It’s a clear sign of insecurity – or of a desperate attempt to secure wider market – that latest John Lodge records have “THE MOODY BLUES'” incorporated into his logo, but his music doesn’t require such blatant bolstering. And when the veteran needed support for his forthcoming EP, John turned to friends from the band most closely associated with his logo’s designer – his colleagues on “The Royal Affair Tour”: YES. Not the entire band, though.
As far as first albums go, NEKTAR‘s 1971 “Journey To The Centre Of The Eye” was exemplary in terms of ambition of a yet-unknown ensemble, but then, being a British band who were working in Germany takes some guts anyway. And there’s a lot of guts in the record that runs as a single, 13-part piece, originally broken in two parts by the turn of a vinyl platter and showing immense depth in the music’s many layers, the layers presently making it almost imperative to remix the album and go for a deluxe treatment of familiar material.
“The halls of faded figures”: this is the first line of the first song on the “Mark V” album by EMPIRE IN RUINS, a new project by Japan-based multi-instrumentalist Mark Murdock who once upon a time was a drummer in Peter Banks’ EMPIRE – and that’s the late guitarist he’s singing about here, on a record dedicated to his former employer. That original ensemble’s run of records is known now as ""Mark I, II & III" with "The Mars Tapes" forming the fourth volume; hence, number V in the title of Murdock’s new offering.
Nowadays, when supergroups are a dime a dozen, which results in homogenic sound of most of those, it’s immensely gratifying to see some veteran musicians join forces first on-stage and only then thinking about studio perspectives. This is exactly the case with 3BELOW: a quartet formed by former KING CRIMSON guitarist Trey Gunn and Mexican poet, and also bassist, Alonso Arreola, with Jaco Pastorius associate, bassist Michael Manring, and oudist Emmanuel Pina. The project started more than a decade ago, during Arreola and Gunn’s trip to West Africa with baritone ukuleles in their hands, and makes a recording history with the release of the “Live In Mérida” on November 8th.
How to oversaturate the market and still give fans a fresh product? By offering them an inessential addition to a discography. More than inessential, in fact, an artificial one, At least, that’s what THIN LIZZY chose to do, following their recent "1976" with an EP featuring unplugged variants of pieces from last year’s "Vagabonds Of The Western World" box set. Actually, what will be issued on CD and vinyl on January 25th, 2025 simply expands the digital-only release from April 2024, yet that’s not the case.
