It happened like this, we though we had got to the end of the year and then a voice yelled from the corner about all these great albums that she had been playing on the Other Rock Show that weren’t on the list, well that’s thrown one of Chopchop’s feathers or indeed spanners in the works, and oh we can’t cover everything, we can try though! I mean the album that is so obviously the album of 2024 around here as not figured in any other publication’s end of year lists as far as I can see, ditto the second and the third, maybe even the fourth. 2024 still isn’t over until it really is and even if the all the cars weren’t painted blue it was a fine notion, fly those blue kites, there’s some people on the pitch, they think things are all over, they’re not yet, Damian Hirst has stuck it in the stand, he always did miss, on with the looking for the end of 2024…

Chopchop – Bell Well (Rose Hill Records) – All the cars are painted blue and it looked like a nice day, was it clouds? Three legged dogs and a carpenters with no nails. Maybe it was all the clouds that they painted blue, this is no time to split hares or rabbits or donkeys or riding the waves on a sea horse, what does the weatherman know? Too orangey for crows and that but does hae a nice squelch. Chopchop are from Brighton, they sounds rather different, someone mentioned Stump, not sure about that and we are almost out of time. Fantastico, Elástico, he does sing a great song and even though the idea of all the clouds being painted blue, this Elástico thing is a dangerous earworm, look at her fly. the canary in the coal mine, a canoli? A whistle in his lips? This is what i think about the view out of this window and Is it cannoli or cannelloni? Who is flying around the coal mine? You won’t get me, you won’t ever get me, nor will the rats or the cats or the sugar hits and spades to dig a hole that goes against the grain. If nothing else this is gloriously against the grain, we like against the grain, plain plane against that grain what ever the woodwork teacher might have said about pop music and how the rules should be obeyed. So some kind of Stumpish Zappaish Progish set of things that are nothing like any of those three things and we’re looking to the ground, we’re looking to the sky, the knives are always sharp, maybe it was all the kites that were painted blue? What was the three legged dog sniffing? is it raining, is it pouring? This review doesn’t have a start and we can’t see the end, go ride that sea horse, I’m trying to multi task… (sw)    

Bandcamp / Facebook

Howie Reeve and Friends – Leaf in Fog – This is a joint release by Redwig (Germany), Bar Marfil (Spain), Innis Orr (Scotland) – Casting doubt on events? Officials are monitoring the situation, last last minute, although this one has also been played rather a lot on the radio since it came out back in the Summer and as Robert Dallas Grey put it, “hard to pick a fave from this beautiful record, but I’ll go with Evidence for the arrangement. so much to love here though, melody and optimism abound”. Don’t know who Robert is, he is right though, this is a beautiful record, a fine set of songs, observations, drawings, not sketches, proper drawings, strong drawings, they sound like delicate drawings, they’re not, these are strong drawings. Apparently the album comes with drawings by Cathy Heyden, the front cover is inspired by a photograph by Finnish photographer Lassi Rautiainen. Cathy also plays baritone sax and electronics she also adds some distant, distorted vocal sounds and a brief bit of alto sax at the start. There’s a lot of guests adding sounds, friends with textures, other colours, side streets to take us down. “Predominantly recorded in and around Glasgow in 2022 and earlyish 2023, with patience, assiduity and generosity by Miroslav Wypych (SilenceExtinct); a veritable Sonic Monk. Miro also mastered the bugger. The album would not have been possible without him”. Some of it was recorded on a phone, I like things recorded on phones, phone recordings are good. Semay Wu plays cello, Pia Boone plays trombone, there’s lots of little bits from lots of people, Howie’s friends adding little bits of beauty to his song drawings. I almost want to say this is the kind of album that demands a cup of tea but that almost makes it sound twee and this album certainly isn’t twee, it is like a sketch book opened for all, artists don’t tend to open their sketchbooks, I like looking at the secrets in a good sketchbook, this is more like a book full of drawings though. Some of it experimental, well unconventionally detailed rather than experimental, this one’s (more than the) alright he sang it was, some things are worth fighting for and that bit there really is beautiful, even the scratchy guitar stringsare, I never like scratchy guitar strings. For Will is especially beautiful, but then, as Robert said, it really is delightfully difficult to pick out individual pieces, they are all like very useful bags or blue painted kites or doors open just a touch and hopscotch grids partly washed away or gangs of pigeons just waiting with their never hollow anthems of hope or bulbs planted or… Howie’s musical drawings, made with the help of his friends, are very clever, delightfully so, let him flow, go with him…  (sw)

