01	Prelude - Time For You						02:27
	02	Night Terrors						03:27
	03	The Midnight Watershed						03:05
	04	In Dark Dreams						04:03
	05	The Half-Light Watershed						01:18
	06	On Returning						00:49
	07	A Sax In The Dark						01:14
	08	Night Terrors Reprise						03:38
	09	Cantermemorabillia						03:21
	10	Chaos At The Greasy Spoon						03:03
	11	Captain Manning's Mandolin						01:41
	12	Up-Hill From Here						07:10
	13	A Serenade						01:38
	14	Playing On...						04:45
	15	Pre-History						02:38
	16	Reprise						03:43

The Tangent - The Music That Died Alone (Inside Out)

release date: 22 September 2003

: : Band Lineup : :

Andy Tillison (Parallel/90 Degrees) - Keyboards, Vocals
Sam Baine (Parallel/90 Degrees) - Piano
Roine Stolte (The Flower Kings) - Electric Guitar, Vocals
Jonas Reingold (The Flower Kings) - Bass
Zoltan Csorsz (The Flower Kings) - Drums
David Jackson (Ex-Van Der Graaf Generator) - Saxophone, Flute
Guy Manning - Acoustic Guitars, Mandolin, Vocals



TRACK LISTING:
In Darkest Dreams:
1. Prelude - Time For You
2. Night Terrors
3. The Midnight Watershed
4. In Dark Dreams
5. The Half-Light Watershed
6. On Returning
7. A Sax In The Dark
8. Night Terrors Reprise

The Canterbury Sequence:
9. Cantermemorabilia
10. Chaos at the Greasy Spoon
11. Captain Manning's Mandolin

12. Up-Hill From Here

The Music That Died Alone:
13. A Serenade
14. Playing On...
15. Pre-History
16. Reprise

Three generations of prog-rockers have joined together for this tribute to the age of concept albums, triple live LPs, ostentatious album sleeves and 20 minute drum solos. Veteran progger David Jackson, former reedsman for Van Der Graaf Generator, provides an authentic '70s flavour, while members of Flower Kings and Parallel Or 90 Degrees (surely one of the sillier band names, even by this genre's standards) give a more contemporary flavour to proceedings.

In keeping with prog-rock traditions, the album is divided into three suites. In Darkest Dreams sounds, in the more convincing passages, like a cross between Close To The Edge-era Yes and early King Crimson, at its worst like Uriah Heep on a bad day. The whole, however, is marred by some horribly mannered vocals.

More convincing is the tribute to the Canterbury bands, Caravan, Hatfield And The North and Soft Machine. This was the whimsical, less po-faced, aspect of prog and the four tracks that make up The Canterbury Sequence capture, in the vocals, instrumental settings and lyrics, the joyous, eccentric spirit of the Canterbury scene.

The Music That Died Alone sums up the overall theme of the album, coming over as a lament for the early '70s heyday of prog. A Serenade makes a convincing pass at a Keith Emerson piano workout and Pre-History features both some pleasing trio interplay and jazz-inflected guitar lines.

At its best - on albums like Brain Salad Surgery, Fragile and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - there was a genuine buccaneering spirit of adventure about progressive rock. The problem for The Tangent and other contemporary prog-rock revivalists is that the best work in this genre came in the years 1969-74, book ended by the King Crimson albums In The Court Of The Crimson King and Red. What came after was mostly either pale imitation, self-parody or rampant egomania.

Although this album is a brave attempt to evoke the golden age of prog-rock it merely ends up reminding fans of the genre what's been lost.

- Simon Evans





Andy Tillison

Andy first came to my attention in 1992 when I saw him and his band "Gold Frankincense & Disk Drive" which included Guy Manning, playing a concert in Leeds. The band themselves thought that the gig was appalling, promptly split up, and ATD soon told me he was "giving up music for good".

I on the other hand, had enjoyed the gig so much that this news seemed to be tragic, and more to the point, stupid. I was delighted to be one of the persuasive forces that made Andy re-examine the possibilities leading to the formation of what turned out to be his most successful project, the wonderful Parallel or 90 Degrees.

For over 20 years, this man has diligently persevered with what some call "Progressive Rock Music", but in a way that aesthetically eclipses just about everyone else. His goal has always been to make the music relevant to the time, and he's never simply gone for the nostalgic so-called "neo prog" angle. He's presented prog rock to the world from the vehicle of an anarchist technical punk rock band, taken vast flights of keyboards into punk venues where most of us wouldn't dare walk through the door without at least having green hair. He's stood on stage and declared Po90 to be a punk rock band in front of audiences at the Classic Rock Society, and constantly rips up the rule book of musical genre.

With Parallel or 90 Degrees he's been the composer and producer of most of 6 studio albums, all of which have been a dramatic step forward from the preceding one. Whilst he has happily declared Po90 to be a progressive rock band, he's not been scared to incorporate dance, trance, jungle, drum & bass, thrash metal and other alien forms into the music, with the same ease as Yes would fuse jazz and classical music back in the early days of progressive rock.

One of the scene's most individual voices and lyricists, Andy is a multi-instrumentalist, playing Drums, Bass and Guitar, but it's onstage as a keyboards player where the man really excels... throwing himself at his beloved Hammond in a way only comparable to Keith Emersons stage antics.

His lyrics perhaps present the greatest challenge to the Progressive Rock Norm, being far more reality based than many of his contemporaries. No better examples exist than on the "Unbranded" album, where he tackles a variety of hugely important social issues including peer pressure, enforced religion and overpopulation in a very sensitive and compassionate way. Like his mentor Peter Hammill, Andy keeps his feet on planet earth rather than Middle Earth, and in doing so distinguishes his band from so many others.

His love of Progressive Rock music is something that he has never chosen to hide, unlike many other artists who are prepared to be influenced by the music without wanting to declare it. He's championed its cause on stage, on paper and on the radio for years. Maybe with this album it will give him something back.





Roine Stolt

Roine Stolt is undoubtedly one of if not THE legend in modern Progressive Rock.

Born in Sweden, on September 5, 1956, he started his career in the late 60's playing bass in local rock bands, covers of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Beatles and King Crimson switching to guitar in 73.

At the age of 17 he became the guitarist in Swedish Progressive band KAIPA making three successful albums on the DECCA label. These KAIPA albums are now reissued worldwide and are often regarded as the premier Scandinavian symphonic rock albums of the 'seventies.

Leaving the band in 1979 to form FANTASIA and making two albums. The group split up in 83 after releasing a more commercial-sounding album on Warner Records in 82. Roine then started working as a session musician, arranger and producer. It was at this point that having felt he had really learned to master the guitar that a side 'pop' career as a singer started on the 1985 album "Behind The Walls", which was a melodic and romantic album more in the style of Jackson Browne or Hall and Oates. As his style wandered away from symphonic rock towards more traditional rock, funk , pop, folk, blues and jazz in 1989 he came out with his own "Stolt" project, "The Lonely Heartbeat" 1989.

The 90's saw the rebirth of progressive rock, and Roine felt the time was right for a revisit releasing the CD "The Flower King" in mid-August of 94. It was an album that tried to unleash the forces of good in the negative, violent, aggressive, competitive music business of today. Reinstate the old hippie ideals, lyrically and musically.

The band "The Flower Kings" is now well established, having released "Back In The World Of Adventures" ,"Retropolis", "Stardust We Are", "Flower Power", the highly acclaimed live recording "Alive On Planet Earth", "Space Revolver" and "The Rainmaker" and the recent "Unfold The Future" . All these CD's have received fantastic reviews, and the group's reputation is ever growing through countless articles, interviews and air time in the progressive press and on prog radio stations around the world.

As a previous side project Roine joined forces with Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Pete Trewavas of Marillion and Neal Morse of Spocks Beard to form the progressive "supergroup" TRANSATLANTIC. Transatlantic released two studio albums, "SMPT:e" (2000) and "Bridge Across Forever" (2001) plus the "Live in America" double CD. They have also been on successful tours of the US and Europe. 2003 will see the first Transatlantic DVD live movie.

I have also contributed to other recording projects, the latest being a reunion of KAIPA and "Flying Food Circus", the offspring of Samla Mammas Manna drummer Hasse Bruniusson and keyboard virtuoso Mats Oberg (he played with Zappa). Kaipa released "Notes From The Past" in March 2002 and Flying Food Circus in May 2002. Other recent projects are Karmakanic and The Bollenberg project (with among others Rick Wakeman and Jordan Rudess on keys) and the Merit Hemmingsson project, which is an old story, first recorded in 1992 but finished recently, a folk, jazz and ambient project.

Roine Stolt has brought back the real Joy of progressive rock music.




David Jackson

David Jackson is one of the original pioneers of progressive rock music. Releasing his first performance in 1969 on the Van Der Graaf Generator album "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other", "Jaxon" immediately became a unique musician. Taking the "lead instrument" role normally associated with guitars or keyboards, David used saxophones in a way never heard before, or indeed since. Eschewing the obvious "Jazz" styles familiar with the instrument, he used it rather as a guitar, feeding it through fuzz boxes, wah wah pedals and echo devices. Sometimes it would sound like some chilling horn blowing across blasted hillsides, other times it would weep, or hiss, or snuffle. Duo-phonic sax was no problem either, and David would frequently be seen blowing his tenor and alto horns simultaneously.

David was a vital contributor to all the "main sequence" of VDGG's work. Since then, he's appeared on many of Peter Hammill's solo albums, and made a good few of his own. Always the experimenter, Jaxon is as involved now in the playing of some really far-out instruments, including Sound Beams (a type of "synthesiser in the air".) The new techniques and instruments he plays can be heard alongside the saxes and flutes we traditionally think of, on the remarkable album "Fractal Bridge".

He's now heavily involved in musical projects on a large scale... many of which involve children who people less open minded than David might call "disabled". David prefers to use phrases like "Virtuoso" of them, and he tours schools and centres throughout Europe presenting fascinating practical musical workshops, for which he has won awards.

Because of the chaotic nature of the Tangent project, we now find Mr Jaxon's contribution all the more special.. it's so good to hear the man playing in a "band" setting, even if the band is "virtual" and was never intended!




Sam Baine

Sam Baine... the quiet and understated keyboards player from Parallel or 90 Degrees. On-stage, almost an opposite of Andy's flamboyant performance, Sam has a cool but precise approach to the way she plays.

Sam's official musical upbringing was through Music College, where Piano Jazz was her forte. She met up with ATD in 1994, and before long the Jazz Pianist and the Anarcho Punk Rocker were doing a gig together... playing electronic ambient music a la Tangerine Dream, by candlelight, in a church. What was there left to do?

If Andy's tastes and influences are broad, then Sam's are even broader. She won't allow herself to become bogged down in any musical rut.. she's as much at home listening to Black Sabbath as she is to Cristina Aguilera, or Ozric Tentacles, Nirvana, Metallica, Miles Davis, Bill Evans or Marilyn Manson.

She has as previously mentioned, a different approach to keyboards from Andy... you could cynically argue that she has taste and since 1996 she has provided the textural background of Po90's sound. On the Tangent album, she plays some Jazz Piano at last... after all, if Andy was doing what he wanted, it was about time for Sam to do what she wanted!. The sections may be small, but as mentioned elsewhere, they are hugely important to the Tangent sessions, being moments that inspired everyone else's interpretation of the rhythmic feel of the music.






Zoltan Csorsz

Zoltan Csorsz born July 4th 1976 in Hungary. At the age of 25 he became a full member in The Flower Kings. Zoltan is one of the busiest drummers in Sweden, very much in demand for his all around capability and versatility. He's been playing since the age of five, starting to win awards at the age of nine in an international talent contest in Hungary in 1986, also televised on national television in Hungary. Zoltan has a formal musical education both at the University level, as well as the Jazz Institute of Malmoe, Sweden.

With a style favourably compared to the legendry American session man Vinnie Colaiuta, Zoltan brings to The Tangent his skills contributing to the dynamic palette and the relentless beauty and bombast that is the trademark of progressive rock

Although both Jonas and Zoltan find their original roots firmly in the Jazz Fusion field with The Flower Kings and now The Tangent they have jointly given the Progressive Rock world probably the finest rhythm section they have ever seen.

As Roine Stolt said in a recent interview:

"Jonas and Zoltan are perhaps only the catalysts of the hidden jazz within Roine and Roine is perhaps the catalyst of the sleeping proggers in Jonas and Zoltan. There is also much in between".

