A whole big band, Norwegian folk prog double package, 9-string basses and more!

Alright, this album features easily the biggest ensemble musicians of all the 2023 highlights so far. Up to 20 people make up the Monika Roscher Bigband, and their new, third album “Witchy Activities And The Maple Death” is lighting up a true firework of exciting, exuberant music. Vast, expansive brass arrangements, trumpet, trombone, flute, saxophone, piano, drum, double bass, guitar and baritone clarinet (!) solos. A wild genre mix that ranges from classic big band jazz (obviously) to electronica, art-pop and mathy and/or psychedelic post-prog sounds. Massive, relentless, witchy grooves. A sneaky nod to the March of Death in ‘The Leading Expert of Loneliness’. And a haunting Sophie Hunger-esque finale in motionless seas of stars (‘Unbewegte Sternenmeere’). I really want to know what’s going on in ‘The Woods’ where the Moon Is Melting and the Sleepy Spirits dance… Some witchy activities I guess. Where can I sign up? Dario

Dark Norwegian Folk Prog #1: Instilled with a deep love for Norwegian Folk from a young age not many know about, the fusion of these particular, wonderful sounds with heavy prog vibes is a prospect that had my mouth watering – or rather my ears dying to hear. Marekvist from Kristiansand nailed this heavenly marriage to perfection on their second album “Varde”. For those not familiar with Norwegian folk music, rest assured, it’s nothing like anything you will see on TV in Germany for example, what they like to call “Volksmusik”. It’s naturally proggy and with light melancholy vibes,  and the closest thing to it a proghead might have heard before could be the intro to Opeth’s ‘Folklore’ (sic!). Even though that’s Swedish. So it’s similar, but different. With a quite smooth and groovy double drum/percussion attack feat. frequent Ihsahn collaborator Tobias Øymo Solbakk on one of the drumkits and an expressive vocal delivery from Live-Andrea Gjessen Rasch in her Norwegian mother-tongue, “Varde” ticks all the right boxes for me and I can’t wait to 1.) check out their first album “Solrenning”, 2.) hopefully catch them live soon and 3.) discover more, new Marekvist music in the hopefully not so distant future. Dario

Dark Norwegian Folk Prog #2: a tad heavier, a tad darker, a tad folkier, a tad proggier, Lumsk from Trondheim are celebrating their comeback 16 years after their third album “Det vilde kor” with a real monster of an album. “Fremmede Toner”, that’s 6 songs based on a collection of poems by André Bjerke, or rather his translations of famous poems by the likes of Goethe, Nietzsche, Swinburne and more… and then again 6 different songs based on the original poems. An intriguing concept to start with, put into music to stunning effect. It is spellbinding, breathtaking, masterful storytelling with an air of grandeur, gravitas and sincerity only befitting for the old masters. It is with great pleasure and delight that I dive into these six stories time and again, all told in two different musical/linguistic angles each, like revisiting a compendium of the feverishly emotional short stories from Stefan Zweig, which always feels both familiar yet exciting and fresh. These strange, foreign sounds (“Fremmede Toner”), with lots of familiar sounds like mellotron and hammond thrown in there for good measure, are a true revelation to be cherished! Dario

Eclectic instrumental world prog? A solo album by a guitarist that starts right off the bat with a five minute Tigran Hamasyan-esque piano djent monster with barely any guitar sounds in sight? Well, on Shayan Javadi’s debut album “Shawn Javadi”, which has been streaming ready in its entirety for quite some time on Bandcamp, yet the release date says May 05, the composition itself always dictates when which instrument gets to shine. Not entirely dissimilar to Clément Belio’s music, who actually mixed, mastered and co-arranged the album. More illustrious names appearing with guest contributions are bassist Jacob Umansky, drummer Yogev Gabay (Distorted Harmony, Hago) and keyboard prodigy Rohan Sharma (RO1, I Built The Sky) and more. Having so many insanely talented players on your debut album creates a certain expectation of course, but Shayan Javadi from Dallas, Texas steps up to the challenge and delivers 9 compositions that manage to find an excellent the balance between complexity and virtuosity, but also a distinct catchiness and and often (middle) eastern tinged grooves. I have no information about Javadi’s background whatsoever (or about a full digital album release on the streaming services), just found his music by pure chance through his collaborators, probably either Clément Belio or Rohan Sharma posting about it. It could be another top notch Berklee product just like Hago for example. But in the end it doesn’t matter, as the music speaks for itself and should appeal to everyone who loves complex instrumental music. Massive props to pianist Alan Hankers as well for absolutely shredding through the piano centered pieces like the album opener ‘Persimmon Tree’, ‘Virtuous Contr[a]ct’, or ‘Jungle Bird’. Dario

Industrial, electronic, complex prog metal comes from the twisted mind of Frederick Filiatrault aka ChaotH, Canadian 9-string bass player and composer, best known for his work with Unexpect. A consistent use of vocoder vocals is bringing the Cynic vibes galore of course, but where the legendary, enigmatic Paul Masvidal-led troupe almost abandoned the metal factor almost completely at one point, ChaotH embraces heavy orderly chaos with his solo project Vvon Dogma I, that’s finally back now with a first full length effort after the 2017 “Communion EP”. Idiomatically called “The Kvlt of Glitch”, this little monster marries the heavy with the proggy and complex, the metal with glitchy electronics – and succeeds in building a contemporary electronic extreme avantgarde metal sound for the second decade of the 21st century. Futuristic and trippy. Dario

For their new record, which is called “Resonance” and came out via Willowtip Records, UK based melodic death metal band Countless Skies started a different approach and played five of their songs live in the studio, also having cellist Arianna Mahsayeh with them. Each track got new, unique parts, written for this recording, and by changing the arrangements a bit towards the cello, their sound gets a different direction without losing its core, but gaining a beautiful depth. They picked the powerful ‘Daybreak’, followed by the mighty ‘Summit’ and ‘Glow’, which works perfectly as climax in the middle, clocking in with 20 minutes and impressively showing the magic this band has to offer. There are long instrumental parts that come across mesmerizingly, and are skillfully played by all musicians involved. The growls add a strong, harsh element to the music, building a great contrast to the marvelous, clean vocals. ‘Wanderer’ is next, taken from their album “New Dawn” (2016), before they close this live set in a wonderful way with ‘Tempest’. Fans of Countless Skies’ previous releases are surely gonna enjoy this offering, but hopefully it will also open their work to new listeners. Check it out! Katha

Swedish musician and producer Ola Englund is best known for his work as guitarist of melodic death metal bands Feared and The Haunted (as well as former member of Six Feet Under, Scarpoint, Sorcerer among others), but also for successfully running a YouTube channel with metal related content. For his series “Sunday With Ola”, he challenges himself to write a new riff every episode – But what to do with all of these ideas afterwards? Putting them together to full songs and releasing them into the wild clearly sounds like a good idea. The result is called “The Chug Project, Vol. 1”, contains 12 rather short tracks, and is a powerful celebration of modern guitar shredding! While the names might appear a bit weird, the shown musicianship is absolutely serious, and should appeal to fans of up-tempo, guitar-driven, instrumental music. My highlights? ‘Forever Old’, ‘Smlp’, and ‘The Mothership’. You’re in for a shred fest? Here we go \m/ Katha