Author Archives: Angelo Hulshout

Track of the Day: Peter Matuchniak – Product

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When I see the words ‘a progressive blend of jazz/rock/fusion’ on an album description, that sparks some interest. Jazz I can enjoy occasionally, but I don’t know a lot about it, rock I grew up with and fusion I like quite a lot, especially when music fits the defintion of jazz rock/fusion. Hmmm… that’s where the interest starts, we’re only one slash away from that with Peter Matuchniak‘s album Destiny.

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An album I have had on my list for a few months and that I started listening to only about a week and a half ago. Glad I did, finally, because I like it quite a bit. Enough to honour it with a track-of-the-day today: Product. Not my first pick, I wanted to go for Go Slow (because of Steve Bonino’s bass work), but that one wasn’t available online for streaming. So, Product it is. A varied track, with piano, guitar, multiple vocalists and definitely a jazz/fusion feel to it. Enjoy, as I do.

Track of the Day: Orphaned Land – All Is One

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Orphaned Land is a progressive metal band that has been around for almost 25 years now, founded as Resurrection in 1991. The band hails from Israel and mixes metal riffs with influences from Islamic and Jewish music. The band has always stressed in their lyrics, directly and indirectly that they strive for unity across people, regardless of religion – be it Islamic, Jewish and Christian – a message expressed again in the title of their 2014 album All is One.

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All Is One cover

 

I give you the title track of that one as Track-of-the-day today. Enjoy, it’s an eclectic mix for sure!

Note: This will be the last real ‘track of the day’ – from next week onward, I’ll do two instead of 7 per week, one from a relatively unknown or new band on Monday, and one from my personal favourites or a well known band on Friday.

Track of the Day: Lonely Robot – God vs Man

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At various points in time, John Mitchell (singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer – genius perhaps?) was working with Frost*, Arena and KINO – and now he strikes again with a solo project, Lonely Robot. Strike, double strike – I got the album (entitled Please come Home) in today, and it is amazing. I got a pre-listen of some tracks during an internet radio show some time ago, and pre-ordered on the spot. Actually, I’m happy to have ordered it twice (by accident) so I could give one copy away to someone to learn about what Lonely Robot is.

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I need to listen more to give a full report on the album, but this track – the only one available online at this time – gives a good indication of what to expect. Great instrumentation, rock, symphonic, interesting guest musicians – it’s all there for the taking. So, here’s God vs Man, enjoy it as much as I’ve been doing all afternoon.

Track of the Day: Andy John Bradford’s Oceans 5 – 6000 Friends

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Andy John Bradford is a British folk singer/songwriter, who had been dreaming since childhood of releasing a modern version of the shanty ‘The Mingulay Boatsong‘. When he got in touch with Colin Tench (Corvus Stone, BunChakeze and a million other projects), that dream came to life.

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With Andy on vocals and acoustic guitar, Colin on electric guitar and Stef Flaming (Murky Red) on bass, Marco Chiappini (Minstrel’s Ghost, Gandalf’s Project) on keyboards and Victor Tassone (Unified Past) on drums (and Sonia Mota on art work) a new international project was born – Oceans 5.  Already 15 months ago, the album Return to Mingulay was released, and I still play it at least once a week. It isn’t as rocky as a lot of other things I play, but it works brilliantly.

This track is the best one by far, with the additional help of Andres Guazelli on keyboards and orchestration and Lorelei McBroom on vocals – 6000 Friends, the story of many a modern (social) life. Enjoy – like I do weekly, or even more frequently…

Track of the Day: Unto Us – These Four Walls

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Audio hosted with permission of Unto Us (and provided by them as well - thank you!)

The British ensemble Unto Us describe their music as ‘original, prog-tinged’ rock, and rightfully claim jazz, metal, folk and classical influences. This track of the day These Four Walls is one that shows the immense variation such influences can bring into a single composition. Strings, piano, piercing keyboards and the voice of former Also Eden singer Huw Lloyd-Jones makes it a real treat.

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A review of the album will appear here and on Background Magazine in a couple of weeks! Enjoy – and be surprised!

Track of the Day: David Bowie – Five Years

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=louXPUW7tHU

Another one of my personal favourites, but only since a few months is this track by David Bowie. When I grew up I only learned about his ’80s work, which is not exactly to my liking, so I never bothered with checking out his earlier works – even though I heard rumours about Ziggy Stardust every once in a while.

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Then someone introduced me to those earlier works (more on that in a later post, some time), and this was one of the first tracks she came up with: Five Years. The opening track of Ziggy Stardust as well, no surprise there….

The story behind it, and the story told in the lyrics are special, and gloomy or even scary depending on how you look at them – and perfectly matched by the music and vocals. This… is music.

Enjoy – and remember the past!

Track of the Day: Rush – The Spirit of Radio

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Yes, Angelo’s Rock Orphanage is about shining a light on the little ones, but like most of us, I also love my share of the ‘big ones’. To spread the load a bit, I’ve decided to use the Track-of-the-Day in the weekends to show a little bit of my personal favourites. No use promoting little ones then, as everyone will be in the pub anyway.

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First one is a love-it-or-hate-it track amongst Rush fans, Spirit of Radio. For some it is to radio oriented and commercial, for others, like me, it’s just another brilliantly executed Rush-composition. In this case, one that fits very nicely with shining a light on the little ones: all these unknown, hard working rock bands deserve more air time and internet time!!!!

Enjoy, in the spirit of radio!

Track of the Day: Pocket Size Sthlm – Halo (Portait of the Artist as a Composer)

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One of the albums in my stack of pending reviews is Exposed Undercurrents by Swedish project Pocket Size Sthlm, a project consisting mainly of  composer and guitarist Peter Pedersen. He compares his way of working to that of Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett, i.e. composing his own music and relying on cooperation with other musicians to get it recorded.

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At first listen, I was surprised to find ’70s rooted psychedelic prog, with hints of old Pink Floyd, but also a bit of Canterbury here and there. This one needs more listens before I can review it, but the opening track Halo (Portrait of the Artist as a Composer) makes a great track of the day. Enjoy – and maybe relive the 70s for a moment.

Track of the day – and review: Andres Guazzelli (ft. Corvus Stone) – Wish You Could Hear

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Argentinian composer, engineer and singer Andres Guazzelli is working on an album (a rock opera with the working title Wötan: The untold story), of which at least a number of singles will be released in 2015. In 2013, this piece Wish You Could Hear was released already, as a prequel to this album – while Andres contributed to an Oceans5 and Corvus Stone album at the same time.

With it’s almost classical arrangement, filled in by rock instruments (Colin Tench, omnipresent in indie prog land, on guitar, Petri Lindström on bass, Robert Wolff on drums and Andres himself on everything that has black and white keys), this track certainly is a promise of what is to be expected of Wötan and it’s composer. The track bounced back and forth between classical music, full blown rock with a driving bass and melodic prog rock with massive keyboards and crazy guitars. The title reflects the sigh of any review of this track, trying to put this track into words: I wish you could hear. Luckily, being on the internet, I am not bound by the limitations of the written press, so today, you can hear the first track-of-the-day that comes with a full written review. Enjoy, and keep enjoying! Greetings, from the Rock Orphanage!