Peter Hammill & Gary Lucas, Other World

It makes perfect sense that Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas would collaborate together on a project. Both are purveyors of the rock art song, Gary especially with Jeff Buckley in that day but after that too; Peter with Van der Graaf Generator. They both have an affinity with spacy, psychedelically open worlds also--Peter in the sound Van der Graf gets at times and Gary as a one-man master of pedals and space with his Strat and array.

So they just released the (first?) fruits of their efforts and I am immersed in its other-earthly world with a good deal of pleasure.

Not surprisingly it is called Other World (Esoteric Antenna). It is a collection of rather riveting, quirky song-soundscapes created with nothing but Peter's vocals and Gary and Peter's guitars. Another world opens up that simultaneously points forward to new frontiers of space music as it recaps where both have been. To my mind music is like cinema. Genres are constants that transcend time. So space music is to our world as is sci-fi or horror films. No genre is exhausted when our prime creative artists put their mind to working within it. And so here.

There's a bit of the rootsy Gary, a corking good deal of the cosmic Gary and Peter, and the kind of intelligent peculiarity of Peter's songs combined with the structural hipness of Gary's song-melding, all wrapped up into a sequence of sounds that gets better every time you hear it. It is memorable in ways you might find unexpected, unless you know their previous music well. The scapes are some of the most symphonic ever, the songs some of the most quirky.

It's not time to go up to the attic and unpack the lava lamp. It's time to don that silver spacesuit and confront the future that has arrived.

The music needs genuine creative acuity to move forward. Peter and Gary have that in abundance here. Strongly recommended.

Mike Keneally, You Must Be This Tall

The term "progressive rock" in some ways became as unwelcome in the '70s as that of "cool jazz" in the '50s. Sure, in both cases the music sometimes suffered from excesses and the reaction against it with "punk" and "hard bop" was predictable and perhaps inevitable. Nonetheless there was plenty there in both cases of music that was totally valid, excellent, worth hearing still.

So if I tell you that Mike Keneally's album You Must Be This Tall (Exowax 2414) might be thought of as progressive rock today, you must not take that as to mean that you are in for some kind of pretentious synth version of the "1812 Overture" or something of that ilk.

It is complexly arranged compositional rock that takes the best of Zappa in his ambitious moments and groups like Yes and perhaps a hint of Pink Floyd's middle period . . . or at least it's music that has something in common with that, but made into a new something.

Keneally plays a very nice electric guitar along with acoustic, synths, bass and vocals. There are live drums much of the time played by Marco Minnemann. It's new advanced, "progressive" rock that rings true and does not at all play on nostalgia as much as builds a music on the foundations of the past.

Keneally is a guitarist with excellent taste and sound, a rock composer with a great sense. And the album fully satisfies a need for some hip complexity that always remains musical. So, there.

Efterklang, Piramida

The latest Efterklang album Piramida (4AD) is both a fascinating concept album and a musical triumph of sorts. Essentially they went on a nine-day expedition a year ago last August to the island Spitsbergen, located near the North Pole. They explored the falling-to-ruin ghost town Piramida, which was rapidly abandoned in the '90s and now stands unoccupied.

This trip and the enigma of the ruin, through samples and general inspiration, form the concept around the album.

The music itself is a kind of alternative masterwork. It has the songs, synthetic or otherwise fullness of arrangement, and a haunting way about it. It is a lyrical joy and a definite innovation in the rock-post-prog world.

The music leaves me a bit speechless, so I don't have a lot to say about it right now. It has an elegant emptiness, a hollowed-out feeling of loss to it that reverberates with a world mood, or at least a personal one. It's pretty damned brilliant, I would say. But you listen and judge for yourself.

Zweiton, Form

Here is some expanding post-prog-metal-minimalism of the good kind. Zweiton makes its debut with Form (Unsung 4260139120864) presenting six instrumentals that go to nice places.

Zeiton is Alexander Paul Dowerk on the U8 Touch Guitar (playing guitar and bass parts via overdubs) and Alexis Paulus on drums, with added guests here and there on acoustic guitar, tuba and viola.