Andy Tillison adds:

I've seen Zoltan play for the Flower Kings of course, which as anyone who has had that experience will know is an onslaught of incredible technical drumming. But there's more to being a great drummer than just the ability to do that. I walked into a smoky jazz bar in Malmo to watch Zoltan play with a simple 3 piece piano trio followed by a free jam session. Watching the way he had total respect for the other players around him, the man was demonstrating a feel and knowledge of so many varying styles which belied his years.. He has provided The Tangent album with influences drawn from great drummers who had hung up their sticks before he was born. This man listens.




Jonas Reingold

Jonas Reingold is a 35 years old bass player from Malmo, Sweden. From 1988-1994 he studied music and achieved a master degree of fine arts 1994. Busy working as a session player between 1994-1996 he finally released his debut album as a band leader 1995 "Sweden bass Orchestra" A bass Jazz big band consisting 5 bass players and a drummer. Between 1996-1999 Reingold was busy recording with diverse artists and projects, ranging from a musical with ABBA's Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulveus to 'Metal' bands Midnight Sun, Reingold, Sand and Gold

In 1999 he started to work with the Flower Kings, replacing Michael Stolt who moved on to other things, and is still a permanent member in the group. Right now he is involved with the Kings and his own band Karmakanic

Jonas's bass playing has been favourably compared to his mentor the late Jaco Pastorious and with the latest Flower Kings album 'Unfold The Future' Jonas certainly stakes his claim to the best Bass player in the modern Progressive Rock arena.

Andy Tillison writes:...

"After we'd recorded everything, I finally got to meet Jonas in Rotherham. Such was the level of expertise he'd brought to the Tangent project not only as a bass player, but as a sound engineer I decided that the only thing to do was to take Po90 over to Sweden so that we could get the same quality results for Po90 as Jonas had delivered for the Tangent. The man is irrepressible in either humour or musical drive. This man can only do two things. Make you laugh, or make music. He does both exceedingly well."





Guy Manning

Guy Manning is a UK based singer songwriter, working out of Leeds in West Yorkshire. Guy is an accomplished writer, and the phrase "Singer songwriter" doesn't really do the man all the justice it should. True enough he sings and he writes songs, but Guy grew up listening to the great progressive bands, and that idea for a "nice little song" can soon become a lot more than just that.

Guy has released 4 albums already on Cyclops Records, and the most recent one "The Ragged Curtain" along with the new album for 2003 "The View From My Window" show Guy at his most versatile. Beginning with a selection of well crafted songs that you have known all your life (after the first listening... to paraphrase Dave Winter's nice comments about the Tangent album!)), the albums pull you towards a large scale piece "The Ragged Curtain" in the first case ... and "Suite Dreams" in the second. Both of these are triumphs of arrangement, with Guy playing a good deal of the instruments himself.

His acoustic guitar playing is exemplary and his uncanny ability to devise polyphonic parts for guitars, mandolins and voices has been utilised extensively on The Tangent album.

Guy has worked with me often in the past , including guest appearances on Po90 albums, and full collaboration on the "No More Travelling Chess" project.

It was great to be able to invite him to do this project with us. He's left an indelible mark on it and "put the wood" back into the music

Written by Andy Tillison


Dave Winter adds...

Like AT, Guy Manning is a musician who cuts his own path and doesn't always choose to cut it through the easiest ground. You really don't know what to expect when you put a new Manning CD into the player, because the one you heard previously will have given no clue. You could be into some skeletal acoustic and heartwrenching ballad (check out "Candyman" for example... one of those songs like on Peter Hammill's "Over" where you just don't dare breathe), or you could be surrounded by sound effects, multi-layered synthesizers and four million overdubs. In fact, with all the critique that I've read about Andy TD's Po90 being Hammill-influenced, I actually reckon that Guy's as close in spirit to Hammill's solo work as Andy is. Introspective sometimes and suffocatingly personal. I first came across these two people just after they'd finished completely dissecting Hammill's work for their No More Travelling Chess album. They learned a lot and learned it well.

If Guy went to Nashville he could probably sell his songs for millions, such is the enduring quality of them. Then again, as AT remarked "You could get Westlife to sing 'The Flower King' and it would be number one all over the place." Will someone please tell him to keep his mouth shut before someone takes him seriously!

Between them, GM and AT are a highly industrious enclave of progressive rock in the North of England, a place not normally associated with such music. Could be simple geography that makes that difference?.... who knows?



Dave Winter





'Three generations of Progressive Rock - One remarkable album'

The Tangent" is a musical project that involves seven of the most dedicated progressive musicians of today. Taken primarily from two of today's most prolific progressive bands (The Flower Kings and Parallel or 90 Degrees), that core is augmented by the legendary Van Der Graaf Generator saxophonist David Jackson, and the up and coming solo artist Guy Manning - A lineup that historically spans the whole of the progressive music era. "The Music That Died Alone" is a CD recorded by the people of that project.

This two and a half hour special features Andy Tillison (who wrote the album), Sam Baine and Guy Manning talking you through a full play of the album and telling you the story of the project from the early demos to its final release and all the stages in between.

This 'official' interview has been sent to a number of Progressive Rock internet radio stations that have shown interest in this project. WE THANK THEM ALL FOR THEIR SUPPORT.

As we are informed we will announce the various stations and play times, but we hope everyone will have the opportunity to listen to this interview at a convenient time for their own time zone.

The first broadcast was on Sunday 24th August at 8pm UK / 9pm Central Europe time (3 pm EST) on Delicious Agony.

The special was also broadcast on Progressive Soundscapes on Sunday 7th September at 6pm EST.

Other dates / locations and times will be announced on this page as soon as possible.

Hope you enjoy the show.

Ian and Cliff
Progjam Productions






The Making of the album......


The recording of "The Music That Died Alone" was inevitably complex, challenging and a bit of an adventure for all concerned. Progressive Rock music is by its very nature quite a mammoth task to record, but to add to that the complications of 7 musicians who at the time didn't know each other very well, recording in 4 separate locations in 2 countries using 3 different recording platforms, you then have a real hair tearing experience on the cards!

On this page you'll find all sorts of stuff.. some you'll want to read, some you won't. it just depends how far your interest goes!

1. Useless statistics and trivia!

2. The story of how we did it.

3. The equipment and systems we used to make this album.



PART ONE... Silly Stats!!!!

The Tangent Album filled over 40 gigabytes of hard disk space just before it was mixed. It is now, like most CDs of this length, around 1/2 a gigabyte.... The first Po90 album "The Corner of my Room" never occupied more than 1 gigabyte at any time....

When Roine sent the drums and guitars parts back to the UK from Sweden, he needed to send 10 CDs

To send a hard disk from Malmo in South Sweden to Uppsala in the North of that country can take 17 days. You can fly from Malmo to New York in about 7 hours.....

During the recording of the album, Roine added some vocals and guitar pieces to a Po90 track which isn't available anywhere.

The album was commenced in 2001 (June). David Jackson recorded his bits a year later, followed closely by Jonas and Zoltan. Roine added his bits by September of 2002.

The CDs of Roine Zoltan and Jonas' contributions to the album arrived back finally in England on the day Andy Tillison started a new job. The post arrived 2 minutes before he had to catch the bus to his new workplace, during which apparently Andy went through a "significant degree of inner torment".

David Jackson brought a van load of musical instruments to the session at Andy & Sam's studio. These included various bamboo flutes, whistles, percussion instruments, electronic devices, soundbeams, echo mirrors and a device caled a "Jellybean Eye". David plays Sax and Flute on the album.

Jonas Reingold had NO IDEA who Andy Tillison WAS when the two met at Rotherham in late 2002. Jonas had already played bass on the album. Zoltan recognised him immediately.

Roine Stolt plays an unauthorised tambourine on the album, which he's probably forgotten about.

Andy Tillison told Guy Manning that there was not going to be any mandolin on this album. The next day Roine sent Andy an e-mail suggesting some mandolin on one of the tracks. Andy then had to think of a way of making it sound like his idea. Eventually he gave up.

There's a really nice bit where Sam plays some piano which David then repeats on the saxophone. David played his bit first....

A small part of the album was written in 1978. The bit we nicked from Hatfield & The North was written even earlier.

Ed Unitsky sent over 100 pictures to Andy for the Tangent Sleeve. At present, we figure we now have to make another 20 albums to use them all.

Ed Unitsky is from Belarus (Belo-Russia).

The original sleeve was designed by Andy. Roine Didn't like it. The next sleeve was designed by Roine. Andy Didn't like it. Andy designed another one that Roine didn't like. Roine suggested using a famous progressive artist. We agreed on that, and chose some pictures. Roine didn't like the ones Andy chose and Andy didn't like the ones Roine chose. Andy and Roine then realised they were better at working together on music than artwork and gave the job to Ed Unitsky, who has probably averted a bloodbath from happening somewhere in the middle of the North Sea. Diplomatic relations between Sweden and the UK are now smooth again.

Roine Stolt jammed along to a Po90 track that was being played through a PA system in London. He did not realise this, and this was the first time we had ever worked together... even though he didn't know it at the time.



PART TWO - The incredible story of the recording.

Well I had these demos, and (if you've read the intro page) you'll know that Ian Oakley had setup this enormous chain of events that now had to be fulfilled. Everything was recorded on my computer here in Burley In Wharfedale, including all the demo drums and bass that I'd put down myself. Jaxon arrived here in June 2002 to "do his bits". He'd been listening to the demos for some time, and he'd worked out a clear strategy. We spent a very interesting and happy day recording his saxophones and flute for three of the four songs on the album. Then we retired to a local pub... Whilst at the pub, David asked me why we hadn't done the fourth song, to which I replied that I hadn't really thought of having wind instruments on it.... Of course it turns out that David's done more work on that one at home than any of the others. "Cantermemorabilia" being a Canterbury based song, ... David's gone and studied quite a lot of Canterbury stuff and has some ideas. So after the pub, at some ungodly hour of the night, our next door neighbour is kept awake by some stunning Jimmy Hastings style flute. Although I asked David along primarily for his VDGG influence, I have to say that his flute work, done on that night is one of the albums most endearing features. He did it in one take.

After this recording it was time to take the plunge. An album I'd been nurturing for some time now had to pass entirely out of my control, cross a small sea and deliver itself into the hands of a rhythm section who I had only very briefly met at a gig a year earlier. Zoltan and Jonas recieved a couple of CDs from me, one with my guide drums & bass on it so they could get the feel I was after, and one with those instruments removed so they could add their bits. My guess is that they opened the envelope and threw the first one in the bin. Then they got started.... Well at least they started to BUILD the studio....

At about half past 11 one evening, curiously enough while I was watching an Emerson Lake & Palmer video, the phone rang and a wildly enthusiastic Swedish person wanted to play me some music down the phone. From what I could hear, it sounded great. Amazing bass and drums. I couldn't have been happier. Well actually, I could have been happier. If I'd actually known which song it was they were playing me down the phone..... I never dared ask at the time.

After a couple of weeks, Jonas and Zoltan had finished their recordings. Unlike me, they'd been working on a Macintosh computer, so by now all the files were in a different format. The good thing was that Roine was also on a Macintosh.. and it was his turn to add his bits. This is where I learned something quite important. The rhythm section of the Flower Kings and the Guitarist of the Flower Kings live several hundred miles away from each other. We're talking Edinburgh/London distances here! The files had to be sent by post to Roine, and Jonas didn't want to have to burn something in the region of 30 CDs that would have been needed to hold all the individual drum files. He decided to send the whole hard disk out of his computer in the post instead. I was worried that something that critical might get lost in the post. Of course, I tempered that thought with the old reputation of Swedish Efficiency.

It got lost in the post for 17 days. The Swedish post office launched a new post coding system that week and forgot to let Jonas know about it. Apparently, the Eskimos who eventually received the package couldn't get it to work on their computers, and sent it back to Roine. I was happily removed from the life support machine at the end of this time and returned to normal living.

At this point Roine was ready to go. "I'll start tomorrow" he sveltley assured me on the 'phone. Next day though, I think he got up for breakfast, put on the master disc of the newly finished "Unfold the Future" album and noticed that in the third verse of "The Truth Will Set You Free" that the third ancillary backing vocal had a tad too much compression on it, and he consequently decided to remix an entire 130 minute album.....

Roine mixed the drums that Zoltan and Jonas had recorded.. (taking a big job away from me thankfully) and set about recording his guitars and vocals. (And unauthorised tambourine).

