Syd Arthur - Sound Mirror

Ah...now I understand. Having criticised Syd Arthur's debut album On And On not for its songs, but for the seemingly "bouncing in the red" production, it now makes sense. There are much improved production values on Sound Mirror, no doubt down in no small part to Abbey Road Studios where the mastering took place, and Electric Lady studios in NYC where it was mixed. It is now obvious to me that the band deliberately go for a fuzzy and murky production thereby enhancing their soul-deep psychedelic melange of sound. Add in the benefit of the ghosts of Hendrix and The Beatles floating around the studios, and the sound on this record is still the audio equivalent of looking through the bottom of the glass, but in a good way. Rather than the sometimes gratingly distorted noise that lurked in the grooves of On And On, the auditory experience this time round is akin to immersing oneself in a warm volcanic spa. Much as that is the case, I still feel the Syds would benefit from a cleaner production, as I consider that there is an overpopulation of sound within a narrow frequency band, which leads to individual musical voices getting lost in the sonic fog. The songs would gain considerably from a more defined separation of the instrumentation, although I appreciate that is a purely personal preference.

And so we arrive at Sound Mirror, Syd Arthur's second album. If you are the slightest bit interested in the world of prog, the name Syd Arthur must have crossed your radar in recent months. A band in demand, not long returned from a support slot on the USA leg of the latest Yes tour, they can boast Paul Weller amongst their more well-known fans, and they are signed to the iconic Harvest label. All in all, this band are about as trendy as you can get in the wilfully unfashionable progwelt. Oh, and they're from Canterbury too, as if you didn't know, and I won't even mention a famous musical family connection in the band. With all that going for them you might surmise that Syd Arthur have been blessed with a guardian angel in these early years of their existence.

Luckily, the meat and drink of being a band, namely the humble song and its delivering has never been a problem for this merry bunch of Cantabrians. One can tell that even beneath the "faders set to 11" of the first album there lurked tunesmithery of a high quality, and here on Sound Mirror better justice is done to their writing and arranging abilities. In any event both those attributes have improved in leaps and bounds from On And On.

A lot of the groundwork for the album was laid over in Ireland, at drummer Fred Rother's parents' house. The swirling mists so common in that land and the attendant centuries-old Celtic mysticism seems to have seeped into these grooves, lending Sound Mirror a distant and magical feel that is often pulled back into focus by the concise songwriting.




The album is a mere 34 minutes long but feels like a complete entity, as albums used to back in the mists of time when spinning a new Harvest Records LP was a guarantee of esoteric quality. Uplifting songs like opener Garden Of Time and the following Hometown Blues rub shoulders with the whimsical ponderings of What's Your Secret. The occasionally pastoral air is vibrated by increasingly psychedelic offerings, epitomised by the exploratory journeys into space of Autograph and Singularity.




Liam Magill is not your typical rock singer. His voice is a delicate thing and is as close to a croon as you would care to be, this side of Tim Bowness, although it is utterly different from the breathy menace of the Norwich heartbreaker. The striking, but never strident individuality of Liam's dulcet tones is another thing that marks this band out as different.

Back to the songs, and All And Everything heads for overdrive overload, particularly from the bass guitar, but I would have preferred less murk for it is another of those effortless romps into art-rock territory that the Syds do so well, albeit somewhat clouded by the fuzz. Forevermore borrows its title from one half of the inspiration for the band's name, and has a quite lovely summery and jazzy vibe. There are flowers in this song's hair. Singularity sees a free-form wigout by Liam and Raven Bush, backed by Liam's brother Joel doing his best fuzzed-out Hugh Hopper impression.

I still have some issues with the band's self-production, which if it is anything like self-editing must be damned hard work, as inevitably one sometimes struggles to see the wood for the trees. However, Sound Mirror is a great little album, and well worth just over half an hour of anyone's time. "Give me a reason to stay" sings Liam on Hometown Blues, and there are ten examples on Sound Mirror to stick with this band for a while yet. How about getting a producer in next time guys?


