Sound of Contact: New Progressive Rock Band with Simon Collins & Squids!

[WeatherWiseCDC]

Cool that you archived it. Thanks. Shame the audio noise thing during the performance though. I'm going to record it too but I'm sure I'll be able to get the audio to sound better (famous last words). We're also doing another BBC interview on Thursday coming up but I think they are playing the same performance.

I did a bit of noise removal last night at about 5 AM in the morning, but I left the performance intact without any correction. I should have that corrected when I re-upload the whole thing in about 10 minutes. Let me know if it's all right once it's online.

I'm pretty picky about audio quality as well. I've been stressing for the last little while over why YouTube's audio compression algorithms are the way they are, haha. Sometimes I go through 2-3 uploads before I settle on a final version, especially on some of the video projects I've done. I can see what happened, though. I also added an image of the SoC crop circles, since I felt that was missing initially.

Sorry, Dave.

[Polska]

Heard 2 clips and ordered it today. Cannot wait for this disc to arrive! Reviews have been fantastic and from what I heard I have no doubt it will live up to all the ProgEars hype!

Here's hoping the tour comes somewhere close to Buffalo NY (hint hint).

[WeatherWiseCDC]

All right. This is as much as I can do. The noise is still there to some extent, particularly during the keyboard solo. There's not a lot else I can do at the moment, so I'll leave it to you, Dave.



Edit: The video posted here is the same as the one in the other post above.

[Progatron]

Good interview. I hadn't realized Simon had moved! Also interesting to hear him talk of how Phil took him to see banks like Floyd and Yes. I wonder what tours those would have been? I know Phil himself kind of lost interest in a lot of those bands as time went on. Despite Yes being his favourite band in the Peter Banks era, he claims to have "lost interest" in them after Fragile. Of course, that's not to say he shouldn't take his kid to see them, to show him what good music was!

[WeatherWiseCDC]

Haha. You don't have to go to all that trouble. That's not what I meant. Really cool of you to bother at all as you are right it will disappear in a few days off their site. So thanks!

No problem at all! I'm just a proud listener.

I went through numerous versions; it doesn't seem like I can do much more for it than what I posted above. Oh well. I'm quite happy just to be able to provide everyone with access to the interview.

[Squids]

The first time I visited The Farm which is Genesis' studio they had all sorts of rock posters on the wall. Most of them were Genesis posters (just like the kind most of us had in our rooms growing up! But theirs were framed haha). Anyway, one of them WAS a Yes poster. I think I took a picture of it too because I thought that was interesting. Also, I asked Nick Davis if he thought that maybe the song Submarine was inspired by the end part of Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd and he thought it probably was.

[Firth]

This CD is like Genesis+Yes+ELP+King Crimson running into Porcupine Tree and then mutating. Listened on a better system tonite, the production reaches a new level.

[Scott Bails]

This CD is like Genesis+Yes+ELP+King Crimson running into Porcupine Tree and then mutating. Listened on a better system tonite, the production reaches a new level.

Yep. One of the tracks - forget which one, as I'm just not familiar enough with it yet - has a distinct "Sky Moves Sideways" feel to it.

[ThomasKDye]

Heck, the first song is "Porcupine Tree sings 'Siberian Khatru.'"

But I'm loving this CD more and more. What I like about it the most is that it's not afraid of a hook... the chorus of "Not Coming Down" in particular is really well done. Also, the electric piano work stands out the most to me, actually... it's as tasty as heck. I love the arpeggios in the middle of "I Am;" they build up tension nicely.

[fiberman]

I get a nice snippet of Aladdin Sane at the end of one cut.

[ThomasKDye]

do we WANT to sound like a Disney movie??? Haha.

Don't forget, Steve covered "When You Wish Upon a Star" for "Till We Have Faces!"

[Scott Bails]

And Phil obviously had an extensive history with Disney...

[Sean]

This CD is like Genesis+Yes+ELP+King Crimson running into Porcupine Tree and then mutating. Listened on a better system tonite, the production reaches a new level.

You left out Pink Floyd. I hear more of a nod to them than what you listed, save for Genesis and PT.

