The Musical Box

New spins...

The ex-Genesis singer returns to the big time with his first album in 21 years to reassert his place as the doyen of cerebral art-pop.

Edited by Dave Everley, prog.reviews@futurenet.com, Words: Jeremy Allen

Illustration: Pete Fowler

i/o

VIRGIN MUSIC

The last time Peter Gabriel released a whole album of original material was in 2002. Tony Blair was prime minister, Wikipedia was just getting started, and the Twin Towers in New York had barely been down a year. Given the passage of time, one has to wonder about the voice, which tends to weaken and lose precision when a singer crosses the threshold into senior citizenship.

Thankfully there are no such worries with i/o, Peter Gabriel’s 10th solo studio album, with his soulful larynx projecting even more gracefully than he did on Where The Sour Turns To Sweet, the opening track of Genesis’ 1969 debut album From Genesis To Revelation. Moreover, he has the same range he drew upon for Supper’s Ready – the surrealist prog opera from his old band’s fourth album Foxtrot – still at his disposal. Genesis themselves closed for business last year, so to hear Gabriel soaring undiminished feels like something of a miracle.

And there’s more good news. He can still write songs that turn the head and stir the heart, even if it takes him a little longer these days. Playing For Time, a ballad about mortality that begins with a motif from Chopin’s Marche Funèbre and takes in the hymnal shapes of an old spiritual, feels like a song for the ages. It has the gravity of a Blood Of Eden or even a Don’t Give Up, though where those songs were performed with Sinéad O’Connor and Kate Bush, respectively, here it’s Gabriel on his own.

Most of the songs on i/o have already been released, drip-fed throughout the year to coincide with the lunar cycle. Accompanying each track has been specifically commissioned art, created by some of the world’s most renowned artists, including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson and Cornelia Parker.

The first of these singles was Panopticon, here taking its place as the album’s opening track. As the portmanteau title suggest, it references both philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s cylindrical prison, the panopticon, and the digital moguls who harvest our data and spy on us. It’s a barnstormer in the Gabriel songbook: cogent, catchy and thoughtprovoking, and also a signifier of i/o’s big themes.

And so it proves: there are songs about terrorism (Live And Let Live), injustice (The Court), locked-in syndrome (Road To Joy) and interconnectivity (i/o itself), all released as singles over the past 12 months. Despite their dark themes, these songs are really about uplift in difficult times, and in each case we’re in the safest of waters musically. Gabriel did apparently attempt to collaborate with EDM luminary Skrillex, a journey outside of his comfort zone that perhaps mercifully remains unreleased. Instead, we get the heartwarming This Is Home, about domesticity and composed in reaction to Skrillex’s suggestion to write a banging tune about partying all night. Punishing beats are eschewed for a Swedish male voice choir and the orchestral arrangements of John Metcalfe.

“To hear Gabriel soaring undiminished feels like a miracle. ”

So far, so solid, though with Gabriel there always has to be some kind of innovation. In this case, i/o offers different mixes for each track by two of the world’s most celebrated engineers: Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Madonna, U2, Ed Sheeran) who Gabriel describes as a “painter”, providing the Bright-Side mixes; and Tchad Blake (Elvis Costello, U2, Sheryl Crow), “a sculptor”, brings the Dark-Side mixes. They’re available to buy separately on vinyl, while the CD version includes both plus a Dolby Atmos mix by Hans-Martin Buff with the In-Side mix for anyone whose living room boasts an overabundance of hi-tech speakers.

In truth, what could have been an interesting exercise in exploring the minutiae of mixing actually falls down given how similar the results are between Spike’s version and Blake’s version. Clearly both have done sound professional jobs that make the best of the rich resources available, making ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ essentially misnomers, given that neither feel particularly bright or dark. The release of both versions of Olive Tree in August was supposed to highlight the variables but merely confirmed that most people are more interested in the song than the production. Only audiophiles with especially attentive ears are likely to pick out discernible differences, with the contrasts all but negligible to the rest of us. Still, given the elephantine gestation period of this album, we’ll take it in whichever format we can get it.