Tracklist:
Garden Of Time (4:39)
Hometown Blues (3:48)
Autograph (3:49)
What's Your Secret (3:17)
All And Everything (3:00)
Forevermore (3:27)
Backwardstepping (2:48)
Chariots (4:11)
Singularity (3:03)
Sink Hole (2:38)

Total running time - 34:44

Line up:
Liam Magill - vocals & guitar
Raven Bush - violin, mandolin, keys
Joel Magill - bass & vocals
Fred Rother - drums & percussion

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Knifeworld - The Musician, Leicester, Tuesday 2nd September 2014

Well, "fit on the tiny stage of Leicester's The Musician venue" they did, just, if I may quote my own review of Knifeworld's wonderful The Unravelling.

The Sixteen-Legged Groove Machine (unseen to the drummer's right is keyboard player Emmett Elvin)

When my trusty gig-compadre Phil W and I arrived at the venue, Knifeworld were still going through their soundcheck. As a result, we were treated to disembodied near-harmonies wafting out of the door while the mixing desk guy manfully coped with setting up the heady sonic palette for the plethora of instrumentation and voices you can see above.

There were two local support bands; Amber Herd were a rather basic rock band playing an odd mix of Americana infused lyrics atop an odd melange of Pink Floyd and Waterboys dynamics. The Roz Bruce Infusion were better with Roz's psychedelic punk guitar sprawling all over a drummer and a rather fine young bass player who displayed much dexterity. for the sake of her nearest and dearest, I do hope Ms Bruce's vituperative lyrics act as anger management therapy!

Knifeworld did not get to grace the stage until well after 10pm, and there was me thinking a relatively local gig would mean an early(ish) night. We were to eventually arrive home after 1am.

There were 21 people in the audience by the time Knifeworld came on. Yes, that's right, 21! Chatting with the promoter I got the sanguine response "Well, if this was in Colchester where I come from, there would be no-one here at all". It must have been dispiriting for the headliners, who could only treat this as a kind of dress rehearsal for the full album launch gig in London on Friday. Professionals to the last, they still turned in a fine set despite hardly being able to move on the claustrophobic stage. I thought at the time that Chloe Herington's bare feet were an affectation, but thinking about it I reckon she had to take her shoes off or the microphone gaffa'd to the top of her bassoon would have kept hitting the low ceiling. They could have spread out into the audience area had they wanted some room to move, it's not as if they would be standing in anyone's space, after all!

One of this band just wasn't made to stand still...and look, there's Emmett!

They did a full set, including the encore, a set that got better technically as it went on. They gave it their best shot and Kavus put everything into it (I imagine he's one of those folk who make beans on toast with gusto and commitment!), but the rest of the band looked a tad glum unsurprisingly. Kavus showed his SOH was still intact by telling us at one point "Imagine we're someone famous like Sparklehorse" and letting baritone saxophone player and new member Oliver Sellwood know that his "crap wages" would remain so for the foreseeable.

Opening the set with the first three numbers from the new album is a logical move. The awkward and complex I Can Teach You How To Lose A Fight might well be taken literally if the opponent were the arrangement and the band had not paid attention in rehearsals. They coped with its writhing intensity rather well, and I can see that this is one number that will only get better the more times it is played.

As it turns out, the only number not played from The Unravelling was the bittersweet This Empty Room Was Once Alive, a song whose dark subject matter is maybe best left in the zeros and ones.

Introducing a stomping Pilot Her with "This is my year of going very fast", Kavus' energy alone would have kept the inwardly flagging spirits of the band from becoming visible outwardly, not that they lacked the professionalism needed to prevent that from happening themselves.

The other non-Unravelling highlight for me was the Henry Cow-cuts-a-rug-with-XTC that is The Prime Of Our Decline, a cherry of a tune from the no doubt criminally ignored 2012 Clairvoyant Fortnight EP.

