Out of this World
Over the last few decades, Rob Reed’s profile has been raised through a number of musical ventures. Hot on the heels of this year’s releases with Magenta and Chimpan A comes the electronic album, Cursus 123 430. Prog catches up with the Welsh wizard to find out about his latest project.
Words: Alison Reijman
Why so Sirius? Rob Reed enjoying his ‘down time’.
J
em Godfrey of Frost* probably best captures the musical psyche of Rob Reed when, during a recent conversation, he told the prog multitasker he was the only person he knew who takes a break by making a new album.
In between releasing Chimpan A’s The Empathy Machine and Magenta’s Masters Of Illusion, Reed was wrestling with the complexities of the forthcoming two-part Sanctuary 4, and decided he needed to stop and take a step back. But there was no conventional holiday for Reed: he simply went back into the studio and did something completely different.
“I wanted it to have a cosmic feel to it as the first time I heard Oxygène, it sounded like a sci-fi movie soundtrack.”
Having mastered a multitude of musical genres via his myriad projects, Reed’s plan this time was to go electronic. Armed with some old analogue synthesisers, Cursus 123 430 was composed, performed and produced in just six weeks.