May 2024 will see the release of the album "To Follow Polaris" on Insideout/Sony Officially the 13th album by The Tangent although this time created in its entirety by the band's main writer Andy Tillison
May 2024 will see the release of the album "To Follow Polaris" on Insideout/Sony Officially the 13th album by The Tangent although this time created in its entirety by the band's main writer Andy Tillison
"I've often wondered what it would be like if I took a whole Tangent album and just did it entirely alone" he says. "Something similar always happens when I make the demos for the Tangent's music, but that's always done with the underlying anticipation of what other members of the band will do. I think after 40 years of making records it's time I finally got around to trying it out. Apart from anything else, I've been playing drums all this time and rarely got to play,"
Andy stresses that this does not show any disaffection for working as part of the band - far from it: "To me, sharing the ideas and casting for other musicians’ ideas is the greatest pleasure in my recording life and there is plenty of material ready and waiting in the wings for the next full line-upl Tangent album release with full band and with all bells and whistles in abundance…. But just imagine, for a moment, having to do without that input, to have to focus fully on every aspect of the music, then the production, mixing, mastering... artwork design and layout, everything - well that's a challenge. A challenge I wanted to try"
Andy stresses that this does not show any disaffection for working as part of the band - far from it: "To me, sharing the ideas and casting for other musicians’ ideas is the greatest pleasure in my recording life and there is plenty of material ready and waiting in the wings for the next full line-upl Tangent album release with full band and with all bells and whistles in abundance…. But just imagine, for a moment, having to do without that input, to have to focus fully on every aspect of the music, then the production, mixing, mastering... artwork design and layout, everything - well that's a challenge. A challenge I wanted to try"
He began writing the album in the run up to the release of "Songs From the Hard Shoulder". "The time between finishing an album and it actually being released is a fairly creative time" he explains. "You've just been embroiled in mixing, mastering, crossing the ‘T’s and dotting the ‘I’s - you finally hand the album in, everything's ok and suddenly you have nothing to do but wait for it to come out. There's this sudden release of creativity when you can dive back into playing and composing (the fun bits) as opposed to mixing, mastering, processing. On this occasion I found I'd written almost the whole of this album in rough before the release of "Hard Shoulder" although a lot has changed since then."
He began writing the album in the run up to the release of "Songs From the Hard Shoulder". "The time between finishing an album and it actually being released is a fairly creative time" he explains. "You've just been embroiled in mixing, mastering, crossing the ‘T’s and dotting the ‘I’s - you finally hand the album in, everything's ok and suddenly you have nothing to do but wait for it to come out. There's this sudden release of creativity when you can dive back into playing and composing (the fun bits) as opposed to mixing, mastering, processing. On this occasion I found I'd written almost the whole of this album in rough before the release of "Hard Shoulder" although a lot has changed since then."
Premium Pre-Orders for premium enthusiasts. In weeks leading to release this album will be available at normal price points.
The two different options here BOTH get you the full signed copy of the Mediabook CD. The "Pay The Wages" option also includes immediate access to demo versions of the songs to hear now. Naturally this option is also a chance to really help the band in what is a tough climate!
Premium Pre-Orders for premium enthusiasts. In weeks leading to release this album will be available at normal price points.
The two different options here BOTH get you the full signed copy of the Mediabook CD. The "Pay The Wages" option also includes immediate access to demo versions of the songs to hear now. Naturally this option is also a chance to really help the band in what is a tough climate!
"I've often wondered what it would be like if I took a whole Tangent album and just did it entirely alone" he says. "Something similar always happens when I make the demos for the Tangent's music, but that's always done with the underlying anticipation of what other members of the band will do. I think after 40 years of making records it's time I finally got around to trying it out. Apart from anything else, I've been playing drums all this time and rarely got to play,"
Andy stresses that this does not show any disaffection for working as part of the band - far from it: "To me, sharing the ideas and casting for other musicians’ ideas is the greatest pleasure in my recording life and there is plenty of material ready and waiting in the wings for the next full line-upl Tangent album release with full band and with all bells and whistles in abundance…. But just imagine, for a moment, having to do without that input, to have to focus fully on every aspect of the music, then the production, mixing, mastering... artwork design and layout, everything - well that's a challenge. A challenge I wanted to try"
He began writing the album in the run up to the release of "Songs From the Hard Shoulder". "The time between finishing an album and it actually being released is a fairly creative time" he explains. "You've just been embroiled in mixing, mastering, crossing the ‘T’s and dotting the ‘I’s - you finally hand the album in, everything's ok and suddenly you have nothing to do but wait for it to come out. There's this sudden release of creativity when you can dive back into playing and composing (the fun bits) as opposed to mixing, mastering, processing. On this occasion I found I'd written almost the whole of this album in rough before the release of "Hard Shoulder" although a lot has changed since then."