On the way to the gig Phil and I were discussing the shrinking of the gig circuit over the last ten or so years, and how hardly any band of note ventures outside of London these days, considering that playing in the capital will suffice for the entire southern half of the country. With a turnout like tonight can you blame them? I would hazard a guess that if tonight's entertainment at The Musician had been a Genesis tribute act they would have had far more than 21 in the audience. Why are allegedly alternative music fans so conservative? Answers on a stash of unsold tickets to Knifeworld HQ.

A band as complex and as BIG, both in musical construct and in personnel as Knifeworld deserve to be playing similarly ambitiously sized venues where better acoustics and more space would do their intricate and fascinating sound a proper service. As it is they coped with the limitations of The Musician admirably given the "three men and a dog" audience. I can only hope that their undoubted talent and untrammelled enthusiasm, not to mention their progressive spirit in the true sense of the word is rewarded with a headline spot at The Royal Festival Hall at some point in the future. We can but dream!

If you can, go see the album launch gig at The Lexington in London this Friday (5th September). This fine band deserve your support, and not only that but support is provided by none other than that marvellous bunch of rabble-rousers Thumpermonkey. What's not to like?

Setlist:
I Can Teach You How To Lose a Fight
The Orphanage
Send Him Seaworthy
Don't Land On Me
The Wretched Fathoms
In A Foreign Way
Pilot Her
The Prime Of Our Decline
The Skulls We Buried Have Regrown Their Eyes
Destroy The World We Love
I'm Hiding Behind My Eyes

Encore:
Me To The Future Of You

Knifeworld are:

Kavus Torabi - vocals, guitar

Melanie Woods - vocals

Emmett Elvin - keyboards

Chloe Herington - bassoon, soprano saxophone, vocals

Charlie Cawood - bass

Ben Woollacott - drums

Josh Perl - soprano saxophone, acoustic guitar, vocals

Oliver Sellwood - baritone saxophone

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Zeptelar - El color de las cosas

Hailing from Valparaiso in Chile, a coastal city and port 0.40° north of the inland capital Santiago, Zeptelar released El color de las cosas (The colour of things) last year. Fusing rock, jazz, and a light sprinkling of ethnic stylings, the group make an appealing sound that is easy on the ear.

The compositions are mostly the work of guitarist Camilo Acevedo and feature the usually wordless scat-vocals of Valentina Maradones, often in tandem with flute, piano or both. The effect is a Latino jazz-infused take on the Hatfields when featuring The Northettes. Opener De la esquina a la plaza (From the corner of the square) commences proceedings at a canter, and immediately tight-knit and complex ensemble playing is well to the fore. Hints of the harder-edged tuneage to come are given by the slightly dissonant sax blowing in the middle of the tune. An infectious number played by a band obviously in love with their craft, De la esquina a la plaza is a good start.

Syncopation is a big feature of the ensemble playing, and the similar structure of the numbers, especially in the first half of the album occasionally has the effect of making this listener's attention wander. There are many good moments however, and the compositional contradictions inherent in 5 de 3, where the middle-of-the-road scat-jazz is contrasted with harder riff passages shows that the band know how to make an arrangement effective.

Things begin to take off with the longest track on the record, Sangre (Blood). The length of the tune allows the band to stretch out a bit, and Camilo's guitar playing comes into its own. Underpinned by a sonorous funky bass, a light jazzy theme establishes itself with voice and flute. Valentina has an impressive range, evidenced by the top notes reached with ease in this section. Camilo then gets into his stride with a clean jazz solo out of the Metheny school, followed by a more dissonant Zappa-esque offering replete with some nicely controlled sustain and distortion.



The darkly impressionistic Piletismos serves as a link to La pileta de pájaros gigantes (The pool of giant birds), a good fusion number that uses a riff adapted from Soft Machine's The Hazard Profile. Well, if you're going to wear a fusion influence on your sleeve, why not go for the crown of that particular tree?! The now established edgier feel to the album continues into Destapes, which features some nice sax playing from Tomás Carrasco, and on into Persecusiones which highlights the best and most frantic ensemble playing of the record.

We end with the languid Espejismos (Mirages), and El color de las cosas, which takes a while to hit its stride is a thoroughly enjoyable experience once it gets up to speed.

