Still doing the catch up thing, the doting of the iced teas and crossing of the eyes, the clearing the decks and shall we knock it on the head now? The whole damn thing I mean, the whole thankless task. Talking to bands is like clapping with one hand, but then there is so much good music waiting to be discovered down in the undergrowth, an almost impossible amount or truly exciting new music. More catching up then, more better late than never for what any of it is worth. What’s words worth? Albums, more albums, more crossing the teacakes, eating yet more apples, cleaning house before the year finally does properly end and the mountain of music being released early next year can be taken on, and yes there is a mountain of it building up already.

Read on, the year still hasn’t ended, not made the list quite yet, started on it, we need to cover these four rather important albums before the list is drawn up, four almost vital albums before we finish with the year, four properly progressive cool as flip prog rock albums, still the last musical taboo, better late than never and here we go, yang, dang, sweet…

Actionfredag – Lys fremtid i m​ø​rke (áMARXE) – Actionfredag released their second rather fine album back in November, Lys fremtid i mørke has been played rather a lot on the Other Rock Show already (Resonance 104.4fm here in London, Sunday nights 9pm, brought to you by Organ), the Rock Show pilot has finally loosened her grip on the information so it can be covered over here as well as played over there. The band from Norway’s label people talk of a “life-affirming prog salute inspired by British brick buildings, Sundborn paintings, and vintage Norwegian children’s TV. Coinciding with the rerouting of Oslo’s buses” and tell us the album brings ten fresh tracks, still defiantly in the major key, maintaining their Swedophile and Canterbury-esque sound, while taking a nostalgic step closer to the band’s childhood stomping grounds in East Oslo” – That major key is important, the whole thing is an uplifting positively charged delight, clearly a crafted labour of love.

If there is such a thing as a Canterbury sound and indeed a revival of said sound then this is surely a top top top example of that thing seeming lost back there with the best days of Caravan, Hatfield and The North and the others. Lys fremtid i mørke is a complex, clever yet breezy and refreshing delight, a properly made cup of tea, none of your teabag in the cup nonsense, proper china teapot respectful left to stand before pouring. Lys fremtid i mørke is soothing, it reaches all the right places but don’t run away with the idea that any of this is easy, this is seriously complex properly progressive prog rock of the highest order. Lys fremtid i mørke is wonderful, it glides, it touches on almost being dreamy now and again, it does get jazzy, never twee though, and yes, I must confess I do find most of those Canterbury bands a little too twee, a little too nice and polite, and well, as nice and polite as Actionfredag are, and as obviously Canterbury flavoured as they are, this album is a play-on-repeat uplifting zesty delight.

The details in the music are a treat, the direction of flow, the attention to detail, the careful placing of every note, the gentle restrain that means that when the bite does come it is just right – and Actionfredag do bite, they can rock when they need to, they just understand that they don’t always have to and that there is real power to be found in restraint as well as in optimistic uplifting light in these times of darkness.

I’d say those buildings they talk of are English rather than British, I’d say this is one of more delightful albums of a very good musical year, I’d say this is one of the very best prog releases of 2024, I’d say you don’t need a review, you just a signpost to point you towards it, you just need to hit play…  (sw)

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Volapük – Where Is Tamashii? (Cuneiform Records) – Formed in Southern France in 1993, Volapük were initially a trio of drums (Guigou Chenevier), bass clarinet (Michel Mandel), and cello (Guillaume Saurel). The members used their instruments in expanded roles, creating unusual tonal colours; their music blended ensemble play, jazz, and chamber music with a solid rock underpinning. In 1999, they welcomed fourth member, violinist Takumi Fukushima.”

