03 October 2023: IF; Cynic; Virus2020 فيروس ٢٠٢٠

Due to the September 26 City Council work session running late, this show is moved to October 3.

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If was a British progressive rock and jazz rock band formed in 1969.^[1] In the period spanning 1970–75, they released eight studio-recorded albums and undertook 17 tours of Europe, the US and Canada. The band were acclaimed by George Knemeyer in a Billboard concert review as "unquestionably the best of the so-called jazz-rock bands".^[2]

The band was formed in 1969 by Dave Quincy, Dick Morrissey, and Terry Smith.^[1] They were managed by Lew Futterman, who was also the band's album producer. Signed by Chris Blackwell to Island Records in the UK and to Capitol Records in the US, their debut album, If (1970), entered the charts in both the States (Billboard) and the UK. The second album, If 2, was released the same year. They toured in Europe and the United States during the early 1970s, with two US tours during their first year, performing at Newport Jazz Festival, Reading Festival, and the Fillmore East^[3] (10 November 1970). They also shared billing with acts such as Rory Gallagher, Rush, Kiss, The Eagles, Bo Diddley, Strawbs, REO Speedwagon, Electric Light Orchestra, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad, Rod Stewart, The Faces, Black Sabbath, Taste, Brinsley Schwarz, Atomic Rooster, Traffic, Mott the Hoople and many more. ^[4] 

 

Cynic is an American progressive metal band formed in Miami, Florida in 1987 and later re-formed in Los Angeles, California in 2007, where the sole surviving member, Paul Masvidal remains to this day. Cynic incorporates elements of progressive rock, alternative, and metal.^[1][2][3][4]

Their first album, Focus, was released in 1993. Cynic disbanded in 1994, but they reunited in 2006 and released their second album in 2008.^[5] Traced in Air was released through French label Season of Mist,^[6] followed up by an EP titled Re-Traced in 2010 and an EP titled Carbon-Based Anatomy in 2011. Their third studio album, Kindly Bent to Free Us, was released in 2014.

In December 2017, after two years of an uncertain future,^[7][8] founding member Sean Reinert confirmed his split from Cynic.^[9] Reinert died at the age of 48 in January 2020.^[10] Longtime Cynic bass player Sean Malone died at the age of 50 eleven months later, leaving Masvidal as the only remaining original core member.^[11]

Virus2020 ( فيروس ٢٠٢٠ ) creates soundscapes that transcend divisions, where you can’t identify a specific culture, where boundaries dissolve. His approach combines elements of both tradition and modernity, blending acoustic and electronic textures seamlessly and incorporating, alongside a range of analogue and digital machines, handcrafted wind instruments inspired by North African rituals.

Virus2020 is the solo project of Rami Harrabi, a Tunisian artist born in 1989 in Sousse (TN), enthralled by Arab and north-African art, instruments, traditions and rituals. Harrabi is a composer, performer, sound-designer; he self published his debut album, "I don't know," in December 2021, followed by the second album "SECT", in 2022. "KHUSHUE", the third work, is now published published by Unexplained Sounds Group.
Currently his research focuses on music instruments such as mezwed, mezwej, matbeg, and yarghoul, traditional instruments used in North African and Middle Eastern countries. They are typically played with a range of micro-intervals that allows the creation of complex melodies. These instruments have double reeds, meaning two reeds vibrate simultaneously to produce sound. This characteristic allows for playing smaller intervals than possible with a single-reed instrument, so that musicians can create complex microtonal melodies and harmonies, alongside multiphonic effects.
Under tha name "RIG", Harrabi also runs a trio project in collaboration with Ismail Lassoued and Ghassen Ben Brahim, and collaborates with Rim Harrabi for video projects. 

credits

released August 24, 2023
Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella for providing FreeForm with a copy of this release.
REVIEWS