The leaves that had been freshly green on the trees when Jaxon had played his parts were already forming a soft mulch on the ground near the river at Burley In Wharfedale when the CDs finally arrived back here. They'd travelled a couple of thousand miles, been lost in the post, been in an "albums to record queue" at Roine's place, but finally arrived back here in October 2003. The first job was to assemble the new parts played by the Swedes with all the individual tracks on my computer. It seemed as though it was going to be a herculean task.

Everything fitted together FIRST TIME. I had the big track "In Darkest Dreams" running in less time than it takes to play the song. I still don't know how a piece that started on Cubase VST in England on a PC, can go to Sweden, get transferred to Logic for a Macintosh, then go up north and converted to Pro Tools on a Mac, come back again and work first time on a PC. It's the sort of thing you just won't believe in one of those Hollywood feature films where Jeff Goldblum manages to upload a virus from an Apple mac into a totally alien computer system without once getting a "server not found" dialogue box. I suppose it must just have been the skills of Roine, Jonas and Zoltan.... NO DAMMIT!, they get enough credit here.... it was all me, wasn't I clever?

But seriously, the first and most amazing thing everyone who heard the results noticed, was that it all sounded as though we were playing the music together in the same room!

The next phase of the recording was to add the acoustic instruments. Guy Manning had chomped at the bit for months, waiting for the CDs to come back so we would know where to add them. In a radical departure from procedural norm, the next bits actually got recorded with more than one person in the room. Guy's pretty well set up for acoustic instruments, so we recorded these last additions at his place in Leeds. It was good fun for him, because he was getting to play over an album which was starting to sound really good. At this point we were on a roll, and we knew it.

The final mixing was done back at Burley In Wharfedale, over Christmas of 2002, with various versions being mailed to Roine as Mp3 files for his input. In this way we were able to contribute to the final mix on equal terms, and a plethora of e-mail discussions took place until we were happy that we'd got it just right.

It was simply the most amazing recording experience I've ever had. Working with heroes and friends, people of different ages and from different countries. I just hope that when you hear it, you hear the music... not the story!



PART THREE - Anorak Section

OK.... I'll probably get some wrong.... but this is some of the equipment we used to make this album:

COMPUTERS.

Andy - Pentium 3 PC @ 700mhz running Cubase VST.

Jonas - Macintosh G4 running Logic

Roine - Macintosh G4 running Pro Tools

KEYBOARDS

Yamaha SY85 synthesiser, Yamaha CS15 synthesiser, Roland XP10 synthesiser, Novation Supernova 2 synthesiser, Roland VK7 organ. Native Instruments B4 organ simulator, Native Instruments Pro 52 "Prophet 5" simulator, MDA acoustic & electric piano simulators, Waldorf PPG simulator. Steinberg "The Grand" acoustic grand piano simulator. G-Media "M-Tron" Mellotron Simulator.

GUITARS

Roine uses Parker Guitars and amplification

Guy plays a Taylor acoustic guitar& Crafter Mandolin

Drums

Zoltan plays Precision drums and Sabian Cymbals












The Album - The Music That Died Alone


There will be a few of you who wonder what an album made by a concoction of Flower Kings & Po90 members sounds like... after all, the bands are pretty different from each other. Po90 operate at the darker end of the progressive spectrum, and have as such frequently been compared to Van Der Graaf Generator, which makes this collaboration with David Jackson all the more poignant.
If anyone were to be said to be carrying forward Yes' torch of optimism and light, it would be the Flower Kings, with their joyous up-beat slant on the world. Just look at the titles of the songs, Po90's "Dead On A Car Park Floor" against the FKs "Stardust We Are"... or perhaps album titles.. "More Exotic Ways To Die" versus "Flower Power".

The Tangent seeks to be able to combine these views to avoid an unecessary polarization in the forces of progressive music. After all, Po90 maintain that they are, (regardless of the titles) a very positive band. ATD has frequently gone on record as such. Back in progressive music's first heyday, there was another outfit where musicians from both sides of the form could work, this being King Crimson, which despite its frequently dark approach to "prog" found room for Jon Anderson's uniquely optimistic and angelic voice.

The Music that Died Alone is a remarkable album. For a start, it's a lot shorter than everyone expected given the scale of recent Spocks Beard, Transatlantic & Flower Kings records. It clocks in at just under 50 minutes. It's made up of four pieces (or movements.. Andy jokes that this being a prog record, "it should have movements!")

Kicking off is the multi-sectioned epic "In Darkest Dreams". The first section of this piece, which is called "Prologue, Time For You" leaves nobody in any doubt at all about what sort of album it is. Starting with a whirling neo-baroque distorted Hammond, we're soon into frantic all out mega-prog assault with 4 minutes of great instrumental work that could have sat happily alongside Karn Evil 9 on the "Brain Salad Surgery" album with the addition of superb guitar from Roine. A better comparison though, could be "Tarkus", beacuse of the way the frenetic technical intro gives way to the first "Song" section, "Night Terrors".

This is where David Jackson makes his first appearance. And there can be NO doubt about who this is at all. Any Van Der Graaf afficionadoes who get to hear this album without already knowing that DJ is on it will be rushing to find the credits part of the sleeve. There is only Jaxon who plays like this, and it's just so good to hear it again, that haunting echoing sax that drifts in and out of the music. Then we get vocals, Roine Stolt taking the first lead vocal slot of the album. So of course, you can't help but think about the Flower Kings now, after all, guitar, drums and bass as well as vocals are being played by people who are in the FKs. But that is not all there is to the story. Roine's guitar snakes round and chases David's sax parts, and the music darkens to appropriate the lyrics which deal with someone experiencing Night Terrors, a medical condition like, but a lot worse than nightmares. Yet the refrains of the song are uplifting choruses of hope.....

A terrific set of instrumentals follows, kicking off with Roine in Houldsworth mode, playing over some tight funk in 13/8... Sam Baine blasts into the proceedings with a really cool and syncopated jazz piano solo (one of the highlights of the whole album), followed by the inevitable wound-up-hammond workout from Andy Tillison Diskdrive.

Everything quietens down now, for the lovely song "Dark Dreams". With piano and acoustic guitar and a gorgeous fretless bass passage, ATD makes his lead vocal debut - in stark contrast to his work with Po90, this is a very gentle yet passionate section where he appears to take the role of someone "outside the dream" offering support to someone inside it. The music build to a rich mellotron laden chorus, aided by huge layers of backing vocals that somehow don't sound as sweet as these sort of things normally do. Such backing vocals are not normally part of either the Flower Kings or Po90's music, so this makes this hybrid take a life of its own. The huge chorus is followed by some delicate melodic interplay between Piano, Guitar and Flute, crescendo-ing to an instrumental chorus where David Jackson's sax soars emotionally towards the next complete mood change.

A smile spread across my face when I heard the next section -"The Half Light Watershed", because it's impossible to hear it without thinking of the central part of "Close to The Edge".... it's evidently a "tip of the hat" to that classic piece, that same mystical and atmospheric held chord with bass notes drifting in and out can be no coincidence. In any case, Roine gives the game away with a few subtle lines from Yes' piece. But all the while something else is happening, and instead of the slow organ chords of CTTE, a chorus of acoustic instruments is building out of the atmospherics, Zoltan tinging gently away on the triangle, building towards the re-emergence of "Dark Dreams", this time sung (and played) by Guy Manning in a simpler yet haunting form. A couple of blasts from Zoltans Tom Toms, and we're into the rich instrumental, "A Sax In The Dark". And of course this is a David Jackson led section., Over a tight and chunky slow riff with airy mellotron chords the sax winds around, in true Jaxon form, never giving way to the urge to just become Jazzy, it's more like a guitar solo Interspersed with a couple of bits of organ, and finished off with a surprising burst of high speed technical acoustic guitar from Guy, the piece returns to it's original song with Roine again taking vocal honours. The choruses of "Night Terrors Reprise" build in size and intensity, once again really uplifting particularly the one where the sax takes over from the vocals.

The twenty minute epic ends on a huge sustained chord that fades into the distance. It's a killer of a piece, an amazing project debut, and a total classic of the long format symphonic piece. Of course, ther'es a lot of those about, but rarely do you hear one so perfectly constructed in its format. Like the best of them, the 20 minutes is over before you know it.

"Nostalgia-Feratu" is the second track. Split into three sections, the first of these is "Canter-Memorabilia". This is a light hearted and airy song where Andy Tillison-Diskdrive is singing about riding his bike through the busy modern world listening to bands like Caravan or Hatfield & The North on his walkman. It's wistfully nostalgic (as the titles suggest), faintly humorous, and definitely a pastiche of the Canterbury sound, complete with "ba ba ba ba" scat choruses, some superbly executed drums and bass, and David Jackson's lucid flute, where he plays totally in the style of Jimmy Hastings!. Andy is clearly imitating that southern twang of Richard Sinclair in his vocals.

The chaos of the modern world seems to be represented by a crashing sequence lifted directly from Hatfield & the North's album "The Rotters Club" This piece ("Chaos at the Greasy Spoon") uses Dave Stewart's famous distorted hammond sound playing the riff from "Chaos" with lots of extraneous noise... as if the listener is straining to hear the music in the walkman. Soon though we are returned to the innocent world again, with a series of instrumentals, starting with a super interplay between DJs flute and another wicked jazz piano section from Sam Baine. Followed by some jazzy stuff a la Peter Banks from Roine, he builds his guitar to a crescendo, giving way to a simple "Canterbury Style" organ solo from Andy.

The third, also instrumental section "Captain Mann (er) ing's Mandolin" is a beautiful guitar composition, reminds me of some of the stuff on Roine Stolt's first "The Flower King" album. Occasionally calling and answering Andy or Sam's synthesizer, the lush piece is complimented (as the title suggests) by Guy's mandolin which adds a unique texture to the piece.

If "Nostalgia-Feratu" was a way to relax a little after the intensity of the first magnum-opus, then "Uphill-From Here" is a wake up call. Of all the pieces on this album, this is the most surprising. This is pure progressive rock & roll stuff, and Roine dominates the song with guitar playing like you've never heard him do before. Warped Chuck Berry riffs (think of a faster and rockier "Going For the One"), choppy rhythm playing, powerchords and swooping solos are this song's forte, acompanied by an unfettered Jonas and Zoltan who prove that as well as the really complex stuff they can do, they can really rock. Sounding more like Entwhistle and Moon they drive the song forward with gusto. David Jackson's trademark "Two saxes at once" snarl out the riff of the song, and Andy sings the song, for the first time on the album in his "Po90" persona. What a great chorus this song has. It's infectious, and you get it on the brain after one listening... The song finishes with an all out hammond assault, and a fantastic extended guitar solo from "Roine, but not as we know him Jim".

The closing "movement" of the album is "The Music That Died Alone". Another epic, this is divided into 4 sections, the first of which is "A Serenade". This is a stunning piano section with Andy TD proving that he can do more than stick daggers in a Hammond. Cascading, atmospheric, and delightfully jazzy, this sets the tone for the arrival of the vocals in the beautiful song "Playing On". Although Andy is credited as lead vocals here, it's a sort of duet between him and Roine. It's evident that this is, on the surface, a song about the fate of progressive rock music. However ATD told me "it's about a lot more than that. It's about everything we really care about being shunted to the back of our minds, and then replacing it with a cheap media driven set of ideals that now make us apparently more acceptable to society". "Playing On" features DJ on soprano sax and flute, once again weaving around the music, some lovely "I talk to the Wind" guitars from Roine, and another great chorus with those big backing vocals again. "Playing On" is a song in itself, and only as it's dying notes are fading away does the next section start... a great Jazz fusion variation on the song..."Pre-History" now begins. While Andy claims this to be another Canterbury style workout, to my ears it's more technical than that.... more in the manner of Return To Forever. Solos for Acoustic & electric guitars, Hammond and piano abound, finally dissolving into a lovely quiet section where Roine Stolt scat-sings along with his guitar. The piece returns to the main song for a big finish, before leaving us with a collage of tinkling synthesisers fading into the distance with some lonely saxophone....