Bandcamp

Rainbow Face – Enjoy This Ruin (Records DK) – Rainbow Face are quite clearly a full bodied prog rock band, they’re from Portland, Oregon, their sound is as big as their ambition and this, their latest album, came out in the first week of December 2024. Actually, in that way IQ did it, Automation has a bit of a post-punk new-wave feel to the prog rockness of it all, there’s all kinds of things going on here, we like it where all kinds of things are going on. We like rides wherever you look and well now we’re on some kind of futuristic rocket thing from a 70s fairground, all fins and red bits that look like Dan Dare’s water pistol and now we’re definitely dealing in progressive hard rock, the full bodied sort with extra cream and spicy tomato sauce and those flavours are deliciously difficult to pin down and My Crusade sounds far longer than the five minutes it actually is, they’ve pushed a lot in there, do we need a fullstop now? Are they sounding a touch like Montrose? That was meant as high compliment by the way and way up to Space Station Number Five and next time around? Borders has bite as well as some great guitar/keyboard interplay that jousts with some rather colourful drumming and a touch of Permanent Waves era Rush where clouds are maybe thinking of preparing to battle with a touch of Sicbay? Hey, this is damn good, there’s always another album and what did you do today? What could we do tomorrow? If I was to be lazy and if we were running out time and trying to get things all done before the end of 2024 then I’d say hey, this sounds a bit like Sicbay meets Rush but that really would be lazy and there’s never an excuse for that and it is in us and choices are unlimited and they’ve got a touch Pallas around the edges but then you go back to the start and that almost new wave fairground of it all and doesn’t anyone listen any more? Recommended, different, good, properly prog, that’s the way we all like it to go. (sw)   

Bandcamp

Here we go again, same as last time, in no particular order, well that’s what we said back at the end of 2023 when we first enountered Trio HLK and well….

Trio HLK – Anthropometricks (Ubuntu Music) – Back at the start of the year we said “Let this one unfold, give it time, this is rather fine once you get in to the body of those rhythms. A first taste from something coming out in March of 2024, sounds like a good starting point to us, never heard of them – “Trio HLK is the union of three distinct, forward thinking musical personalities. A belief in the high art of improvisation and intrigue with the infinite art and science of rhythm is what brings H, L and K together. Together they address ambitious improvisational frameworks which often resemble contemporary classical music more than jazz. Find the rather fluid ten minute track on Bandcamp. Their previous 2018 album Standard Time, also on Bandcamp, is well worth checking out as well… More on this one in the new year without a doubt, the first significant album of 2024?”

And then March came and nothing else was heard and other things distracted and well, April arived and then May and suddenly we found ourselves at the last day of December and I’m here checking some of those Other Rock Show playlists from the year and there’s Trio HLK and hey, was it the first significant album of 2024? Well no, but only because by the time March came around there had been a number of very significant albums and here I am listening to the Trio HLK on their Bandcamp page as the light fades on the final day of 2024 and yes it cleary did live up to all that was promised. A properly positive belief in the high art of it all, not an aloof belief, not a looking down from a higher perch, just a group of artists, musicians, music makers needing to challenge themselves and offering a warm jazzy invitation to you and I go with them. Well worth going, well worth your time, there never is enough time…. (sw)

Bandcamp / TrioHLK.com

Can another one be squeezed in here? No one will notice surely?

Tusmørke – Dawn of Oberon (Karisma Records) – That bit there, sixteen minutes into the opening seventeen minute prog rock epic does sound like a bit of one of Marillion’s best garden parties, they’ve mostly been sounding like a Canterbury flavoured take on Jethro Tull, what is it with Scandinavia and the Canterbury sound at the moment, Scandibury? Tusmørke are also from Oslo, Norway, and  well, “Tusmørke, arguably the most atavistically trollish, acid-drenched musical act ever to come out of the kingdom of Norway makes yet another eternal return, this time to take the fellow traveller on a subterranean expedition to the kingdom of the Fair Folk! Dawn of Oberon is the band’s 12th album, released 12 years after their debut “Underjordisk Tusmørke” (2012). 12-12-12 – That makes this album twice as occult as 666”.  Who knows, they’re singing in their native tongue and so are the birds and the Hammonds, “The record is a manifestation of our Peter Pan syndrome; our aesthetics and ideals remain unchanged for the last 25 years. Never grow up, just grow old. This time we go away with the fairies all together, to the far-away land of the far-out mind”.It is mostly beautifully self indulgent 70s flavoured passages of melodic prog rock that are way too long or their own good which is of course just how it should be…