“In my opinion, Where is Tamashii? is the best realized album that Volapük ever recorded and released during the 12 or 13 years of our existence. Unfortunately, for non-musical reasons, this album was not really well distributed when it was first released in 2003 and was not able to find the audience it should have. This digital release that Cuneiform offers us today is a real chance for this album to finally exist again, and for more people to discover the very nice music it contains amongst its eleven pieces.  Listening back to this album today, something I had not done for many years, I am suddenly struck by the fact it constitutes a perfect bridge or link between the earlier period of the group and later projects which have ermerged from the Volapük nebula of musicians. The song, Where is Tamashii? (I really LOVE Takumi’s singing on this song!), sounds quite like some pieces by Rêve Général, the ‘super-méga-group’ that we founded in 2016-2017 with a meeting of musicians coming from the Austro-Czech-Turkish band Metamorphosis and Volapük. Guillaume cello’s and my drums on Impro Cloche very strongly remind me a bit of the song Dunaj by Rêve Géneral. Takumi’s violin in Chantage is reminiscent of some parts of the album by Les Mutants Maha, a trio I created with Takumi on violin and vocals and Lionel Malric playing low tech keyboards in 2015. I could easily list other examples, but in brief, my impressions in listening again to this album today; twenty one years after it was first released, its music is still fresh, organic and very real! A good surprise for me.” (Guigou Chenevier, Avignon, France, September 16th 2024)

Well over here in the Organ bunker, I don’t recall ever encountering Volapük until the November 2024 release of this rather rewarding album, although there is every chance we’ve written about them before, Organ did turn 38 earlier this December, there has by now been tens of thousands of reviews and it is sometimes hard to remember every single one for gawd sake. This album, Where is Tamashii? is, I would suggest, rather unique, a carefully blended mix of different cultural and musical references, a simmering dish rather than a boiling pot of flavours that result in something that can’t really be pinned down that easily (a good thing of course, who wants their music pinned down easily?). It is jazzy, it sounds eastern at times, mystical, then it goes somewhere East Asian, or maybe the Middle East or are we in the light of Southern France? Or somewhere completely different? Go explore, well worth your time… (sw)     Bandcamp

There is a need to catch up with Cuneiform output, they are one of the most consistantly rewarding labels out there and who knew thete had been another Yang album this year? The radio department probably does, but that’s over there on a different floor and this where the Organ chewer and the coalface is (we do say all this on the contact page…)

Yang – Rejoice (Cuneiform Records) – “According to most professional journalists, comparisons are odious. And according to most professional musicians, critics are useless” – none of that applies here of course, I’m a painter and this sounds rather different to last time around. More fluid this time? Easier to digest? Rejoice sounds different, not saying better, not say worse, everything Yang do is good, they are an excellent band, they make very fine records, have the vocals of Sleepytime’s Carla Kihlstedt taken them somewhere new? And the stylised flow? Yes, the diversity? This album is certainly up there with their best, too early to tell, Yang’s previous album, Designed for Disaster was rather brilliant, I like that this isn’t just more of the same (it wasn’t ever going to be).  Last time we talked of the quieter side of Cardiacs, we had mentioned the hints of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – “What primarily gives Rejoice! its sound and its shape came when an online reviewer compared Yang’s previous album, Designed for Disaster, to the dark and psychologically disturbing work of the Bay Area band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. And while there are similarities, for sure, the notion struck Yang guitarist and composer Frédéric L’Épée as odd, given that he had never heard — or even heard of — his American counterparts. Intrigued, he decided to listen, and found not just a team of kindred spirits, but the perfect singer to bring life to his songs”.

“I didn’t know them, so when I saw this review, I said ‘Okay, what is this band? Is it something that I’ve missed?’” L’Épée notes, laughing. “And, yes, it really was something I’d missed”.

Frédéric L’Épée formed his first serious band, Shylock, while in his teens and waxed two now highly collectible albums with that formation in the mid 70s; moving on to the guitar-centric combo Philharmonie, who existed from 1987-1998 and which produced a further five full-length releases. Since 2004, he has been leading and working with the more ‘rock’ oriented quartet Yang and Rejoice! is their fifth album.

“I don’t like the sound of my own voice,” the bandleader continues, and so for most of its existence Yang has focused primarily on instrumental music. On Designed for Disaster, however, the German singer Ayse Cansu Tanrikulu added her jazz-inflected phrasing to five tracks, and now on Rejoice!, Sleepytime violinist and singer Carla Kihlstedt has come on board for most of the album.

It’s an ideal match, and one that wound up shaping Rejoice! far more than L’Épée had intended. In writing Designed for Disaster, he explains, he concerned himself with lyrics that were “meant to communicate an impression but not a meaning”. But after having discovered Kihlstedt, he opted to follow a different path.

