As a supplement to the other thread on this new release - here's my review of this outstanding album.
To a huge number of people, me included, music is the constant, ever present, driving force that carries them through each and every day of their lives. To people like us, events and memories are given points of reference by particular tunes and melodies. Years are recalled through the songs and albums of that time. Sad times and happy times are soothed or amplified by the music that provided the backdrop to those moments. Music, quite literally, gets us through the days.
How appropriate, then, that The Tangent’s latest musical piece, Le Sacre Du Travail, is Andy Tillison’s vision of that most commonplace of rituals – The Working Day. Spurred on by his long held desire to celebrate the work of Igor Stravinsky, most notably The Rite of Spring, Andy Tillison has written his first Symphonic piece – described as an Electric Sinfonia . To help realise what is The Tangent’s first real concept album, Tillison has enlisted the help of a handful of progressive rock’s most celebrated luminaries – Gavin Harrison, Jonas Reingold, Theo Travis, Jakko M Jakszyk and David Longdon along with cameo performances by Guy Manning, Rikard Sjoblom, as narrator on the opening overture and Geoff Banks and Jon “Twang” Patrick as our regular morning DJs (we wish!). What we get, within the five sections that make up Le Sacre Du Travail, is a wonderfully constructed distillation of what it feels to endure “the daily grind”, its mind numbing effect on all of us, the environmental chaos caused by the need to move millions of us to and fro between bed and breadwinning and the banality of the associated media culture that massages our exhausted selves into thinking this ennui is the acceptable norm. As the lyrics will tell us – “we are ants”!
The uplifting element to all of this, however, is that the music on show here is potent, powerful, sympathetic and most of all, inspiring. From the opening radio alarm “beeps” to the closing “it all starts again” repeated opening bars of music we are treated to a musical and lyrical vision of a working day that magnifies the detail and amplifies the emotions so realistically that I defy anyone not to be able to identify themselves as players in this ritual. This piece doesn’t set out to decry our compliance with the system, or signpost a means to ending it. As Andy Tillison points out, this was a done deal from many long years gone. This is the way it is – this is all about us! The Tangent, as Andy Tillison is always at pains to stress, are a progressive rock band and be under no illusion to the contrary, Le Sacre Du Travail is a truly progressive rock album, meant to be listened to in one sitting from start to finish in the manner that those of us old enough can remember doing with the progressive albums of the 70s LP age. In keeping with that tradition, this album is beautifully presented with cover artwork by Martin Stephen and includes a sumptuous colour booklet with artwork by Brian Watson; a booklet that contains extensive notes, printed lyrics and even a short story! Classy and classical!
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