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Thread: THE TANGENT - "Proxy" November 16

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    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    THE TANGENT - "Proxy" November 16

    Great news! Loved the last album, looking forward to this one.

    cd1.jpg


    The Tangent, the progressive rock group led by Andy Tillison, will release their 10th studio album ‘Proxy’ on the 16th November 2018. Recorded during the band's tour with Karmakanic in 2017/18, which saw them with more chances than normal to work together on the record - hotel writing sessions, van discussions, soundcheck ideas - all of which have allowed the band to make an album that is as organic as they have achieved since their formation 15 years ago.

    Andy Tillison comments: "Our belief is that Progressive Rock music is still a valid and viable musical form in 2018 and will continue to be so. Our band has always sought to take on board things from the present and add them to that magical mix. We don't claim to be offering the FUTURE. We just claim to be offering one set of possibilities. Ours. Now."

    ‘Proxy’ is a riot of juxtaposing styles, presented in a really direct manner and despite being firmly rooted in the stylistic traits of the Progressive Rock Genre takes some unexpected turnoffs and a major swerve. The albums kicks off with a trademark Tangent prog fantasia based around growling Hammonds, shrieking Synths, whirling guitars and sharp percussive bass - influences of ELP, Egg, Hatfield & the North, Caravan and Camel proudly worn on their sleeves.

    This 16-minute title track eventually becomes a protest song about the continuing wars that share their name with the song.
    But this album features no overall concept. The second track is a sun-drenched Mediterranean fusion instrumental, more Chick Corea than Che Guevara. And the third track is referred to by the band as an attempt to find the missing link between Porcupine Tree and Jamiroquai. By the time we reach the centrepiece epic track ‘The Adulthood Lie’, the rulebook has been left behind and the band are trying to fix the car with whatever is at hand.

    The Tangent came of age some time ago now. After 15 years with a constant presence on the periphery of the scene, this album is the next step on the road from a band who have painstakingly revered and recreated the past, with one eye on the future.

    Here's the lineup for the album:

    Andy Tillison – Vocals, Lyrics, Keyboards, Composer
    Jonas Reingold (Flower Kings, Steve Hackett Band) – Bass Guitar
    Theo Travis (Soft Machine, Travis-Fripp) – Sax & Flute
    Luke Machin (Maschine, Francis Dunnery Band) – Guitar
    Steve Roberts (ex Magenta, Godsticks) – Drums
    With special guest: Göran Edman (Karmakanic/Malmsteen) - Vocals

    And of course you can pre-order it at The Tangent Website. www.thetangent.org and of course the special prices there at the moment reflect packages for our biggest fans - of course the prices will come down and the album will be available at perfectly normal prices by the time of release. NOTE that if you want your name on the sleeve - The artwork will go to press in just less than 2 weeks - so time is unavoidably of the essence!
    Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.

    *** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***

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    Steve Roberts is an upgrade on drums from their last LP (Sorry, Andy!!!)
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    Quote Originally Posted by miamiscot View Post
    Steve Roberts is an upgrade on drums from their last LP (Sorry, Andy!!!)
    Andy did a good job on the last LP but nothing can replace real drums. I like the idea that this one will be much more organic with real drums and apparently recorded during soundchecks. Although The Tangent definitely have their sound, they always try to change things up from one album to the next and this one is bound to be quite different from the previous one.
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  4. #4
    I saw Andy playing solo in support of PFM in London a few month ago, he ended with a rather moving protest song, which I imagine may have something to do with the title track referred to above, then again it may be something quite different!

    I love the Canterbury influences, all of which we have seen in previous Tangent releases, so all in all I am looking forward to this one.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by LeFrog View Post
    Andy did a good job on the last LP but nothing can replace real drums. I like the idea that this one will be much more organic with real drums and apparently recorded during soundchecks. Although The Tangent definitely have their sound, they always try to change things up from one album to the next and this one is bound to be quite different from the previous one.
    Thank you for mentioning the drums! Sadly I am just not able to listen to the slow rust because of the very cold drum samples. For that one wasn’t lacking good compositions....looking forward to this one for sure!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zappyesque View Post
    Thank you for mentioning the drums! Sadly I am just not able to listen to the slow rust because of the very cold drum samples. For that one wasn’t lacking good compositions....looking forward to this one for sure!
    I know what you mean. I was expecting to be put off by the fake drums but somehow I feel it works with the slightly more electronic nature of that album. I'm glad it's just a one off though. It's like Andy playing guitar on Down And Out In Paris And London. His guitar playing is nothing to write home about, yet it works within the context of that album. I think those things are part of what makes each Tangent album different from the others.
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    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisK View Post
    I love the Canterbury influences, all of which we have seen in previous Tangent releases, so all in all I am looking forward to this one.
    Totally agree. That aspect of The Tangent's music has always been the biggest draw for me. Here's a little snippet from an interview I did with Andy on that very subject, you may find interesting:

    RS: The jazzy aspect of your music is part of what sets you apart from your contemporaries. Not just your obvious love of the Canterbury sound, but the jazz fusion bands of the 70s, like Return To Forever for example.