Tracklist:
1. De la esquina a la plaza (4:50)
2. Futuros recuerdos (4:45)
3. 5 de 3 (5:21)
4. El color de las cosas (4:37)
5. Estrellazos (5:03)
6. Sangre (8:19)
7. Piletismos (2:01)
8. La pileta de pájaros gigantes (5:24)
9. Destapes (4:04)
10. Persecusiones (4:51)
11. Espejismos (6:23)

Total running time - 55:39

Line up:
Camilo Acevedo - Guitar
Valentina Mardones - Voice
Felipe Morros - Drums, percussion
Edmundo Castro - Bass
Javier Portilla - Keyboards
Tomás Carrasco - Flute, saxophone

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The MOJO CD - September 2014

I subscribe to MOJO, and every month it lands on my doorstep, and every month there is the accompanying themed cover CD. Mostly these get played once - sometimes not even all the way through if I'm being honest - and binned. Occasionally they are keepers, but every time there are a host of bands and artists I've never heard of before, which is always good no matter how iffy the end product.

So, I thought I would start a series of reviews of the ones that are worth playing more than once.

We will start, illogically enough, with next month's offering, which I have not yet decided whether or not to Shelve or Bin, and work backwards until I run out of the keepers, and from then on I will put up a review if I think it's worth the effort.

The September 2014 offering is entitled The Dreamers, and is a loosely bound collection of music inspired by dream pop in general and Ms Kate Bush in particular, she being flavour of the moment.

1. Pinkunoizu - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Kicking off with what turns out to be the best piece of music on the collection, Danish band Pinkunoizu provide an addictive mix of Krautrock, dream pop and shoegaze - Scandinavia strikes again!



2. Haley Bonar - Last War
Big pop meets Americana. Nicely swoonsome "end of all things" songsmithery.

3. Connan Mockasin - Do I Make You Feel Shy?
Loner bedroom psych-pop with a dark underbelly from NZ. A bit thin on ideas.

4. Caribou - Can't Do Without You
Samples the title ad infinitum and sounds like a treated version of what I like to term "hairdresser music". Pass...

5. The War On Drugs - Red Eyes
Band with daftest name on the compilation and current meeja darlings turn out 80s sounding synth-beat fare mixed with intermittent understated sub-Big Country guitar bluster. Pass...

6. Wye Oak - Shriek
Ah, now this is more like it. Hailing from Maryland rather than Herefordshire, this electronica duo turn out a delightfully pastoral Cocteau-wibble. Derivative but classy.

7. Poliça - You Don't Own Me
Covered by loads of folk from Dusty to Joan Jett, Poliça add electronic darkness to the pot. I prefer Dusty's version.

8. I Break Horses - Denial
Band names ain't what they used to be, are they? A futuristic intro built on backwards sampling leads into average Euro pop. Pass...

9. Lia Ices - Thousand Eyes
The blurb mentions "tripped-out West Coast folk music" and references Syd. Not quite that good, but not bad nonetheless.

10. Julia Holter - Don't Make Me Over
More 60s homage, this time of the Bacharach/David Dionne Warwick tune. Stripped down, it works better than Poliça's effort, and is none too shabby.

11. Anna Von Hausswolff - Mountains Crave
I was hoping for a Marlene/Nico gone shoegaze, but despite the name this chanteuse is apparently Swedish. Still managing to convey a Teutonic air, this is an anthemic little number that could do with a sweeping orchestra behind it instead of the minimalistic backing of organ and electronic percussion.

12. Smoke Fairies - Your Own Silent Movie
A proper band name, at least. Unfortunately this girl duo are obviously in thrall to Ms Bush. Even the melody is naggingly similar to a mixture of Kate tunes.

13. Nite Jewel - in The Dark
90s electronic R&B apparently. That should put me off, but it's actually rather nice.

14. Snowbird - Porcelain
Wisconsin singer-songwriter Stephanie Dosen has sung with Massive Attack and The Chemical Brothers, and the other half of this duo is ex-Cocteau Simon Raymonde no less. They produce a lush romantic piano and electronica ballad that comes over like a less tripped-out Twins record. Nice.

