PROXIMITY & CHANCE

Since 2018, this composer and multi-instrumentalist has not only been consistently delivering standout albums that I am proud to possess and review, all very highly rated but also because the recipe ingredients and manpower invited happen to vary from album to album. So before delving into the intricacies of this fifth chapter, I invite all those readers still unfamiliar with this Cheshire cat, to travel back into his past 4 albums and discover all the pleasures therein. The bar is set pretty high because the previous "Kintsugi" was a tour de force that earned it my highest praise. Vocalists Sally Minnear and the celebrated Peter Jones are back, not surprising they are stellar performers, as is keyboardist Vikram Shankar. New allies are Luke Machin, a gifted guitarist who seems to be equally prolific, playing on a multitude of recordings, John Hackett needs no intro at all, and Southern Empire's Shaun Holton sings on a couple of tracks. Lastly, Dave Brons tosses in a couple of bars at the end of the opening track, while Moray MacDonald blows a mean trumpet on one number.

"13" sets the immediate tone for the remainder of the set list, as Holden lays down a solid rhythmic pulse, with snarling bass, solid riffs, and some nice drum programming. Peter Jones grasps the microphone, and his fluid voice is always a delight, delivering that mythical story of how the number 13 is a superstition that will not go away. Friday the 13th, 13 people at a table, open umbrellas, broken mirrors, walking under ladders, black cats, touch wood, and rabbit foot. Poetry for the mind. We enter epic land with a musical adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King", the lengthiest piece and adventurous as can be, an ideal setting for Shaun to show off his singing skills. The sense of mountainous elevations, imagining the Khyber Pass and Everest beyond, an imperial trumpet announcing the fantasy of soldiers of misfortune wanting to become gods, and rule by force or by will over vast territories of immense riches. The allusion to Alexander the Great also comes through in the cinematographic arrangement. Close your eyes and let the shifting variations induce the imagination to wander. Vikram peels off a nifty synth solo as the final denouement arrives. Gong!

With the piano and the flute ruling the space, "A Sense of Place" has that quintessential pastoral Welsh feel, a lovely instrumental pause, a shimmering ode to tranquility. The title could well have been A Sense of Peace, and no one would have dared a word. Plain beautiful. With a tale about insane jealousy and competitive revenge, "Burnt Cork and Limelight" has certainly dramaturgical, I daresay, Shakespearean tendencies. The faultless melody is a masterful addition to an arrangement lush with immaculate orchestrations that truly emit a sense of stage music for actors who hide their dark side by pretending to follow the script but desperately seeking to murder their alleged foe. Peter Jones delivers one of his finest deliveries ever, utterly convincing. Applause from the captive audience is the final straw. 10 minutes + of enchanting entertainment.

The subject of recent covert assassinations of defectors in the UK, "Agents" tackles the open-faced gall of sending killers armed with nerve agents to eliminate any threats to the Kremlin's authority with apparent immunity. The music is suitably anxious, with shadowy figures hiding behind diplomatic immunity, carrying vials of lethal poison, and seeking out their targets. Luke rips off a cloak and dagger axe rant. Revenge is a bitter pill, tastelessly dropped in a teapot. A passionate visit to Paris does not mean one can 100% find love, sometimes it's the exact opposite, a realization that may hurt on the moment but better now than 20 years later. Sally Minnear sings her plight in the City of Light, Notre Dame casting a long shadow, the book vendors on the embankments of the Seine offering fictional non-fiction editions of a love not meant to be. The musical atmosphere is suitably restrained and romantic. L'amour fait mal (Love hurts).

The final two tracks deal with the two choices offered in the title, "Proximity" peering at the Red Planet and simply wondering if it was perhaps a former home once long ago, having had to settle on Earth, to find a more suitable climate. The glorious hymn "Chance "is the segue that tackles the complex notion of 'what if?', and 'who am I?'. It has a Jon Anderson-Yes positive feel to it that is most up lifting. Within the realm of logic, each person is nothing more than the amalgamation of all the preceding relatives from both ancestral chains, an intricate evolution with no clear starting point unless it was from the universe itself. DNA does not stand for Do Not Admit. All three vocalists join in on the choir, singing a hopeful message, "that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal". The only absolute is that there is only one sun. John Holden is a progressive rock force to be reckoned with. Get close and get lucky.

