Tangent, The A Place In The Queue

"This is the difficult third album in which they overshoot the mark and risk everything to escape their roots, but don't seem to care nonetheless". Andy Tillison, singer, songwriter and keyboardist of the Swedish-British prog contingent The Tangent describes the band's newest album half jokingly whilst simultaneously preparing listeners for a few changes that may be in store. However, eighteen months after the release of the brilliant "The World That We Drive Through", this innovative new opus will undoubtedly send prog fans into rapture once again! As is often the case, a change in line-up sets the ball rolling this time around. Out of the three Flower Kings members who took part in the last recording, only bassist Jonas Reingold remains. Guitarist Roine Stolt concluded that he was involved in too many projects. Furthermore, he needed to find time for his latest solo album and didn't want to lose time progressing with The Tangent. "It's funny", says Andy Tillison. "It was a similar situation with David" (Jackson, the Van der Graaf saxophonist who contributed to the Tangent's debut album "The Music That Died Alone"). "Although it was very sad to see him leave, and although it was a pretty heavy blow to me to lose Roine, it became clear to me that I'm not only a musician but also a fan. Both had to leave so that two of my absolute favourite bands could move on". The new man on guitar, Krister Jonsson, is a worthy successor to Stolt. Jonsson playes with Reingold in their band Karmakanic. "It had to be someone like him to follow in Roine's footsteps. He's a world class guitarist". The new line-up is completed with Jaime Salazar, a more rock oriented drummer who previously played with the Flower Kings up until the "Rainmaker" album. "A Place In The Queue" is not really a concept album but each song deals with the idea that our place in society is similar to a queue where everybody lines up. "We follow the person before us, we follow trends and religions, we act following the advertisements we see", explains Tillison. The music of The Tangent is of course a fresh, varied and melodic progressive rock combining tradition, innovation, construction and improvisation, and most of all enthusiasm for playing and approachability in an individual style. It is essentially the true opposite to conformism. New is the ideal ensemble playing of Tillison's organ and the many wind instruments which come ever more to light on this album. This time Theo Travis (who has worked with David Sinclair, Porcupine Tree and Daevid Allen's Gong) is featured on saxophone, flute and also clarinet. "Now that Roine is out, the guys just do what they want", laughs Tillison. "He and Krister are totally different. Krister lets the instruments speak before he sets his marks. So we have more personal freedom, and we take advantage of that freedom. At concerts people seem to like my keyboards, so I have now put more emphasis on them. A great working friendship has really developed between Theo and me. He is a great guy who has contributed more to The Tangent than I had ever thought possible". The result is a musical mood which becomes much clearer, a mood that recalls the Canterbury scene (especially beautiful in the dreamy and partly mysterious "Lost in London", but also in the middle part of "GPS Culture" which is at times reminiscent of Yes). There are also some thrilling moments of contemporary classical music on this album as evidenced in the beginning of "In Earnest", something Tillison wishes to expand upon in the future. "I have always loved the Canterbury style", he admits. "So of course I wanted to use these influences in a progressive band such as The Tangent. This is the difference to Genesis, isn't it? I mean, there are an awful lot of bands doing the Genesis stuff. We have another source of inspiration but of course this doesn't mean that we haven't picked up one or two things from Genesis either". And so here we are back in the queue once again. Only now it's the others who will follow The Tangent. "A Place in The Queue" is also released as a special edition with bonus disc. This CD is fully loaded with six exclusive tracks that were written during the "Queue" sessions but which didn't fit with the concept of the album.