15. Haiku Salut - Sounds Like There's A Pacman Crunching Away At Your Heart
Now there's metaphor I would never have thought of. A trio of Derbyshire lasses end this compilation with a woozy little folksy number that reminds me of North Sea Radio Orchestra.

Best three tracks:
1. Pinkunoizu - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
15. Haiku Salut - Sounds Like There's A Pacman Crunching Away At Your Heart
2. Haley Bonar - Last War


Shelve or Bin? - Bin, but I'll certainly look into PinkuNoizu and Haiku Salut.

Knifeworld - The Unravelling

Knifeworld are one of those "Marmite" bands, and although I can see why the more conventionally atuned ear may be initially put off, a veritable cornucopia of modern psychedelia awaits those with the chutzpah, and indeed, the intelligence to persevere. As with any band that divides opinion, the positive and negative responses are often exaggerated beyond any reasonable point. A reviewer hiding behind the pseudonym Second Life Syndrome on Prog Archives hates it to the extent that he finds it "pretentious" and the " music is merely cutting and paste (sic) grooves and melodies from classic bands", particularly Gentle Giant. He accuses Knifeworld of ripping the "brassy bassy groove" (careful, that sounded like a compliment!) of The Skulls Have Regrown Their Eyes from GG's The Power And The Glory.

Firstly, I assume he means the opening track Proclamation? Yes there is a fleeting similarity, but the two are distinctly different. Secondly, I would point out that GG on that particular LP employed just the one saxophone, technically not a brass instrument, and they used it sparingly at that. Ultimately, Mr Syndrome is well wide of the mark, for although Knifeworld use obvious and many more not so obvious influences they are not one of those "museum curator" bands whose entire existence appears to hinge on recreating their idols' best works from 1972-73. As I've said, the reviewer in question goes by the pseudonym of "Second Life Syndrome" which indicates he is a big fan of Polish post-proggers Riverside. The irony is that Riverside based their entire sound on a certain band with whom Steven Wilson was long associated, and could not be called "original" by any stretch of the imagination. One final thing Mr Syndrome; if you actually knew what mostly unimaginative fare falls under the dreaded "prog" banner these days, you would realise Knifeworld are a million miles from the "prog-wanabees" you so wrongly claim they are. Progressive in the literal and proper sense yes, prog in the stylistic sense, absolutely not!

..and now, Ladies and Gents...the review you thought I'd never get round to!

My take on Knifeworld is that had the years 1969 to 1975 been erased entirely, then this band of musical pranksters are what Simon Dupree And The Big Sound might have sounded like, post-punk. Yes, I know that group became Gentle Giant and I do not deny that there is an element of the wilfully obtuse and brilliant Portsmouth band in the mix, but equally one can spot XTC, Cardiacs (unsurprisingly, and another reason for the Marmite, I'm sure. Even I find Cardiacs a tad beyond me), Flaming Lips, even Queen!

However, Knifeworld go beyond all these influences to become something quite unique. The aforementioned The Skulls... is a menacing thing built on that contentious - to some - circular Rhodes piano riff, and swirling bassoon and saxes, none of which are brass instruments, I hasten to add. Clever arrangements abound; the multi-layered vocals on Destroy The World We Love, hanging off the repeated refrain "You hold a secret in your hands" being especially noteworthy.

Leader of the band is one Kavus Torabi, a seemingly irrepressible force of nature who is all over this record. He has Cardiacs, Guapo, Chrome Hoof and much else on his CV, and he wrote all the music and words as well as producing and arranging The Unravelling. Reading interviews it is obvious he has an all-consuming passion for his music, for once he gets going on the subject he is hard to stop!

