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CD/DVD Releases: Reflect On Glass' ''Spectrum Principle'' This November

Posted on Sunday, October 31 @ 00:00:00 UTC by nightowl

Back in the Seventies, the brothers Greg & Jeff Sherman had a musical project called Glass. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to sign them, even when they decided to leave for the homeland of Progressive rock: Great-Britain! Which is amazing of itself: the talent in this American band is quite obvious! Not only are they great musicians, but they are also great songwriters.

Twenty-five years later, our two partners in crime decided to repatriate long recorded musical pieces and release them as a double-CD called No Stranger To The Skies, partly recorded live and partly in the studio. The result is one superb album, reissued in the year 2004 by the Musea label. A mix of orchestral Progressive rock and jazz-rock fusion, this unique piece of work is a real delight for the fans of Mellotron and Fender Rhodes electric piano! The whole sounds as fresh as it had been recorded today...

Illuminations (2005) is a real studio album indeed, showcasing a different side of Glass. If the music is still as majestic and impressive as it has been, it also displays evidences of a true maturity. Soloing is kept to a minimum in favour of huge instrumental sections that belie the arrangements complexity. Let's also note that the track "Isle Of Dyslexia" has been recorded with the help of Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), and "Gaia" features Hatfield And The North's creative duet: Richard Sinclair & Phil Miller. Here's a new masterpiece that has to be part of every Progressive rock discography!

Newly released on the Musea label, Live At Progman Cometh presents two Glass performances from 2002 and 2003 at Seattle's Moore Theater, plus one bonus-track ("No Stranger To The Skies") recorded at BajaProg in 2002. There are five instrumental compositions for more than 70 minutes of music. Sounds promising, doesn't it? This is an opportunity to hear Glass playing on stage with such luminaries as Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, Richard Sinclair and the brothers Bill & Paul Kopecky. Mostly unreleased, the titles mix the legacy of Progressive rock, symphonic music and Canterbury School in a unique blend of raw live energy and inspired performance. A timeless masterpiece!

Now, new for 2010 is Spectrum Principle, about which Jeff Sherman told us last December, "[...] the new Glass CD holds some surprises for everyone.

"The creative vision for the new album has been largely supplied by drummer Jerry Cook who has produced most of the sessions for the album as well.

"Included with the usual array of great Glass classical melodies, intriguing jazz time signatures and vintage instrumentation will be experimental pieces.

"These Soundscapes are comprised of spoken word, augmented sound samples, vintage tape segments and elements as diverse as electronic sounds generated by bent-circuit keyboards and recordings of the earth?s magnetosphere. Also featured is the first acoustic guitar-centric Glass composition since those contained in the 1973 Glass half-hour epic 'Broken Oars.'"

[Source: Musea, Glass]

Posted in Album Release News