Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Progressive Rock is a spirited animal that deserves its freedom, but the art of the concept is such that it requires gentle nurturing by band and listener alike.
In the last decade more seminal bands from the golden period of the genre have found a way to have their voice reheard; early Jethro Tull have benefitted greatly from such a move, King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant, Rush, and even Marillion have been given the treatment of renewal, and it is perhaps down to the prodigious work by one of the modern greats of the genre, Steven Wilson, that the music of a time when all could be Kings, is being once again revered and lauded for the intensity and thought it once held aloft.
As Gentle Giant’s Interview walks earnestly towards its 50th anniversary, it is only fitting that Steven Wilson once more folds away his musician’s cape and dons the producer’s and remixer’s hat with excellent and dutiful effect.
The album, which was conceived and released after huge success of the album A Free Hand, is perhaps the group’s most cynical, but well-endowed of all their recordings, and it is down to the ideas contained within, the sense of alienation that accompanies them as they reveal what is insinuated, what is asked of the group in interviews, whilst at the same time displaying the brilliance of the conscious as the tracks that surround it are delved onto with force and measure of equal standing.
Derek Shulman, Ray Shulman, Gary Green, Kerry Minnear, and John Weathers created an intelligent and cynically persuasive argument in this recording and with Steven Wilson adding the insight of external polish and adjustment to the core value of the recording, tracks, and pieces such as Design, Empty City, I Lost My Head, and Another Show give an excellent account of the period’s dominance and in turn the fall it was about to suffer as the quick chill and nuclear blast of Punk was about to inflict upon its soul.
There is no doubting the sheer genius of the combination of Gentle Giant and Steven Wilson, but in Interview there is a drama willing to be revealed, a thought process that digs deep, which allows the listener to understand the vestiges of the music scene at the time and how many groups started to falter in the wave of damnation that followed until the second coming and renaissance of Progressive Rocks beating heart.
An album of fulfilment, an interview with the past that informs greatly on our present love of the genre; this is a meeting of minds in full musical conversation, and it is well worth the cross examination that the soul will deeply treasure.
Steven Wilson’s Remix of Gentle Giant’s Interview is released on June 16th on Chrysalis Records.
Ian D. Hall