Posts Tagged ‘Flower Kings’

This Little Dot Called Earth Serves as Inspiration for Karmakanic’s Latest

Posted: November 4, 2016 in progressive rock music
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Have you ever wondered how small and insignificant we really are?  That’s a pretty deep opening line. Well the Swedish prog rock band Karmakanic has titled their latest and fifth studio release, DOT after that very premise.

karmakanic_1Band leader and bassist for Swedish Prog royalty  Flower Kings, Jonas Reinhold, cites American scientist Carl Sagan and Voyager I as the inspiration for the album.  One of the last pictures from Voyager I depicted Earth as a small pixel, a dot if you will.  Sagan was quoted as describing the image of earth as “a pale blue dot suspended in a sunbeam.”  And according to Reinhold, “this dot is all we are and all we’ll ever be.”  And with that he expressed how silly it is for mankind to start wars, fight over borders, etc.  Now that subject matter my friends is something you probably only find in lyrics of todays’ progressive rock and not the contemporary music heard on commercial radio.  But it’s the music on this release that captured this listener’s ear.

If you know anything about my musical tastes by now you should know I’m a sucker for vocal harmonies.  The track “Steer By the Stars” has layers of it with up to 7 different voices lending their talents to the wonderful harmonies.  The bass work of leader Reingold is clearly understated here letting the vocals carry the weight of the song.  Plus there’s an almost anthemic message in the chorus we may all heed as our lives progress on this dot called earth:

And we all got an inner flame we sacrifice
to that road
To the way that says who we are
Keep the flame alive
Take the maps
the plans and rules of sacrifice
Keep it burning bright
Screw them up
It’s time to steer by the stars

I found myself listening to this track repeatedly upon first discovering it.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  Released in July of this year this upbeat cut has moved to the top my year-end playlist.

Here’s the video for “Steer By the Stars.”  Nothing groundbreaking here just the lyrics presented as motion graphics over abstract images.  I would have preferred a performance video of the band to greater appreciate their musical talents but appreciate following the lyrics as the track plays.  Enjoy.  Swedish progressive scores again.  And to borrow a term of nordic origin, quite fitting to this particular blog, “skoal!”

 

A Collaboration of 2 Prog Rock Legends: 1 Past 1 Present

Posted: August 17, 2016 in progressive rock music
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stoltanderson

It’s as if Jon Anderson, former leader of YES and Roine Stolt, guitarist extraordinaire for Flower Kings and Transatlantic met in some sort of hot tub time machine or tele-transporting phone booth like in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and created the music for this release.  Well although it didn’t exactly happen that way the two masters did exchange musical ideas while being world’s apart.  And the result, The Invention of Knowledge, Anderson:Stolt coverharkens back to a YES masterpiece from yesteryear, “Tales from Topographic Oceans,” with a healthy dose of Swedish progressive that only Roine Stolt can provide.

This 3 suite, 9 track performance reflects an attitude sorely lost on today’s musicians. According to Stolt, “It was like going back to the 70’s in one way.  Because there were no rules.  We were drawing inspiration from all sorts of musical heritages across the world.”  Besides the 2 acknowledged progressive rock legends the musicians  include Jonas Reinhold on bass; Felix Lehrmann on drums, both from Flower Kings; and Tom Brislin, who toured with YES on their 2001 Symphonic World Tour, on keyboards.

The song titles themselves suggest Anderson penned lyrics; “We Are Truth,”  “Chase and Harmony,” and “Golden Light” to name a few.  And that voice! Approaching 72 years on this 3rd planet from the sun, Anderson is in fine vocal form.  The musical suite I would like to highlight here is also the third one on this wonderful recording, “Everyone Heals.”  Part 1 of this 3 song suite concludes with a jazz influenced passage featuring Stolt’s fine lead guitar work and the electric piano of keyboardist Tom Brislin.  It’s a bit reminiscent, at least to this listener, of Chick Corea’s 70’s era fusion band, Return to Forever.  Part III, “Golden Light” concludes the suite with the especially enjoyable refrain “To the gift of giving you love” accompanied by a middle eastern influenced keyboard backdrop.

In the end, even after repeated listenings, I can’t decide if the music created here more closely resembles 70’s era YES or the modern wave of progressive rock of Flower Kings.  You’ll just have to listen and decide for yourself.  The music created on this satisfying collaboration doesn’t stray too far from the influences of Anderson and Stolt respectively.  It showcases a shared appreciation of a musical genre that 1 legend helped to create (Anderson) and the other (Stolt) has revitalized for the foreseeable future.

Check out the teaser below taken from the opening 3 part suite, “The Invention of Knowledge.”