INTERVIEW
WITH TANGENT (italian version)
by Giancarlo Bolther
Can you describe to us how have you met and how is born your
collaboration?
Well… actually we didn’t all meet at the time.
I met Jonas Reingold AFTER we had made the album, although Po90 had
done gigs supporting the Flower Kings.
I remember that into the booklet of Unbranded i've found various
references to the Flower Kings and now here you are with half of that
band playing together, a dream come true?
Yes, absolutely. They are fabulous musicians, and people
who I respected the first time I saw them. To have members of such
a band helping me is a great honour, and was a superb learning experience.
It’s true, I’d already quoted them on the Unbranded album,
largely because their music had helped me when I was very ill a few
years ago. Every time I hear their music I feel uplifted.
Can you tell me something about the origin of The Music That
Died Alone and how did you realize it?
2 years ago the songs were all part of a solo project that
just got "out of hand". Initially, I just wanted to do some
music outside my normal field, do something that was actually more
"Progressive" (note the CAPITAL P), and more instrumentally
complex than Po90. I wanted to make a great "English Progressive
Rock Album". I’d heard (and really enjoyed) the new wave
of progressive bands like Anglagard, The Flower Kings and Spock’s
Beard, Transatlantic etc. It just seemed there was room for a little
of that "Englishness" and that’s where I started to
work…. As the different musicians became involved, the whole
piece began to change and develop a life of its own, It was in effect,
an album that was making itself!!. It involved sending recordings
all around northern Europe, assembling, dis-assembling and re-assembling
all the pieces on different recording systems. Somehow it all managed
to work, and some of us are still trying to understand HOW???
How much time did you take to realize it?
The album took 2 years to make…. Such were the schedules of
the very busy people involved in it.
The
album is divided into four parts, did these parts are linked or not?
The album’s parts ARE separate, it’s not a long running
CONCEPT album as such. Each song is about a different subject, although
the Canterbury Sequence and The Music That Died Alone sequences share
subject material… But there is a stylistic concept, i.e. the
desire to make an album of progressive rock and say something ABOUT
progressive rock… probably for the first time ever. I don’t
think there’s ever been a track or song about it before. The
song “The Musc That Died Alone” is a lament to all the
great things that were trashed by the Media in the time of the first
wave of progressive music, including the Moon Missions, the Hippy
movement, CND and progressive rock itself.
What are you planning to promote this new release? Do you
will play live?
We really do not know at this moment…. 7 people in
2 countries, with everyone very busy… it would be hard. But
maybe not impossible!!!
Your sound is very '70s, why do you play so old fashioned?
The Tangent album is undeniably 70s-retro in its feel and
in its whole musical construction, although it was recorded in a completely
up to date way. I didn’t want to copy anybody in particular,
but I wanted to capture the mood of an era, an era which may be 30
years ago, but an era which produced music which is still far further
advanced than much of the music produced today. Hence I didn’t
feel I was doing something retrogressive, I still felt that this was
a progressive statement to make. It’s not "old fashioned"
– but it is definitely fuelled by hindsight.
There will be a second album from the Tangent or this one
will be the only?
I would love to make number 2, and if allowed to, we will.
I can’t speak for everyone else. Roine has said he’d like
to be on number 2, and I have written a lot of material for it already.
Why don't you have made this project as a new Parallel Or
90 Degrees album?
The original aim of the album was to be a solo album where
I could “get back to my roots” and play some Progressive
Music in styles that I’ve previously had to ignore in my work
with Po90. I really wanted to do some flashy keyboards stuff, use
a few more Jazz and Classical influences, and do something a little
bit more reliant on musical freedoms than the tighter disciplines
of Po90. Essentially, the music for The Tangent does not sit comfortable
alongside the music of Po90 because the two bands have quite different
aims. Po90 is AT THE CORE a Progressive Rock Band. We mix and match
styles, incorporate new sounds and technologies, and we develop the
songs we have in the way the original Prog bands did in the 1970s.
But in the 2000s, the sounds are new, the technologies are new and
therefore we do not always sound like a 70s prog band in the way the
Tangent does. Dan Watts is a vital contributor, a new Robert Fripp
if there ever was one, someone who can make sounds from another planet
on his guitar… but not in the way many prog fans expect to hear.
