Jeff Wayne’s “The War Of The Worlds” Packs Secrets Into Box Set

April 1, 2025

Never really touted as a rock opera, Jeff Wayne’s “The War Of The Worlds” was written as exactly that, with prog fans latching onto its sci-fi foundation and wider audiences happy to hear quite a few of their heroes – including Phil Lynott, Chris Spedding, Justin Hayward and Chris Thompson. There have been a few versions of the musical since the original double album saw the light of day in 1978, both studio and stage ones, so fans didn’t get stuck with the classic which, nevertheless, couldn’t be bettered, but now there’s a chance to dig deep into it, as August 8th is when a massive box set, typical for the Madfish label, hits the shelves to tell the story in full, on no less than sixteen CDs and two Blu-ray discs.

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ENGLAND’s Robert Webb Helps NEW GROVE PROJECT Reimagine Their Past

March 31, 2025

There’s not a lot more adventurously unpredictable artists than Robert Webb. Mostly known as a founding member of art-rock also-rans ENGLAND, whose recently released "The Concerts In Japan" carries on the ensemble’s legend, and logical contributor to such prominent collectives as SAMURAI OF PROG and a href=”https://dmme.net/tag/band-of-rain/”>BAND OF RAIN, the keyboard player has also been a songwriter of note, quite remarkably penning tunes for blues diva Jenny Darren, yet the veteran’s latest endeavor seems least expected of all. In a deliciously quirk turn of events, Webb went for reimagining an album titled “Epiqurium” originally recorded about four decades ago by another ivories master, Per Sundbom, and his Swedish group THE NEW GROVE PROJECT – playing everything from scratch, in the company of Scandinavian musicians, molding new arrangements and adding fresh melodic components.

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Steve Hillage’s SYSTEM 7 Transmit Recent Concert Outing

March 30, 2025

Given their constant touring, it’s quite surprising that Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy’s SYSTEM 7 project released only one concert albums in the three and a half decades of the ensemble’s existence. Well, actually there was another one, as “Live @ Shinjuku Face” followed 2003’s “Live Transmissions” in 2009, but it was issued only in Japan. So the imminent appearance of “Live Transmissions 02” on April 11th – a set recorded at Tokyo’s “Duo Music Exchange in 2024, 30 years after the collective’s inaugural visit to Nippon – is more than welcome.

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Terry Manning: The Last Interview

March 29, 2025

It seemed impossible to discuss Terry Manning’s immense body of work, without assessing his credits as engineer and producer – because his resumé includes records by such different artists as Otis Redding, LED ZEPPELIN, Mariah Carey, ZZ TOP, Björk and Lenny Kravitz, to name just a few names from the creative masses whom the American veteran helped – yet that would mean shifting the focus to those famous performers, while the primary goal of our conversation was to celebrate Manning as a musician and songwriter and just touch on his studio experiences. Which we did.

Six days after our second round of this interview’s sessions, in the wee small hours of on March 25th, 2025, Terry greenlighted it – and few hours later he passed away.

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John Foxx Excels In Emotional Display On Piano Album

March 28, 2025

Not exactly know for acoustic sounds, John Foxx has never let anyone define him as a strictly synth-pop or new wave artist, and still see the veteran release a pure piano platter – well, almost pure, because there’s an electronic background on most of the eleven tracks – is rather surprising. Titled “Wherever You Are” and issued on March 28th, it’s a record of a domestic provenance, laid down after the Englishman’s rare concert appearance in October 2023 and exposing him in a reflective, soul-searching mode.

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