March's Music

If, as I noted in last month's post, February was a surprisingly full month musically, March took a particularly different turn.

In terms of new recorded music, there were only three new albums for me this month, and one of those was an old one that I'd only recently discovered, courtesy of my good friend Emma Roebuck on Progzilla Radio. That new old one was a wonderful collaboration between John McLaughlin & Chick Corea and others from 2009 as The Five Peace Band, a live recording of pieces they'd performed, all of them tapping into the jazz fusion groove; all bar one over 12½ minutes long and four of the 8 tracks clocking over 20 minutes! Music to transport you to a better place.

The 'new' new stuff was first of all the latest album from The Room - Caught by the Machine, a fine collection of songs at the gentler end of the progressive spectrum, with excellent musicianship, a breadth of light and shade in the music, and echoes of 1980s sounds of The Police or Simple Minds for me in places. It's an album that repays multiple listens.

And then there was Alter Ego, the latest release on Bad Elephant label from Joost Maglev. I'd come across Maglev, a talented multi-instrumentalist, in 2016 through the release of Overwrite the Sin, so I was somewhat familiar with his work, but this album took me a little by surprise. Its overall shape is cyclical - reflected in the arrangement of the track list on the back of the CD, revolving around the central track, Judith ~episode ii~, which takes up the story of the central track on Overwrite..., Judith; the second and penultimate tracks are named Angel and Demon, and have a repeated lyrical insertion: 'Feeling Illusions Necessary Afterwards Longingly Losing You' - an acrostic for Finally; and the opening and closing tracks, ~Lucid and Dreams~, have the same lyrics but in reverse order of lines. Musically the album sounded familiar, even though it was new to me, and Angel sounds as if it was recorded by Todd Rundgren's Utopia. An absolutely stunning collection of songs that had me quite emotional on first listen.

So not much new music, although what there was was more than enough, but March was not a quiet month. My work situation has changed in that I'm now retired (though technically on long term sick  leave until August), and consequently I have more time for live music. This began with a visit to Wath-upon-Dearne (a musical hut of the universe!) for the Classic Rock Society's annual (and, presumably, final) Awards night, where we were entertained by the awards, presented this year by ELO, The Move & Black Sabbath legend, Bev Bevan, but also by an acoustic-ish set by a couple of members of Multi Story, which included a couple of Jon Anderson/ Yes covers, and by a rendition of The Visitor by Arena, who put on an excellent show. A week later I was in Sheffield for a totally different  musical experience, attending a classical concert at the City Hall by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of works by Sibelius, Mozart, Vaughan Williams and Elgar, for which it was wonderful to see the place full to the roof, and where we were royally entertained.

The following weekend found me in Leicester for Lifesigns and the Blackheart Orchestra at The Musician. Lifesigns are always value for money, though this was the first time I'd seen them with Dave Bainbridge on guitar, and they played material mostly from their latest album, Cardington. Blackheart Orchestra were new to me, and seemed a little small for an orchestra (2 people), but as both were multi-instrumentalists they made up for it with a great full sound and a very entertaining set. And the next weekend we were in London - along with about a million others on the Brexit march - but we were there for Lazuli, at the Borderline in Soho, playing their own particular brand of progressive 'music that crosses boundaries' and demonstrating the true spirit of European harmony that their particular sound embodies. I don't get to London for gigs that often, and it was great to see so many people that I know there in an atmosphere of hope and love and appreciation. If only it could always be like that...

So, that was my musical March...