A recipe for commercial disaster: take a French multi-instrumentalist. Move him, with all his instruments, to Amsterdam, let him play with Steve Hackett (who encourages him to release an album), then send him back to France temporarily to record a second album. None of the material on that album will ever reach the radio charts, and that’s an indication that it will be played and remembered longer than most tracks that do.

This multi-instrumentalist is Franck Carducci, who sings, plays bass, organ, keyboard, mellotron and guitar – and composes his own music. The album is Torn Apart, a 65 minute journey through the world inside Carducci’s head – and as on most journey through unknown territory, there is room for joy, surprise and in some places also disappointment – but in the end the feeling of having arrived.

The journey starts at full energy with a keyboard and guitar driven opening for the title track Torn Apart. After the drums and the organ comes in, the 70s, slightly high pitched rock voice of Carducci starts telling us about a character getting stuck in life, and apparently losing his or her lover at some point. The song is short, lyrics wise, but since this opener is 10 minutes long, there’s enough room for an instrumental part that first covers every instrument and chord that Uriah Heep and Deep Purple have ever used, until everything quiets down and a whistle like sound (is this your mellotron, Franck?) sets in a tune that resembles You Can’t Always Get What You Want. This lasts for a bit (a bit too long for me actually), before leading back to an almost Rush-like instrumental part until the vocals come back in to continue the story, in a more dramatic tone this time. After the final verse, guitar and organ take turns playing good old classic rock solos to build a nice climax to the track.

The follow up track Closer to Irreversible starts a lot quieter, as a rock ballad, but soon the bass, organ and mellotron make it into something far from standard. After the first vocal part, Steve Hackett gets to show what he does with a guitar nowadays. The result is a solo that starts relatively melodic, but builds up into something fuller and faster, with additional effects near the end. After that, the track goes back to the ballad mood from te beginning, but with more room for guitar and organ. A track that has bits of 70s rock in it, but also modern guitar work and some Pendragon and IQ resemblances.

Journey Through the Mind then starts with a rocky, keyboard heavy intro, that immediately brings to mind a Styx song – and I’ll leave it up to the listener to find out which one (I know, but I like to give you all a bit of brain exercise as well). After the intro, a flute takes over, and then acoustic guitar and flute accompany the first verses. Vocals here are slightly less raw than on Torn Apart. Later on the organ wailing under the vocals reminds me of Bootcut, a side project of Beardfish keyboard player Rikard Sjöblom. Near the end we hear the Styx riff from the intro again, but the surprise of this track is the real ending – a full minute piece of tabla (a hindu drum) and sitar, which somehow fits but has nothing to do with the rest of the song.

The short piece (2 minutes) Articial Love, is full of Yes and Genesis influences, but with a modern touch. Funny bit is the guitar that at a certain point seems to sound like a violin, if ever so briefly.

After this, a longer part of the journey takes us through the 12 minute epic A Brief Tale of Time. The four pieces that form this composition are easily distinguishable. The first one, The Quest, is a dramatic piece, with high pitched vocals singing about a character on a journey toward its impossible, secrete love. The organ makes it grow fuller near the end, to introduce the second part Higher and Higher. Here, the organ disappears in favour of bass and acoustic guitar, while Yes like goals sing about the same character getting energy from its (answered?) love. However, suddenly the mood becomes darker and keyboards come in – giving a gloomy feeling, which is confirmed by the closing verse, which explains that the flight of love has taken a dangerous turn, tearing the lovers apart. This accompanied by a ‘square’ hard rock keyboard and guitar piece. A Genesis like guitar fades slowing into part three, 2078: Möbius Trip, which seems to be a time loop. This part consists mainly of electronic sounds and noises, possibly mimicking a time machine. A computer voice tells the character to go away and meet its destiny. When the noises stop, we are in part 4, Back to Reality, in which the character accompanied by the piano and Hacket like guitar tells us that ‘nothing lasts forever but impossible love’.

If that is so, a Girlfriend for a Day may be a better idea. A rock ballad with piano and moog explains that. However, it’s a short one, and when you feel the drums are taking you into the song – that is actually the end of it. Surprise!

Instead, Mr. Hyde & Dr. Jekyll take us into a real classic rock piece, with lovely guitar and bass work. The Jekyll-Hyde theme is reflected in the song, which consists of two rocking parts interleaved by two more laid back parts before the full blown hard rocking outro (note the organ and the bass doing their job more than brilliantly!!)