Gabriel recently joked that fans receiving a song each full moon was like them “getting a Lego piece each month”. By that measure, i/o is a veritable sonic Legoland, albeit one for grown-ups, given the weighty themes. The world has changed since 2002, mostly for the worst, but it’s a better place with i/o in it.

MATT BERRY

Simplicity KPM/ACID JAZZ

Multi-talented actor/musician records for legendary library label.

Matt Berry’s trajectory over the past 20 years is pretty extraordinary. Starting off with scene-stealing roles in prog-friendly comedies Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh, he’s rapidly progressed to alternative national treasure, starring in the shows Toast Of London and What We Do In The Shadows. Yet in parallel to his acting career and OTT thespian persona, he’s also proved to be a musical polymath, releasing a series of albums that cover bases including folk pop, ambient, psychedelia and jazz rock. His latest project is a hook-up with library music label KPM, another national institution that’s provided the classic theme tunes to numerous TV shows, from Grandstand and World Of Sport to Grange Hill and Captain Pugwash.

“Walks in the footsteps of Alan Hawkshaw and Keith Mansfield. ”

Walking in the footsteps of revered KPM composers such as Alan Hawkshaw, Keith Mansfield and John Cameron must have been a little daunting for Berry, but as an aficionado of vintage gear and the library music aesthetic, he pulls the project off with some aplomb. Simplicity is a collection of short, snappy instrumentals packed with hooks and energy, designed to be repurposed by any TV company that needs music for its latest production. As such, the tracks are entirely utilitarian and skip between genres with unself-conscious ease. Berry performs everything himself save for the drums, with Craig Blundell whipping up a flurry of snares and hats.

Top Brass kicks the album off, its funky beat and throbbing bass enhanced by staccato strings and horns to create maximum excitement. It’s the type of orch rock mash-up that feels completely natural, and could teach prog bands who dabble in this territory a thing or two. Driving Seat has a propulsive, One Of These Days-style undercarriage, while Set The Scene begins with some moody synth before the tempo picks up with a groovy squall of organ. What’s great about these tracks is their sense of immediacy, as though they’ve been lovingly dashed off in a few hours of available studio time, in homage to the way that library musicians often had to work.

Simple Basics sounds like it could be the theme to a current affairs show for kids before moving into spacier territory, with jazzy guitar and Philly strings building to a great climax. Too Many Hats is even wilder, encompassing chin-stroking piano and synth, a tango section and some Shaft-esque wahwah. And Telescopic rounds things off nicely with tense thriller vibes, all drifting Rhodes and stalking bass as an assassin lines up their latest target…

Simplicity is great fun and another string to Berry’s already impressive bow.

JOE BANKS

35 TAPES

Fabric Of Time APOLLON

Norwegian progophiles continue to channel classic influences.

On their third album release since forming in 2018, this Oslo-based collective of seasoned musicians seem to be finetuning their patchwork of vintage 70s prog inspirations and perfecting the skill of making a musical magic eye picture – something that appears chaotic on first encounter but weaves together beautifully once the brain tunes in.

When the listener is confronted with a lurching, three-legged time-signature there’s a fear that we’re heading for uninspiring generic prog territory, and on initial listens, it then feels as if they’re drifting along without much of a prominent melodic thread to follow. But then, when the central songcraft of Whistling For The Wind starts to cut through, and Jarle Wangen’s yearning vocal melody makes its mark on Crawling, the arresting guitar skytrails from Morten Lund suddenly make sense and the Banksian piano and Wakeman-style synth trills of the title track prick up the ears along with Hackett-like fret interjections. The duetting vocal contribution of Bel Canto’s Anneli Drecker in the album’s closing passages make for an earpricking finale, and the temptation to go round again becomes irresistible.

JS

A FLYING FISH

El Pez Que Voló – Act I APOLLON RECORDS/GYMNOCAL INDUSTRIES

Kaleidoscopic lunacy from Mexico’s premier space opera operatives.

There’s a lot going on in El Pez Que Voló – Act I, a concept album from A Flying Fish, who are either a Mexican prog band or an “interdimensional storyteller” named Râhoola, depending on who you believe. It’s complicated. And so is the concept, which involves Teezûck, a depressed half-bird/half-fish creature who journeys to seek his destiny after receiving a stellar vision.