I have been a fan of the music of Andy Tillison Diskdrive's work for some 20 years now. I discovered much of what I know about Progressive Rock Music through his various bands, "New Opera", "Gold, Frankincense & Disk Drive" and of course Po90. Throughout these bands careers I've always liked the way his music has skirted around the progressive rock-norm, without ever getting as removed from reality as many of the famous bands did. I must confess that I was exceedingly worried about the idea of an out and out prog album, and although I have a lot of time for the Flower Kings, the idea of an album that featured the two groups somehow didn't gel. I think that in the end, the Tangent project has managed to pull out of the bag a new Progressive Rock model that has all the instrumental virtuosity and excitement of the original form, tempered with a firm grip on real issues (I still can't imagine Andy singing songs about Astral Princes) and most importantly, great songs. Many thought of Transatlantic's first album as the re-birth of real progressive music, and in many ways I agree. It has to be said though, that despite the virtuosity of that band (in which Roine Stolt also played), there was a lack of the essential "English-ness" that made Progressive Music so distinctive. "The Music that died Alone" restores that quirky Englishness to the music. Along with the Flower Kings' "Unfold the Future", Po90's vastly under-sold "More Exotic Ways To Die" and the terrific second half of Guy Mannings "The Ragged Curtain" album, the people on this album are redefining the whole genre. A genre that lives on in an "underground" context rather than the rich pickings it enjoyed in the 1970s. But prog was always an underground form anyway. It seems better there to me, its participants involved primarily in the creation of music than in throwing lawsuits at one another.

Three weeks after this album arrived on my mat, I feel like I've known it all my life.

Dave Winter.






The Tangent - Some Info


"The Tangent" is a musical project that involves seven of the most dedicated progressive musicians of today. Taken primarily from two of today's most prolific progressive bands (The Flower Kings and Parallel or 90 Degrees), that core is augmented by the legendary Van Der Graaf Generator saxophonist David Jackson, and the up and coming solo artist Guy Manning. A lineup that historically spans the whole of the progressive music era then. "The Music That Died Alone" is a CD recorded by the people of that project.
Dave Winter & Andy Tillison-Diskdrive tell how it all came to be:

Although it's come a long way since then, "The Music that Died Alone" by The Tangent actually started life as a solo album - that got rather "out of hand". Now, a year or so after commencing the project, Andy Tillison-Diskdrive reflects on the project by saying "this is not what I intended to do at all!..the music of my band Parallel or 90 Degrees is progressive by nature, but not with the capital P, and back in 2001 I fancied a go at some real "Proggy" stuff. I just started one day. By then I'd already seen the Flower Kings, and realised that there is still really good mileage left in symphonic music. So I set about making an album that would capture that notion."

A few weeks into the project, Ian Oakley (one of the Flower Kings UK staff) heard the fledgling album and decided to pass it on to Roine Stolt, with perhaps a view to a guest appearance..... months passed......

Eventually Roine sent an email:

>Hi Andy ,


Listened to your demo again yesterday , good stuff... moody ....
Any progress ?

just let me know when ......

Whenever you record , make sure you get a really good rhythm section with a dynamic touch , as the groove seems an important part of it , to me at least . Some real sax and/or trumpet would be cool too ..... think I heard it in one or two songs .

Trouble is that (without him wanting to offend anyone) Andy isn't a great wind instruments fan. But of course, there is a major exception to that rule.....

"Getting David Jackson was pretty cool. I'd met him with Hugh Banton once before... of course we'd done that VDGG tribute gig with Hugh, so David remembered that. After he heard the demos, he declared himself "in" and it was so good answering Roine's e-mail with "will David Jackson from Van Der Graaf do?" ha ha! David is one of my childhood heroes... I even used to have a picture of him on my wall when I was at college."

David Jackson was the first musician to actually record his parts for the album. In June 2002, he arrived at Andy & Sam's place, armed with an arsenal of instruments...including the original saxes from his VDGG days, not to mention the famous HAT, which they insisted he bring.

"We spent nearly three days together, - only one of them actually recording. There was just so much to talk about, and David is certainly the kind of person who will oblige you in that area! It was a fascinating and inspiring weekend. The parts that Jaxon recorded were the moment the album started to grow, With Saxes and flutes being instruments I'd never worked with before, all sorts of possibilities started springing up. One particularly memorable part of the album is Sam Baine & David Jackson's piano & flute "conversation" during some variations on Hatfield & The North's "Chaos at the Greasy Spoon"

Sam Baine, fellow Po90 keyboards player with Andy had, therefore, also arrived on the album. She brought her love of jazz piano to the album, and in doing so was to inspire everyone else. It was time to send the music to Sweden for Roine to get involved.

"When Roine heard the story so far, he was in the middle of mixing the "Unfold the Future" album by the Flower Kings. He was immediately taken by the new feel that Sam & David had brought to the album. He suggested that, in order to highlight this, that the bass & drum tracks until then played by me should be replaced by a proper rhythm section. He also happened to know where there was a very good one with nothing much to do at the time.....!"

And so, the Flower Kings' Drum'n'Bass section, Zoltan Czorsz and Jonas Reingold became then 5th & 6th recruits to the cause. The music was sent to Malmo in the south of Sweden, where Jonas and Zoltan lovingly brought the music to life with some truly stunning work.....

"Jonas would ring me up and play me the tracks down the phone. I was so excited, but frustrated at the same time. I wanted to be there to see it happen"

However, before Andy could get to hear the music, it had another trip to make, several hundred miles north to Cosmic Lodge studios in Uppsala, where Roine was to add his vocal and guitar parts.

"And of course the parcel got lost in the mail. I was on tenterhooks for 2 weeks. I thought we'd lost it all....."

When the parcel did reach Roine though, the stage was set for what was thought to be the final contribution. Roine did his guitar and vocals in early October of 2002, and sent them back to an expectant and impatient Andy in Yorkshire, England.

"Unpacking everything was such an amazing experience. Everything had changed so much. All the musicians has put so much into the project, that it positively sparkled. What was most amazing was that it actually sounded like a band playing together in the same room, not separated by large expanses of water and hundreds of miles. The more I listened to it, the more happy I was, but I realised that there was no way I could continue thinking of this as a solo album. It relies far too heavily on the contributions of the others to be a solo affair. In the end, I decided to give it a PROJECT name..."The Tangent", because it represents going off at a tangent for all the people on the album. It's not a real BAND as such, nor is it a "Supergroup". To give it any of those titles would be rather conceited on my behalf. It's just an album of songs that I wrote the sketches for, performed by some amazing musicians with a great deal of respect for the music and what I was trying to do. Their commitment was astonishing."

But that wasn't the end. There was still something missing.....

"Right back at the start, I'd thought about incorporating some more acoustic string instruments. Somehow in all the excitement, they'd got forgotten on the way, and the holes were still showing. The answer was obvious, and when I asked my old friend Guy Manning to become involved, he was only too happy to join the fray and be the magnificent seventh....."

Guy was faced with a mammoth task.... how to insert delicate acoustic instruments like Nylon strung guitars and mandolins into a huge slab of symphonic rock music.

"I guess we'd saved the biggest surprise 'til last. Guy's parts really did tie the bows for the project . Once again there was a lot of character change within the music. I found that even at this late stage in the recording new possibilities were opening up, and we had to take the opportunity to explore them. We ended up writing new verses, restructuring arrangements and so on, all the while sending copies of work in progress back to Sweden for comments and other ideas. The mandolins at the end of "Nostagia-Feratu" were actually Roine's idea. He thought of it in Uppsala, and Guy recorded it in Leeds."

Such has been the nature of this remarkable project. "The Music That Died Alone" is an outstanding album of its genre. Made by a group of people who represent three generations of progressive rock's history, it truly encapsulates the spirit and joy of that music's heyday. Whilst sometimes sublimely nostalgic, it frequently steams ahead. It's a totally musical project... according to Andy it never turned into a "personalities" thing. "Everyone involved did it for the tunes" he says.

When you listen to this album, you can tell.

Dave Winter.







The Tangent - The Music That Died Alone

Released: 2003
Label: InsideOut Music / SPV / InsideOut
Cat. No.: IOMACD 2067 / SPV 085-65992 / IOMCD 136
Total Time:


Reviewed by: Keith "Muzikman" Hannaleck, September 2003
Prog-rock super groups are usually excellent. The Tangent is one of the best yet, as the release The Music That Died Alone proves without leaving any room for doubt. Once again, the brilliant guitarist/vocalist Roine Stolt is part of a band that will make waves and receive rave reviews from every corner of the globe. The Flower Kings, well represented in this lineup, feature Stolt's band mates Jonas Reingold and Zoltan Csorsz as well. In addition, holding court with the flower king is Sam Baine and Andy Tillson (Parallel/90 Degrees), David Jackson (formerly of Van Der Graaf Generator) and Guy Manning.

This mighty band offers the listener 16 unyielding tracks of progressive-rock sprinkled with the occasional jazz-fusion. If you have always had a soft spot for Yes and ELP you will love this album. Fifty percent of the band is TFK, thus you have the Yes influences. On the flipside is the other fifty percent that sounds like ELP both instrumentally and vocally. Not a bad combination if I should say so myself. Although you will detect the influences straight away, there is the necessary inventiveness apparent in every track to compel you to play this album several times in succession before casting it aside for another CD. It worked that way for me. The way they utilize their vocalists is the key to keeping things fresh and appealing from beginning to end.

The album consists of three different suites, "In Darkest Dreams," "The Canterbury Sequence" and "The Music That Died Alone." Each section offers varying degrees of passionate guitar playing and keyboard driven excellence. This is not music that will ever die much less be alone, it offers too much substance and musical integrity to suffer that kind of fate. This album is so good that I cannot literally describe it all in words. There is an unexplainable intangible element of music that you assimilate only through the ears and senses, that should say it all coming from my little corner of the universe. I promise you, this will be one of the very best prog-rock albums you will hear this year:enough said, now get it.

Rating: 5/5


The Tangent - The Music That Died Alone

Released: 2003
Label: InsideOut Music / SPV / InsideOut
Cat. No.: IOMACD 2067 / SPV 085-65992 / IOMCD 136
Total Time:

Reviewed by: Davide Guidone, October 2003
This September Inside Out have plenty of releases on offer, and among these ones, The Tangent is one of the most interesting.

As previously read in many places, this record put together three generations of prog musicians: David Jackson represents the first wave of progressive rock; in fact he played sax and horns with Van Der Graaf Generator during the Seventies, the others are Roine Stolt from The Flower Kings and Andy Tillison from Parallel or 90 Degrees.

The album, the title of which refers to the present situation of prog music, contains three suites plus a lone piece; it lasts more than forty five minutes and shows us an old taste prog style. It's surely an homage to the prog scene of the past. And probably because of this, Jackson appears on this album, something that I don't like too much. Too complicated! Without any doubt, it's the magic of his sax that gives this a poetic touch, but which also lets the music go away from classic prog rock. For the rest, it contains the usual technical research and the virtuosity by the soloists, but without any great innovations.

Among the three suites, I have to speak of "The Canterbury Sequence," a gift to the Canterburian movement. This piece is divided between the sound of Soft Machine and Hatfield and The North, but there are also elements of Caravan. The others are in a classic way with some fusion added.

A must for prog fans, but only for the most romantic ones.

Rating: 3.5/5

More about The Music That Died Alone:

Track Listing: In Darkest Dreams: Prelude - Time For You + Night Terrors + The Midnight Watershed + In Dark Dreams + The Half-Light Watershed + On Returning + A Sax in the Dark + Night Terrors Reprise / The Canterbury Sequence: Cantermemorabilia + Chaos At The Greasy Spoon + Captain Manning's Mandolin + Up-Hill From Here / The Music That Died Alone: A Serenade + Playing On..... + Pre-History + Reprise

Musicians:
Sam Baine & Andy Tillison (Parallel/90 Degrees), Roine Stolte, Jonas Reingold & Zoltan Csorsz (The Flower Kings), David Jackson (Ex-Van Der Graaf Generator), Guy Manning

Contact:

Website: www.insideoutmusic.com/bands/band-thetangent.php
Note: will open new browser window

Email:

Discography

The Music That Died Alone (2003)

The Tangent - The Music That Died Alone

Released: 2003
Label: InsideOut Music / SPV / InsideOut
Cat. No.: IOMACD 2067 / SPV 085-65992 / IOMCD 136
Total Time:


Reviewed by: Stephanie Sollow, November 2003
Wow. Where to start? There is so much that can be said about this release from the "supergroup" The Tangent (though "supergroup" is a term the project shies away from). Words like lovely, vibrant, energetic, nuanced, cool, hot, and fiery crop up at various points during the album. Sometimes all at once in some tongue-twisting jumble of letters and sound, as you breathlessly try to find the one word that captures the essence of what you are hearing. It's a little daunting trying to write a review of the album without giving you a play by play (which has already been excellently done by David Winter at the Tangent website). I can see why Guy Manning (acoustic guitars, mandolin, vocals) was anxious to hear my opinion of this album.* It's a piece of work that he, nor the other participants, need feel hesitant bragging about. And brag they should, because they have created a very solid work. There's a reason why, as they trumpet on the intro page of their website, this was rated "best of the year" only two weeks after its release - it very possibly will be! All of which makes The Music That Died Alone an ironic title for an album that you will find yourself listening to over and over again just to capture every nuance. I know I am, and I'm not done yet:

This lovely tribute to progressive rock - progressive music -- began life as an Andy Tillison-Diskdrive (keyboards, vocals) solo album. Soon, through the efforts of Ian Oakley (webmaster and editor of The Flower King's website), Roine Stolt (guitar, vocals) was made aware of the project and became involved. His suggestions lead to the participation of ex-Van Der Graaf Generation sax player David Jackson (who also contributes flute). At the same time, Tillison-Diskdrive's Parallel Or 90 Degrees cohort Sam Baine (piano) joined up, followed by The Flower Kings' bassist Johan Reinholz and drummer Zoltan Csorsz, also on the suggestion of Stolt. The final addition to this potent mix of talent was Guy Manning.

