Tag: Rise

Progradar Albums Of The Year 2019

This list is just an opinion, my opinion. These are the albums (and one E.P.) that resonated most with me in the fine music year of 2019.They are not in any particular order apart from my top album of the year…

Big Big Train – Grand Tour

Not an immediate favourite but an excellent grower that slowly insinuated itself into my affections. Big Big Train are very, very good at what they do and the songwriting and production values are on point as ever.

no-man – Love You To Bits

I have no idea what Steven (Wilson) and Tim (Bowness) were on when they came up with the idea for this pulsating masterpiece but, by golly, can they please give some to the rest of what is becoming a very moribund music scene.

Love You To Bits is a utterly fascinating and overwhelmingly entertaining musical adventure with superb dynamism and a diversity rarely seen in the strictures of conventional music.

Just do yourselves a favour and go and buy it, you will not regret it!

Bruce Soord – All This Will Be Yours

Lushly produced by Soord himself and lovingly mastered by fellow The Pineapple Thief member Steve Kitch, All This Will Be Yours is a cultured gem of a record that has created music as a definitive art form. Born from the joy of bringing life into the world and the pain that Soord sees in the privation and hardship of his hometown, this is an album that will linger long in the memory.

Exploring Birdsong – The Thing With Feathers

‘The Thing With Feathers‘ is an utterly absorbing twenty-one minutes of music and delivers an undoubted new talent onto the music scene. Serene and graceful yet with a deep intelligence running throughout, I haven’t been this excited about a new artist in a very, very long time.

Bent Knee – You Know What They Mean

Bent Knee have knocked me sideways with this new release, You Know What They Mean is a collection of amazing musical journeys, some of them seemingly fraught with danger and all of them apparently from minds that seem to exist in an alternate reality to most people. Utterly mad at times and utterly magnificent at others, it has certainly changed my perspective and deserves to be on the awards list at the end of the year. Just one thing, who, exactly, are They?

Franck Carducci – The Answer

The Answer leaves a huge grin on my face, a highly enjoyable cornucopia of musical delights taking you on an amazing journey through 70’s progressive rock, hard rock, funk and pure rock and roll. Containing some utter Carducci gems, this album just keeps getting better and better with every listen and is by far Franck’s most cohesive and impressive work yet.

Human Pyramids – Power Pose

I think Paul and the rest of Human Pyramids have given us what is possibly the most playful, captivating, bewitching and beguiling album of 2019, it’s like a celebration of all that is good in this world delivered wrapped up for you to open on Christmas Day (Yes, that is the release date!). By golly, we really must all have been very good this year…

Afenginn – Klingra

Music for long winter evenings in the company of someone you love, ‘Klingra’ will make time stand still as you listen to every nuance and subtlety, it is an incredibly involving experience that I believe everyone should enjoy at least once.

Rise – Strangers

Music truly is the literature of the heart when it comes to releases like ‘Strangers’, this album is truly a work of musical art created by one of the most avant-garde folk songwriters currently alive. Each track has layers of texture that are almost primeval in nature, each is a living and breathing entity that will take each listener on their own personal journey. I suggest you get your hands on a copy and see where this incredible record takes you.

League Of Lights – In The In Between

What League of Lights have done is written a wonderful homage to the synth-pop highs of the late 80’s and early 90’s and brought it bang up to date for a modern musical world. For me it is chock full of nostalgia and is a wonderful and involving listening experience. Another highlight in a year that is beginning to produce quite a few but don’t take my word for it, go out and buy it and see for yourself!

Rise Twain – Rise Twain

Rise Twain have delivered one of the most impressive debut albums I have heard in quite a long time. The fragile beauty will touch you and the profound depth will move you like nothing else, if you only listen to one new album this year then I implore you to make it this one.

Izz – Don’t Panic

IZZ have returned with what should become an American progressive rock classic. Don’t Panic brings classic prog rock bang up to date for the 21st century and should cement this musical collective as one of the pre-eminent bands of the genre at this moment in time and for many years to come.

Bjørn Riis – A Storm Is Coming

I’m a huge fan of Bjørn Riis and “A Storm Is Coming” has just emphasized what a huge musical talent this man is. Six songs of loss, love and human relations that everyone can relate to make this an album that touches you on a personal level and one that is already one of the year’s outstanding releases.

cosmograf – Mind Over Depth

“Mind Over Depth” is another impressive offering from the talented Mr Armstrong under the Cosmograf moniker and the lack of a narrative proves no detriment at all. Powerful, cinematic and enigmatic, all the plaudits this release is garnering are richly deserved and will hopefully attract a new audience to Robin’s music.

And so we come to the album that has stood the test of time and really deserved the ‘Album of the Year’ gong from me…

Moron Police – A Boat On The Sea

I honestly cannot remember having this much fun listening to a record in a very long time, there’s an utter freedom to the songs and the music, an almost childlike immunity to the cares of the world. With everything that is happening in the so-called civilized world today, we could all do with a dose of the magical Moron Police in our life so do yourselves a favor and buy this album, you will never regret it!

