Agents of Mercy - new album info

Agents Of Mercy are back with a new full-on studio album titled DramaRama.

In it's true retro-spirit it is rehearsed and recorded "live" in Varispeed Studios in Sweden, with very few overdubs...12 songs written by guitarist Roine Stolt & singer Nad Sylvan - the concept was "to find the roots of our inspiration and the sounds we love" so there's the obvious late 60's and early 70's feel.

12 titles that focus more on melody, storytelling and drama than "technical delivery" - not withstanding the fact that the band house some of the most skilled hi-profile musicians in the present prog scene.

Huge rumble and swoosh from drums, fuzzy grinding & thunder bass, Wurlizer piano, Hammond swirls and adventurous moog ornaments, Telecaster twang and vintage Vox tubes - all there to support our swinging psychedelic-dramadelic 60's tripback.

Plenty of symphonic rewards for the diehard fans of TFK or Transatlantic style prog - closer to Retropolis than Rainmaker- but yet more scaled down happy classic rock,glam & pop too. It borrows from the theatrical rock - film noir - the oddity of young David Bowie - to the energy Mahavishnu Orchestra. The new album is a big leap towards a more complete classic (prog) rock band feel - where the 1st album stayed firmly in very pastel and mellow contemplating, but yet demanding modes.

DramaRama is an independent release from Stolt's own label, designed to operate freely and adapt in this new dawn of recorded music - so buy it from us and support more new adventurous recordings from this team.


The band consists of:
Nad Sylvan (Unifaun) VOCAL & KEYBOARDS
Roine Stolt (Transatlantic, Flower Kings) GUITARS
Jonas Reingold (Flower Kings, Karmakanic) BASS
Lalle Larsson (Weaveworld, Karmakanic) KEYBOARDS
Walle Wahlgren - DRUMS


Titles:
The Duke Of Sadness
Last Few Grains Of Hope
Peace United
Journey
Gratitude
Meet Johnnie Walker
Cinnamon Tree
The Ballad Of Mary Chilton
Roger The Tailor
Conspiracy
We Have Been Freed
Time
( final running order tba)

Running time: 72 minutes
Comes in nice digipak - Artwork by Silas Toball (again)

Transatlantic - new live CD/DVD info

This just in from Radiant Records:

The new Transatlantic Live album and DVD, Transatlantic - Whirld Tour 2010, Live At Shepherd’s Bush Empire London, will be released October 26, 2010 in North America, November 8 in Europe.

Here’s a bit about it:

Prog rock supergroup Transatlantic unleashes:

Whirld Tour 2010, Live At Shepherd’s Bush Empire London –

A mammoth live 2-dvd set with 6 hours of amazing footage.

Release on October 26th, 2010

Available as 2-DVD set, 3-CD audio version, and 5-disc deluxe edition

More info to come. We just wanted to get you excited. We will start taking pre-orders September 28th.

Night of the Prog IV bands announced

NIGHT OF THE PROG IV: The line-up for the 4th Night Of The Prog Festival has been finalised. The festival will be held at 10 and 11 July at the World Heritage listed Loreley Freilichtbühne in St. Goarshausen, Germany.

Tickets can be bought at the Wiventertainment shop or via www.ticketmaster.de where you can pay by credit card.

NIGHT OF THE PROG IV

Friday 10. July 2009:
Also Eden
Arena
Agents of Mercy (feat. Roine Stolt, Nad Sylvan)
Riverside
Gazpacho

Saturday 11. July 2009:
Subsignal
The Pineapple Thief
Lazuli
Pure Reason Revolution
Pendragon
Steve Hackett & Band
Mick Pointer & Friends playing Marillion's Script For A Jester's Tear

Then came the last days of May...

I've been really quiet of late (loads of stuff happening IRL), the end result of which is that I have been pulled increasingly from posting here.

Without making excuses or getting into any of the reasons, here's some stuff for y'all:

My interview with Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings has now been posted and can be read HERE. A brief excerpt:

BK: Good. You guys are gonna be playing the inaugural Three Rivers Prog Fest, out in Pittsburgh. And I know Pittsburgh is where Inside/Out USA used to be based out of. Is there something special about that festival, you know, the idea that you're gonna be playing at the first one, or is it the fact that you're gonna be able to sort of route shows around it that makes it attractive?

RS: Well, in fact, we were asked to, because obviously we know a couple of people in Pittsburgh, because we had our record company there and we had people that we'd been working with in Pittsburgh for quite a while. So, we were asked to play this festival maybe some...4, 5, 6 months ago, I think.

BK: Long before it was actually announced.

RS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I waited, and one of the reasons was of course that we had to cancel ROSfest. I didn't want that to happen again, you know what I mean. I wanted to be really, really, positively sure that we were gonna play the festival before I said OK. Anyway, so we were asked to do this, and I didn't know what other bands were gonna play, and then they came back to me a couple of weeks ago, and said "this is what the festival is gonna be, these are the other acts," and some of them are not announced yet. But they're really good acts, definitely. So, just looking at the lineup, I said "this looks interesting," and I think we can even attract some of the non-prog audience for this festival. So, that was one of the motivations for playing.