So much is going on in and between tracks that things shift before you can truly describe them - and yet everything flows seamlessly, perfectly - nothing chaotic or jarring. Rarely are there albums where every second is worth examining, where one feels compelled to describe every note - looking at it from the perspective of sound, of imagery, of taste (if it were possible): forgetting that the easiest way to express it all is to direct the listener to listen for themselves. It's like getting your favorite dessert placed before you, taking one bite (in this case, the classic and classy sound of a swirling Hammond**), and then hoping that each bite could last a lifetime, hoping that you can enjoy enough lifetimes to savor the whole piece. This is well deserved hyperbole. You see, I love sax and flute and piano and guitar and there is enough of that such that if it were a sugary dessert, I'd have gone into a diabetic shock before the first track had ended - not to make light of a serious health concern, mind you (and being diabetic, I personally wouldn't take offense), but this particular dessert is especially rich and sugary: and very, very tasty. Worth dying for, and yet, because it's music, one can indulge without that or any adverse side effects (it's fantastically produced, too.). The artwork by Ed Unitsky captures it best, as artwork should -- the whole mood and feel of the album is there - a mix of pastels and darks, and a bird on the wing. It is both peaceful and edgy.

You are drawn into the vortex from the opening moments of this album, where you will be pleasantly buffeted by the first suite, "In Darkest Dreams," a tour-de-force way to open an album full of keyboards, guitars, bass and drums. The influences are all mixed in, but in that you can extract a bit of ELP, a bit of Yes, a bit of Genesis, a bit of King Crimson: of course, also a bit of PO90 and The Flower Kings. Elsewhere, Jackson's saxes honk and skronk, driving this music around a few sharp corners, only to come gliding easily out the other side into moody, jazzy "Night Terrors." Here we find an appealing chorus that lightens a track with a dark subject - one of those ironic sing-alongs, that shies away from being anything near pop - or should I say has the good sense to stay away from anything near pop. And despite Stolt's presence, only sounds occasionally like something that could be found on a Flower Kings album, and is maybe to "sunny" to be found on a PO90 album: making it a nice blend of the two. Stolt plays a lovingly screamy guitar solo in "The Midnight Watershed," which is given a jazzy flavor from Baine's elegant but driving piano. More driving Hammond, a la a Brain Salad Surgery period Emerson (with just a hint of Styx, at least to me), leads the way into the mellower "In Dark Dreams" that features some shimmery percussion from Csorsz, subtle and slinkly guitar from Stolt and bass from Reinholz, all seasoned with Jackson's sax. All with vocals from a deepish voiced Tillison-Diskdrive (his first lead vocal performance, I understand). This is a lovely and warm, nearly pastoral, piece.

A watery, atmospheric keyboard interlude, "The Half-Light Watershed," fades into a delicate mandolin solo from Manning. In "On Returning" we get an especially warm Manning vocal and more sax from Jackson can be heard here, too, leading right into the Jackson/Manning spotlight track "A Sax In The Dark" (where Hammond also returns) - a blissful moment, to be sure. All this brings us back to "Night Terrors Reprise" (and if ever played live, you can be sure the audience would be encouraged to sing along and clap their hands when the instruments fall off for a bit, leaving only vocals). The suite ends with one of those "frozen moments" where a sustained keyboard note roots you in pace, while the sound of sax hangs in the air, tickling your ears... (re-stating elements of "The Half-Light Watershed").

A different mood is achieved on "The Canterbury Sequence: Cantermemorabilia," which sounds, well, Canterburian, right down to a bit of scatting from Tillison-Diskdrive. It's a light-jazzy, upbeat number with lots of trilling flute and soft-focused, understated, vocals. Listen here for references to Canturbury bands, though this is far from being a novelty track of "spot the reference." This piece features a nice, somewhat throaty bass solo from Reinholdz. The second segment, "Chaos At The Greasy Spoon" brings throbbing bass and keyboards to the fore for a little interplay, before flute and piano duet over the jazzy drumming of Csorsz. Another very nice moment appears in "Captain Manning's Mandolin," which also features Stolt's guitar and Tillison-Diskdrive on keyboards, on a piece that sometimes has a Spanish flavor.

"Up-hill From Here" is a fiery, driving piece, that is so high energy that you will be left breathless when everything comes to a conclusion. It underscores the "rock" part of the progressive rock style, full of screaming guitar solos, heavily throbbing drums and bass. It is, in a way, the kind of piece we'd hear from Spock's Beard, without sounding like SB: but there is something in the joyous abandon that makes me think of that band's material. And, of course, that same sense in The Flower Kings. It's a rave up prog rock style, a jamming tune that'll have you air guitaring or air saxing, while your feet are a-jumping. You can't dance to it, other than whirling around like a whirling dervish on some chemical high (only you don't need the chemical part). Smokin'!

Whew. The cool-down comes with the lyrical, classical "A Serenade" that opens the closing suite "The Music That Died Alone." Lovely, with a hint of night-club/bar jazz (in particular, I thought for a moment of Billy Joel's setting in "Piano Man") - this time from Tillison-Diskdrive rather than Baine (according to Winter). "Playing On:" brings in flute and percussion, recalling at times Camel very strongly, even down to the vocals.

One of the best things you'll hear this year, hands down. Buy it!

Rating: 5 / 5 (but really more like 6 / 5)

*not to suggest that it was my opinion alone he anxiously awaited, mind you; or that my opinion would validate the effort.

** didn't want to clutter the review with this comment, but on one of several listens, I popped the disk into my car player just as a Hammond-filled Boston track was playing ("Foreplay/Long Time," I think it was) and I noticed how, at least to me, very Boston-like that opening keyboard passage was:

[See also Keith's and Davide's reviews -ed.]

More about The Music That Died Alone:

Track Listing: In Darkest Dreams: Prelude - Time For You + Night Terrors + The Midnight Watershed + In Dark Dreams + The Half-Light Watershed + On Returning + A Sax in the Dark + Night Terrors Reprise / The Canterbury Sequence: Cantermemorabilia + Chaos At The Greasy Spoon + Captain Manning's Mandolin + Up-Hill From Here / The Music That Died Alone: A Serenade + Playing On..... + Pre-History + Reprise

Musicians:
Andy Tillison - keyboards, vocals
Sam Baine - piano
Roine Stolt - electric guitar, vocals
Jonas Reingold - bass
Zoltan Csorsz - drums
David Jackson - saxophone, flute
Guy Manning - acoustic guitars, mandolin, vocals

Contact:

Website: www.thetangent.org
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Discography

The Music That Died Alone (2003)





Three generations of progressive music - Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings), David Jackson (Van Der Graaf Generator), Andy Tillison (Parallel or 90 Degrees) - one remarkable album.

The Tangent is a unique musical project that brings together countries, eras, styles and a group of highly individual musicians. The album "The Music that Died Alone" is the first album by this collective, and was recorded in 2002/2003 in Sweden and the UK. Its purpose is simple, to build on the classic English progressive rock legacy, using the combined talents and experience of people who are quite diverse, but whose aims are essentially the same-the creation of highly adventurous electric music.

Roine Stolt has, since 1994, amazed the progressive rock fraternity with his band "The Flower Kings", who have set benchmarks for progressive rock in the past decade. As well as this, he's been involved with the hugely successful super-group "Transatlantic" who have wowed audiences worldwide. Roine is a pivotal figure in today's progressive scene. As a guitarist he has few peers. His vocal style is instantly recognizable. He writes the bulk of material for the Flower Kings, and he has revolutionized the way progressive music is recorded and produced. The Kings' latest album, "Unfold The Future", was a landmark release. In The Tangent, Roine plays his roles as singer and guitarist to maximum effect. With him he brings the awesome talents of fellow Flower Kings, Jonas Reingold (bass) and Zoltan Csorsz (drums)-a rhythm section gaining a reputation among the world's best.

David Jackson needs little introduction to anyone with knowledge of progressive rock history. One of the most creative musicians that Britain has ever produced, David played saxophones and flute for that most eclectic and diverse of first wave progressive bands, Van Der Graaf Generator. In the absence of guitars in that band, David eschewed completely the normal saxophonist's role of adding the "jazzy bits"-choosing rather to let his instrument provide both an alternative to the lead guitar, and the creation of innovative electronic soundscapes. As David has spent much of the time since leaving VDGG involved on more "sonic" projects, The Tangent album offers the first chance in many years to hear David playing his role in a band setting, and all those famous Jackson nuances are here, the soaring melodies, shrill blasts and dark, moody textures.

Andy Tillison is more of an unknown here. As founder of the cutting edge UK progressive band, "Parallel or 90 Degrees", he has consistently provided challenges to the world of progressive music by writing material that continually repositions the relevance of progressive rock music in the 21st Century. A stunningly gifted keyboard player, particularly when it comes to Hammond Organ, this side of Andy's work is frequently overlooked when examining Po90 as a whole. In the case of The Tangent, there's a lot more room for his keyboards work than in Po90, and here he really does shine. The Tangent project was Andy's brainchild. The idea of bringing together musicians from the different darker and lighter schools of progressive music, from different periods of that music, and from 2 countries which both have played a major role in the development of that music was to him, irresistable! He also brings Sam Baine from Po90 whose piano playing frequently sets the album alight, and friend and solo artist Guy Manning on acoustic instruments and occasional vocals.

"The Music that Died Alone" by The Tangent is a classic slice of English progressive rock music. Over the four compositions, instrumental virtuosity, strong melodies, arrangements and memorable lyrics combine to create a complete whole comparable to the very best of the genre's heyday. Drawing inspiration from the great early 1970's bands, The Tangent weave intricate themes and styles together. The album's two long tracks demonstrate the band's intentions best-some familiar, some less so. As well as the symphonic sound you'd expect from a "Close To The Edge" era Yes album, there are elements of brilliantly executed Canterbury Style jazz (a la Hatfield and the North), particularly in the homage to those bands - "Cantermemorabilia". "In Darkest Dreams" and "The Music That Died Alone" are lovingly created masterpieces of this format featuring Hammond maelstroms, tinkling 12 string guitars, rhapsodic pianos, stirring choruses, jazzy workouts, mellotrons and some spine tingling saxophone and guitar solos. Add to this the thought provoking lyrics of Andy Tillison, the amazing artwork of new Belo-Russian artist Ed Unitsky and you have a recipe for a real gem of an album. Don't take our word for it.::::put the damn thing on!!!

Kaipa's history can be traced back to the year 1975, when the band made its first impact in a blossoming Scandinavian art rock scene. Between then and 1982, Kaipa had released five albums-all highly acclaimed by the national press. This proved to be a year when there were drastic changes in the entire scene as well as in the lives of the band members. For the first time since then, rumours emerged in 1996 that Roine Stolt and keyboardist Hans Lundin reformed the group together with friends from the Swedish rock music scene.

With "Notes From The Past" (an amazing comeback album released in 2002), the band received great praise both by critics and fans, and also generated significant sales. With the brand new album, Kaipa was able to add even another dimension. "Keyholder" again offers a fascinating roller coaster drive through the various varieties of prog rock, while extraordinary compositions were given even more weight than before. Fans of The Flower Kings and Transatlantic will enjoy this mixture of progressive rock, folk, and symphonic passages enriched with slight jazz touches as well-another stellar effort from a prolific group of musicians.




