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Maybe this was the Yay! song with improv? Sentinels. Olaf is doing okay here, I think, and his drum sound works for the song.

Thank you The animationchannel.

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That last one of Reine is pretty special!

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@zomzom82: I’m a bit concerned for that glove puppet now…

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@zomzom82: Believe me, I do get where you are coming from. I enjoy the way you write too. Keep it coming!

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This is definitely one of the most interesting threads we have had for a long time.

Nobody loves the “heavy, technically proficient wankery” and improv more than me (even though I would probably rate a 90s album of short sharp songs, Blissard, as my second favourite MP album), but perhaps it was time to find another way forward. Having said, that, I thought Ancient Astronauts was terrific – really exciting and innovative, with Tomas at his best. It now stands as a tantalising glimpse of what might have been.

Perhaps there is not quite such a separation between pre-Kenneth material and W.C.A. (See what I did there?!) After all, I guess one could level the ‘wankery’ charge at some 90s material like Un chien d’espace (although I wouldn’t apply that term to any of the band’s output, still less such a revered item in the canon), while the Kenneth and Tomas eras did give us wonderful, compact, little gems such as Mockingbird.

I do think that those who favour the 90s incarnation of the band need to acknowledge that their music then had the spirit and energy of youth. However much their playing has progressed since then, it is a simple fact of life that men in their 50s will not quite be able to reproduce on stage all the visceral power of their earlier material, and it is natural, with maturity, that the music should find different forms of expression. Nevertheleless, I expect future output will include both shorter, more concise and composed songs (even though I believe Bent said at one time that he was done with that) and longer, more progressive (in the true sense of the word) pieces.

I hope the MP of the future will contain within itself elements of all that has made them great throughout their lifetime, while adding something new.

I think we can all sense the band crossing a bridge to somewhere, and nobody quite knows what lies on the other side. But I hope good times can still be had in this kind of a nomansland.

I will say again that I believe Ingvald is going to be the catalyst for something special to come. There is life in the old dog (or should that be ‘chien’?) yet!

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I think quite a lot of humans are able both to feel and to analyse, don’t you? Maybe the analysis comes later. Analysis by those who are able to feel deeply is particularly valuable

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I really appreciate the ‘fanboy glasses off’ approach of Devotional and shakti. It is interesting to analyse what does and what doesn’t work, and reading such even-handed accounts, especially when they are so well written and come from people who are passionate about all that is great about the band, is always worthwhile.

Personally, I am not worried. This does appear, relatively speaking, to be a bit of a lull. There are a number of contributory factors. I wouldn’t want to make it all about Olaf. He is not a bad drummer. However, I suspect that Shakti is correct in that Bent and Snah will already have figured out that he is not the one. In fact, they might never have seen him as the one. Tomas was indeed a great loss, but, if they can get Ingvald involved on a permanent basis, and really get in the groove with him, I think there could still be great things ahead, and we will just look back on this as a bit of marking time, and if that means a few older, more straightforward numbers get dusted off and that pleases people, that’s no bad thing.

I may be wrong, but I already have a very strong sense of the magic that will be conjured by the Bent/Snah/Ingvald axis, enhanced, of course, by Reine. I think it might be written in the Heavens. This will be a total rejuvenation!

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Great work by Juha Rahkonen. Thank you!

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I hope for great things with Ingvald. I think he might transform them.

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Thank you so much for such a comprehensive and absorbing read.

On the evidence of what I have heard, Bent is singing really well, as you say. So that’s great. On the other hand, your report further strengthens my partly-formed view that Olaf is, sadly, not the man for the job, although I appreciate that it would take any drummer time to bed in.

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There’s more (of Kenneth):

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Same amazing location – different angle:

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Not a new band to any of us, I know (although a relatively new song), but, just in case anyone misses this:

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Pills, Powders & Passionplays. Very nice! Thanks Sonja Schauhoff.

(see also Sonja’s small clip – Lacuna/Sunrise, I believe.)

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I would love to get hold of them too.

This isn’t quite what you’re after, Bernie, but it’s a way of hearing one of them.

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