The New CD - "A Place In The Queue" Click here for The Making of the album
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MAIN CD: 1. In Earnest - (Tillison) 20.03 2. Lost In London - (Tillison/Manning) 8.08 3. DIY Surgery - (Travis/Middleton) 2.16 4. GPS Culture - (Tillison) 10.07 5. Follow Your Leaders - (Tillison) 9.21 6. The Sun In My Eyes - (Tillison) 3.44 7. A Place In The Queue - (Tillison/Travis) 25.19 BONUS CD: SPECIAL EDITION ONLY * - All instruments Andy Tillison. Click HERE for animated presentation of the cover
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Nearly a year in the making, the new lineup of The Tangent completed their recording in November 2005, a year to the day after the very first live show the band ever performed. The album, "A Place in The Queue" is what the band describe as "a double album on a single CD". 79 minutes of music span the main CD, with a further 55 on a bonus disk available with the Special Edition.
Andy Tillison makes no secret about the benchmarks he was using... "I have had a copy of "Tales From Topographic Oceans" in front of me throughout the whole procedure" he says, "not to rip it off, but to give me reminders of the kind of depth I wanted to achieve to make this album work. I think Yes were so, so ahead of the game when they made that record, and I've wanted to make an album with even half the depth of that for years. It's inspired me since I was a kid, and it still does now. I recently was fortunate enough to find a young person who was really into our music, and I just thought that it would be great if we as the Tangent could make a record that did the same for her as Tales had done for me. It's that level I want to reach, I didn't want the album to sound like Tales, or be about the Shastric Scriptures or anything. It's a Tangent CD, but we just tried to think "outside the box" like Yes were doing back then"
The CD opens with a 20 minute 'song' called "In Earnest" (sample) which is a moving story of a forgotten and old war hero. Based on three real characters that Andy met through his interest in Amateur Radio, (Two from Englands Royal Airforce and one from Germany's Luftwaffe) the piece deals with the way all of them were shunted into obscurity and generally forgotten except for one day each year. "I watched some young kids push Earnest out of the way at a bar one night" remembers Andy "and they had NO IDEA who they'd just pushed, or what he'd done. And I realised that I wouldn't have even known what he'd done if I hadn't been at the radio club. Then there was the fact that as he grew older, he could only remember the War, but not something last week, and it occurred to me that we, us, our governments, our way of life had given him this amazingly charged past. I mean, how can going for a day out with your kids compare in your memory to some of the things that guy did. It's like we showed him everything life had to offer in terms of what you can I suppose call 'excitement' by the time he was 20. So now all he remembers is the War. I think it's a wrong nostalgia he's been given, but we can't erase it. He followed orders and was a hero, until they didn't need him any more. And we still do it to kids every day, all over the world. I don't want nostalgia like that, for me, my kids, or anyone. "
So.... it's definitely NOT about the Shastric Scriptures then! But the opening song is a powerful piece that shows every side of the Tangent's prowess in a single showcase. There's as much substance in the first track alone than in many full CDs. From the haunting and evocative piano/vocal intro, through some spectacular ELP-style workouts with snarling synths and hammonds, and into a section where "Earnest" recalls hazily his love of Jazz music, and the band create a suitable smoky atmosphere. Very 20th century Stravinsky style orchestral sections appear with Theo Travis' woodwind (apparently he learned the clarinet especially for the CD) playing a lead role, there's big powerful mellotron builds, cascading Steve Hackett style guitar solos, a frantic organ/synth reprise of the orchestral theme, and a lull into another melancholic piano'voice section where Andy recreates the scene he mentioned above, with Earnest on his own in a bar. The piece reaches a massive climax some minutes later. "I wish" says Theo Travis, "That it would just stop there, and we had to take a pause to turn the record over for the next side. Let it sink in for a minute" Alas those days are gone, and the CD pushes relentlessly on. There are pause buttons though. Just a thought Theo!
"Lost In London" is a much lighter affair, once again establishing the band's relationship with the Canterbury bands. You have to smile at some of the sounds, that "Dave Stewart" distorted organ mixing with the flute, and the vaguely Southern English accent that Andy adopts for the vocals. The song is about Andy going to London to try and get a record contract when he was younger. Apparently he dismally failed, and the song is wistfully humorous and playful throughout. if you enjoy stuff by National health and Hatfield and the North, or earlier Tangent pieces like "The Canterbury Sequence" or "Skipping the Distance" you're really going to like this. of course there's a lyrical 'catch' to the story, but we'll let you discover that for yourselves
"DIY Surgery" is Theo Travis' first composition for the band. It's also the first piece to not have lyrics by Andy, this time they are by English poet Stephen C. Middleton, about the bizarre concept about performing an operation... on yourself. Theo's sax makes its first appearance here, and the piece is rather eccentric high speed Jazz fusion - kind of Zappa/Soft Machine/Gong Radio Gnome. To complete a "hat-trick" of "firsts" for the band, this song is the debut vocal performance of Theo Travis. Andy was apparently locked in a cupboard somewhere.....