Vital Weekly
www.vitalweekly.net/1400.html

Avant Music News
avantmusicnews.com/2023/08/27/amn-reviews-virus2020-%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%b3-%d9%a2%d9%a0%d9%a2%d9%a0-khushue-2023-unexplained-sounds-group

Luminous Dash
luminousdash.be/reviews/virus2020-khushue-unexplained-sounds

Ver Sacrum
www.versacrum.com/vs/2023/09/virus2020-khushue.html



Music by Virus2020 (Rami Harrabi)
virus2020.mystrikingly.com
Mastering by Raffaele Pezzella (a.k.a. Sonologyst)
Cover photo by Zohra Mrad
Photography by Rim Harrabi
Layout by Matteo Mariano
Published by Unexplained Sounds Group
©2023. All rights reserved.

license

all rights reserved

experimental avant-garde drone improvisation musique concrete sound art Italy

03 January 2023: The Aaron Clift Experiment;

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FreeForm is please to open the new year with the exciting new release from The Aaron Clift Experiment.  This is an outstanding album for opening the new year, prog-style!

 Austin, Texas – One of the most eagerly awaited prog albums of 2023 will be released on January 6 by The Aaron Clift Experiment. Titled “The Age of Misinformation,” the band’s 4th album is a conceptual work about the destructive power of lies and the search for truth in the face of overwhelming odds.

 
Band founder, Aaron Clift, explains: "During the COVID lockdown of 2020 - 2021, my friends, colleagues, and country went through an incredibly challenging time, and I knew that I had to say something about it. ‘The Age of Misinformation’ is The Aaron Clift Experiment’s document of that era.”

 
In addition to its lyrical ambition and emotional resonance, the album marks a high point for the band’s creativity - featuring everything from explosive, hard rocking songs, to gorgeous ballads, to multi-layered vocal writing that would make Queen blush!  Two songs explore symphonic music with a guest string quartet, and the album’s lead single, “Bet on Zero,” is an epic big band jazz/blues fusion collaboration with 7-piece Austin horn ensemble, Big Wy’s Brass Band.

 
Aaron notes: “For ‘The Age of Misinformation,’ we wanted to do more of everything: record music that was more intricate, more melodic, and more diverse than anything we had done before. I’m really happy with how we pulled it off, but above all, I love how the album explores a concept that reflects the events of our current world. There are songs
all about frustration with the crazy state of politics, but there's also a renewed sense of optimism in other songs - knowing that there's always a light at the end of the cave."
 

Formed in 2012, The Aaron Clift Experiment is a multi-faceted band that blends influences from classic rock (Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson),modern rock (Porcupine Tree, Opeth), jazz, and classical - all anchored by a dedication to high-quality songwriting and musicianship. Progradar has described the group as "one of the most impressive progressive acts currently on the scene.

 
www.aaronclift.com
www.facebook.com/aaroncliftmusic
www.youtube.com/aaroncliftmusic
www.instagram.com/aaroncliftmusic

 

The Aaron Clift Experiment:
Aaron Clift: vocals, keyboards
Anthony Basini: guitar, backing vocals
Clif Warren: bass
Pablo Ranlett-López: drums, percussion

  FreeForm thanks Aaron Clift for provididng us with a copy of this release.

In the last few years, the band has carved out a significant worldwidefollowing. The Aaron Clift Experiment’s last album, 2018’s “If All Goes Wrong,” was a critically-acclaimed progressive rock achievement, landing on several year-end best album lists. In 2017, the band had a star-making performance at RosFest, one of the largest progressive rock festivals in the world, and followed it up with an impressive outing at 2018 at Chicago’s Progtoberfest, and in 2019 with a hometown concert that was recorded for the band’s second live EP, “Live at One-2-One Bar.”

