Ben Bell for Symphonic Prog

Solo side-project from keyboard player of Fusion Orchestra 2.

Subgenre is always tricky but looking at the most frequent comparisons to Genesis, Camel and Yes, I think Symphonic Prog is probably a good starting point.

The album, Patchwork Cacophony, has a first half which is instrumental, with two long tracks and three shorter ones, and a second half which is a nine part concept suite with vocals.



The full album is streamable from Bandcamp.

Track Listing:
1. Sketch of a Day [16m00]
2. No U-Turn [2m58]
3. Dance of the Fleet-footed Heffalumps [2m51]
4. Brinkmanship [10m57]
5. Nylons for Parot [2m18]

Dawn Light: [28m10]
6. Prelude [2m07]
7. Change in the Air [3m51]
8. No Time [3m24]
9. Reprise [1m42]
10. We Can't Stay [3m24]
11. Rest My Feet [2m07]
12. Scorched Earth [2m35]
13. Final Sunset [6m12]
14. Twilight Procession [2m37]

Note that Bandcamp's streaming appears to mangle the segues between the tracks.

Personnel:
 Ben Bell: all instruments and vocals.

On it!

The bandcamp link given in the o.p. DOES give you the entire tracks, but as Ben commented in his post (and as is the case with the vast majority of mp3 players), the bandcamp stream doesn't give a gapless transition between the tracks, which spoils the segues - and hence overall continuity of the album. Shouldn't be an issue as far as the evaluation goes though.

Even a full download, if MP3 format is chosen, will leave the gaps in the playback with the majority of media players. The ones I know of that can play mp3s gaplessly are Foobar2000, iTunes and Winamp. If you want to hear the audio just as it was mastered - ie without any compression or inserted gaps - then the best solution is to download it in FLAC or Apple Lossless format. Here is bandcamp's word on the matter: https://bandcamp.com/help/audio_basics.

benbell wrote: Yes, mp3 wasn't made with prog in mind ;) Flac (and ogg) both do a better job of supporting gapless playback but devices and software still have to get it right and make sure they're ready to play the next track the instant the current one finishes. For those who want them I do have flacs (and indeed wav+cue) and also an all-in-one mp3 of Dawn Light, to preserve the segues.

Thumbs up for me as well.

Thank you bhikkhu, and the rest of the team!