5 Vicinities and risks

Proximity and Chance

The emergence of this new project from John made me both excited but nervous, much like the previous one. The reason is simple after being so thrilled by his previous work and his evolution as a musician I was concerned whether he could maintain the momentum and offer something new and interesting, which genuinely added to his canon. I need not have worried.

Rather than a track-by-track and musician call-out, I am going to offer a more organic less Germanic review, more about the themes that I hear in the music.

The music comes over as more dynamic and cuts through more than in the past and yet the arrangements with melody, counter melody and harmonics has more depth and weight. The bass playing, from the man himself, on the sub-Traffic opener, tracks and shadows Peter Jones, but equally offers some neat surprises and to my ears is more Roger Glover than the Late Chris Squire in terms of sound. Something else I noticed on this piece is Peter's voice is related to Steve Winwood's. I would not be at all surprised if he is a midland maniac.

The other standout feature which really shows John's developing skills is the quality of the orchestrations. I am old enough to remember The Nice, Deep Purple and Yes all using orchestras, for the most part, the judicious use of a Mellotron, which triggers string sounds, was much more dynamic and simpatico, the foundation stone of several bands' musical personality. In retrospect, the aforementioned projects sound naive, less a fusion and more a collision.

Here John does not add the strings, they are an integral part of the music, helping create the unique and singular atmosphere of pieces like "Burnt Cork" and "Agents" and because of the stories he is telling the orchestrations are often dark and spartan, Stravinsky like.

There are more gentle pieces, the instrumental "A Sense of Place." where Vikram Shanker duets with John Hackett. Vikram's ability to offer support to the tunes is well known from John's previous work, but again because of the more developed arrangements his accompaniment adds even more.

As well as Peter Jones and Sally Minnear, whose smiling alto delivery delights on Fini, a new edition is the Australian Tenor Shaun Holton. His sardonic delivery of the narrative on "Agents" is perfect but it took me a while to get used to him telling the story of Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King." Those Haggard, Kipling stories, set in a remote and unknown part of the world in the 19th Century, are propelled by a particular English heroism and some might argue delusions of grandeur. In the end, after listening to Shaun's performance several times, it does come off as heroic in the right way. The operatic delivery suits the hubristic story he is singing about.

There is a good deal to stimulate and repeatedly return to, but two pieces stand out for me. The fabulous evocation of Victorian Melodrama of Burnt Cork and the ridiculously joyous Chance (Under the Sun). They take you on a journey draw you in and get inside your psyche.

Burnt Cork begins evoking the atmosphere of the theatre where our protagonist is performing and then moves forward with a beautiful rhapsodic run from Vikram, wonderful, layered romantic strings, and then Mr Jones comes in with an intuitive, sensuous vocal. Throughout the orchestra is integral, sometimes, sweeping, full of pathos, and other times, dramatic jabs. This music is mature, considered and Peter narrates the antagonist's pain and suffering and developing hatred with a real sense of connection. This has that Progressive Rock Musical feel of KV62. It's in the middle of the piece the orchestrations go supernova, supporting Peter's vocal. The atmosphere is full of menace, the orchestrations communicate that with darting, determined, muscular pulsing. These are the sections that put me in mind of Stravinsky. The drama over, Peter takes us out through the angst and madness of the murderer. Such good storytelling and such simpatico arrangements.

Chance is probably John's first standard; I would expect people to cover this. It is a very strong piece. "A future yet to know the past behind us." My goodness we need that. Echoing rotating guitar, the glorious tune, the gorgeous chorus, a Ringo drum pattern and then Luke Machin's solo doing all the things a guitar can do to support and elevate a piece upwards. I am humming this constantly.

More vivid production, dynamic sophisticated arrangements and great vocal performances enhance a programme of music which includes a couple of pieces, which are his best work yet.

I had nothing to worry about. It's a privilege and a joy to say nice things about music from such a down to earth but very clever man.