We have a bigger palette open to us than the 70s bands had, because
of the new technologies, and because of the fact that there is so
much more music around to inspire us, people like Radiohead, Muse,
Beck, Tool, Perfect circle, Cooper Temple Clause are all as important
to Po90’s inspiration as Yes and ELP.
What are you doing with Parallel Or 90 Degrees?
We have been recording a new Po90 album this year, at the
Flower Kings South Studio in Malmo Sweden. The album was recorded
by Jonas Reingold, and we are currently working on it here in the
UK. The album should be out next year, and it’s called “A
Kick In The Teeth”. It’s a very varied piece of work,
with songs dealing with many subjects including a 20 minute examination
of the Iraq war called "Four Egos, One War".. a very progressive
style piece, then there are smaller pieces like "A Kick In the
Teeth for Civic Pride" which is about homeless people on the
streets of apparently affluent cities. Dan Watts and Sam Baine have
both contributed songs to the album as well as myself, and I think
we will have the best Po90 album yet. It has the scale of "Afterlifecycle",
the power of "Exotic Ways to Die" and the song quality of
"Unbranded".
Do you are considering to sign with Inside Out with Po90D
too?
I would certainly consider it…. It’s a question
of whether they would consider US!!!
Have you found some differencies between Cyclops and Inside
Out?
There are of course big differences. Inside Out has so many
more resources available to it, and they have the means to get the
music out to the people a lot faster and more efficiently than Cyclops.
Obviously there are trade offs though, Cyclops is a very friendly
and almost Family-like business, and it has been great working with
them in the past. We have no complaints about either of the labels
that we have dealt with either as Po90 or The Tangent.
Cyclops, unfortunatly, is no longer distribuited in Italy,
are you happy with them?
I was not aware of this. Of course I am not happy with that
situation, as Italy is a very important country to consider for progressive
rock musician.
Don't you think that in the prog movement of today there are
too much projects and so it will be very hard for the people to follow
all the artists?
Music is about music. It doesn’t matter who makes it.
Who is working with who, what records such and such a guitarist plays
on are all immaterial next to the simple question… is the music
good? Some projects are great, some are not. Some bands are great,
some are not. Some Yes albums are great and some are not. There is
no fixed rule!!!
Sometimes i feel that the new prog bands of today are too
much oriented in technical exhibitions and not enough in giving good
emotions to the listeners, what's your opinion about?
I agree with you here… but not in all cases. In general,
I always feel that no matter how much a musician wants to show off,
how good the musician is, how well and technically they can play,
the musician is NOTHING without a good song or composition to play.
The song can be extended to have as many complex jams as you want,
as long as the focus of attention is never lost. The SONG is EVERYTHING.
The jams are just the fillings of the cake… (which probably
won’t sound as good in Italian.:-)) I do think that occasionally
modern prog bands lose that motivation, but plenty of older prog bands
did too.
According to you what developments will be for progressive
music in the next few years?
Progressive musicians and music fans have to constantly attack
the media industry to rewrite the history of this vitally important
music form. Without people standing together and saying how important
this actually is, we will see Progressive Music die alone, and unlike
other musics that died but were not forgotten, Progressive Rock will
be forgotten, because the media choose to ignore the fact that it
ever existed…..
Today English prog artists are very few and the scene is poor
in comparison to its tradition, how do you live this situation?
My answer to the problem has been to produce high quality
English Progressive Music for the past 8 years. We have been largely
ignored because the fans of Progressive Music gave up hope on the
English bands years ago. They were wrong, and we are here, waiting
to be discovered. Look us up and download a whole album for FREE at
www.po90.com and
visit the Tangent website at www.thetangent.org
Thanks very much for asking these questions… it has been my
pleasure to answer them.
Andy Tillison
Reviews (in italian): The Music That Died Alone;
The World That We Drive Trough; Pyramids
& Stars; A Place in the Queue;
Going Off On One;
Not As Good As The Book
Live Reportage (in italian)
Web Site
Related Artists: Parallel Or 90 Degrees; Flower Kings; King Crimson
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