"GPS Culture". (sample) One of the most accessible yet most satisfying Tangent compositions yet. Starting with a lovely repeating organ riff, the piece quickly becomes a tuneful rock classic... (we're talking "Roundabout"), an irresistably sing-able song, but with a gorgeous structured and deep running instrumental section featuring some great guitar/organ and flute work. Sam Baine leads for a little while with those "Canterbury" style vocal interjections that Barbara Gaskin and Amanda Parsons used to do, and that The Tangent revived on their last labum during the song "Skip Distance." This is probably the song with the most "influences" on show on the album. Tight vocal harmonies a la Yes, and a wicked UK "Dead Of Night" rhythm drive this piece onwards. The lyrics seem to look at lifes ambivalences given all the choices we have and the fact we are often so spoilt for choice we don't actually know where to start.
"Follow Your Leaders". A frantic organ/guitar figure takes us into the albums most diverse and individual song. A song about blind faith, it shifts in mood every few seconds. from rock to jazz, to psychedelic sections... (try to imagine Hillage-era Gong jamming with the Mahavishnu). A fantastic, (in my opinion too short) bass solo from Jonas Reingold and Krister Jonsonns unexpected soulful guitar solo at the end are two things to look forward to. The piece fades away with a beautiful sondscape of echoing flutes and processed acoustic guitars and synthesisers.
"The Sun In My Eyes" is the album's most unusual and unexpected piece, and the band have expressly forbidden me to describe it, other than to mention that the lyrics are about "getting bullied at school for liking prog-rock". On a musical level, all I can say is that I grinned all the way through it.
"A Place In The Queue" (sample) Andy Tillison and Theo Travis' meisterwerk will almost certainly take a few listens before it sinks in, but they will be a rewarding few listens. Here the band take the whole level of their game up about 4 notches, having created one of the best and most involved long-format pieces progressive rock has heard in many years. Blasting in with a gorgeous powerful sax/keyboards melody, the mood soon changes to a slowly building song (somewhat in the same area as the band's "World We Drive Through" track). "The Queue" has at least three separate songs built into itself, interweaving and reacting with each other. I have to mention the instrumental sections though, because there are among the best things the Tangent have ever done. A feature Saxophone solo about 10 minutes into this 25 minute epic just HAS to be one of the best that has ever appeared in the whole prog genre. Towards the end comes a keyboards section that any fan of Wakeman/Emerson/Moraz will dance for joy to, the piece is peppered with memorable performances, including Guy Manning's voice and acoustic guitar leading the middle section, Sam Baine's piano solos (I presume this is her rather than Andy because I've seen the band a couple of times now and it is usually Sam who plays this sort of solo) and some blinding guitar moments from Krister. Most importantly, this has the best Chorus of all time. I kid you not.
A 79 minute long album, it is, as the band say, more like an old "Double LP" - with four 20 minute long "sides". So while not being as concise or succinct as either of the two previous albums, this one is a more ambitious project, more conceptual, and you do get the impression that the whole thing is running deeper than before. Not as Dark as "Drive Through", not as light as "The Music". it's just generally more developed and thought-out, and the songs themselves (IMHO) surpass the quality of their previous work. That IS saying something.
As if all that weren't enough, a "special Edition" of the CD includes a further 55 minutes of music, drawn from the same sessions that produced the album, (including a really chilling demo track called "The First Day In School"), as well as a remix, some live material and another of those ambient pieces like "Exponenzgesetz". The bonus disk lets us see different sides of the band, a bit "rockier", a bit rougher around the edges, and the opener "Promises Were Made" (a Sam Baine piece) would probably make some young band very very rich.
In the trail of progressive rock albums released since the early 90s, this sits happily alongside "The Light", "Transatlantic 1', "Unfold the Future" and "Stupid Dream" as a real challenger to the assumption that "the best prog was made in the 70s". I was fortunate enough to be at a gig in America, where for the first time The Tangent met and spoke to Pete Trewavas (Marillion/Transatlantic/Kino). His reaction was simply, "You guys are the real deal" I think he was right.
C Pearson 2005 Click here for The Making of the album
THE ANIMATIONS MAY TAKE A MINUTE TO LOAD BUT THEY ARE WORTH THE WAIT TOP