So that wraps up 2019 but 2020 is already looking like another year of stellar releases. This list is as subjective as they come and it is just my opinion, see you on the other side for more of the same…

Review – Rise – Strangers – by Progradar

“Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.” ― Alphonse de Lamartine

I love that quote and it expresses perfectly how I feel about music, music has been my saviour in times of need and my champion in times of triumph. An ethereal miracle that salves the soul and inspires the heart and the latest album by the Sussex-based (UK) singer/songwriter RISE (previously Talitha Rise) is the pure definition of ‘the literature of the heart.’

RISE’s (aka Jo Beth Young) new musical journey weaves together intimate and cinematic stories marrying reverberations from the past with the struggles of the present day.

Exploring themes of love, loss, rebirth and transformation, RISE says: “David Gray once wrote a line that has stuck with me – “and when we meet again, we will be strangers”. That, in a nutshell, is the idea behind this album. This album traverses the challenge of the personal ‘abyss’ and the emergence from the bleakness of loss and separation. This gives way to hope, wisdom and the taking of responsibility.

Each location adds another layer of meaning and context to the stories within each song. I wanted these songs to be a conversation with the land, the place, the history that I was in at the time but it is intertwined with some of my own intense personal experiences.”

‘Strangers‘ is a collection of 9 songs that explore human nature, relationships and the harsh realities of life but Jo Beth’s amazing vocals imbue everything with a dark and painful beauty and sepia tinged loneliness and despair.

These songs are more like stories, pieces of music that bring the characters to life and you are kept hanging on every note and every word, the inevitability and bittersweetness of change is apparent throughout.

Opening track Dark Cloud lays the foundations and sets the sombre atmosphere from the first stark note. There is a feel of a soul laid bare and a heart that has been broken time and time again and this runs throughout this phenomenal piece of music, through the classical tinged wonder of Temples and the harsh realities of title track Strangers, which speaks of a husband returning from war so changed that he is now unrecognisable. This is music that is utterly enigmatic, captivating and yet, in places, full of foreboding.

The simple, pared back allure of Cry Back Moon, the drama of Burnt Offerings and the mournful grace of the elegant Rabbit Eyes show a songwriter at one with her craft, weaving mesmerising stories that draw the listener in and when you have a voice as stunning as Jo Beth’s, it is an instrument in its own right and one which imbues every song with an aura of mystique.

The first track released from ‘Strangers’ was the wonderful Radio Silence and on the album it returns like an old friend, perhaps a little world weary and disheveled but a friend who you are happy to spend endless hours with trading nostalgic stories of a brighter past. Skysailing has that contemplative feel of a warm breeze on a hazy summers day, a thoughtful, slightly melancholy song that leaves traces in your memory long after it has finished.

The album closes with the utterly beguiling dark folk brilliance of The Old Sewing Woman’s Song, the story of a life lived unfulfilled and one which is told at Jo Beth’s enthralling best. Nine minutes of musical perfection that harks back to the old days of bards and storytellers as they regaled their audiences with tales of legend, often dark and forever fascinating.

Music truly is the literature of the heart when it comes to releases like ‘Strangers’, this album is truly a work of musical art created by one of the most avant-garde folk songwriters currently alive. Each track has layers of texture that are almost primeval in nature, each is a living and breathing entity that will take each listener on their own personal journey. I suggest you get your hands on a copy and see where this incredible record takes you.

Released 18/10/19.

Strangers Pre-order and Video on Indieogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/r-i-s-e-strangers/

Single Review – Rise – Radio Silence – by Progradar

Rise – Radio Silence

Radio Silence, the second single from upcoming album ‘Strangers’ is a bitter/sweet and raw account of being cut out or ghosted and alludes to some gut wrenching references, such as a woman whose parachute is cut by her husband, a biblical scapegoat and the dark fate of the lifeboat keepers of Small’s Lighthouse.

R I S E (aka Jo Beth Young) is an English songwriter whose relentlessly authentic songs and mesmeric voice cut deep into the fabric of human frailty with a visionary sound swaying hypnotically between dream folk and progressive grit; at times dark but always beautiful.

Since the release of her debut album ‘An Abandoned Orchid House’ in 2018 (under the longer moniker of Talitha Rise) she has been gathering international acclaim and support from BBC 6, BBC Introducing Devon, and the legendary ECHOES Radio in the USA who made her the number 1 album of the year 2018.

Establishing her unique sound early on in Ireland cutting her teeth on the folk circuit, she returned to the UK and met her long-term collaborator Martyn Barker (Shriekback, Goldfrapp, Robert Plant) and caught the attention of Chris Difford (Squeeze) who sang on her debut EP Blue.

Rise’s haunting and mesmerising vocal is the mainstay and backbone of this incredibly moving track. The ethereal and waif-like voice has you completely enthralled in this bitter-sweet tale and the raw, pared back music is a perfect accompaniment.

There’s a painfully wistful overtone to the whole song, it’s beauty wrought from a tender agony and one that cuts deep to the bone. As the track comes to a close you are left almost bereft but with an urge to hear more, testimony to the wonderful art of the songwriter.

“Radio Silence
A new kind of violence.
Who took the leaves out of the trees?
A consequence you cannot believe is radio silence.
A special kind of violence.
A consequence you can defend.
Betrayal of your only friend.”

Raw, painful but beautifully mesmerising, Rise once again shows that she is a serious talent and one that the world is waking up to and taking notice of…

Released 22nd August 2019

Pre-order from iTunes here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/radio-silence-single/1474912486