    AT: "I think that's true. When progressive rock music gave its last breath at the end of the 1970s, bands like U.K. were really hammering out on the jazz front, and Yes had been a jazz-orientated band. Even when you look at Genesis, stuff like Los Endos was very much into the fusion kind of thing. And I think when prog made its first set of retaliations in the 1980s with the arrival of Marillion, IQ, Pallas... a lot of that had gone. They concentrated very much on that magnificence of progressive rock music, the big scale of it, the big keyboard sounds with the searing guitar over the top of it. And by this point, the jazz that had been latent within progressive rock - it hadn't always stuck out, but it had always been there - had gone. And that was something when we drew up the blueprint for The Tangent right back at the beginning, that was there. I said 'I'd like it to have a kind of jazzy element to it.' And of course, this is why it involves hiring such good, adept musicians. The Tangent has always had to use really great musicians in order to achieve what it wants. And jazz is the underlying cause of that, really. I've always seen it as being a presence - it's there from the first Yes album onwards with songs like I See You. They used to listen to a lot of Ornette Coleman in Yes apparently, that was part of the influence. Jazz, pop music, The Beatles, TV theme tunes, Stravinsky... they were making this remarkable blend of new music. And I think if someone wants to make progressive rock music here in 2017, you don't do it with 60s TV shows and 60s pop music. You can use those things, but a progressive rock band now has to know about what hip-hop is, and how drum 'n bass works, and what trip-hop is and what minimalist techno is. You don't actually have to become a minimalist techno band, but knowing what it is and how it works, bloody hell, that's going to be useful to you when you're trying to make a progressive rock group - just another shade for the pallette."
    Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.

    *** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***

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    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
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    re: jazz in prog

    That's been my bone of contention with Yes the last few decades. They focused solely on the symphonic aspect and ditched any jazz elements, which was very prevalent in the first few albums. Bruford's departure probably had something to do with that.

  9. #9


    I'm very excited indeed for Proxy. Andy is so great at pushing the music forward while incorporating and commenting on Prog's past (I'm thinking of "Codpieces & Capes," for instance).

  10. #10
    I’m really excited about this one as well. I’ve enjoyed all of the Tangent albums to varying degrees over the years, and have even grown to like Andy’s singing!

    Thought that Le Sacre du Travail was possibly his best work, imo at least.

  11. #11
    I've gotten used to Andy singing in the key of Z.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Progatron View Post
    AT: "[…] progressive rock music gave its last breath at the end of the 1970s, bands like U.K. were really hammering out on the jazz front, and Yes had been a jazz-orientated band. Even when you look at Genesis, stuff like Los Endos was very much into the fusion kind of thing. And I think when prog made its first set of retaliations in the 1980s with the arrival of Marillion, IQ, Pallas..."[/i]
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    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    Interesting - the drum sounds on Slow Rust don't bother me in the least (which actually surprised me) and I think the performance (not sure how quantized it may have been?) works well too. In fact, I'd say Slow Rust as a whole may be my favorite thing Andy's done since the first couple albums.
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  14. #14
    Just listening to Slow Rust now. Man, I seriously don't get the whole 'drum attitude' thing. It's all music, I try to think of it as a whole, not separate parts. I think it sounds awesome. btw - IMHO! I know some will disagree.
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    As mentioned earlier, I was pleasantly surprised by the keyboard drumming and electronic drumming on the Slow Rust album. Yet, once your ears can tell the difference between real and fake drums, you just can't help noticing it. Similarly, I can usually tell the difference between real horns or strings and when they are played by a keyboard. I know many aren't bothered by these things but I guess it's mostly those who can't tell the difference. Believe me, there's a reason people keep playing real instruments rather than triggering everything from a keyboard.
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    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    I can often tell the difference, but most of the time it just doesn't bother me. Drums are a bit more noticeable than other instruments sometimes since they are so repetitive and constant. Lots of other instruments are perhaps more in the background or appear more sporadically. There are probably lots of albums out there where most people have no idea that the drums are samples though.
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  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Plasmatopia View Post
    Interesting - the drum sounds on Slow Rust don't bother me in the least (which actually surprised me) and I think the performance (not sure how quantized it may have been?) works well too. In fact, I'd say Slow Rust as a whole may be my favorite thing Andy's done since the first couple albums.
    Ditto. Well, there are a few places where it sticks out and bothers me, but only slightly. And it's not at all the performance, which is great...there's just a different feel when a drummer/percussionist is hitting pieces of wood, metal, plastic, etc. Andy totally could have played the part of drummer again for Proxy, but why would he when Steve Roberts was there?

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    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plasmatopia View Post
    I can often tell the difference, but most of the time it just doesn't bother me. Drums are a bit more noticeable than other instruments sometimes since they are so repetitive and constant. Lots of other instruments are perhaps more in the background or appear more sporadically. There are probably lots of albums out there where most people have no idea that the drums are samples though.
    Two words: Harnakis, and Implosion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by moecurlythanu View Post
    Two words: Harnakis, and Implosion.

    Utterly cringe worthy.
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    I've been listening to this since it came yesterday and I believe it is one of their best.

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    Excellent album. Andy does it again!!!
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    Quote Originally Posted by miamiscot View Post
    Excellent album. Andy does it again!!!
    I knew this was going to be good but WOW. This is what Progressive Rock should look like in 2019. Pushing the boundaries but firmly rooted in the aethstetics of the 70's.

  23. #23
    God this album is so good ,This is basically Tangents answer to The Flower Kings Unfold the future as it jazzy and punchy.!
    Not one bad note ,Proxy form start to finish.

  24. #24
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    Wow, you guys are really getting me excited to hear this. Mine should be arriving any day now. I think Slow Rust is my favorite since the first couple Tangent albums. Sounds like I may have to revise that.
    Last edited by Plasmatopia; 11-20-2018 at 12:01 PM.
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  25. #25
    This one is indeed very good. I think The Adulthood Lie is my favorite so far.

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