Welcome to the site of UK/EU Progressive Rock band The Tangent! The Tangent are a well-established and much loved band with nearly two decades of creative output and 11 studio albums behind them and a 12th in the can for a June 2022 release!. Here you'll find info about the band and its operations, its music, lyrics, philosophies and convoluted history. And yes... despite members touring the world and collaborating with artists like Steve Hackett, Francis Dunnery, Soft Machine, David Cross, despite the arrival of the Tillison Reingold Tiranti Italian prog project and solo albums from Andy Tillison, Luke Machin and Theo Travis - The Tangent released their 12th studio album in 2022, their twentieth year of existence as a band.
"Songs From The Hard Shoulder" was written and developed during the global pandemic of course and has striven to maintain the same level of collaboration as the band has always put at the top of its priority tree. "This is a pretty deep running and thougtful album" says Andy Tillison... "where we have really focussed on composition and structure in the absence of oppotunities to play together".
Though the band has never spent too much time looking back - a compilation of live material recorded over the 20 year span will be released in January 2023. "Pyramids, Stars and Other Stories" brings together three of the bands "fan release" recordings for the first time on InsideOut - on triple vinyl and double CD. From the complete concert in Germany 2004 - along with highlights from the subsequent years - the album is a true to life, no safety net record of what happened on stage at various points in the band's career. More information of course on the Premium preorders page!
Most Recent Releases
Songs From The Hard Shoulder
2022 album By The Tangent
The Tangent's 12th album is a return to the "album of long pieces" format popularised in the early 1970s. But these three pieces are so radically different in character from one another - yet totally at home within the framework of this "never at rest" band. But there's more!
Pyramids, Stars and Other Stories
2023 live compilation album by The Tangent
The new album features in its entirety is the 2004 ‘Pyramids And Stars’ concert in Germany featuring the Roine Stolt lineup of The Tangent playing its way through the majority of the debut The Music That Died Alone album along with (then) new material from their second album The World That We Drive Through.
Added to that, there are tracks from the COMM era line-up of the band at a concert in the UK - plus music recorded in the USA in 2017 by the band's current line-up.
Moons Of Neptune
2021 album by Andy Tillison/Kalman Filter
Swirling and atmospheric electronica, the album is inspired by the loneliest and furthest flung outliers of our solar system. Inspired by Berlin School electronica, 90s dance music, Brian Eno, Bill Evans and Jean Michel Jarre, enjoy this trip out of Covid and go somehere else entirely....
Assorted Videos
New from The Tangent!
Andy & Luke discuss influences Part 2
Andy and Luke continue the discussion about their early musical influences. Part ONE is beneath. In this part they discuss Yes (again) Dream Theatre, Pain Of Salvation, Van Der Graaf Generator and Hammill along with the rise of Punk & Mew Wave
New from The Tangent!
The Lady Tied To The Lamp Post
An edited edition of the 21 minute piece that tackles the issue of homelessness - on the streets of the UK and the wider world through the eyes of one woman, left alone on the pavement while the rest of us - including the song's writer make their own ways home. From the new album "Songs From The Hard Shoulder"
New from Youtube
Music with Todd Ledbetter on "The Changes"
Up and coming music channel "Music with Todd Ledbetter" gives the whole track "The Changes" a spin and makes a few well timed and suitably brief comments. SPOILER ALERT: He loves it!!! Please remember to comment and subscribe to his channel! Music starts at about 7.15
New from The Tangent!
Andy and Luke discuss earliest influences
Andy Tillison & Luke Machin go back to childhood to recall the first things that got them into music and most importantly the things that gave them the inspiration to turn that interest into lifelong careers.
Tillison Reingold Tiranti Album Trailer
Here's are a few snippets from the new TILLISON REINGOLD TIRANTI album "Allium: Una Storia" - a new concept album from two Tangenteers and remarkable Italian Singer Roberto Tiranti.
This is an Imaginary album, by a real band who never MADE an album?
Watch the video and you'll begin to understand!
Kalman Filter "The Moons Of Neptune"
Kalman Filter is the German Electronica division of The Tangent stable and features Andy Tillison's Instrumental and atmospheric work which continues the themes and styles of his early solo albums like "Fog" and "Murk".
The second Kalman Filter Title "The Moons Of Neptune" is an album written in an isolated part of planet Earth and written about one of its most distant neighbours. So distant is Neptune that we only discovered it had 14 Moons in the past few Decades - beleiving there to only be two until the erly 1980s when Voyager finally flew past to give us the extra information.
Tower of Babel
Taken from the album "Auto Reconnaissance"
Andy comments: "The Tower Of Babel’ is a new field of work for The Tangent, a real attempt to do the kind of highly complex popular song that Steely Dan excelled at. It seeks to appeal at as many levels as possible whether for the subtle chord structures, instrumental solos or for the catchiness of the choruses. It’s probably the first time the band ever wrote something with a specific view to it being a “single” release. In the end, the four minute song took longer to write than either of the two epics that it shares the album with. The song is a humorously cynical look into the way technology has helped Bureaucracy become even more invasive in our lives, from “Tick The Box” job application forms - to directed advertising – via phone calls which tell you to “use the website instead".
Life on Hold
Taken from the album "Auto Reconnaissance"
Andy comments: “‘Life On Hold is the cheerful up-tempo Prog Rock foot-stomper we chose to kick off our album. It sits alongside pieces we’ve done in the past like ‘GPS Culture’ and ‘Spark In The Aether’, ‘Crisis In Midlife’ etc and it’s a flavour we do like to return to now and then. This one is influenced by things like that first Asia album, stuff like Kansas and Boston, and the kind of thing that Transatlantic might bang out at you. It’s part of our genetic makeup, but of course only one part. Although there’s a fair amount of accessible tunes on the new album, there’s some seriously deep water around too. And no, ‘Life On Hold’ has nothing to do with Lockdowns. It mentions Jean Paul Sartre, which is not normal in foot-stompers. Get it ON!! Bang, and the dirt is gone!”
Andy Tillson Interview (New)
A full official interview covering all the main points on the release of "Auto Reconnaissance" from the technical to the inspirations behind the record.
Lie Back & Think Of England (Teaser)
Taken from the album "Auto Reconnaissance", out August 21st, 2020!
A short excerpt from the 28 minute epic song from the new album give a flavour of what to expect in this staggeringly ambitious piece which is the deep heart of the album. Contains spoilers!
