[News] Alan Reed announces the new album for 2020

The upcoming album ‘Grey Sky Thinking’ is well under way. However, plans for an October 2019 release have had to be shelved. This is mainly to do with the requirements of my ‘day job’ as a journalist at BBC News. The continued uncertainty of the political situation in the UK over Brexit and/or a possible General Election means that I’m currently unable to take the time off I need to finish the album in short order. Work continues, but at a slower pace.  I’m now looking at a release date sometime in the first half of 2020. Keep checking my Bandcamp site for ‘work-in-progress’ snippets. There’s also talk of a vinyl version.

We’ve also been at work on editing the video and audio of our performance at last year’s “Prog Dreams” festival at the Boerderij in Zoetermeer. The plan is to release this as a concert video entitled ‘Once Upon a Time in the Netherlands’. You can get a flavour of what to expect from the version of ‘Kingdom of the Blind’ above. We’re very pleased with the results.  

Activities on the gigging front are similarly curtailed.  We will, however, be returning to the ‘Prog in the Park’ festival in Dunfermline at the beginning of April. We really enjoyed performing at the inaugural festival earlier this year. A lovely venue, lots of great bands, and an enthusiastic audience. As well as perorming our set, I also managed to guest on ‘Squonk’ with Genesis tribute, Afterglow, sneaked in a quick acoustic verison of ‘Biko’ on the acoustic stage, and was invited to sing ‘Script for A Jester’s Tear’ with headliners, Stilmarillion. I aim to offer value for money 🙂  Next year’s festival features (amongst others) The Scottish Pink FloydClockwork Angels, and our own Jennifer Clark appearing with her band.  As before there’ll be a fund-raising auction, including a rather fine Ozark Gypsy Jazz guitar signed by Steve Hackett. Steve and I are near neighbours, so I was able to take the guitar round to get it signed.  He makes a lovely cup of tea does Steve.  

We’re also had an amazing time at Trinity 4 at the Leamington Assembly. As it turned out this was the last gig at this fabulous venue as it closed down shortly afterwards. Mark, Tudor and I managed our first ever house concert in the village of Stretham in Cambs. A great night, featuring Prog Banjo from Mark, and an audience grappling with Glaswegian folk songs as well as the one-word chorus to one of my new songs. But you’ll have to wait for the album to hear more about that. 

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Author: Jacopo Vigezzi

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