[Jimmy Giant]

I've followed most of this thread and there's few CDs I've had this kind of anticipation to hear. Just got notice that my copy has been sent out today. I'm stoked!

Squids, thank you for all the time you've put into conversation here. That's priceless. I'd love to meet you and the other guys at Progday. I hope you'll all be hanging out there aside from your set.

Best of luck with the CD and shows, hoping you guys have a long run.

[Firth]

You left out Pink Floyd. I hear more of a nod to them than what you listed, save for Genesis and PT.

Precisely, and I noted that mentally after I hastily entered that this morning. The opening vocals were suggested to me as Yes like. Genesis goes with out saying. The thrash of King Crimson. The spacey doom and gloom of Floyd, and production (not to mention the outright samples). I'll have to get back to you on the what struck me as ELPish. Beyond Illumination has some female vocals that remind me of Maggie Reilly performing with Mike Oldfield, so add Oldfield to the bunch. The better the audio system this is played on, the more space and layers are revealed. Please get Steven Wilson to do a 5.1 mix of this. After listened to his Thick as a Brick, and then this latest solo (colaboration with Alan Parsons), I would say a 5.1 version would blow minds into outer orbit.

[Squids]

I've followed most of this thread and there's few CDs I've had this kind of anticipation to hear. Just got notice that my copy has been sent out today. I'm stoked!

Squids, thank you for all the time you've put into conversation here. That's priceless. I'd love to meet you and the other guys at Progday. I hope you'll all be hanging out there aside from your set.

Best of luck with the CD and shows, hoping you guys have a long run.

Thanks and yes of course we'll be hanging around at ProgDay to meet people. Looking forward to it!

[Father Tiresias]

What I like about it the most is that it's not afraid of a hook....

Indeed - there are some really catchy pop melodies (though I wouldn't say it's essence is that of a pop record). Really enjoying it.

[Squids]

I'm doing the "Prog Quiz" with Classic Rock Presents Prog today. Wish me luck. I wish I could get some help from PE people as I could really be in trouble here. Depends what they ask! I'm getting together with Greg Spawton next week and he said to me "I hope you do well. By that I mean a 14.5" (he got score of 15 and Neil Morse a score of 10... my favorite number is 4 but that's just an excuse!).

[Firth]

I'm not a Nick Davis hater like some others on this site. However when compression is needed it's not clear that Nick appreciates analog over digital. Steven has used tubes. There just is not enough bits for nonlinear processing. Nick did the mixes for Genesis in analog (SSL).

[WeatherWiseCDC]

It looks like Sound of Contact and Dimensionaut each have their own Wikipedia articles and they look pretty accurate now too. Very cool. Congrats, guys.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Contact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionaut

[Progatron]

The June issue of PROG landed in my mailbox today (Tubular Bells cover) with a great feature article on SOC and Dimensionaut! That's some seriously good exposure right there, and I enjoyed the article.

How did the quiz go today Dave? :P

[Squids]

I'm not a Nick Davis hater like some others on this site. However when compression is needed it's not clear that Nick appreciates analog over digital. Steven has used tubes. There just is not enough bits for nonlinear processing. Nick did the mixes for Genesis in analog (SSL).

I got to watch Nick do some of the 5.1 mixing at The Farm and shot video which I always try to do just to document a rare moment like that. Check this out:

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeFMESEAUeY

All of the Genesis box set stuff was mixed analog on an SSL and so was Dimensionaut.

[Squids]

The June issue of PROG landed in my mailbox today (Tubular Bells cover) with a great feature article on SOC and Dimensionaut! That's some seriously good exposure right there, and I enjoyed the article.

How did the quiz go today Dave? :P

I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out but it ended up going quite well!

[jupiter0rjapan]

5th listen of the album confirms it, my favorite album of the past 10 years. It edges out Magma's last two albums, which is hard to do for me because I am a complete fanboy of Magma. I just think Dimensionaut is on a whole new level of Prog.

[Scott Bails]

Had another good listen to this tonight, and man, this is such a great album. Absolutely love it.


Really something to be proud of, Dave. Great songwriting, great performances, great arrangements, great production - just an excellent album.