Coming Full Circle
Songs about sorcerers and wizards are back, thanks to Rob Reed, who has completely overhauled his Cyan debut album, For King And Country. Prog catches up with Reed and his Cyan collaborator Peter Jones to find out more about the art of rewriting the past and hitting the high notes.
Words: Alison Reijman
The
new-look
Cyan.
Images: Huw Parry
“When I wrote all this material, I had no pre-conceived ideas as I was a starry-eyed teenager who had not yet been battered by the music business for 30 years.”
Rob Reed
Rob Reed has enjoyed an extremely productive 18 months. On top of releasing a seemingly continuous stream of contrasting albums under his myriad musical banners, the Welsh prog workaholic has also embarked on a long trip down Memory Lane. This was to revisit his school days when the first ever songs for his band Cyan were partly composed on the sixth-form piano. Those teenage composition later became For King And Country, Cyan’s 1993 debut album, which, by then, had become a solo venture.
Almost 30 years on, he’s completely reworked the album and turned it back into a band project. With Reed are prog luminaries multi-instrumentalist Peter Jones (Tiger Moth Tales, Camel, Red Bazar) and guitarist Luke Machin (Maschine, The Tangent), plus Magenta’s rhythm section, bassist Dan Nelson (Godsticks) and drummer Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Griffiths (also from