Parade - The Fabric

When Chris Johnson left Mostly Autumn at the beginning of 2008 he stated that he was to work on a solo album. In the coming months touring as Fish's second guitarist took up a lot of his time, but when I asked him about his solo project when I met him in York at the end of the year he told me it was still on track, and had some interesting collaborators.

The Fabric is that album. The collaborators turned out to be Panic Room and Mostly Autumn vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anne-Marie Helder, Mostly Autumn, Panic Room and Fish's drummer Gavin Griffiths, and two of Chris' long-term associates, bassist Patrick Berry and guitarist Simon Snaize, The album also features guest appearances on a few tracks from Heather Findlay, Olivia Sparnenn and Bryan Josh.

This is certainly an album that took me a few listens for this one to click; on the surface it’s an indie-sounding album with it’s sparse chiming guitars and clattering drums; but listen more closely and there’s some real musical depth there. Chris Johnson sings the majority of the lead vocals with Anne-Marie taking a largely supporting role singing harmonies and middle eights, which may disappoint some fans of Anne-Marie's vocals, but this is basically Chris' album.

High spots are many, the menacing-sounding "The Dogs" ending with a lacerating solo from Simon Snaize, "The Diamond" where Anne-Marie makes my heart melt with the line "For a while.. you were mine", and the wonderfully atmospheric "High Life" again featuring some tremendous wordless vocals from Anne-Marie at the end. The album closes with the epic harmony-filled "Ending" perhaps the closest in sound to Chris' work with Mostly Autumn, a connection made stronger with a great solo from Bryan Josh.

Like many self-released prog albums, this was released as a pre-order some time ago, but has a full retail release on Monday 25th January. You can stream some of the music from the band's website, www.paradeband.com.

Congratulations to an RR contributor!

Another prog band have had to replace their singer in the new year, Also Eden. Their new singer is none other than Rich Harding, sometime contributor to Readers Recommend under pseudonym of AfraidOfSunlight, the other person apart from me who continually nominated Marillion songs only to find Dorian never A-listed them:

Rich Harding has been singing live since 1985, fronting bands as diverse as The Allnight Chemists (space rock), Sane (prog) and Twisted (heavy metal). For the last few years he has also been performing with a number of successful Marillion "tribute" bands, in the UK and on the continent (Misplaced Neighbourhood, Lords of the Backstage and Skyline Drifters). His voice is very different to Huw’s - but he has power, energy and enthusiasm and we know he’s going to make a huge impact on the band’s sound this year.

I'm sure everyone on The 'Spill will offer their congratulations!

Heather Leaves Mostly Autumn

Sometimes a bombshell comes completely out of the blue.

As everyone on The Spill knows, I'm a huge fan of York progressive rock band Mostly Autumn. I've even managed to persuade CaroleBristol to see them on their last tour.

Late on Thursday night came the news that Heather Findlay is leaving the band to concentrate of a solo career. I'm still trying to come to terms with it. I'm completely devastated in a way people for whom music is background wallpaper or a once-a-year trip to an enormodome will never be able to understand, but I'm sure plenty of 'Spill regulars who have been hardcore fans of any band will have been there.

I first saw Mostly Autumn live at Jillys in Manchester back in 2004, and have seem them 40-odd times since, 30 of those in the past three years. Their music has changed my life over the past few years in ways I could never have anticipated, and helped me through some difficult times in my life.

There's just something uniquely magical about Mostly Autumn's live shows; no other band is quite like it for me. Seeing another great band live is like visiting an exotic location on holiday, seeing Mostly Autumn feels like coming home. I've made so many great friends through Mostly Autumn fandom it feels like an extended family.

Although I've only met Heather a handful of times, she has always treated me like a personal friend.

Mostly Autumn are to continue, with their backing vocalist Olivia Sparnenn taking over on lead vocals. The knock on effect of that is that Olivia will be leaving her own band, Breathing Space, another great band I've seen almost as many times as Mostly Autumn, and who now face an uncertain future.

The absolutely electrifying live shows in 2009 meant Heather's time with Mostly Autumn ended on a high. She will be playing one last farewell show with the band, at The Assembly in Leamington Spa on Good Friday, April 2nd. I've already got my ticket.

Carole's AOTW

The album is Can's 1971 meisterwerk Tago Mago.

It is really one of the oddest records I own. I think it is a work of genius, albeit one that probably would struggle to get released today. It was originally a double album on vinyl, but is a single CD.

The track listing tells us;

1. Paperhouse (7:28)
2. Mushroom (4:03)
3. Oh Yeah (7:23)
4. Halleluwah (18:32)
5. Aumgn (17.37)
6. Peking O (11.37)
7. Bring Me Coffee Or Tea (6.47)

This means not much, except that tracks 1-3 were side 1, tracks 4 and 5 were a side apiece and side 4 was the last two tracks.

The music is really like nothing else at all. It has repetitive drumming, scratchy, spiky guitars, weird sounds, screaming and moaning and various bits of piano and other keyboards.

I first knew it from a pub, of all places. When I was about 16 we used to go to a pub in Hackney called The Britannia, that is no longer there. We used to go there on Friday evenings and it was known as the local hippy and druggy pub. The DJ was a guy called Pete and he had an amazingly wide collection. He'd play everything from chart hits to hard rock, psychedelia, prog and folk.

After a while, the landlord asked him to make the music a bit more mainstream but gave him a Tuesday night spot for the weird stuff. It was a Tuesday when I first heard Can. He played Mushroom, probably the most accessible track on the album.

I never owned the album (I had a copy on a cassette for years) until I bought the CD a couple of years ago, but my friend Diane's older brother had it and he played it all the time. It was one of those "love it or hate it" albums and I used to hate the long weird tracks at first. It took a long time for me to like it, but eventually I did.

Apparently, John Lydon was (is?) a huge fan, you can see that if you listen to some of PiL's stuff.

It is in Dropbox

https://www.getdropbox.com/home#/Tago%20Mago%20%287%20tracks%29/