Where Worlds Collide

Great showing for both Mostly Autumn and Panic Room at the Classic Rock Society awards, where they all but swept the poll.

• Best Female Vocalist: Olivia Sparnenn
• Best Drummer: Gavin Griffiths
• Best Guitarist: Bryan Josh
• Best Album: Go Well Diamond Heart - Mostly Autumn
• Best Track: Satellite - Panic Room
• Best Band: Mostly Autumn
• Best New Band: Parade
• Best CRS Live Act: Mostly Autumn
• CRS Personality: Anne Marie Helder

That’s a whopping five-and-a-half awards for Mostly Autumn!

While the CRS awards are less significant that things like the Classic Rock Presents Prog readers poll (in which MA and PR also did very well indeed, against far broader competition), it’s still a very strong endorsement of the new-era Mostly Autumn from a wider community than the hardcore fans.

This ought to serve as a reminder to the small but vocal minority of disillusioned former fans who don’t care for the new lineup that while they may be honest and sincere in their opinions, they are still in the minority.

Photo © Roger Allen

Islington O2 Academy saw the final night of the “Prog 2.0 tour” came to London, with rising stars Touchstone topping the bill.

On record at least, openers Enochian Theory are a prog-metal act with a nice line in atmospherics, and have been compared with the mighty Opeth. But tonight’s performance suffered from a very poor mix, with overpoweringly loud drums drowning out the guitar and bass, losing a lot of the subtlety. While they’re clearly talented musicians, their songwriting and compositional skills have yet to reach the level where their music can survive that sort of treatment from the soundman. I’m sure I’ve seen their frontman before somewhere - he certainly looked as though he wouldn’t have looked out of place behind a model railway layout at DEMU Showcase. Saying that, I certainly wouldn’t write them off, and there’s a lot of potential for the future.

Jurojin were a very different beast. They started as a straightforward four-piece prog-metal act, up to the last few numbers when they were joined first by a tabla player, than by virtuoso violinist Anna Phoebe. At that point they morphed into a kind of folk-metal-world music fusion that sounded like an utterly different band from what we’d heard at the beginning of the set. Like IOEarth when I saw them last summer, there music is going off in many different directions, and they need to pick one and run with it. The last part of the set was genuinely exciting, and that feels to me like the direction in which they ought to go.

As for Touchstone, well, they were the band everyone came to see, and their tight high-energy performance delivered in spades. As for most of the past year and a half, the setlist drew heavily from their second album “Wintercoast” with a few selected songs from their earlier “Discordant Dreams”, including a great version of “Being Hannah”, a song I don’t think I’ve heard live for a while. As always, Kim Serviour makes an great frontwoman and visual focus for the band, but one thing that was very obvious this time was how much Moo Bass’ playing dominates the sound. From the machine-gun riff of the title track of “Wintercoast” onwards, his bass both drives the rhythm and acts as a principal lead instrument, leaving Rob Cottingham’s keys and Adam Hodgson’s lead guitar to add colour to fill in the sound. Like Panic Room the weekend before, with performances like this they seem destined for far bigger things.

While I’d hardly say the O2, with it’s overpriced beer and often indifferent sound and atmosphere was a favourite venue of mine, this was certainly the best gig at this venue I’ve seen to date. With the tour promoted by Classic Rock Presents Prog, attendance was very good indeed, with over two-hundred and fifty through the doors. And nice to see Porcupine Tree’s Steve Wilson in the crowd.

As readers of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of female-fronted prog bands such as Mostly Autumn, Panic Room, The Reasoning, Karnataka, Touchstone and Stolen Earth, all of whom form a definite ‘scene’. All the bands know each other, and the relations between them in terms of shared band members is so incestuous that Pete Frame would have trouble drawing one of his rock family trees.

I think a bit of friendly competition between these bands is a very healthy thing, in that it encourages every band in the scene to raise their game. But one thing I strongly believe is that it’s not a zero-sum game. All these bands are operating below the radar of 99% of the music-loving population. While they’re never going to sell millions, at least without watering down everything great about their music, there’s still a far bigger untapped market out there. The number of times I’ve recommended an album and got “Where have this band been all my life” in response is testament to this. These bands’ competition isn’t each other, it’s the heavily-promoted mainstream artists, and all those bloody tribute bands.

It will only take one (any one) of these bands to experience wider success, and they’re likely to pull the others through in their wake. So it saddens me when I read fans talking of “blowing away the competition” as if there can only be one winner, and “their” band can only prosper at another’s expense. Leave that sort of blinkered partisanship to sports fandom!

Now that Mostly Autumn are shortly going to be heading back on the road, it’s time to post a few thoughts on what I’d like to see in the setlist.

I definitely applaud the band for playing a set with a high proportion of new material on the last tour. I also liked the way they rotated some of the older numbers rather than playing a near-identical set each night, something I’ve long advocated. Keeping the former Breathing Space song “Questioning Eyes” was a good move too.

I do, however. believe the running order could do with a rethink. I know from reading other’s reviews that I’m not the only one who thinks there’s not nearly enough of Livvy in the first half of the set. Look at the track listing of “Live 2009″ disk 1; Heather sings the first four songs. Also the balance between old and new didn’t quite seem right; the first set predominately oldies and GWDH disk 2 songs, the second set containing most of retail edition of the new album.