Kavus' lyrics have a frequently dark edge without ever descending into the self-pitying "woe is me" defeatism so popular among some bands, prog or otherwise, who would be better advised to remain instrumental in my not so humble opinion. Take this from the first verse of cinematic opener I Can Teach You How To Lose A Fight, sung in a resigned fashion by Melanie Woods:

"That halo won't have far to drop

'til it becomes a noose

And I'm not gonna break you loose"

A tale of bitterness, jealousy and bile told over a densely packed psychedelic maelstrom-symphony, Kavus chips in with "Why'd you grow those teeth in your heart?" responded to in harmony with "Has it unravelled enough for you?", setting a recurring theme for the album.



Send Him Seaworthy, a choppy trip on a rough but navigable sea, with a very XTC guitar line from Kavus, is a homage to those who set an unusual course through life, and must surely be a song written for his erstwhile and now bedridden colleague Tim Smith.

"I just can't face up to what's happening to you here

Now that you're half dead.

In a half-life my sweet captain's sailing away"

It does not get much more heartfelt than that. "Pretentious"? I don't think so!

Even a ballad of regret and doubt like Don't Land On Me is rescued from becoming maudlin by the bold and striking arrangement, and a good riff topped off with a bit of theatrical warbling. Quite mad, but it all comes together nicely.

Kavus gives reign to his avant instincts on the occasionally discordant, and for once musically minimalist ghost story for the living-yet-dead that is This Empty Room Was Once Alive, referencing once more his "sweet captain", who leaves behind an unfillable hole. All very sad and poignant, and a major part of the psyche unravelling.

My one problem with this album does not stem from the content but from the production. While the review copy mp3 I had sounded fine, well, as "fine" as that regressive music storage system can be at any rate, the CD I later bought sounds a little flat. The bottom end is nowhere near prominent enough, reproduced via "Source Direct" on my not inexpensive hi-fi amplifier. Thankfully the CD does not sound over-compressed when turned up loud, an all too common failing in this day and age, but the "no bottom" effect is a bit of a let down, particularly when one considers that the sound was mixed by go-to avant sound man Bob Drake. Steven Wilson's albums, famously produced with no compression do not suffer this problem, so feeling generous I'll put it down to a manufacturing rather than production glitch. Very few in the music industry seem to care about sound reproduction these days, especially on CDs it seems.

No amount of my pleading will change the minds of the cloth-eared, but I recommend this busy, busy bee of an album to anyone with a sense of sonic adventure. With eight people in the band it will be interesting to see how they all fit on the tiny stage of Leicester's Musician venue next month. Personally, I can't wait to be unravelled!

Tracklist:
1. I Can Teach You How To Lose A Fight (5:14)
2. The Orphanage (1:34)
3. Send Him Seaworthy (6:37)
4. Don’t Land On Me (8:02)
5. The Skulls We Buried Have Regrown Their Eyes (4:45)
6. Destroy The World we Love (6:05)
7. This Empty Room Was Once Alive (3:50)
8. I’m Hiding Behind My Eyes (9:15)

Total running time 45:20

Line up:
Kavus Torabi – Guitar, vocals
Melanie Woods – Vocals
Chloe Herington – Bassoon, saxophone, vocals
Emmett Elvin – Keyboards
Charlie Cawood – Bass
Ben Woollacott – Drums
Nicki Maher – Saxophone, vocals
Josh Perl – Saxophone, vocals

Knifeworld website

My Syndrome's Prog Archives review (at the bottom of the page)

Schizo-Brainiac - A labyrinthine exploration in music

Over the years my music scribbling has led to me accumulating a disparate collection of musical associates as Farcebook "friends". Some go on to become solid acquaintances, and, Heavens forfend, I've even met some of them out there in the real world.

The majority remain largely anonymous after the initial reason for connection has been long forgotten, and now that FB in its wisdom doesn't actually let you see a lot of what even close friends put up there, nevermind those on the "Acquaintances" or "Restricted" lists, it often comes as a surprise when a name pops up in your Newsfeed you have no recollection of. Usually these random hits from "friends" removed by several degrees of separation are of no consequence and passed over and forgotten.

