IF IT’S OUT THERE, IT’S IN HERE

Riverside will play both the Dutch and English legs of Prognosis festival, in the wake of the release of new album, ID.Entity.

PRESS/ TOMASZ PULSAKOWSKI

RIVERSIDE HEADLINE PROGNOSIS 2023

The Warsaw band are the first headliners announced for the festival’s third year – with the event taking place in both the Netherlands and, for the first time, the UK.

Riverside have been announced as the first of two headline acts for 2023’s Prognosis Festival. Swedish prog rockers Soen, Canadian prog metal pioneers Voivod and Colin Edwin’s supergroup O.R.k. are also on the bill, with Rosalie Cunningham and Iamthemorning among the other notable additions.

Prognosis was originally launched in the Netherlands in 2019 with Haken, TesseracT as headliners, while the 2022 edition saw Enslaved, Katatonia, Focus and The Fierce And The Dead take to the stages at Eindhoven’s 1,500-capacity De Effenaar. Next year’s second headliners will be announced very shortly.

The 2023 event will hit both Holland and, for the first time, the UK. The first weekend will take place in Effenaar from April 15-16, with the show then moving to London’s Indigo at The O2 the following weekend, April 22-23.

Soen played the inaugural festival in 2019. “Everyone working there was incredibly hospitable,” the band tell Prog, “and the fans made us feel very welcome. We’re looking forward to being a part of it again. A festival that caters to prog metal and prog rock fans is a great thing to see. It’s beautiful that prog music is being consumed and supported, and the genre is thriving. It’s an awesome community of fans.”

Voivod will mark their 40th anniversary next year. “Our set will probably be an overview of our career,” drummer Michel ‘Away’ Langevin tells us, “but we will probably keep it on the prog side. There are prog metal elements in the music of many bands on the bill so I’m sure we’ll fit right in. It will definitely be interesting to feel the reaction of both the UK and Dutch crowds, especially if we play the same set.”

Some of the more metallic bands on the bill so far are UK hardcore quintet Ithaca, English tech metallers Core Of iO and Belgian heavy proggers Cobra The Impaler.

“We put Cobra The Impaler on last year,” says Andy Farrow, the festival’s co-organiser and co-owner, “and they actually outsold the headliners on merch. My big thing is finding new bands – we want to keep the bill modern and fresh. Prognosis caters for bands across the ‘progressive’ genre, whether musically softer or harder. It’s about retaining the original audience and developing a new audience for those interested in the progressive scene. ‘Progressive’ means happening or developing gradually or in stages; ‘Prognosis’ is a prediction of the future.”

“Riverside live has balls – we’re defined by our interaction with the audience.”

Previous festivals have featured educational events such as music industry panels and musician clinics. That aspect is still being looked at, Farrow says, though there are likely to be acoustic events, a VIP area and a marketplace at the 2,000-capacity Indigo. The headliners will remain the same for both venues, but Farrow advised that, for logistical reasons, there may be some variations further down the bill.

“I’ve been watching this festival closely since its first year,” says Iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina, “and I’m very happy we’ll get to be part of it this time, especially since Riverside are headlining. One of our latest tours was with them and it’ll be lovely to share the stage again.”

Prognosis will come at a busy time for Riverside. The Warsaw band will release their eighth LP, ID.Entity, through InsideOut on January 20. Frontman Mariusz Duda says that he “wanted to go back to the sound Riverside can achieve when we play live shows. Riverside live has more balls, and what defines us is the interaction between us and the audience: we’ve always forced people to sing, interact and clap.”

All of which bodes well for their planned tours of the US, the UK and mainland Europe, and for their Prognosis sets too.

For the latest updates on the festival and for tickets go to www.prognosis-festival.nl.

GRM

MAGENTA’S NINTH IS A SYMPHONY!

The Welsh band get orchestral on The White Witch – ASymphonic Trilogy.

Magenta are back, with strings attached...

STUAET WOOD

Magenta’s ninth studio album will be unveiled on October 31 via Tigermoth Records. Over a year in the making, The White Witch – ASymphonic Trilogy is a three-part orchestral suite and, as such, it’s a departure for the Welsh band.

“I do so much music for TV,” band linchpin Robert Reed tells Prog, “that when I had [orchestral] players working on a TV session I got them to play some parts for me too. So it’s a mixture of real players and top-of-the-range orchestral samples. It’s all orchestrated, with Tina [Booth] singing and Chris [Fry] playing classical guitar. It was a challenge – I’ve done shorter classical pieces before, but never a 50-minute symphonic work.”

Reed drew inspiration from his movie composer heroes John Williams, Hans Zimmer and Ennio Morricone. The album opener, Sacrifice is an orchestral reworking of the tune The White Witch, from Magenta’s 2001 debut LP Revolutions, while Retribution is based on Lust, from their 2004 album Seven. Featuring narration from Les Penning and lyrics from regular collaborator, Reed’s brother (and fellow horror film fan) Steve, the third piece is Survival, a new work that closes the record’s story arc.

“It’s about how witches once lived among villagers,” Reed explains, “healing, and being treated as good people, then witchfinders went around burning them, and Survival brings it up to date. The people we see as healers these days are nurses and doctors, especially after Covid.”

The band are looking into performing the album live, with full orchestra. For orders go to www.tigermothshop.co.uk.

GRM

Mountainside: the fuchsia’s bright...

PRESS

MOUNTAINSCAPE’S ASCENT CONTINUES ON ALBUM TWO

The Reading post-rock trio return with Atoms Unfurling.

British post-rock prospects Mountainscape release their second album, Atoms Unfurling, on October 21 via Trepanation Recordings. The LP follows the band’s full-length 2021 debut Acceptance, which established their dynamic blend of ambient, folk, metal and prog rock textures, and earned them a Limelight feature in Prog 131, earlier this year.

The Reading-based trio – guitarist Dan Scrivener, drummer James Scrivener and bassist Ethan Bishop – started recording the new album in spring of 2022, and it was tracked at Elm Studios, which Bishop co-runs. The album’s title track was released as the lead single back in September, with a video shot by Tom Granica and Drew Vernon, of fellow post-rockers, Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster.