Issue 2025-072

Dawnwalker — The Between

Calum Gibson

Back in 2011, Dawnwalker was formed in London and very quickly got to work on their first release titled XIII, released in 2012. Since then, their shared love of eclectic influences has resulted in six further albums, with The Between being the latest.

As a single 32-minute track, it is an ambitious project — especially with numerous guest musicians. We are lead through a wild variety of styles, from soft chants and atmospherics to intense chaotic passages, intermingled with gentle sweeping prog landscapes.

The wide variety showcased here defies genres. It is experimental, unhinged, harsh and destructive. But it never lasts too long — only just enough to shake you out of your comfort zone before we fall back down, and we see that it is also gentle, soft and calming. Prog rock is married to foreboding doom while growled and screamed vocals follow smooth saxophone solos.

As said, it is difficult to describe this album as any one style. It isn't for the faint of heart but equally is one that in many ways will appeal to any fans of experimental prog. The chaotic moments are exciting and full of passion, while the countering prog soundscapes are soothing and melodic.

My only disappointment is that this is my first experience of the group. Time to have a listen to the rest of their discography while I await what will come next…

Fans of King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Opeth or Between the Buried and Me should get a good dose of enjoyment from this.

Steve Hackett with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Remaster 2025)

Martin Burns

This is a remastered release of Steve Hackett's classical guitar and orchestra music directly inspired by and named after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. A 1595 or 1596 tale of romantic confusion amongst multiple partners featuring spirits and fairies, kings and queens, and hard handed comedic workmen performing a play within a play. Hackett's hour long suite was not, I believe, written for any specific production of the play but out of an evident love for the source material.

On here Steve Hackett exclusively plays exquisite classical guitar as well as arranging and producing. Along the way he is joined by his brother John Hackett providing flute on three tracks. It also sees Hackett's first work with, his now regular keyboard player, Roger King who is on one track playing the St. Simon Zelotes church organ as well as helping with the arrangements and mixing the release. The orchestrations are by Matt Dunkley who also conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

As you can see from the track listing, this release comprises relative short pieces of classical guitar and orchestra instrumentals. They form as a whole a suite of melodic vignettes that form a sort of classical guitar concerto. With some tracks being more or less solo guitar and others more guitar interweaving with the orchestra. On the whole there is a fine balance between the instrumentation.

The feel of Hackett's A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the English pastoral of the kind found in the works of classical composer Ralph Vaughan Williams mixed with elements akin to Eric Satie. The album as a whole is a little lacking in darkness to contrast the light, and on occasion the play does go down darker paths in the forest surrounding Athens. There are some interesting character studies. I especially liked the guitar and flute portrait of four of the fairies Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth & Mustardseed and the solo Puck. It's odd that Hackett has ignored the working men, "rude mechanicals" as the bard has it, in this work as they are integral to the play. But portraying humour in music is often difficult.

As a whole this is good but possibly inessential Steve Hackett as there is a sameness across all the tracks as a whole, though individually they are often delightful. One for completists and those who enjoy the prog musicians who want to stretch themselves in the classical arena.

Homegrown — Homegrown

Jerry Kranitz

Homegrown are a Swedish dual guitar/bass/drums instrumental quartet and their self-titled third album is my introduction to the band. The promotional material caught my attention noting that with this album they dropped the vocals in favour of an all-instrumental format. Wanting for comparison purposes to hear what they sounded like with vocals, I swung around and gave last year's Himalayaz album a spin. It's a decent set of stoned and fuzzed psychedelic hard rock, bluesy grooving psych rock, and one pastoral tune that's like an instrumental cross between Black Sabbath's Solitude and King Crimson's I Talk To The Wind. The Swedish language vocals are decent but don't show up on every track.

Another significant difference is that Himalayaz has one guitar, bass, drums, and a synth/percussion player, whereas the new album strips it all down to a no-nonsense two guitars, bass, and drums (the bassist and second guitarist are new members).

And what a difference! Frihetsvisa i A-Moll opens the set with high-octane fuzzed psych rock 'n' roll with a bit of a surf rock edge. Guitarists Cedric Bergendal and new member Marcus Bertilsson play off each other beautifully, interweaving their leads and chord plus lead passages. I like how after having rocked out hard they take off into space for some cosmic jamming that eases into the finale. Häxjakt i Snetakt is a high energy rocker with trippy leads and funky blazing wah guitar. It reminds me a little of Alan Tepper's band Fantasyy Factoryy.

Huldran is similar but gets even more heavily spaced out. Adams äpple slows things down for a psychedelically soulful serving of lusciously lyrical dual guitar melodies. Mylingen starts off as a bucolic acoustic tune with what sounds like guitar and maybe mandolin and violin, before switching to electric and once again letting the guitars create their interlocking melodies. The music eventually takes on a potent martial quality, holding the intensity steadily while remaining slow-paced and feeling like a blend of Indian raga and medieval music.

At nearly 9 minutes, Forséns öra is by far the longest track of the set. It starts out sounding like a space rock version of Santana, before launching into a psychedelically swinging Allman Brothers meets late 1960s west coast psych in space grooving jam. This is my favorite track of the set.

Den Hornkrönte is bouncy but intensely rocking, like a stoned but rousing rally round the gypsy caravan anthem. Gånglåt till Käringberget is a lazily whimsical psychedelic country ditty. Ringöpolskan features a combination of psychedelic Sergio Leone western soundtrack, spacey funky Latin grooves, and pure melodic dreamland. The dual guitars at times remind me of Wishbone Ash. Finally, Talisman is one of the hardest rocking tunes that brings the set to a close.

In summary, this is a very different band from the previous album. Homegrown are a tightly-knit unit that excels at rocking hard but also creating melodic dreamland, often in the same song. They get nicely spacey at times and manage to inject a freeform jamming feel within tightly constructed tunes. Bergendal and Bertilsson's guitars are absolutely the stars of the show, their complementarity and interaction taking the place of vocals. I do think Homegrown would benefit from vocals, though they would need a powerful singer that could hold its own with the guitars. Definitely not the vocalist they had previously.

Luciano Margorani - Dario D'Alessandro - Chris Cutler — Triangolazioni

Owen Davies

During 2012 Luciano Margorani asked Chris Cutler (Art Bears, Henry Cow) to send him six different drum parts. Later further information was given for Chris to develop his ideas, such as, "can track 2 be abstract and quiet"? These drum parts remained unused until 2024 when Margorani asked Dario D'Alessandro to help him compose and arrange pieces around the drum parts and add a vocal element.

The duo had worked together on their excellent and beautifully melodic and accessible Dieci Pezzi Facili release in 2023.

Given the way in which the project was conceived, it is remarkable that the finished release that emerged sounds so organic and appealing. The album is musically fresh and full of progressive ideas. The overall sound of the album incorporates a variety of styles that are frequently associated with Canterbury influenced music.

If you enjoy a relatively approachable style of Canterbury music, then much of this release will find favour.

D'Alessandro is perhaps best known for his work with Homonunculus Res. Therefore, it is not surprising that much of the music of Triangolazioni has a similar happy care free vibe.

However, there are times when the compositions have a perceivable tension that is created by the amalgamation of two distinctive approaches.

Margorani is known for his improvisational and Avant leanings and there are several occasions when D'Alessandro' s easy on the ear, pop-influenced, Canterbury stylings mingle effectively with sound effects and experimental interludes. Consequently, even the most accessible tunes often have an unexpected progressive edge . It is arguably this type of disparity that makes this release so satisfying.

This is particularly true in tunes like Marcia trionfale and You Don't Have The Cards. Indeed, and despite its relatively short duration, there are lot of interesting things going on within this fascinating tune. For example, melodies push and pull in different directions to playfully tug, resolve, and coexist. Repetition is used to good effect though, and this provides a perceivable and gratifying structure.

During You don't have the cards, discordance flirts and clasps with melody; whilst drum mayhem underpins the underplating journey. Later unsettling terror effects and droning make an appearance, but do not dominate the tunes main recurring motif and deeply rich keyboard tones.

D'Alessandro' s pleasant vocal style dominates many of the tunes. The opening piece Sul farsi is a prime example of what his soft whimsical wordless vocal melodies bring to the album. The music of Triangolazioni is accomplished and polished. The use of the voice as an instrument works so much better in this context than any attempt to shoehorn lyrics into the shifting melodies. At times his wordless warblings full of emotive credibility and authenticity are sublime.

Most tunes are a tad short and arguably they can lack the opportunity to enable any extended instrumental ideas to fully emerge and develop.

However, the longest piece on the album Nubendi traditi, which clocks in at over thirteen minutes provides numerous opportunities for changes in dynamics and instrumentation to take place. It begins in gentle acoustic fashion and the music is characterised by its spacious feel. Later there are many thrilling instrumental sections all offset by the expressive vocalisations of D'Alessandro.

I particularly like the section at the four-minute mark that is characterised by some dramatic and cleanly struck guitar chords. These offer a distinctive gravitas. The high end twisted guitar tones full of sustained notes which later emerge and which are reminiscent of Robert Fripp are also a highlight. At stages, parts of the arrangement of Nubendi traditi and dynamic use of guitar and keyboards reminded me of National Health and I appreciated the unexpected stuttering effects which ended the piece.

I thoroughly enjoyed Triangolazioni .If you enjoy the music of artists such as Egg, Hatfield and the North, National Health , Homunculus Res and Robert Wyatt, then it is likely that much of this album will be very appealing.

The Mighty Ra — Now In A Minute

Béla Alabástrom

We live in an age of contrasts, where the many dread the final notice dropping through the letterbox, while the few quaff Clos du Mesnil on their private jets, bankrolling the climate deniers. Where the flimsy dwellings of cardboard city huddle beneath the flyover and the glass-fronted spires of our contemporary cathedrals consecrated to the worship of Mammon soar ostentatiously heavenward, deprivation and profligacy cheek by jowl. We are held in thrall by our smartphones, a constant succession of celebrities and influencers with gleaming teeth and vapid smiles compounding our discontent and self-loathing in a context where image is everything and the tiniest imperfection magnified, held up for ridicule by those whose fortunes depend on shifting product.

The Mighty Ra's second studio album, Now In A Minute seethes with righteous indignation matched with a finely honed sense of irony and disillusionment, on spectacular display from the very outset in Gods of Reality. Dispensing with the formalities, a melodic and plaintive guitar riff plunges us straight into the narrative with frankness and immediacy. No shilly-shallying here. Jeremy Robberechts' keys and Dave Rowe's bass add nuance and build tension, culminating in Andy Edwards' exhortation for us to capitulate (clearly intended to provoke the opposite of unquestioning obeisance). Throughout, Jeremy skillfully underpins the mood, string sounds imparting urgency and insistence. The flow is interrupted by a spikier passage in which Rob Griffiths' drums brilliantly emphasise the vocals, spoken as if through a megaphone or broadcast over loudspeakers, deliberately exaggerated in a parody of the fake bonhomie of the advertiser, an eloquent condemnation of the grotesqueness of gaping inequality.

Dave's lyrics are uncompromisingly forthright, exposing the feet of clay concealed beneath the shimmering gown, the vulgarity and tawdriness of the billionaire lifestyle, the very definition of excess:

Super yachts and cruise ships Monte Carlo bets Alcohol decanted, Over models' tits Nuggets turned from brown to gold Made from their own shit

My favourite track, Mr Disingenuous continues the meticulous dissection of the blights of our times. In the pantheon of contemporary villains, politicians occupy a position of particular disdain with their uninhibited pursuit of self-aggrandisement. Lurking in their shadows is the grey eminence, as nebulous as he is nefarious, the master of misinformation employing anonymous legions of keyboard warriors to dupe us into supporting his agenda of instilling gammon-faced rage and division. Sowing discord and confusion like chaff to throw us off course, diverting our collective frustration to the wrong targets. Luxuriating in its sleaziness, the music oozes insincerity from every note, a more consummate expression of the titular character, who leaves a glistening trail of slime behind him wherever he goes, impossible to imagine. A seedy jazzy vibe ascending the stairs from a slightly disreputable nightclub, tables randomly patterned with sticky pint glass rings. Smooth, slick and disarmingly groovy, it sidles up to you seductively with laid back charm before the mood shifts, taking a darker, more ominous turn. Sinking down into that liminal state between sleeping and waking, conscious yet unable to move. Released from this temporary paralysis, Jeremy's melancholy-steeped keys solo maintains the muted introspectiveness, exquisitely undergirded by Dave's mellifluous bass, followed by a more urgent and insistent passage, reminiscent of the turmoil unleashed, from which Andy's guitar triumphantly emerges in an impassioned solo of molten intensity. A heady distillate of pure pleasure.

Sakura celebrates the cherry blossom, that most delicate yet potent symbol of the transitory and fleeting nature of earthly existence, the gentle strains of the koto evoking the serene temples of Kyoto rather than the 24-hour neon bustle of Tokyo, a steam locomotive pulling out of a station accompanying a wistful narrative of reluctant parting. The billows of smoke dissipated by a drumbeat announcing the arrival of guitar and bluesy keys. As the petals are detached and scattered by the breeze, a swirling, meditative synth mimics their motion, Andy's vocals poignant and heartfelt. The rock theme again alternates with the translucent synth as the spring subsides, the momentum deftly sustained by an exuberant guitar solo prefacing a more sombre, contemplative passage, the chill of a cloud passing before the sun, with bamboo flute, strings and a woman's voice softly reciting a haiku. A strumming acoustic guitar blends seamlessly with the haunting oriental motif, assiduously avoiding kitschy cliches. The synth solo, with its pleasantly subtle echoing, does not disrupt the steadily introspective flow. As the vocals conclude, the guitar gloriously condenses the anguish of our mortal frailty in a veritable gut punch, the chorus accentuating the overwhelming sense of mournfulness at our ineluctable fate, the blossoms now cascading uncontrolled, one final screech of searing agony like a terminal breath, the hum of the synth beneath the sigh of the naked branches stirring restlessly in the wind.

Now In A Minute is resolutely rooted in classic rock, its no-nonsense approach tempered with enough complexity, nuance and detail to satisfy the most exacting progger. It is an album of contrasts, from the widescreen of Fashoda (recounting an incident in the undignified and ruthless 'scramble for Africa' on the part of the rapacious imperial powers – never was a history lesson served up in more palatable form) to the intimate fireside crackle and candlelight flicker of Stories of Old, its hard-hitting and caustic social commentary more relevant than ever, as we collectively shuffle ever closer to the cliff edge, transfixed by our glowing screens, oblivious until we lose our footing. Bolder and more assertive than their debut, it brims with passion and vitality, once again forcefully and joyfully demonstrating why The Ra's epithet is no mere hubris.

Pretty Soily Company — Pretty Soily Company

Jan Buddenberg

When about two years ago Henri Vaugrand and Olivier Bonneau set out to work on what was hypothetically to become Grandval's follow-up to Eau | Feu, their inspiration took them into a fairly different musical direction. Agreeing to design an album in the old-fashioned vinyl tradition with one side of songs and a conceptual flip that comprises only one composition, the end result ultimately became the eponymous debut Pretty Soily Company.

The answer which direction their combined efforts strayed towards is quickly answered in We Reverse. For this vintage 70s resonating composition in complete agreement to its title transports listeners back to the psychedelic age of The Beatles, The Kinks and those frequently reminding of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd. Blessed with the warm sound of organ, fine harmonies, and melodic diversified pop, names like Stalk Forrest Group (pre-Blue Öyster Cult) and 10CC also come to mind. Although the vibrant synth solo pulls this slightly out of perspective.

Upside Down oozes a similar infectious 70s atmosphere. And brings elegant designs of distorted psychedelic guitar and pop influenced melodies complemented by a surprising transition which vaguely envisions Airbridge. True to expectation, Tribal Crimes brings earthy drum patterns and nicely flowing melodies that, funky and layered, slowly progress into a wonderful coda momentum of guitar-driven prog, evidently inspired by Pink Floyd. And quite possibly by early Porcupine Tree as well. This influence also appears in the quietly reflective and contemplatively enchanting In The Shades.

More melodic pop than actual prog, although there is a surprising musical twist. It is the melancholic Get Out Of Here that amidst all this finally drops the penny on the one reference that perpetually rested on the tip of my tongue. Namely, that of Paul McCartney's The Wings. A tag that could have been a much easier to make if I had known about the existence of their 1971 written song Soily. Especially since this particular song contains a direct quoting reference to Pretty Soily Company.

A Scent Of Ohelo Berry is a bewildering composition inspired by the fruit of a deciduous plant, endemic to most islands of Hawaii, that grows on lava flows and freshly disturbed volcanic ash. Here, Vaugrand and Bonneau's prog explorations come to full fruition. At first with the alienating spacious EM soundscape of 43xx Mogul Station that segues into On A Wire's minimal acoustics and gentle flowing melodies that distinctively echo Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. Then suddenly it turns full-on King Crimson in Breakfast Time with dissonant jamming arrangements, estranging complexities, and vocals that bring Franck Carducci to mind. Torpedo-267 energetically follows with a fiercely bombastic outburst of psychedelic heavy rock that comfortably settles in the uplifting dreamy atmospheres of To Lift Up Our Hearts.

Progressively rocking onwards in 70s fashion with a Spirit meets The Who vibe is Stop Wondering Why. This highly enjoyable and firmly captivating composition then grows an enticing pair of wonderful funky wings in the adventurous instrumental Nene (Branta Sandvicensis). Its excellent challenging rhythms and outstanding guitar work strikingly envisions Hats Off Gentlemen, It's Adequate.

Stop Wondering Why (Reprise) offers a revisit of motives and themes in gentle acoustics elevated by percussive elements that in turn ultimately glides into the beautiful instrumental A Contrastic Duet Scene. The closing segment has bluesy guitar and synth flows that, next to lasting impressions of Pink Floyd, scrumptiously airs those of Eloy.

Admittedly I had some reservations at first. However, in the finest progressive tradition, this debut by Pretty Soily Company grows at each turn and starts to beautifully share and reveal its many musical secrets over time. As a result, my reservations have now fully melted away like snow in summer. Especially in case of the epic suite A Scent Of Ohelo Berry, which transformed from sounding "incoherently fragmented" into a firmly resonating "sequaciously cohesive" during my multiple listening processes.

This composition alone has surely whetted my appetite for more. And overall made my conclusion a fairly straight forward one: the highly recommended Pretty Soily Company is pretty good company to enjoy for anyone who fancies the retro-inspired psychedelic pop end of the progressive rock spectrum. An excellent effort worth checking out.