 
Here's what the press has raved about The Aaron Clift Experiment:

 
“There’s much to admire about The Aaron Clift Experiment . . . They can convincingly range from pure power to more delicate inferences in the same song.” | Prog Magazine
“Prog smarts and pop appeal combined nicely . . . furnished sleek, urgently uptempo tunes, brainy-heading-toward-quirky lyrics, and a taut, controlled sound.” | Proglodytes
“The music of The Aaron Clift Experiment is melodic, hard, and spellbinding.” | Music from the Other Side of the Room

 

 

King Buffalo is the trio of vocalist/guitarist Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds, and drummer Scott Donaldson. Since forming in 2013, the self-proclaimed "heavy psych" band has made its name via 4 EPs, 4 Full-lengths, and tours with the likes of Clutch, All Them Witches, Uncle Acid & the deadbeats, The Sword and Elder.

Rochester, New York-based trio King Buffalo will issue their fifth full-length, Regenerator, on Sept. 2, 2022, as a self-release in North America and through Stickman Records in Europe. Preorders will be available on June 10th via http://kingbuffalo.bigcartel.com.

Written and recorded by the band with mixing and engineering by guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay and mastering by Bernie Matthews, the seven-song outing is the third in King Buffalo’s stated ‘pandemic trilogy,’ following Two of 2021’s Best Albums in The Burden of Restlessness and Acheron.

Both of those albums – like 2018’s Longing to Be the Mountain, 2016’s debut, Orion, and the various EPs and other offerings they’ve made over the last eight years – made bold declarations about who King Buffalo are as a band, and Regenerator is no different. As McVay, bassist/synthesist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson continue to explore the outer reaches of modern psychedelic songcraft, melding progressive rhythms, drifting atmospheres and accompanying surges of electricity, the new collection only further establishes them as one of the brightest lights shining in underground rock today.

As the third of three, Regenerator seems inherently to tie together the two LPs most immediately before it, and as King Buffalo unfold the leadoff title-track across nine and half minutes, it becomes clear just how truly they have marked out their own sonic presence. The later melodic highlight “Mammoth” – with McVay’s most confident vocal yet – shimmers with hope that somehow doesn’t come across as desperate, and as “Hours” engages classic space rock and the closing “Firmament” summarizes the first, second and third series installments, the final chapter of this trilogy becomes the essential cornerstone of King Buffalo’s work to-date.

The band returned to live activity late last year, touring alongside Clutch and more recently a full North American spring tour with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. By the time Regenerator arrives, they will have completed a UK and European headlining tour with festival appearances in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium and Denmark.

Tags

rock desert rock doom heavy heavy psych heavy rock kraut krautrock psychedelic psychedelic rock stoner stoner metal stoner rock Rochester

 

"a farewell to arms" is the debut album by Michael Valentine West on the Reverse Alignment label. It is already known that mvw is a very talented musician, but in the long piece that gives the title to the album, the artist is capable of passing from initial intimate electro-acoustic music to expanses of pure sound plasma that bring to mind Ligeti's flocks of sound; and then to then pass through the energy of the percussion immersed in electronic gusts, finally returning to the calm of the dusty ambient music. A work of rare beauty.

Michael Valentine West is a composer/decomposer utilising lessons learnt from various musical disciplines such as minimal, ambient, glitch, hip hop, jazz and sound design. He has recorded, produced and remixed using aliases such as Twiggy And The K-Mesons, K-Meson 4, Suck Susan, Lower Third, Anal Teens and of course MVW. He has also scored music and contributed songs to soundtracks for several independent films.

credits

released December 28, 2022

Conceived and completed by Michael Valentine West between May 2022 and November 2022.
Images/artwork by Matt Hyde Photography
Mastered by Mikimo Sosumi
Post Production by Raffaele Pezzella

Published by Reverse Alignment (a label of Unexplained Sounds)
© 2022. All rights reserved

ambient dark dark ambient drone ambient industrial post-industrial Gothenburg

 

 