Round Table Review
The Tangent
The Music That Died Alone
Release Date : 22 September 2003
Country of Origin: UK / Sweden
Format: CD
Record Label:
Catalogue #: IOMCD 136
Year of Release: 2003
Time: 49:08
Info: The Tangent
Samples: Click here


Tracklist:
In Darkest Dreams [Prelude - Time For You (2:27), Night Terrors (3:27), The Midnight Watershed (3:05), In Dark Dreams (4:03), The Half-Light Watershed (1:18), On Returning (0:49), A Sax In The Dark (1:14), Night Terrors Reprise (3:38)]; The Canterbury Sequence [Cantermemorabilia (3:21), Chaos At The Greasy Spoon (3:03), Captain Manning's Mandolin (1:41)]; Up-Hill From Here (7:10), The Music That Died Alone [A Serenade (1:38), Playing On..... (4:45), Pre-History (2:38), Reprise (3:43)]

Mark's Review
What originally started out as a solo album by Andy Tillison-Diskdrive from Yorkshire's Parallel or 90 Degrees, somehow evolved into a collaboration involving Sam Baine from PO90D, Roine Stolt, Jona Reingold and Zoltan Csorsz from The Flower Kings, solo artist Guy Manning (who had worked with Andy in PO90D precursor Gold, Frankincense and Diskdrive) and the delightful talents of none other than Van der Graaf Generator's saxophonist and flautist David Jackson. The Tangent should be considered more of a project than a band, as the seven musicians recorded their contributions separately, in several different studios and even different countries. One supposes that in modern jargon they could be called a virtual group!

The first thing one notices about the album of music they have created is that it doesn't sound as if it was assembled in different studios, more like the group got together in a studio and just blasted through the material while the tape was running. There is a fluidity to the pieces, but with the ever-present threat that at any moment things may delve into chaos. Naturally, this adds to the tension and excitement of the music and is an obvious nod to the musical anarchy that characterised Van der Graaf Generator when they were in full flow.

The album contains four pieces although, in fine prog tradition, three of the tracks are split into subsections. The album opens with the twenty-one minute epic In Darkest Dreams. With an immediate assault of wailing guitars and saxophones and some terrific Hammond organ there is no doubt of the intention - classic no-holds barred progressive rock. There is no mistaking David Jackson whose characteristic playing dives in and out of the mix, drawing from his saxophone sounds that only he knows how. But it is not all complete armageddon, some fine jazz-tinged piano from Sam Baine during The Midnight Watershed, a very melodic In Dark Dreams with subtle swathes of mellotron and a flute-driven middle eight that has hints of early Camel and the acoustic guitar and mandolin of The Half-Light Watershed that bears more than a passing resemblance to a section of Yes' Close To The Edge. With a final reprise of the Night Terrors section and a last note that hangs on forever (again, think Close To The Edge) this is a stunning opening piece.

The Canterbury Sequence is a loving tribute to the bands of the Canterbury Scene of the late sixties and early seventies. Cantermemorabilia combines the best elements of Caravan - the wry humour of Pye Hastings' lyrics, the light and airy flute of brother Jimmy Hastings, the bass of Richard Sinclair and the staccato organ of Dave Sinclair - in a song whose refrain you'll be singing for a long while after the album's over. Chaos At The Greasy Spoon is an expanded cover of the Richard Sinclair and Pip Pyle composition from Hatfield and the North's second album, The Rotter's Club. Captain Manning's Mandolin closes the piece in a gentler fashion with some fine guitar work from Roine Stolt underpinned by Guy Manning's mandolin.

Up-Hill From Here is the track most reminiscent of Parallel Or 90 Degrees, but more in structure than style. Dominated by guitar and Hammond organ (with a solo straight from the stable of Jon Lord), this very energetic piece is more of a direct rock song and proves that not every progressive song has to be written in complex time signatures!

The title tracks rounds off the album, starting with a piano solo the piece moves on to one of the highlights of the album for me, Playing On...... Jackson's flute and soprano sax are all over this piece and he really makes it his own. With an instrumental intermezzo, the album draws to a close with a reprise of Playing On..... before gradually fading out with an extended coda of synth and saxophone.

In conclusion a wonderful album that presses all the right buttons for me. Although rooted in the classic progressive rock style of the 1970s, it stands up fully to the prog scene of the new millennium. The lyrics are from the top drawer (as would be expected from one of the most pertinent lyricists writing today), the playing and arrangement can't be faulted and the production is impeccable. If you only buy one progressive album a year then The Music That Died Alone should be the one!

Tom's Review
Roine Stolte seems to appear on every second album released on Inside Out at the moment, so people could almost be forgiven for being somewhat apathetic at the arrival of this new prog 'supergroup' - but I would urge prog fans (whether their particularly fond of the Flower Kings or not) to give this album a listen, as it is undoubtedly one of the best progressive rock releases of the year so far.

Although Stolt is perhaps the best known musician here, The Tangent is actually the brainchild of Andy Tillison, keyboardist/ vocalist of the cult (and underrated) British group Parallel Or Ninety Degrees. Tillison's bandmate Sam Baine supplies piano, whilst Stolt's fellow Flower Kings' Jonas Reingold and Zoltan Czorsk provide the rhythm section. Guy Manning handles acoustic guitars and mandolin, whilst the final piece of the puzzle is the return to prog of legendary Van der Graf Generator saxophonist David Jackson. In fact, its perhaps Jackson, with his excellent and readily identifiable playing, who really adds that extra 'something' to the album.

The Music That Died Alone is basically made up of four (very distinct) suites. The opening one, the twenty-minutes odd epic In Darkest Dreams is a real gem which will have most prog fans in raptures. Riding in on some ELP-esque keyboard work, this track moves smoothly through a variety of styles and moods, from the almost jaunty, Flower Kings-esque Night Terrors, to the darker strains of In Dark Dreams (which features saxophone playing from Jackson that brings to mind his work on VDGG's Still Life album); the quiet, acoustic The Half Light Watershed, with its massed backing vocals, has a feel reminiscent of Yes at their peak, whilst A Sax In The Night is a wonderful sax solo that immediately transports you to a smoky nightclub at 3 in the morning. Yet despite the fairly transparent influences and the fact that many of the parts may seem disparate, the band manage to create a sound very much their own and the song really does flow well as a whole. The decision to split the vocal duties between Stolt, Manning and Tillison is also a good one, as it adds some extra variety to what is, in anyone's books, a cracking way to open an album.

The Canterbury Sequence covers a completely different musical sphere - its title, the fact that Tillison sings (on this track at least) in a style very reminiscent of Richard Sinclair, and namechecks Caravan and Hatfield And The North in the first sentence of the lyrics perhaps indicates where this track is coming from! The first section has a pleasantly light and breezy feel with Jackson's wonderful flute playing floating over stabs of Hammond. Elsewhere there's room for all the musicians to stretch out - typically fluid bass work from Reingold, great jazzy piano from Baine, a fine moog solo from Tillison and, in the final part, a wonderful tradeoff between Stolt's soaring lead guitar and Manning's melancholy mandolin. Everything fits together so perfectly, with the musicians appearing to play off each other, that its difficult to believe that many of the 'band' were never actually in the same room (or even in the same country!) together.

Up-Hill From Here has a more modern feel, a generally upbeat rocker that almost plays like a slightly skewed alternative rock track - again given that extra kick from Jackson's punchy playing. Stolt's solo work in the middle of the track is reminiscent of Dave Gilmour at his most aggressive.

Things drop down a gear in both tempo and mood, as a flourish of grand piano introduces the title track. This suite has a melancholy feel throughout (appropriately for a song which appears to lament the 'death' of progressive rock) with Jackson's flute and saxophone playing driving the track for its first part, whilst the middle half picks up the pace a little, and reminded me of Camel circa Nude. Prehistory features some great jazzy improvisation work led by Baine's faultless piano playing, before the album ends very evocatively with some haunting sax and shimmering keyboards.

Although this album is 'only' 48 minutes long, I think this works in its favour as the tracks never outstay their welcome and you're left wanting more, always a sign of a good album. So in conclusion, this is a very strong release which I have no hesitation in recommending to all fans of progressive rock.

Bart's Review
So far 2003 has been an excellent year for progressive rock releases, yet the biggest surprise of all has arrived.

The Tangent is a musical project that sprang from the mind of Andy Tillison, known from his work with Parallel or 90 Degrees. Originally intended as a solo project, it got slightly out out of hand when a demo was sent to Roine Stolt (Flower Kings). The Busiest Man In ProgT agreed to lend his voice and fretwork to the compositions, and also recommended the Flower Kings' rhythm section, Jonas Reingold and Zoltan Csorz to handle the bass and drum duties. The recordings were then complemented by none other than David Jackson from Van Der Graaf Generator (on flute, sax, clarinet and pretty much everything else that blows...), Po90 cohort Sam Baine on piano and finally Andy's friend and regular collaborator Guy Manning on acoustic guitar and mandolin. The result is, truly, stunning.

The album is meant to be an ode to the prog of the seventies, and in that it has succeeded. The album is undeniably retro, yet at the same time so fresh and alive.
The album format seems to hark back to the seventies too: the running time is just over three quarters of an hour, as if it would have would have fitted on a vinyl album. Also, had it been a vinyl album, it would have had the same format as classics like Close To The Edge, Relayer, Foxtrot, Meddle, Pawn Hearts and the likes, with an epic taking up one entire side of the LP, and three or four shorter songs on the other side.

Album opener In Darkest Dreams is the (almost obligatory) epic. The Prelude is a brief glimpse of the best that the prog genre has to offer. It starts with a heavy organ intro, not unlike the work of Keith Emerson, before the tone switches more towards Yes when the rest of the band kicks in. A Moog solo in the style of Mark Kelly or Clive Nolan lifts the song to the eighties, while some typical Spock's Beard tricks give us a glimpse of prog in the nineties, though David Jackson's saxophone keeps reminding us it is the Seventies this album focuses on. Time travel in under three minutes!

Roine Stolt sings the first few verses of the song, thereby giving it a very distinct Flower Kings sound, though on the rest of the album this is far less conspicuous. The chorus of Night Terrors reminds me a bit of Spock Beard's Skin. The Midnight Watershed is a bit of a jazzy piece, which features some great jazzy piano, courtesy of Sam Baine. In Dark Dreams is where Andy Tillison's voice comes in for the first time. It is a little ballad, which features some delightful bass by Jonas Reingold. Then it's time for a little ode to Genesis, with a dreamy piece on two acoustic guitars, before we're treated to a reprise of Night Terrors, once again sung by Roine Stolt.

The Canterbury Sequence shifts the tone 180 degrees and is, as the title suggests, grafted upon the music from the Canterbury scene. David Jackson plays some fantastic flute during the opening part, Cantermemorabilia, while Jonas Reingold and Zoltan Csorz are in full jazzy swing.
The second part of this trilogy, Chaos At The Greasy Spoon is a cover from Hatfield & The North, incorporated in The Tangent's own composition.
The final part, Captain Manning's Mandolin is the closest the album ever comes to The Flower Kings with a long guitarsolo accompanied by -indeed- Manning's mandolin.

If I have one minor gripe about the album, then it's the slightly bland Uphill From Here. As if to say that not all seventies prog was good, the band comes with a song which sounds like the some of the album filler some bands put on their albums in the second half of the seventies.
The song has its moments, but David Jackson's saxophone is over-present and becomes a bit irritating. The second (instrumental) half of the song is somewhat better with some great guitar-solos by Roine Stolt.

Album closer, the title track The Music That Died Alone is a strong contender for best song of the year 2003, as it contains all the ingredients for a classic. A beautiful serene piano intro, not unlike the intro to Awaken. The second part, Playing On is not only musically an ode to the prog genre, but also lyrically the song deals with the prog genre and the fact that it's been made so unpopular by the media just of the sake of making something unpopular. As the title suggests, The Music That Died Alone does refer to the prog genre - the thought is also embodied in the Jon Anderson quote that can be found on the cover "What happened to this song we once knew so well?"
The last two parts give all members of the band one last time to shine: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, organ all solo in Pre-History before ending with a reprise of Playing On with fading flute and saxophone.

An easy, though unjust comparison would be that other little project Roine Stolt was involved in: Transatlantic. This was also music very obviously based on the prog of the seventies. However, where 'repetition' seemed to be the keyword with Transatlantic, the word here is 'diversity'.
Also, unlike Transatlantic all individual musicians seem to have been allowed to let their own creativity flow, and all have contributed an equal share to the music. It is difficult to imagine that the musicians have never been in the studio together, in fact, the album was recorded in five different studios, across two countries, though the music sounds pretty much as if it's seven folks in one room!