And I strongly the set ought to open with Livvy singing lead. While I’m defintely in the camp that considers “Go Well Diamond Heart” to be a strong album, the one thing it does lack is a belting hard rocker sung by Livvy. If reverting to “Fading Colours” as the opener seems too much of a backward step, what about “For All We Shared?”. It works well as an album opener, and they’re already using the beginning section as the intro tape. It’s not as dramatic a song as “Fading Colours”, but I remember when the band used to open with “The Last Climb”.

On the other hand, Bryan did say on stage at York that they planned to be writing new material in the lakes in January - perhaps they’ll surprise us all with something brand new?

As for other numbers, “Violet Skies” really ought to be in the setlist (I’m told it has been played live, but not at any gigs I’ve attended) and I’d love to hear “High” off the second disk. Wonder if “67-79″ would work live? I love the interplay between the guitar and flute on that. And while I know the band are most unlikely to play it, I’d still love to hear the title track of “Glass Shadows” played live. And finally, given that the majority of musicians who played on Liam Davidson’s excellent solo album are members the band, what about a song from that album? Of those songs, “Heading Home” gets my vote.

After a few cryptic hints on Facebook over the last couple of weeks, there’s a long-awaited announcement today on Heather Findlay’s website

I am very happy to announce that my debut solo release, The Phoenix Suite is ready take flight!

General Release

On Monday 25th April 2011, both physical and digital versions of The Phoenix Suite EP will be available on Black Sand Records from all the usual outlets.

Pre-sales

A very special, strictly limited, collector’s edition of The Phoenix Suite (100 copies only) shall be available to pre-order from the store at www.heatherfindlay.net at 6pm GMT on Monday the 14th of March 2011. Set your alarm now!

Shipping for the limited collector’s edition will then commence on 28th March 2011.

Pre-release copies of the standard edition of The Phoenix Suite shall then be available to order from Monday the 11th April 2011 exclusively from the store at www.heatherfindlay.net.

(Please note – products will not be available to order before the above dates)

A detailed description of the limited collector’s edition follows. Please watch the short promo-film, linked below which features audio from The Phoenix Suite and some ‘making-of’ time lapse sequences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN74NDO6gNs&feature=player_detailpage

‘The Phoenix Suite’ - Limited collector’s edition - £30 (inc.P&P)

(Strictly limited to 100)

Each one unique!

The cover artwork for ‘The Phoenix Suite’ is an original 1.27 x 1.27 metre, multi-media painting on canvas by Heather Findlay entitled ‘Phoenix’.

The painting has now been carefully divided into 100 special, equal squares.

Each square of canvas has been mounted onto one of the one hundred limited collector’s edition sleeves of ‘The Phoenix Suite’, each one forming a completely unique version of Heather Findlay’s debut solo release.

Each unique hand assembled copy is numbered and signed by Heather; features handwritten track listings and lengths by Heather and comes hand packaged by Heather in black cellophane with a hand stamped wax seal.

Includes 8 page, full colour booklet including all lyrics.

You may also request Heather to personalise your copy.

Track Listing:

1. Red Dust
2. Phoenix
3. Cellophane
4. Seven
5. Mona Lisa

Catalogue Number: cdbsand1lex/100 (The ‘x’ here will be numbers 1-100 respectively)

‘The Phoenix Suite’ – Standard edition – £5.99 (+ P&P)

Jewel cased with 8 page, full colour booklet including all lyrics.

Track Listing:

1. Red Dust
2. Phoenix
3. Cellophane
4. Seven
5. Mona Lisa

Catalogue Number: cdbsand1

There will be a special show to mark the launch of The Phoenix Suite later this year. More news on that soon!

We will be playing at various festivals this summer with the same band that features on The Phoenix Suite: Heather Findlay, Chris Johnson, Dave Kilminster, Steve Vantsis & Alex Cromarty.

Please check the tour tab on my site www.heatherfindlay.net for confirmed dates.

See you very soon!

Love,

Heather xxx

These days there are people that claim music is an experience rather than a physical product, and ask questions as to whether physical artefacts are really worth anything at all. It’s precisely things like this that add value to physical products.

It will be very interesting to see how quickly those 100 limited edition copies sell out. It’s quite a high price for a five-song EP, and I’d expect the majority of people will be prepared to wait another few weeks for the standard edition. But I’m sure Heather must have more than a hundred fans who are prepared to pay £30 for a unique artefact.

It’s difficult to judge the music from a few brief snippets, but she’s clearly going for something very different from Mostly Autumn’s wall-of-sound approach; bits of it remind me of a harder-edged version of Thea Gilmore. But Heather’s vocals and songwriting style is still recognisable. The production is spikier and edgier, but still strongly melodic. It’s sounding like she’s going to pull off the difficult trick of appealing to broader audiences who aren’t into symphonic prog-rock, while managing to keep the vast majority of her existing fans on board. Can’t wait to hear the whole thing now.

While Heather’s leaving Mostly Autumn was traumatic at the time for many of us, it looks like we’ve ended up in the place where everybody wins. Heather’s making some creatively varied music she would not have been able to make within the confines of Mostly Autumn. Mostly Autumn meanwhile have taken the change of singers as an opportunity to re-invent themselves and give the band a completely new lease of life. And for those nostalgic for the sound of the Mostly Autumn of old, you need look no further than Liam’s superb solo album.