Bandcamp / Facebook

And as we’re now in the twilight of the afteroon of the last day of 2024, I rather expect a band from Melbourne, Australia, which indeed is where King Gizzard are indeed from, are probably already in 2025…

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flight b741 (p(doom) records) – And it is cold today here in London, they’d like it here, they don’t like the heat, they’d have a snowball’s chance in here today, pass the ice dream and just one more review (unless there’s another one underneath this one, take me away, take me away…) No getting bogged down in the hurt of the dirt and we don’t need any of that religion. King Gizzard don’t really need us but this is goose for the sauce and let’s just squeeze it in before iut really is too late and this is, as someone else already said, proper (silly billy) fun. For their 26th album, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard swap the widescreen concepts of their recent albums for the intimacy of six good friends collaborating on the most bonhomie-laden set they’ve yet committed to wax. For Flight b741, bandleader Stu Mackenzie says King Gizzard “wanted to make something that was primal, instinctual, more ‘from the gut’ – just people in a room, doing what feels right. We wanted to make something fun.”

Tapping into the country-fried 70s American rock on which they were all raised – along with the ornery garage-rock roots from which their mighty discography sprang – Flight b741 is lightning caught inside a bottle. Across its 10 ragged, glorious barnburners, King Gizzard flesh out rough skeletons of songs with their inspired improvisations, inimitable grooves and a unique pass-the-mic approach to vocals that saw every member of the band raise their voice and sing. “We’re having a lot of fun, but we’re often singing about some pretty heavy shit,” Mackenzie adds, “and probably hitting on some deeper, more universal themes than usual. It’s not a sci-fi record, it’s about life and stuff. But the record is like a really fun weekend with your mates, you know? Like, proper fun.” And yeah haw, we covered it before the year ended, one day, one year maybe, you’ll thank us for all this, pearls cast before what? next please nurse… (sw)

Bandcamp

Needlepoint – Remnants Of Light (BJK Music) – Oh now, this one is rather magnificent as well, this really is an impossible task, will we get it all in before we get to the end of the year? Have we saved the best to last? I’ve pulled up my favourite hoodie, a black hoodie? Running through Marina Organ’s radio playlists here seeing what has been missed on these chaotic pages and who’s knocking at the door and who’s not there when you open it. My thoughts were astray for a moment, one more cup of tea, Needlepoint are something richer than a cup of tea though. Oh, that’s a busy bit, hang on, no falling asleep here, Muse on The Hook, does the muse have a hook? Needlepoint hook, they have hooks, deliciously bold ones, big prog rock hooks delivered with gentle delight and all as timeless as can be. Needlepoint are from Oslo, in Norway and today (or whatever day it was) they say they saw a moment that looked like a smile, I rather like that.

They could, once again, be from Canterbury, and it is a smile we have kind of known for a while, this is magnificently uplifting and music growing into the sky, enchanting, tearful eyes, like lakes, lashes electric, everything bright, heaven born and ever bright, no not really but you know the leader of the starry skies would smile on hearing this rather fine album. It does sound positively Hatfield and The North and and 1970s and that, in this case, for once, is no bad thing.  Oh that start to Blank Sheet was rather unexpected, you won’t get a second chance to hear that for the first time or to listen to the plans the birds are making and the land they all share. They sound all very nice but then there’s the chunky bits, the bits that need a bit more chewing, the bits that think about taking off, oh that flight path of the final track is so so good. And then back to the start of it all again and that crane soaring up high and all those crows, thousands of them all merging with the leaves of the trees. How can you change the point his point of view? Hang a light above while his head is in the sand? Oh this is good, Head in The Sand is far too good for you to put your head in the sand and ignore it, wow, that bit there! That bit two minutes and five seconds in to Head in The Sand, are they getting a touch Van Der Graaf shaped on us? You don’t have to laugh, you don’t have to cry, let them find your soft spot, follow your heart… And that intro to While Our World is Still Revolving is just so glorious good, and let them offer you help and directions so you know where to go. Oh there’s so many good bits, little bits, whole bits of bits, all if it, the details, the take offs, the invites, the flights, more than just fancy, how could it be? And they do have things to say, they do question things with such subtle imagination. And now, rather fittingly, there is only the last Remnants Of (this year’s) Light left and everything really is just right here, if this is the last album written about here in 2024 then that would be a perfect way to end an excellent musical year. (sw)  

Bandcamp / Facebook

The Other Rock Show will be back early January 2025 with more of all this, which of course leaves Marina Organ with no time to write mucg for this website so make sure you follow those instructions of the contact page if you want the attention of these pages….