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Member since: 3/8/2006 • Forum posts: 2393 • Last visit: 5/21/2013 1:10:37 PM EST
Location: United Kingdom

I was born and bred in the gloriously surreal kingdom of Belgium, not far from the Dutch city of Maastricht, but I moved to the United Kingdom in 1996, after having lived and worked in Japan for more than a decade.

I first started listening to prog in 1975, when one of my classmates showed me there was far more exciting music around than Mud, the Rubettes and the other teenybopper bands most fifteen-year olds were then interested in. He recorded some cassette tapes for me, with Pink Floyd ("Pow R Toc H" and "Echoes"), Jethro Tull (WARCHILD and BENEFIT) and, last but not least, all of RELAYER - then a brand-new release. I couldn't believe my ears; those proggy sounds immediately got me hooked.

That same summer I borrowed all the albums by Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and The Who I could find. I didn't buy much music in those days, but another friend's elder brother, who had a steady job as assistant-cook in a restaurant, owned lots of records. With his help, I managed to build up an impressive collection of tapes. Yet another friend introduced me to ELP, and to most of the Canterbury Scene.

As I got older, of course I started buying records of my own... To say I never looked back, and became a "prog maniac", would be a lie, for by the end of the 1970s progressive rock was clearly in the doldrums, and there was so much other exciting music to discover... I spent most of the 1980s/1990s getting to know jazz and European classical music, and those are the genres I still play the most.

But no matter how much I love Mozart, Keith Jarrett or Dvorak, I always used to feel something was missing. Up until about 2005, it actually depressed me no-one seemed to be making albums like OF QUEUES AND CURES anymore! But then I heard rumours of a prog revival. I discovered Djam Karet, Spock's Beard and Kenso, and then this fabulous website, which introduced me to Echolyn, The Tangent, Anekdoten and many others. All I now hope is that, as Prog Reviewer, I'll help the good people who consult this site make some new and exciting discoveries.

Apart from the music I've rated or reviewed for Prog Archives, my favourite artists are:

Monteverdi, Schütz, Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Rameau and Handel (particularly their vocal works). Just about everything by F. Couperin, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Dvorak and Toru Takemitsu.

Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Keith Jarrett, Django Bates, Herbie Hancock, Mike Gibbs, Muhal Richard Abrams, Pierre Dørge, Nguyen Le, Steve Lacy and Duke Ellington.

The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Richard Thompson and Los Lobos.

Sub-genre Nb of reviews Avg rating 1 Jazz Rock/Fusion 67 3.73 2 Canterbury Scene 64 3.59 3 Symphonic Prog 56 3.20 4 Eclectic Prog 34 3.53 5 Prog Related 31 3.65 6 Prog Folk 23 3.43 7 Crossover Prog 21 3.29 8 Psychedelic/Space Rock 14 3.50 9 Proto-Prog 14 3.07 10 RIO/Avant-Prog 13 4.08 11 Various Genres 6 3.17 12 Progressive Electronic 5 3.20 13 Rock Progressivo Italiano 4 3.00 14 Heavy Prog 4 3.25 15 Krautrock 2 5.00