It's post-late-Crimson sounding at times, always musically rich and diverse, and it rocks. The ten-minute "9 Days of Tripping" is a complicated suite-like number and goes pretty far out there while still keeping with the advanced drumming pulsations. But it's all worthwhile. If you like lyrical outness with a metal kick, you will like this one for sure.

Lunatic Soul, Impressions

Lunatic Soul is the side-project of Mariusz Duda, singer and driving force behind the band Riverside. Lunatic Soul's third album, Impressions (Kscope) is a further exploration of ambient soundscapes of sophistication and musical merit. Duda's vocals are conceived as a part of the musical whole, as another instrument in a matrix of instru-mental sound. It's a post-prog band sort of sound with a bit more in the way of electronics and beats than perhaps is the norm for this genre. It doesn't detract but instead gives the whole thing a cosmic, modern edge.

As with post-prog today the harmonic sequences are not in the realm of "Giant Steps," of course. They are hypnotic, revery-inducing progressions of sophisticated elementality. The sound of the instruments and the electronics are the experience, the sound of the studio-as-art-platform, not soloing or intensely rhythmic advances (though rhythm is there). And not, for that matter, song form in this case (except the final two numbers, "Gravestone Hill" and "Summer)". This is a motion picture for the ears, as an old phrase has it. But that it is. There is narrative, but what it means is left up to the listener and what he or she finds in the brown study.

Not to say this music is amorphous. It isn't. What goes down is not without interest. And there is content, as opposed to the New Age norm, where all is surface and it's as if someone decided, "let's play music that has all the trappings of real music, but let's leave out the content." That's not what's up here.

It's pretty convincing as an essay in the state-of-the-art of ambiance today. It's not a huge revelation. It's just very nice. Very nice.

Mats/Morgan's "The Music or the Money!"

Now I don't often put myself out on a limb, partly because we lost most of our trees in a violent storm here in Jersey last March. But I will say that the Mats/Morgan Band and their two-CD release The Music or the Money? (Rune 301/302) are so good it scares me. I mean, they are good, brothers and sisters.

The album was originally released by the band in 1997 as just a little something to distribute on gigs. It's now available to all and includes an additional 45 minutes of music recently recorded.

They have been positively influenced by the best of Frank Zappa's synclavier music, and there are parts that show this through madcap spacefunk meets Varesian encounters and that is a very cool listen. Then they have some parts where they jam as a trio, with the incredible drumming of Agren Morgan spurring Mats Oberg on to some dizzying improvising heights that go beyond what anybody who listens to "post-prog" has any right to expect. There are some moments that can act as an all-body dipilatory. It'll take your hair out by the roots. Then there are songs that have an irresistible quirkiness and show arranging prowess and melodic singularity.

My goodness, these folks have incredible chops but there is nothing cliche about it. The music sometimes goes by like a high-speed express bullet train, but it's not just fast, it's compositionally striking.

Anyone who follows the advanced rock world should not miss this one. Whoooo.

Trey Gunn Talks About His Music, His New Album

Touch guitarist and pioneering music maker Trey Gunn first came to the worldwide attention of music lovers through a productive association with King Crimson, with whom he recorded no less than 17 albums. He plays a Warr Guitar, which combines regular guitar and bass guitar strings for a very full spectrum of available notes (see him playing it in the illustration on the right).

He's collaborated with scores of other influential musicians and has embarked on a quite advanced and interesting program of music under his own name. We reviewed his Quodia on these pages when it came out. His latest album Modulator (7d Media) marks a giant step further into his own unique musical world. The album came about when drummer Marco Minnemann challenged Trey to make a musical work based on a 50-minute drum solo Marco had recorded.

We spoke with Trey recently and he had much to say about the making of that album and his musical vision in general.

GREGO EDWARDS: What brought you to take up the touch guitar?

TREY GUNN: I discovered that all the music I was trying to make on the regular guitar, bass or keyboard was being articulated on the wrong instrument. Having my fingers tapping the strings on the fretboard just gets me closer to my vision of how sound vibration works for me.

GREGO: When you are not making music of your own what sorts of music do you listen to?