Secondly, my interview with Andy Tillison of The Tangent has also been posted, and you can read it HERE. Again, a brief excerpt:

BK: Is the European scene that much more vital for live progressive music, that a tour like this can happen over there? Here in the States it seems the entire progressive music scene is almost subsidized and supported by three or four festivals over the course of the year. Bands will come over and play one or two shows around the festivals and that's the only chance you get to see them.

AT: Yeah. Well...that's right. It has to be remembered that although the festivals are very impressive in America...we loved when we played ROSfest...it also has to be remembered that America actually has one of the smallest progressive rock markets, so that...you know...I think that for example there are more people into progressive rock in South America than there are in the United States. And there are certainly more people who are into it in Europe than there are who are into it in America. So the problem is the American vastness, it means that we can come over...we can play one of the festivals, but then we have to transport ourselves miles away to the next show to keep from interfering with that festivals bookings and play a gig on the other coast. The problem is...we've already discussed this with other bands who have done the same thing and they find nobody goes to the next gig because they've already gone to the festival! So these big festivals in America are sort of like, everybody goes and you see the same people or core at all festivals. So it is a bit difficult, of course, and the American market is...it's difficult to get over there to start with, and all the instrument hire, and...

So yeah...we can do the festivals, but unfortunately putting a tour together over there is almost impossible. We're not big enough yet...we haven't got enough people who could make a tour pay, and, you know...it is terrible that you have to think of money like this, but...unfortunately we do. We can't come home having to pay for our own performance.



Finally, those of you on the Frank Zappa merch mailing list know that there is a new Zappa DVD being released from the vaults, titled The Torture Never Stops. This is an apt title for a lot of long-suffering Zappaphiles who have been waiting patiently for the ZFT to finally released the long coveted Roxy DVD, which has been announced and promised for many years now (a trailer for this appears on the Baby Snakes DVD).

I am not going to get into the politics of the way releases are being made from the archives...there have been some strange choices, to be sure, but at the same time, several things have come out that are genuinely very interesting (Wazoo, the live Grand Wazoo release...the MOFO project (which has its own share of controversy)...Imaginary Diseases from the Petit Wazoo tour, et cetera).

But...

The Roxy era band has been considered by many to be the peak of the early post-MOI Zappa groups...I mean, how can you complain about this as a band to play with:

Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, saxophone, tenor saxophone, vocals
George Duke – synthesizer, keyboards, vocals
Bruce Fowler – trombone, dancer
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Walt Fowler – trumpet, bass trumpet
Don Preston – synthesizer
Jeff Simmons – rhythm guitar, vocals
Chester Thompson – drums
Ruth Underwood – percussion

And yes, we have Baby Snakes on DVD, and The Dub Room Special, and Does Humour Belong in Music?, and now TTNS...but no Roxy.

And we wait.

Just like we've been waiting for...

Dance Me This
The Rage & The Fury
200 Motels (on DVD and/or CD)
A release of Uncle Meat without the 'penalty tracks'

I've long since given up trying to understand how releases get decided upon and scheduled. I'd just like to see Roxy before I die...

Reviews and more...

I just wanted to post a quick update about a bunch of reviews and stuff that have been posted, or will be posted soon-ish, that may be of some interest to you, Constant Readers.

The following reviews were published on Progscape yesterday:

Matthew Parmenter Horror Express 05/15/2008
Rainwound Shrouded Destiny 05/15/2008
Beardfish Sleeping in Traffic: Part Two 05/15/2008
Rod DeGeorge Cosmic Playground 05/15/2008

The following reviews have just been submitted:

Caamora She (2 CD release)
Caamora She (DVD release)

As soon as they are up, I will be providing links to interviews with the following artists:

Andy Tillison of The Tangent/Parallel or 90 Degrees
Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings/formerly Kaipa, The Tangent, Transatlantic

The following artists have interviews coming up:

Gary Lauzon of The Rebel Wheel
Jason Blake of Aziola Cry

~~~~~~~~~~

Here's what I'm listening to recently:

Asia - Phoenix (Frontiers Music)
Alberto Rigoni - Something Different (Lion Music)
Nude Black Glass - Nude Black Glass (private release)
Fernwood - Almeria(private release)
Voluntary Mother Earth - Unacceptable Vegetable (private release)

You'll probably be getting links to reviews over the coming week or so.

~~~~~~~~~~

NEARfest is about one month away now, and I suppose it goes without saying that I will be there. I'll be covering the event for a variety of outlets, and you will more than likely be getting all kinds of links to photo galleries, reviews, interviews and so on. I'll look into Blogger's voice post capabilities to see if there's any way I can push voice posts here as a stop gap over the course of the two days, but in the event that I cannot, I do have a personal blog that does allow for voice posting. I may simply post a link to that blog before the festival and ask that people hit that page over the course of the weekend if they were at all interested in a 'blogging as the festival goes' kind of thing.