling and disturbing music, with a demented cover of The Osmonds’ Crazy Horses to boot.
Enthusiastic English artist Dreaming David K returns with more pure-blooded, for-the-love-of-it prog on Black Cat Metaphysics (dreamingdavidk.com). His latest may have been made on a shoestring, but on songs such as Dragonhunter, Multiverse Theory and Blue Sky Thinking he once again proves to be a skilled keyboardist and an inventive songwriter, if set hard in the amber of prog’s golden age. With Moon Duo and Wooden Shjips, guitarist/vocalist Ripley Johnson has supplied hours of class psychedelic music to savour. His Rose City Band parses his proggy stylings through an alt-country lens (he calls it “porch music”) and new album Garden Party (Thrill Jockey) is their twangiest, and most conventional ‘song’ record to date. Echoing lap steel guitars, hazy vocals and warbly organ make for a pleasingly soporific, prog-adjacent listen.
Amsterdam-based, Turkish/Dutch psych-folk sextet Altin Gün return to first principles on A¸sk (Glitterbeat), drawing on traditional Turkish folk music and imbuing this with psychedelia, synths and electric saz. Acid and spacey tones collide, and dub-funk and prog-disco moments make for another thrilling selection of tunes, by an ensemble playing at the peak of their powers.
With its three members based in South Gloucestershire, London and Australia, The Drinking Club
understandably don’t get together in one room to jam much. However, the latest fruit of their long-distance file sharing method, …Really?!? (bit.ly/drinkingclub), more than justifies the trio’s broadband bills. Multi-talented multi-instrumentalist Peter Hewitt and guitarist Tony Flint make a pleasingly retro, neo sound with pianos, keys, thick bass and crunching axes, and vocalist Kevin Borras brings drama to the layered Ticking Clocks and But For The Waves, a chilling, evocative look at Brexit Britain’s attitude to immigration.
Finally, New York brothers The Lemon Twigs recently appeared on Todd Rundgren’s variable album Space Force, and while their fourth record Everything Harmony (Captured Tracks) isn’t the proggiest album here, their sun-bleached, 70s-soaked pop will push buttons for those with an affection for ‘the old ways’. Their twin harmonies evoke Simon & Garfunkel, and both Rundgren and Brian Wilson inspire subtly complex tunes like
Any Time Of Day and I Don’t Belong To Me.
It’s an utterly beguiling record.