After that, the actual (but not real) closing track Artifical Paradise keeps us busy for another 14 minutes. Lyrics wise, it could have fit 3-4 minutes or less, so we’re actually treated to a lot of instrumental work. There is a Genesis like piece with a melodic guitar (which for a second I though played the Phantom of the Opera tune) after the first verses, which then grows into a more full blown symphonic part. Then a short break with children’s voices takes us to a Spirit of Radio like part, which then drops into a part where the guitar thinks about ‘going Firth of Fifth‘. The organ pushes it away however to make room for a ballad like part with piano and acoustic guitar that develops into the final verse.  A 2 minute single note on the mellotron ends the track…

The only real disappointment on the album is the bonus track School, which is a lot like the original, but lacks it’s power and energy. The reason is probably the fact that it’s a bit slower than the original, and the vocals are a bit lower (and less piercing) than on the original Supertramp track. Maybe I like the original too much, but I wouldn’t have regretted it if this track was not on the album.

Overall, also after listening to his debut Oddity, Franck Carducci has delivered a fine album. I hear a lot of influences from the past that may make it a bit old fashioned for some, but the great musical skills of Carducci and his many guest musicians make up for that and sound and production wise it is a fine, modern album. Give it a try, and if you like, tell others to do the same!

(Also published on ProgArchives.com)

Belgium is just across the border from where I live. Belgium is also the country where Pink Floyd, Gary Moore, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Doors and Lynyrd Skynyrd live. They all live in the house of Stef and Yolanda Flaming, and the houses of their band members in Murky Red. Actually, in the dark 1960’s and 1970’s I suspect various members of aforementioned bands got together in some weird orgy that led to the procreation of Stef, Yolanda and their fellow band members Patrick Dujardin, Luk Lantin, Rene Marteaux and Marie Vancamp. There is no other way to explain the influences of all these bands in the music of Murky Red.

The starts immediately in the first track, I Came A Long Way, which starts as a rock song, but quickly goes into a slightly psychedelic mood, topped by a Pink Floyd like instrumental section, with a guitar solo in the same vein.

In the follow up On New Year’s Day, Stef sings about what we all want – peace on earth and fireworks to celebrate on New Year’s day. This is accompanied by another mellow, slightly psychedelic acoustic guitar initially, but a wall of guitars is quickly build up to make this into a very solid, dark rock song.

The slow dark guitar track Galadriel is something completely different. There is a guitar riff in the opening that reminds faintly of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, and the feeling of the song is as dark as that one, until suddenly not Iron Man but Iron Maiden takes over, with a Wasted Years like guitar supported by a growling bass. That builds into an almost symphonic piece, with keyboards, bass and a choir like backing vocal support a melodic guitar solo and the voices of Stef and Yolanda repeating the list line of the song.

Then the scene changes and we find ourselves in the land of the blues, with Cold Outside. This song starts as a slow blues, where the guitar seems to be based on a marriage between Gary Moore and David Gilmour. How much mo(o/u)re can you put in single song? The deep, and slightly raw voice of Stef tells a real blue story, making this a great blues rock track.

I give my soul puts another set of options in the mix. This is a 70’s rock track, which reminds me of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, but with Yolanda on vocals it also brings to mind Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie. And again… a Gilmouresque guitar solo.

Then it’s time to leave the planet, on a spacy trip to Saturn. This is a somewhat heavy psychedelic rock track, with lyrics that seem like a prayer to the planet with the rings. No Moore or Gilmour here, but loud, dirty guitars near the end, and a surprising little piece of horror movie piano after everything else falls silent at the end.

Back on earth, we jump in Stef’s car and drive off to Last Chance Hotel, which is best described as a ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd meets The Stooges and The Doors on their craziest tracks’. Up tempo, with a fun guitar riff, this track is all over the place. We can only thank Yolanda for taking us to a more quite place on the next track Willow Tree, so that we can dry up from that sweaty road trip. A beautiful, relaxed track that makes you think ‘who was Sally Oldfield’? The backing vocals by Stef are so subtle, certainly for such a big man, that they almost go unnoticed, but have to be there at the same time to make the song complete.