In all, Tillison & Co have created a very accessible, yet very proggy album, which will appeal to all fans of the genre. Possibly the best prog album of the year!

Conclusion:

Mark Hughes : 10 out of 10

Tom de Val : 9 out of 10

Bart Jan van der Vorst : 9 out of 10



http://thetangent.org/





Introduction
For me, The Tangent's "The Music That Died Alone" was definitely the biggest surprise of the year 2003. So when I had the opportunity to interview the mastermind behind this project, I needed no time to think about taking this opportunity. The 45 minute conversation I had with Andy Tillison was a very pleasant one, however, the opening wasn't quite as I had expected it to be...

Bart: Hi Andy. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me about the album

Andy: No - thank you, the pleasure's all mine. I'm having a great time doing all these interviews this week.

So I'd like to talk with you about the new Tangent album...

Actually, can I ask you something first, have you heard it?

I have, I've been playing it for about a month now

Really? (laughs) I want to tell you about my secret fear.

What's that?

Well, (laughs) all the time, I must confess to you that I'm always frightened of what the DPRP is going to say about what I do (laughs)

(laughs) Why's that?

Because, uhm, I, uhm, I, erm, I don't know, I haven't said this to anyone else, so I'm not making this up, but I've always seen the DPRP as one of the most important progressive rock information sources anywhere. If I was gonna get information about progressive rock, I'm gonna look at either Progressive Magazine, or perhaps Mellotron, or the Dutch Progressive Rock Page. It's a very important page to a lot of people.

Wow, that's very good to hear - very flattering!

Well, you know, it is! Very much so. I think it's one of the first sites I found about progressive rock really, when I went on the Internet. So (laughs) I've always been worried about what kind of reviews I'd be getting on the DPRP, and I've been looking every day at your site, "have they done a review yet, have they done a review". I think it will be there soon.

(note: the album has been reviewed as a Roundtable Special - the review can be found here)

Crazy Little Thing Called Prog
I understand that it all started out as a solo project that got out of hand slightly...

Yeah, you know, It was a very peculiar thing. As, in many ways, it was actually a record that made itself. (laughs) I sort of wrote songs, and a friend, who is Ian Oakley from the Flower Kings website in England, he sent all the stuff over to Roine Stolt. And quite a lot of the story is actually on the website and a lot of people already know about the story.
But suffice to say that more and more people got involved, and as they all got involved in it the music changed. Although the songs stayed the same, the actual way it was presented and the way the music came together just seemed right.
As a matter of fact if you think about it, you thought to yourself what would it be like if I wrote some songs and then sent them off to someone in Sweden, and they just added some bits and then they added some more bits and its somebody else and he put his bits on and they send them back to you, and then somebody else puts his bits on, you'd think you were gonna get a rubbish record.

But the thing is when it actually happened... I can't think of any other record that has been made in quite the same way before. Each person got the thing and thought "what can I do to for this that makes it better?" And I think everybody worked really hard to to make something special out of the record.
And, you know, of course I was absolutely amazed it was all firing way way beyond how I wanted it. One minute I was making a solo album, the next minute, you know, Roine Stolt was gonna be on it, and then his friend the Flowers Kings were gonna be on it, and then David Jackson was gonna be on it and I was like WOW!

That's more than I could possibly have dreamed of. And you know, here I am, talking to somebody from the DPRP, because they want to know about something I've done. This just all amazes me.
Roine Stolt and Neal Morse and Mike Portnoy... they do this kind of thing every day, but for me it's really special and I'm having a great day talking about my music. You know, I'm here right at the beginning of something new with the Tangent.

Also I'm in the middle of something that's been going on for a long time with Parallel or 90 Degrees. But just very keen to be able to talk to as many people as I want, because I've got a lot of things to say about progressive music really, I suppose. So, you know, it's nice to be asked.

Yeah. Obviously you don't think Prog is dead, like so many say.

Of course it's not dead.
The title of the album which is obviously what you refer to in your question, "The music that died alone"... Music dying alone is actually really about the way the music is treated by the media, by radio and television and by the record company. Not about the music itself, I mean, I think a few people, most people have got the right idea. Some people sort of need to think that I was saying that all modern progressive rock music is rubbish - that's not what I'm saying at all. Not even hinting at that.
I just think that progressive rock is such an important part of musical culture full stop. I mean, you can't just ignore it and leave it as being something that you just call pretentious and rubbish and not worthy of mention when you make a documentary about the history of rock music. But it's something that needs to be played to people, so that people know that it happened.
And even if the music was over, even if it was no longer the era of progressive rock music, you should still recognise that this thing happened and this great explosion in musical creativity, that far surpasses anything in the punk era. That took place in these magic years between 1968 and 1975. And even after its' golden era, great music has continued to be made from the original blueprint.
And the music was never exhausted, they just never managed to continue it because the record companies and the media turned against it and shut the operation down and said that there would be no more. And really I think that in the nineties people started to pick the pieces up again and say "let's go back, let's find out what there was left and let's make some new great records."

Though I don't think it's going back in time, I think it's "let's start again" you know. Not "let's go back and be nostalgic", but "let's start again and make records like that". And you know, Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree, The Flower Kings and of course, Discipline. Many of those who you review everyday. I'd like to buy all the records that you review, but I can't.

There's just too many of them.

But you've got a lot somewhere. And you know, this is going on now. And it really should be documented and the mainstream media should have time for progressive rock music and the shouldn't make fun of it, they shouldn't make people who want to listen to it feel like idiots for listening to it. They make fun of people who like progressive rock music, because they are just people who believe in a certain good thing which was progressive rock music.

That's pretty much my thoughts about it, actually.
So you have that too, people laughing at you just because of the music you listen to and the music you play?

Yes, it has happened to me on many occasions, yeah. It has happened to us all, its happened to you, I'm sure. But the thing is they don't really know what they are talking about.
It's not just music. When I'm talking about the music that died alone it's very similar to the line that I quoted on the Tangent album "What happened to the song we knew so well?" you know, Jon Anderson from Tales From Topographic Oceans. I mean, It's not just the music, the music itself is one thing, but back at the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s we had people going to the moon, we had people saying "we want peace in our time" we had campaigns for nuclear disarmament, the Vietnam war got protested against, we had the student uprisings, we had a great good hippy culture with good feeling and peace and love and you know, you mention those words now and people just laugh at you and go "hey man"

So it's not just music that died alone, but the whole music of our lives is beginning to gradually fade and being replaced by something that's artificial.

So am I right to assume The Music That Died Alone, as an album or a song was always meant to be some sort of ode to the prog genre, to that era?
Or did it become like that through the way the music evolved and all?

Yeah I was actually thinking about that today. I suppose that there's two actual songs on the album, The Canterbury Sequence and The Music That Died Alone, that are actually about progressive rock music.
And I honestly thought about this today which is quite funny as I've been doing interviews all week. And I thought to myself, "has anybody ever written a song about progressive rock music before?"
And I kind of thought isn't that bizarre? Because I don't think anybody ever has. People have written songs about rock and roll, whether it's rock and roll is here to stay, or I love rock and roll, and songs about rock, and I'm gonna rock you all night, and there's songs about disco and there's songs about the twist you know, Chubby Checker - let's do the twist, that's a song about the twist. And each different kind of music has songs about how good the music is, except ours!
And I thought today, why not sing about how good the music is?

That's probably another thing with all the people being embarrassed about their own music. I mean, people like Steve Wilson were going on like "Well, my music is not prog..."

I didn't like when he did that. Because I really like his music, in fact he annoys me a lot, because Sam Blain and myself were very influenced by them when we first heard Porcupine Tree we were very very excited. And we formed our band, Parallel or 90 Degrees because we'd heard Porcupine Tree. And I really don't think there would have been a Parallel or 90 Degrees if it hadn't been for Porcupine Tree. And we knew that this was a progressive rock band, and there's no question about it. And then for Steven Wilson, having played at the Classic Rock Society in Rotherham and been taken all the interviews in magazines like Wondrous Stories...

And DPRP...

And then to suddenly turn around and say "we're not progressive". He's basically shitting on the rest of us really and that's a bit unfair. Because he's taken so much from the same sources as we've taken. You know, from the Pink Floyd and from the Yes and from Gong and all the Ozriccy people, he's taken so much from them, just like we have.
But by saying "we're not progressive" he's not saying thank you, he's not acknowledging his sources in the way he should and I think this is wrong and we have never been ashamed to say we're a progressive rock band, never been ashamed at all, and we never will be.

I tell you what, if you ever see me saying in an interview "we're not a progressive rock band" you can laugh at me.

That's probably by the time you've released your country album...

Yeah, and that will probably be released posthumously, I would have thought, over my dead body. (laughs)

But what I meant by this question, did you sit down behind your keyboard and say "let's write a song about prog?"
Or were you playing or jamming and then thought to yourself "well, this has to have lyrics about prog" How do you see that?

No, as a matter of fact I wrote the lyrics to this album after I wrote the music.

So the lyrics were a reaction to the music?

Well, if it's with Parallel or 90 Degrees, I tend to write the lyrics first. This album was supposed to be about music. And you know, it was about writing this musically and the ideas for the lyrics came second. And when I heard the music, I thought "well, what can I say with this song", you know, "what do I want to say?"
For two of them I just chose the music I've always loved, and why not? For the other two songs, well, the rock 'n roll song on the album, Uphill From Here was actually written some time ago and the lyrics were actually not meaning much at all. You know, quite the standard rock 'n roll lyrics. And the first song In Darkest Dreams is actually about a person very close to me who has very bad nightmares and he was very very alone in those nightmares. So I kind of wrote him a song to sort of like say "you aren't alone at all".
It's a very positive song in that respect.

But on this album, no, the lyrics came second. And that's why it's different, why it isn't a Parallel or 90 Degrees album because it's not quite as immediate in terms of what I'm trying to say. It isn't quite as focussed, or shouty-shouty as it is in Parallel or 90 Degrees.
I hope I'm making sense...



The Recording Process
Well, I have to say it a complete surprise to me. I received a promo from Inside Out and I played it and at first I thought, you know "oh, just another Roine Stolt project", but when I played it I thought "wow, this is good".
And at first I thought it was yet another 'supergroup' led by Roine Stolt, but as it turned out it's your project and you don't really see it as a supergroup, right?

No it's not a supergroup. Uhm...

Well is it more like a project, or a band?

(laughs) Well, I really don't know what it is, I mean, all I can say is that it's seven people in two countries making a record together. And it's got a name, it's called The Tangent. I mean, if it's a supergroup, you know, there's no doubt about it that in terms of progressive rock music Neal Morse plus Pete Trewavas plus Mike Portnoy plus Roine Stolt, now that's a supergroup. Because it's got four people who are very famous in their particular field, all coming together to make this one record. And each one of them has fans of their own, and each one of them has a complete history behind them. But when you oppose The Tangent, you're coming up again "yeah Roine Stolt - there he is" and you see David Jackson from Van Der Graaf Generator, but you're also seeing this completely unknown bloke called Andy Tillison, somebody nobody's ever heard of called Guy Manning, Sam Baine and we're not super...

Well, I'd heard of Parallel or 90 Degrees and Guy Manning. If that's any comfort...

Well, that's it, there are some people who know about this, but the level of our actual fame and fortune is not what this record is about and it was not made in that way at all because everybody approached the music on an equal footing. And, you know, I suppose everybody had as much say as another in the way the music came together. People thought of their own parts and ideas. There were no egos involved.

But with the recording you were all in fact separated from each other, right? No two musicians were ever in the same room?

Some of us were separated from each other, yes. Some of us were able to write together. David Jackson came to our house here and recorded his bits right here where I'm standing. We were able to record Sam here with me, obviously. I went over to Guy's house and we did quite a lot of acoustics over at his place, because he is well set-up for acoustic guitar. But other than those, nobody else met at all! Jonas and Zoltan worked separately in the south part of Sweden. Roine worked on his own in the north part of Sweden, and I did most of the keyboard here on my own. So that's the way it all came together.

But it's a very interesting way of making an album.

Yes it is an interesting way and you know, that's what it made so different. I still do not actually know the answer to how did you make the record sound like it's seven people together in the same room, because it just does, no doubt about it. When I put the record on it even fooled me and I know how it was done. But how we actually got that sound in the end, when we weren't together, still completely amazes me and there just isn't an answer I can give you to that one.
What button did you press? I have no idea. I think it's because of the fact that all the musicians were so good, they were able to think very carefully about what each song needed and they gave it a lot of time and effort and did the best job they could. And it just happened that that best job really was the best job and everything just fitted together like a jigsaw.