The spectre of Devin Townsend looms large, as if Ziltoid The Omniscient’s Monterrey franchise has turned in its annual report. There’s Disney strings, party whistles, silly voices, various clangs and gurgles and a brief flurry of space samba – bits of A He-Kuree Dream sound like Ary Barroso’s Aquarela Do Brasil played by the cantina bar from Star Wars. At other times, the music sounds like it was written for the West End stage but swiftly discarded for being too freakish.

Occasionally the melodies threaten to bounce into Andrew LLoyd Webber territory, but are saved by a demented instrumental interlude or a choir that sounds like it’s been busy crushing galaxies. And from time to time – as on Mama, Papa! – it’s also rather beautiful. Roll on Act II.

FL

AIRBRIDGE

Openings AIRBRIDGEPROG.BANDCAMP.COM

Reformed Norwich neo-proggers continue their belated return.

When these veterans of the early 80s Marquee scene released their album Memories Of Water in 2021, it was no less than 38 years after their sole previous long-player.

On this significantly less belated follow-up, they retain a certain likeable yet frustrating amateurish feel, such that much of Openings resembles hippyish whimsy and sung-talk musings light on inviting access points. Lorenzo Bedini and Dave Dowdeswell-Allaway share vocals and their reedy tones fail to lift meandering, free-form tunes – even when they bank up vocal tracks with a guest singer on the à capella That Big Small Step. Elsewhere, the instrumentation frequently sounds loosely arranged and shambling. Brighter spots are penultimate track Europa, which builds from evocative acoustica into an anthemic soft rock swell backed by choirs and orchestral accompaniment.

A contrasting charmer is Hey There!, sung by Dowdeswell-Allaway from the point of view of his nine-year-old self, a Caravan-esque ditty laced with nostalgic humour. Yet elsewhere when they play for laughs, Dead Man’s Porn ends with heavy breathing suggestive of, well, guess what? An eccentric, uneven affair.

JS

DAVID CROSS BAND

Ice Blue, Silver Sky NOISY/CHERRY RED RECORDS

The sum is greater than its parts on this remarkable British prog album.

The first release from the ex-King Crimson violinist under the David Cross Band banner since 2016, Ice Blue, Silver Sky proves worth the wait. Opener Nurse Insane delivers an echoing thump, a brief burst of à capella vocals and a lengthy collage of dialogue against a small string ensemble, before it explodes into a heavy rock stormer of a song, rather establishing the ground for the album as a whole.

Old Crimson tracks Exiles and Starless are given new treatments. The latter remains close to the original with some additional explorations during the middle section. Cross has reimagined Exiles before, but here it becomes a somewhat different journey again with a lush, strings-based ballad-like intro segueing into a violin solo against an ambient space-rock synth arpeggio. In both cases, vocalist Jinian Wilde does a marvellous job, capturing some of the essence of John Wetton’s delivery while putting his own stamp on the tracks.

Covers aside, this is certainly no quasi-Crimson tribute – Cross and his band find a sound very much their own, massively entertaining yet thoughtful, accessible yet intriguing.

GMM

ROGER ENO

The Skies, They Shift Like Chords… DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

Haunting and moving post-ambient compositions.

The phrase ‘slow burn’ might have been designed for Roger Eno. With a richly diverse 40-year back catalogue, it’s really only since 2022’s The Turning Year, his ravishing solo debut on the Deutsche Grammophon classical music label, that he’s been getting anything like the mainstream attention he really deserves.

His latest release for the label again features the signature sound of his sedate piano. Variously evoking a slowly dissolving montage of images and feelings, it’s surprisingly emotional. Simple yet telling melodies dominate pensive tunes adorned with restrained orchestral shading, dustings of harmonic atmospherics and melancholic clarinet that pull at the heartstrings. Some conjure grey hinterlands, while others are illuminated with a hopeful radiance. Often bringing to mind that graceful state in which the music of Erik Satie, Arvo Pärt and Harold Budd resonate, the silvery thread of a solitary vocal performance by Eno’s daughter, Cecily, tethers the spiritual to the temporal.