TREY: Rarely anything. I only have so many notes I can hear in a day. With my own listening/producing ear-hours, plus the ambient music I hear whenever I am out in the world....I get pretty full with sound and music in a day without adding pleasure listening. Sad, but true.

GREGO: Your new CD Modulator was put together in an unusual way. Drummer Marco Minnemann laid down a long, continuous drum solo and you took that as a foundation for the music that followed. Did you discuss anything with Marco before you went about composing the music? What ultimately enabled you to find a way into the drum track that worked for you?

TREY: Marco had no preconceived ideas about what I should do. In fact his encouragement and acceptance of where I was heading was very helpful. He was just crazy happy to have me doing this.

The only real interaction we had was when I got stuck on a section and asked him to help decode what he was doing so I could find a new way into the drumming. This happened on two or three occasions. Everything else was done without any input from Marco. Well, except for the hour of drumming!!

Each section of the drum solo was different. Some sections were very easy to get going from my end. The music would just flow right out and then I would work on producing that section to make it sound as right as I could. Other sections were EXTREMELY difficult to find something that worked. Some sections took four or five complete re-writes before I could even find one idea that would work. By the end, it was taking me about a week to write 60 seconds of music. This is because I saved the hardest sections for last!

GREGO: Now that you’ve worked in this unusual manner, do you think you’ll try anything similar in the future?

TREY: Man, I hope not. This was really hard!!! I'm joking, of course. I loved the challenge of it and will take on challenges like this again. But, I juuuuust finished it. So doing something like this again feels very daunting right now. Ask me again in a year.

GREGO: Ha-ha, OK! The music on your new album is rhythmically some of the most sophisticated that I’ve ever heard. It must have been quite a challenge not only to match what Marco was doing, but to counter it with lines that extended and transformed it into a wider space. Did this experience change the way you approach rhythm as a basic element? Do you think you’ll be building on what you’ve achieved on other projects in the future?

TREY: Yes, I think so. Though these new ways of thinking had already started forming in me before I began to work on this project. But it has still been very influential for me working with Marco. Both Marco and guitarist Alex Machacek played with me in UKZ and I began working with their rhythmic approaches at that time. We even played one of Alex's pieces, "Austin Powers," on a UKZ tour in Japan. It had some extremely challenging rhythmic characteristics that left Crimson rhythmic complexities in the dust.

GREGO: One thing that strikes me about your new album, as with much of your work, is the dense, orchestral quality of the layering. You’ve clearly become a master of the studio. Does this kind of production change the way you approach the instruments you play (as opposed to playing live)? Is there a different way to think about music when you are shooting for a finished studio composition as opposed to putting together a piece for live performance?

TREY: I am very, very efficient with how I use my time and energies. I wouldn't have taken on this project with Marco's drum solo if I didn't think I could learn some new skills. One of the skills I was working on throughout the whole project was upping my production chops. The other was with orchestration. Keeping in mind that orchestration around these drums and my Warr Guitar is very unconventional orchestration. But these were the challenges I put in front of myself for this project. I am currently working on some bonus tracks for the European version of Modulator (for Voiceprint Records), where I will be stretching out with the orchestral instruments in some newer directions.

Yes, live playing is utterly different for me and I can't even think of working in the studio as a similar animal. In truth when you play live, as much as you want to "sound good," it isn't the point. The point is to directly transmit Music. How you sound is purely the plate that the food sits on. Meaning that it is marginally important for presentation but not the meal. With a studio recording, it HAS to sound good. That is the first thing that you hear: what it sounds like. Not what is the meaning of the music. Sooooo.... I have to treat these two scenarios quite differently.

GREGO: What’s on the horizon for you? What new projects are coming up or in the works?

TREY: Remastering and releasing some of my back catalog with extra bonus tracks. The Third Star will be coming out this year with five extra tracks in a remaster version. More shows with TU (Pat Mastelotto and myself). More shows with KTU (TU plus Finnish accordionist, Kimmo Pohjonen). Releasing other people's new music on my label, 7d Media. Stick Men's new record comes out on it in two months and I will be releasing Inna Zhellennaya's new disc Cocoon, that I played on, in the fall.

GREGO: Thanks for your time, Trey. We'll look forward to those new projects and reissues.