“I started to write the words like I did with Designed for Disaster; not with apparent meaning, but through the sound more than anything. But as soon as Carla accepted, I started to have her voice in my mind. So as soon as I started to write, I heard her singing at the moment I was writing. This forced me to search for the reason inside, because I realized that I wanted her to understand what I was saying, to give all the expression that I wanted. So this is one of the many reasons I started to write things with meanings, because I wanted her to be driven by these meanings.”

“Composed in the wake of Covid and as Fascism, Wars and Climate crises globally rise, Rejoice! offers a healing response for surviving this New Dark Age. Yang reveals music’s power to purge darkness from our souls. In Rejoice!, L’Epee reminds us to embrace whatever beauty and light the world retains, and to transform the darkness into art”.

And this album, Rejoice, does embrace so much, it is more subtle than last time, it feels more fluid, easier listening maybe? It is once again an album that takes time to properly reveal itself, it is a rock album, a prog rock album, a proper one – most of the so called prog rock bands championed by the glossy prog magazines seen to be rather un-progressive to these ears, this is properly prog, this is challenging, challenging without ever being difficult or too hard boiled. And yes it did come out In late July, and yes it should have been covered back then, but hey, if no one tells me and I’m busy throwing paint at canvas like I really should be doing right now….

That really is a beautiful bit, but then there are so many beautiful bits, that bit is an epic bit, a big bit, somewhere past the seventh minute of Fire and Ashes and here comes a deliciously French bit and yes, it does feel good, it is, as much as anything can feel in between 2024’s news bulletins, it is as healing as music can possibly be in times like these and Entanglement is just glorious.

Once again they’ve done it, Yang always have this way of sneaking up on you, you’re going along with it, you’re thinking hey this is good, and then something grabs you and takes you off with it, they take you running, flying, floating, and no, this is way more than just good! And then you have to go back and listen again and we’re running so fast we just can’t pull part and where do we end and where do you start and yes, Yang have done it all again, give it time to unfold and grab you though, don’t expect to find their magic straight away, give Yang time to reveal themselves, they are rather special… (sw)

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One more bit of end of year house cleaning, and then there was four, a review finally written a couple of days ago…

Anta – Organesson (Stolen Body Records) – We did mention this album back in the Summer, back when there was just one track up on line and just ahead of a London show they did for Chaos Theory, neither party seemed that bothered that we did and well our attention turned to other things and hey, Anta’s album was forgotten about until the task of looking back through the hundreds of pages of Organ published over the year ahead of that obligatory best of list goes up at the end of the year (yeah, we like to wait until the actual end) and there it was, the almsot forgotten pre-release pre-gig coverage and a reminder that the unresponsive band from Bristol had put an album out this year. I don’t know, maybe bands labels and gig promoters don’t want the publicity? I know I did when we ran a label or put on far too many gigs. Truth is, however uninterested they might be, the year can’t end and the list can’t be published without a properly proper bit of (rather late, better than never) coverage, I mean, how could an album this good not figure in any half-respectable end of year list? 

Organesson is a bit of a monster, four epic slices of proper prog metal, four pieces of giant musical adventure from a band who describe themselves as a “Bristolian Sci-Prog quartet”. Sci-Prog? That works, I rather like that, that really does work, and it is really all about the music, the art, the sheer ‘uckoffery of it all, the just standing here playing it all very (very) loudly at the end of what has been a year packed with lots of strong music, a year full of thrilling releases as well as great gigs.

Four massive pieces of keyboard-heavy instrumental metal flavoured prog rock full-bodied, intense, gloriously heavy, never abrasive, never too extreme, all rather beautifully listenable,  fluid, weaving, delicious interplay, singing to god as it were, yes, there is a bit of that to be detected. Who knows who they might have been listening to? Hey, Organesson is a beautiful album and as as well as being a synthetic, radioactive, noble gas element with the atomic number 118, the album title makes a lot of sense. This is yet another highly recommended album, we couldn’t possibly think of ending the year without saying so, better late than never…  (sw)

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previously on these pages, while this year’s list is starting to take shape, hey still time for soemone to release something good, three more days before the year ends, how many good album have come out since most of those end of year lists came out? Here’s last year’s…

ORGAN: Our best 43 albums of a very musically busy 2023. Who did we rate?