09 October 2018: Damanek & KAUAN

From The Prog Report:
A recent gem of an album was released in 2017 on GEP (Giant Electric Pea) records by a new band called Damanek.  The album titled ‘On Track’ came out in May, 2017,  and is the brainchild of Guy Manning, former member of The Tangent and the United Progressive Fraternity, which released a fantastic album in 2014 called ‘Fall in Love with the World’.  Manning, also an accomplished solo artist, has built a great band here with music similar to the UPF album.  The band premiered the new material at least year’s Summer’s End festival in Europe.
The album is a mix of world music and prog, featuring lots of percussion, sax and horns, multiple keyboards and harmonies.  The opening song with the odd title “Nanabohzo and the Rainbow” would fit nicely on a Toto record, while the second track and likely single “Long Time, Shadow Falls” is a track Peter Gabriel might approve of.  “Believer-Redemmer” is a straight-up smooth jazz track, but it fits nicely here, while “Oil of Arabia” has a Steely Dan vibe.  And of course there is the epic closer “Dark Sun” which will satisfy any Prog urges.
Guy Manning holds nothing back on this release and the band assembled is top-notch.  This is not heavy prog metal but make no mistake, this is outstanding musicianship.  For a relaxed and enjoyable experience, this is a great album.  We recommend checking this one out.

Studio Album, released in 2017

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Nanabohzo And The Rainbow (7:49)
2. Long Time, Shadow Falls (7:47)
3. The Cosmic Score (5:56)
4. Believer-Redeemer (5:48)
5. Oil Over Arabia (5:33)
6. Big Parade (4:15)
7. Madison Blue (3:12)
8. Dark Sun (13:43)

Total time 54:03

Line-up / Musicians

- Guy Manning / lead & backing vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, e-bow, percussion, composer
- Sean Timms / keyboards, banjo, backing vocals, production & mixing
- Marek Arnold / saxes, clarinet, keyboards, MIDI controller
- Daniel Mash / bass

With:
- Phideaux / vocals (8)
- DavidB / backing vocals
- Julie King / backing vocals
- Kevin Currie / backing vocals
- Antonio Vittozzi / guitar
- Luke Machin / guitar
- Chris Catling / guitar (4)
- Nick Magnus / keyboards & arrangements (3)
- Stephen Dundon / flute (7)
- Eric 'Tooch' Santucci / trumpet (4,6)
- Alex Taylor / trombone (4,6)
- Brody Thomas Green / drums (1-6)
- Ulf Reinhardt / drums (8)
- Tim Irrgang / percussion

Releases information

Artwork: Tony Lythgoe

CD Giant Electric Pea ‎- GEPCD1055 (2017, Europe) 

Kaiho is KAUAN’s eighth album following 2015’s lauded Sorni Nai, and focuses on childhood and the transition to adulthood, when the death of a loved one shatters halcyon beginnings and makes clear the stark reckoning that awaits in the end. 
"This is a new circle in KAUAN’s life. We’ve been slowly walking through the genres of music, and now I feel we are coming to a destination. To me, it sounds like a very mature and comprehensive sequel to our 2009 album Aava tuulen maa. And yeah, it will have a totally different sound because we've taken on a new approach and recorded with very old-school methods (most of the sounds were sculpted before tracking and there was almost no digital processing)."     -Anton
Tonight we'll be playing the entirely instrumental version of this album recently released as a digital download on Bandcamp.

22 March 2016: Keith Emerson Tribute & Canvas Solaris

So much has been written about Keith Emerson that there is little that I can add.  I saw ELP in concert in the mid-70s and he was phenomenal, combining virtuosity with showmanship.  The first half of tonight's show will be cuts selected to showcase his keyboard wizardry.  May he R.I.P.
Playlist:
Tarkus
Take a Pebble
Karn Evil 9: 2nd Impressio
Medley:  Fanfare for the Common Man/America/Rondo
Abaddon's Bolero

Canvas Solaris were an American progressive metal band from Statesboro, Georgia, formed in 1999, and disbanded in 2011.^[1] Though they first played with vocals, they moved on to instrumental, drawing influence from bands as diverse as Cynic, Rush, King Crimson, Death, Watchtower, and The Mars Volta.^[2]