Occasionally a gem of a post comes along to make you sit up and take notice. One such appeared today, and it contained a link to the Soundcloud page of an American gent going by the name of Solo Goodspeed aka Schizo-Brainiac. His profile contains the following choice quotes:

"SchizoBrainiac is a source of musical alternatives, with a tangent for eclecticism...It is helpful if you bring a very open mind (and not much in the way of expectations) to the exploration of these tracks, and if you have a bit of an off-kilter sense of humor, all the better."

...and...

"...Life is too short to merely exist.

"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist" - some guy named Picasso"

You can't argue with that, but it does not prepare you for the vast scope of the music this musical polymath has produced, all since 2009 apparently. He describes his music as falling into the "Soundtrack" genre and there are six distinctly different and thoroughly absorbing sets on offer, each with a short written intro by the composer to give the listener some idea of what to expect. We have:

















...and two more that do not have embed links; An Oral Condition (original songs) and Residual Influence (cover versions). That last one includes songs by XTC, Gentle Giant, Snakefinger, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Captain Beefheart, and Pete Seeger amongst others. Those influences only go a part of the way to describing what Schizo-Brainiac is about, but anyone who has the chops, not to mention the balls to cover Beefheart, Gentle Giant and Mahavishnu is obviously harbouring no little talent. The Beefheart cover is quite mad and makes the original sound almost tame. It is quite brilliant, by the way.

Thanks to Tesla Manaf Effendi, whoever and wherever you are, for popping up in my Farcebook Newsfeed with this incredible music!

Now, where's that device for stopping the space-time warpy thing for about a month so that I may catch up with all this?...

An open letter to Robert Fripp

Dear Mr Fripp

Firstly, as we have never met and are never likely to, I would not be so presumptuous as to address you by your first name, I trust you don't mind?

I read with interest and a near-confirmation of a growing suspicion your mini interview in this month's Uncut magazine. The forming of King Crimson Mk VIII was announced last year and inevitably provoked fevered interest among us Crimson fans. My friend and I speculated on possible weekends in London, Paris, Brussels, or anywhere on the near European continent, our partners enjoying whatever the locale had to offer while we were only really there for a night of Crimsoid menace.

As the months after the reformation announcement went by, and eventually the American tour dates were announced with no mention of Europe whatsoever, I began to realise that this, what is in all probability a final tour of a King Crimson involving your good self would most likely be a repeat of the last outing in 2008, that is a tour confining itself to the shores of the old colony.

Your comment in the Uncut interview that "touring Europe or beyond is 'not a question that has current relevance' " at least is not an unequivocal "no" but falls not far short. If I may be entirely selfish, is it beyond the bounds of possibility that King Crimson would play two or three dates at a venue in London? There must be at least one venue in the capital that doesn't resonate in middle C, or whichever note this particular Crimson may find unsettling. The band in former guises has played the Shepherds Bush Empire the last two times it was sighted briefly on these shores, and if that is now an unsatisfactory setting, I cannot believe that there is not one venue in London that does not meet your requirements at least to the extent of some those barns you are playing in America!

Is it unreasonable to ask that you and the band play one last time in the country that provided the chance set of circumstances that led to an entity called King Crimson, and gave you the opportunity to embark upon your chosen path, and provided you with the initial audience and platform to eventually make a not insubstantial living from your muse?

Finally, I was sorry to read that your professional life has been "devoid of joy", but most of us out here in the world of work and drudgery can say much the same. At least you have spent your working life following your art, something the rest of us cannot imagine, for our lives, professional or not, are spent making do to a greater or lesser extent. Take satisfaction, if not joy, for the work you have done correcting the greed-obsessed and obfuscating record industry excesses where past royalties are concerned, setting precedents for others to follow. Not to mention the hour upon hour of fabulous music you have been a significant part of over the years.

While typing this I have been listening to what many regard as the "ignored" Crimson album, the actually rather fine Lizard. The irony is not lost on me that I am a member of the "ignored" Crimson audience. For all that, I wish you and the rest of King Crimson a pleasant and enjoyable tour of the USA.

Yours sincerely
Roger Trenwith, an English audient (hopefully, but not expectantly)