And did you give any instructions to the others? Like to Roine: "add bit of guitar here, or a big solo there"?

Well I gave out quite a few instructions. For example I sent over a CD to Jonas and Zoltan and I'd played the drums myself and I'd played the bass and I said "well, it should be something like this".
So I sent that CD over and they listened to that CD and I think that what they did then was they took the CD out of the CD-player and put it in the nearest dustbin. "Right, OK, that's what Andy thinks we should do, now here's what we're gonna do!"
And this is it, this is where the cascade process started and everybody sure did something to the album which somehow managed to shape it and even sometimes that might have been a little thing, it has a big enough effect. Basically when the album started it hadn't particularly... well, I knew it was gonna have some jazzy bits in it, but I never knew just how jazzy it was gonna get. And when I was in the Cantermemorabillia track I'd actually done a little piano solo on it and it wasn't a particularly good one. So I said to Sam, "do you want to do a piano solo?" And she said "right, ok, I'll do a piano solo there" and she did the piano solo and it was far far more something like traditionally jazzy and a bit more be-bop. While mine was sort of like more the kind of thing I would play on the organ, except on a piano.
And Sam had done this really jazzy thing, and of course the minute Jonas and Zoltan had heard that. You know, they're jazz freaks, so they thought immediately "oh great, jazz, here we go!". And they started playing jazz.
And that of course influenced Roine, he started thinking "Oh, right, they're playing a bit of jazz now so I get my nice Gibson guitar out and put a bit of nice clean jazzy stuff on top of it".
So when it comes back to me it's completely different. Every single person, it just affected what what was going to go on next, right down until Guy Manning came along at the end and gave it its acoustic room span. The fact was, it was a totally electric album until Guy came along.

Apart from the odd guitarsolo Roine Stolt doesn't really sound like his usual self, whereas TransAtlantic and Kaipa bore a lot more of the Flower Kings trademark guitarwork. Is this due to the fact that you put some kind of restrictions on what you wanted him to do?

No, I didn't do that. I think it's more because with most project that Roine's in he tends to be in the driving seat. And I think that's because he's there sitting behind the mixing desk, doing the work and making the album. It's not because he's a bossy person or something like that, but more because he's actually sat there, with the controls in his hand, making the record. In the case of The Tangent that wasn't happening, because the Tangent album was being made here, where I'm standing, in our house. That's where it was all been put together. And I think he was able to work and free him up, he was able to play on this album without having to worry about the production. He was able to play on this album his guitar without having to worry about the keyboard. He was just able to play, because it wasn't actually, you know, something that he had to finish off.
So I think it gave him a bit of freedom. Making a record and then leaving it to somebody else to get on with it and finish it. Because he is so involved in everything normally. He's a very very clever man, you know. He did get very involved with me on the telephone, while mixing it, because I was constantly sending him mixes over the Internet or via the post office so to say "how's it going" and he was sending me back his ideas. We were both communicating all the time, he didn't just leave it to me. But in the end, yes, my hands were on the knobs.

And having him sing some parts, but not the whole album, this was also because of that?

I really like his voice and I wanted him to sing some of the album. I think really Roine was mainly interested in playing guitar on the album, but he did agree to sing parts of In Darkest Dreams. And I was very happy he did. Because, uhm, shall we say that out of the music that I do, the thing I am least happy with is my vocal style. I actually think for those things that Roine's sung he sang a lot better than the original versions where it's me singing.
And I really like his voice, he sound a bit like John Wetton at times, and I really like that.

The cover art on the album is very nice too. I heard this was done by someone from the Belarus? How did you find him?

Well that came through the Flower Kings really. Ed Unitsky is a very big Flower Kings fan. He lives out there in Tjernobyl, in the republic of Belarus. And for years he has been sending bits of artwork to the Flower Kings saying "use this, use this". And the Flower Kings haven't used any apart from one of their fanclub-only releases, they made a live bootleg or something and Ed Unitsky's cover was used for that.
Roine and I, we got on very well with the music as a matter of fact, we virtually agreed with each other on everything. He would make points and I would agree with them and I'd make a point and he'd agree with that. So we got on really, really well. But when it came to the cover... (laughs) I designed the first cover for The Tangent, he didn't like it. So he designed one and sent it to me, and I didn't like it. Then we did it again and he didn't like mine and I didn't like his again. And then we decided, ok, we don't like each other's artwork, so let's find somebody famous. So we went and we found a famous progressive artist, we approached him and he said "alright, I'll do this then". And we looked at his pictures and basically I liked one of his pictures, but Roine didn't like it, and Roine liked one of his pictures, which I didn't like!

So then Roine said he knew someone, which was Ed Unitsky, and Ed sent us lots of artwork. And I looked at it and said "that's it, that's the one" and Roine liked that one too. So finally we had found something which we both liked and everybody else in the band immediately liked the Unitsky work, so we used a whole load of it. And as a matter of fact, Ed is now doing the next Parallel or 90 Degrees album sleeve by the looks of it, he's been sending me stuff all week, which is excellent.
And he must have sent me over 100 pictures for the Tangent album. 100 at least.

And did he just send you the pictures, or did he hear the music first and is that reflected in his artwork?

I sent him a copy of the music, so that he could listen to it and see what he thought of it. He really does like the music, he's a very big fan of the Flower Kings obviously, and I was very keen to make sure he's heard Parallel or 90 Degrees as well. So he certainly likes that, too. So he's a good friend now, and I'm doing a website for him at the moment, which is not finished yet, because I'm too busy talking to people.



Plans for the future
Are there any plans for a next album?

Yes there are plans for a next album.

With the same crew?

Well, that's obviously to be decided. You know, I've got a lot of songs in the can and they are in the same stage as that The Music That Died Alone was before I started sending it off around the world. And since the time we made the album I've made very good friends with Jonas Reingold and because of course Parallel or 90 Degrees recorded in his studio this Easter, because we recorded an album there. I know that Jonas certainly wants to be involved.
But obviously I can't comment for the others, because they are an exceedingly busy band, the Flower Kings. They're busy playing off around the world, making albums. Roine Stolt has at least 10 albums to make today. So you know, it is difficult to fit it all in.
I think in the end that most people who were on the album would like to do another. I know that I would, Sam is nodding at me now saying that she would, and I know Guy would because Guy loved being on it. So David Jackson just sent me an e-mail saying how much he liked the finished product, so I'm very pleased about that. And Roine says he's happy with it too, so you know, there's a good chance that we'll make The Tangent 2, but you know it's in the future and we don't quite know where to go. We're just thinking about this one for the moment. It took two years to make.

Well, I can't wait for the next one, that's for sure.
If there's one complaint I have then it's the running time. I mean an ode to the seventies is fine, but to have it on conventional vinyl length... It's only 45 minutes long!

So you like that, or you don't?

Well, if it was up to me, it could have been twice that length

Yeah I know, but that's the point. We decidedly...... Close To The Edge is shorter than that!
As a matter of fact, I told Roine how much I'd learned from this album. I said to him 'listen, I've learned a lot from working with you, Roine'
and Roine said 'well, I've learned one thing from working with you' and I said 'what's that?'
'well, I've learned that not all albums have to be 70 minutes long'

..coming from someone whose last album lasted some 150 minutes...

Yeah, though Unfold The Future is still one of my favourite albums of all time. You know, I consider that the most important progressive rock music album since Tales From Topographic Oceans. I just swooned, it's a fantastic piece of music through and through. And I'm going to see them in just over three weeks and I can't wait, because I hear they're gonna play The Devil's Playground, which is a very good track.

But the length of our album is basically what I felt I needed to say on this record and I decided not to put any extra tracks on it and spoil it.

Was it also deliberate that you started with a 20-minute epic first, and then three shorter songs which would have been on the flipside of the album, had this been on vinyl?

I suppose if it had been a vinyl album, that's what it would have been.

Like most of the classic prog albums were in the seventies.

Yeah, with Van Der Graaf Generator it was Pawn Hearts, with A Plague Of Lighthousekeepers, and with Yes it was of course with Close To The Edge and Relayer was the same.
So yeah, it was a nice formula. It is supposed to be a well-formatted piece, you know, that fitted with that particular era of rock music. But like I say, you know, it's more of a case of pick-up where people left-off, revisit rather than go back.
We're living through a very retro age at this moment. Retro is a very interesting thing, I mean, basically they found out that the best-selling motor bikes in the world were Harley Davidson, because they looked like old ones. And The Darkness are selling huge amounts of records because they sound like old-fashioned rock bands. And so are The Kings Of Leon, and so are The White Stripes and so are The Stereophonics, they all sound like old-fashioned bands.
There's just an interest and to me of the music's time, when it was made means nothing as long it's a great piece of music I don't care when it was done. It could be done yesterday, it could be done tomorrow, it could be in the 17th century. As long as it's good music it lasts forever.

Well, in any case, it doesn't feel like a short album. I played the album twice this morning in the car to my work, and twice on the way back - so I've heard it four times today!

You obviously liked it! Is there anyone in DPRP who hates it? Am I in for a nasty review in the Roundtable?

I haven't read the other two reviews, but I hear they are quite positive, so no, don't worry

Well that's good. We've had very few negative comments although we have had some negative comments

And these were probably that it's too retro...

Yeah, we've had a few of those. There were a few which said: this is very nicely done, very beautifully done, well put together, but why did they do it? What's the point?

Well, why not?

Exactly! They actually said "what's the point" and I just thought to myself, "well, the other 20 reviews, that's the point!".
And then we had just one person who wrote to me, who really did launch in to me and say "what is the point, this is very old-fashioned, this is boring, it is full of nothing but cliches, you've used David Jackson but wasted his talent" and all that kind of stuff. And I was actually sufficiently moved to write back to the person and have since made friends with him.
You know, this is always what happens to me, someone I argue with on the Internet becomes my best friend the next week.

I mean, there he's going on about how awful The Tangent is and then he mentions the fact that one of his favourite albums is a band called Refugee, which is one of my favourite records of all time. So instead of writing back to say how upset I am about the review he's written for us, I write back saying "yeah, Refugee, they're great" (laughs)
You know I think that being positive is a big thing when it's progressive rock music, you've got to remain positive. I think the Flower Kings are a good example of always being positive

Well, now you mention it, I got a lot of grief about my review of the last Flower Kings album, from people saying I wasn't positive enough. I 'only' rated it an 8 out of 10.

Well, 8 out of 10 is a great score!

But it might actually happen with your album, that the reviews aren't positive enough for some.

That doesn't matter. I mean like scores are unimportant. I'm just obviously keen to make sure as many people get to hear it as possible. Positive reviews are very helpful in getting people to listen to things. In the end it's the reviewer's opinion. If the reviewer doesn't like it and has good reasons to not like it it's still his opinion If you write a review and say why you don't like it but let somebody else know that they might like it because of what you said that's the best kind of review, because you help the person to make the decision about whether that's the music for them or not and I think that's what all journalists should be looking for and that's what you are. Because DPRP has always had a good high standard of journalism I thought, always written well. And I've always thought that the reviews of Parallel or 90 Degrees on there have always been the ones that have frightened me the most because they're the ones that do get the most critical. They do poke the finger into the music a little more, they expose the weaknesses of what I've written.

I was waiting for the review of The Tangent on DPRP and I was looking at the Po90 ones that are on there and of course they're saying "yes, this is good, BUT... this is good, BUT... and this is good, BUT...". And they've all got very valid points to make and it helps me write. Obviously to get a good review out of the DPRP means something to me, so there you go. (laughs)

Ok, well, it'd better be good then now...
As I said, I haven't read the other reviews yet, but I know my colleagues liked the album, and I'm sure they'll be positive.

That's great.

I am actually out of questions by now, so is there anything else you'd like to share with the world?

Anything else I'd like to share with the world? uhm...

Go buy the album!

Yeah, go buy the album and, well, I don't know, probably one of those Miss World things, that you're left on the stage with a message to give to everybody. I think that any message I have is in the music and that has nothing to do with my personality or anything. You can find out most of what I think by buying Parallel or 90 Degrees records.
All I can say is that I remain totally and absolutely devoted and supportive of the cause of Progressive Rock Music and anything that I can do to make people understand the great music that we've created together. That is obviously something I will do straight away. I won't be one of the Steve Wilson's saying "you know, we're not really a progressive rock band..." That'll never happen!

OK, well we'd best leave it by that then. Thank you very much for your time and the best of luck with The Tangent and Po90!

No thank you! I look forward to reading the reviews.