The last three tracks are the best part for me, starting with the dark, sturdy and slightly heavy Boots for Hire, yet partly inspired by (really, Stef said so!) Father Abraham’s Smurph Song. Listen carefully, and see if you notice… This track starts as slow psychedelic rock, but develops into a heavy blues rock, with great driving bass play, while Stef utters the weirdest lyrics on this album. What do you mean, ‘plastic bitches in repair’??

Heal My Bleeding Heart starts a 6/8 blues rock track, with vocals that initially remind me of Ozzy Osbourne, but it quickly develops into something that is more in the vein of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Maybe this is where the band decided to describe their music as ‘Pink Floyd meets the blues’. Yet again, a song featured by a very slick guitar solo. This track features Colin Tench on guitars – who also is responsible for the superb mixing and mastering of this album.

Closing track Black Beast Rising once again confirms the link to psychedelic space rock. It’s slow, dark, yet melodic in a way and builds up what some would call a sound scape underneath Stef’s vocals.

Murky Red have their own sound, which is a mix of all of the above, in different combinations. Still, everything seems to fit together, resulting in an album that contains varied sounds, but always recognisable as Murky Red. We had a discussion on coherence on albums on ProgArchives.com recently – I think this album would’ve been a good show case here.

Tracks that impressed me most are, as said, the last three and Cold Outside. I’m curious to the next album, which is due later this year if all goes as planned. Recommended for anyone who likes to try something new, but also likes the old.

What happens if you take the best things of almost 50 years of psychedelic music and space rock, a bit of jazz rock and add a bit of 21st century technology and composition techniques? Depending on who you are, it could go two ways: either it becomes a mess or you end up with something bordering brilliance. If you are Marco Ragni, you end up with an album called Mother from the Sun, that easily fits the second way.

When Nick Katona of Melodic Revolution Records asked me if I wanted to review the album, I had never heard of Marco Ragni. That’s a risk of course – reviewing something you don’t like is not a fun thing to do, and in cases like this, it likely doesn’t help the person asking for the review. After listening to a single demo track (Into the Wheel of Time) I agreed to review, because I was surprised by what I heard.  First of all because I really liked the music, but also because this happened around the time Pink Floyd‘s The Endless River was released. I was having discussions on what that band could have delivered if they had composed new material in 2014 instead of releasing recordings made 20 years ago. What I heard in that first track of Marco Ragni’s album seemed to be one of the possible answers to that question. It was, and it wasn’t, because of course Pink Floyd is Pink Floyd, and Marco Ragni is Marco Ragni. Reality is that Ragni does put down a fine piece of psychedelic progressive rock with this album, that addresses the struggle Man’s dealings with Mother Earth. It is a double CD, of which disc one addresses the gradual destruction of our planet by human behaviour, and the rising consciousness of this fact, and disc two goes on about what happens once Man re-establishes the balance between his behaviour and the rest of nature, after going through a process of inner growth. All of this is laid down musically in a style that is related to, but different from that of bands like Pink Floyd and Eloy, that also shows some jazz rock influences , but is at times also a bit heavier than aforementioned bands – in a way that resembles Porcupine Tree at the time of The Sky Moves Sideways.

It is worth noting, before looking at the tracks, that Marco Ragni is a multi-instrumentalist, and takes care of all lead vocals, bass guitar, keyboards, mellotron and drum’s programming (no real drummer on this album, unfortunately), and a large part of the electric and acoustic guitar playing. On acoustic guitar, Giovanni Menarello and Davide Gazzi play along on some tracks, while Enrico Cipollini plays electric guitar on two tracks. Enrico di Stefano plays saxophone on four tracks and Luigi Iacbone adds a flute on three others. Backing vocals, where applicable are taken care of by Marco’s girlfriend Allesandra Pirani (who also wrote a large part of the lyrics), Pamela Anna Polland, Silvia Mazzetto and The Bizarre Talisman Choir.

The opening track of Disc One (The Rise and Fall of Human Heart) is the same one I heard as a sample of this album Into the Wheel of Time. It immediately feels like a modern era Pink Floyd, with the keyboard opening that develops into a solid guitar solo. The vocals are slightly high pitched, and maybe on the edge of Marco’s range, but not unpleasant to listen to. At the end of the track, we are treated to very nice saxophone solo, with a slight jazz rock touch to it, accompanied by guitar and bass.

