It’s been less than a fortnight that THE FUSION SYNDICATE‘s second album hit the shelves, a good decade after its predecessor, but November 3rd should see the issue of the third offering by this loose conglomerate of stellar musicians. Titled “Beautiful Horizon” and again produced by Fernando Perdomo, the fresh record is actually another part of “Speedway On Saturn’s Rings” as what was originally prepared for a single platter has been split in two for better consumption.
From psychedelia to hard rock: that’s the path which not only SPINAL TAP took but also STATUS QUO, whose groove for the first two decades of the band’s existence was driven by John Coghlan. One of the frantic four, the drummer may have left the group in 1982 after leaving his mark on their greatest hits, but Spud – this is his nickname – continued to play, mingling with the likes of Phil Lynott and presently working on a new album. Unsurprisingly, the veteran has quite a few yarns to spin – and does so in a recently published book.
Over the years, Vince Clarke has worked in various ensemble configurations – a quartet when with DEPECHE MODE and WEST INDIA COMPANY, a duo when with YAZOO and ERASURE, to name but a couple – yet what the electropop maven has never done was to try and realize a solo album. Still, what else could he do once the pandemic made studio and concert work impossible if not to work on fresh sounds that the veteran created on Eurorack: a modular synthesizer looking like a small Moog and endowed with seemingly limited sonic possibilities which Clarke set off to explore and, unexpectedly, solidify it all into a record titled “Songs Of Silence” and set for release on November 17th.
There are more than a few popular actors who dabble in music, usually as singers who don’t take this aspect of their career seriously and who are surely not serious as instrumentalists – with the exclusion of Johnny Depp refusing to understand he can’t really play and taking himself too seriously. Keanu Reaves is different: playing bass with DOGSTAR – a band he cofounded back in 1991 and saw break up in 2002 after only a two solid albums. But, having returned to the scene in 2022 and to the stage in May 2023, the trio prepared a fresh record for release.
It wasn’t really David Cross‘ choice to eternally dwell in the world of KING CRIMSON, yet aficionados seemed to have cornered him into this habitat. No wonder, then, that the title of the violinist’s forthcoming album has been derived from a song by the band he was once a proud member of, and that there are fresh versions of two pieces the veteran played on five decades ago.
