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