This is followed by Sea of Vibes, the first of three very long tracks (15+ minutes) on this album. This one does honour its title, it literally is a sea of vibes. The acoustic guitar intro and the first two verses reflect happiness and bliss, followed later by fear and a form of despair. All of this is reflected in the music – the acoustic guitar part is followed by a guitar solo, and a sort Porcupine Tree like soundscape in which guitar and keyboards guide us through the different vibes. The anger of the guitar at the end matches the despair of the last verse ‘I haven’t strength to face you, I haven’t planned to change this flow’…

The acoustic one minute interlude Panting again brings to mind Pigs on the Wing, in terms of sound, but only slightly. It leaves Man catching his breath after a first realisation that something is going wrong.

I called Painting an interlude, because it separates Sea of Vibes from the second long track on the album, Haven of Marble. This one is about the damage Man does to our planet, and reflects some of the discussions between those involved and those opposing it. It starts on in a melodic, mellow way, but develops into another soundscape that ends with an angry guitar solo. The final verse, accompanied by acoustic guitar seems to bring hope, while the sound of a clock suggests time is ticking away. The ending is instrumental, with another saxophone solo accompanied by keyboards, leaving us in a slightly minor mood.

Faint Memory then is another short piece, with acoustic guitar as the main instrument, accompanied by background sound effects. Man starts to regain his feelings for Mother Earth.

The Light is Burning is the second short piece, which tells how Man realises his mistakes, accompanied by a late ’60s guitar sound, and a matching psychedelic guitar solo. It is followed by Turning back the Clock, which features multiple voices (all Marco’s) in the lyrics, accompanied by acoustic guitar. Man finds out what really matters: “Only now I realise, I’ve been wrong the whole time”

That is the bridge to Disc Two, entitled The Awakening of Conciousness. This disc opens with the 22 minute long track, Far Beyond the Line. Spacey keyboards and guitars accompany the vocals that descibe Man’s ‘awakening of conciousness’. Once the vocals stop, the acoustic guitar and flute (or is it a synth on this track?) allow the listener to visualise for himself what man has done and has to do next. Then, a sudden electric guitar seems to reflect Man pulling out his own hair in despair while finding out how to continue. This leads to a 1980s Gilmouresque guitar piece accompanied by church choir like chants, which is then followed by Man’s desperate confession of past mistakes, accompanied by acoustic guitar again. After the confession, a long instrumental part starts, with a slick guitar solo, and saxophone and keyboards building another psychedelic soundscape. The vocals and electric guitar return for a final verse, about Man returning to active duty as maintainer of our planet, and a somewhat trippy instrumental part. The multi-vocal chanting and screaming at the end is a surprising part, that does not and at the same time does fit the track.

After this challenging piece, a short instrumental The First Time I Saw the Sun with piano and electric guitar leading, brings us back to quieter atmospheres, paving the way for Skies Painted by the Wind. As the vocals tell how Man sees that his efforts to re-establish balance with nature are working, the flute underneath an acoustic guitar mimics the wind that paints the sunny sky.

The positive mood now continues into In the Air. The acoustic guitar is replaced by a picked electric one, but the flute remains, as Man walks through the fields and talks with the earth, the wind, the sun and the rest of nature. Marco Ragni’s bio mentions his interest in the Californian hippie culture of the 1960s – this song would have fit in that time and place perfectly.

The walk through the fields ends with Man breathing and enjoying the air, in the short acoustic and electric guitar piece Breathing that again features some very nice saxophone work. With filled lungs, Marco continuous singing in a lower register (closer to his natural voice, from the sound of it) on Northern Light. The way this is sung, combined with the fuzzy guitar sound somehow bring the feeling of balance, man becoming one with nature again: “Feel me, I’m a part of you”. This carries on into the short outro Mother from the Sun, in which programmed strings and a simple guitar accompany the closing lyrics.

The final word of the lyrics is “Begin“, and that is what I did after the record ended – begin again, for another listen. Partly to make sure that I heard correctly what I heard, partly to find out if there was more to be heard. This album is so long, and so much is going on that it is easy to miss things, but also to discover new things on every listen. In a way, this is one of the nicest albums I’ve heard in the past 10 years, and it will get a lot more playing time for sure. Highly recommended for fans of Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, psychedelic rock in general, or Marco Ragni himself.