Most hardcore fans of The Tangent know that there has hardly been any work done by the band in commercial recording studios. Right from day one their music has been recorded in personal home studios in different locations around Europe, including France, The UK, Sweden & Austria. Only one album featured work from a commercial studio - this being for the recording of Paul's drums for "Down & Out" in 2009. Other occasions saw drums for COMM and Proxy recorded at commercial rehearsal rooms and that is it! The bulk of the work for all Tangent albums has taken place on a PC computer in Andy’s home studio, whatever form that might take or wherever on Earth it may be.
Most hardcore fans of The Tangent know that there has hardly been any work done by the band in commercial recording studios. Right from day one their music has been recorded in personal home studios in different locations around Europe, including France, The UK, Sweden & Austria. Only one album featured work from a commercial studio - this being for the recording of Paul's drums for "Down & Out" in 2009. Other occasions saw drums for COMM and Proxy recorded at commercial rehearsal rooms and that is it! The bulk of the work for all Tangent albums has taken place on a PC computer in Andy’s home studio, whatever form that might take or wherever on Earth it may be.
And so, with "Tangent For One" - the album was created, written, played, recorded, mixed, mastered, finished, artwork, booklet, the lot, ready for manufacture and release, lock, stock and barrel, in Andy (and Sally's) home in Yorkshire by Andy on the equipment he has available to him with no outside support or input whatsoever (apart from the occasional provision of cups of tea and beans on toast).
And so, with "Tangent For One" - the album was created, written, played, recorded, mixed, mastered, finished, artwork, booklet, the lot, ready for manufacture and release, lock, stock and barrel, in Andy (and Sally's) home in Yorkshire by Andy on the equipment he has available to him with no outside support or input whatsoever (apart from the occasional provision of cups of tea and beans on toast).
Album Recorded at MBL - Tangent Towers Winter 2022 - Spring 2023
Front cover artwork from photos taken in Wales and North Yorkshire
Artist photos by Sal Collyer, Kate Abbey, Martin Reijman
Instrumentation: Andy plays
Guitars (Real): Hamer “Flying V”, Squire Stratocaster, Yamaha Pacifica, Yamaha & Tanglewood acoustics
Guitars (Vir); Musiclab Real LPC, Real Strat, Strum.
Bass Guitar: Harley Benton short-scale “Precision” style bass
Drums: Played on Milennium 750x electronic kit with some additions on keyboards
Drum sounds generated by Slate Digital SSD 4 and Addictive Drums
Wind: Roland AE 01 Aerophone wind controller with SWAM voices
Keyboards: Hammond T1 organ/leslie, Arturia Matrixbrute Synth, Gem promega 2 piano/master keyboard, Emu X-board, StudioLogic SLStudio master keyboard, Behringer Model D synthesiser, Roland VR09 Organ. Virtual Instruments include GSI, Native Instruments, Arturia, Waves, & Softube plugins.
Recorded/mixed/mastered using Steinberg Nuendo 12, Behringer X-Touch mix controller, all on a AMD Ryzen 7 Windows PC. Graphics on same PC using Adobe Photoshop CC 2022
There are no Apple Devices, no AI creative input, no “Programming” involved on this recording.
Andy proudly endorses Autotune.
Album Recorded at MBL - Tangent Towers Winter 2022 - Spring 2023
Front cover artwork from photos taken in Wales and North Yorkshire
Artist photos by Sal Collyer, Kate Abbey, Martin Reijman
Instrumentation: Andy plays
Guitars (Real): Hamer “Flying V”, Squire Stratocaster, Yamaha Pacifica, Yamaha & Tanglewood acoustics
Guitars (Vir); Musiclab Real LPC, Real Strat, Strum.
Bass Guitar: Harley Benton short-scale “Precision” style bass
Drums: Played on Milennium 750x electronic kit with some additions on keyboards
Drum sounds generated by Slate Digital SSD 4 and Addictive Drums
Wind: Roland AE 01 Aerophone wind controller with SWAM voices
Keyboards: Hammond T1 organ/leslie, Arturia Matrixbrute Synth, Gem promega 2 piano/master keyboard, Emu X-board, StudioLogic SLStudio master keyboard, Behringer Model D synthesiser, Roland VR09 Organ. Virtual Instruments include GSI, Native Instruments, Arturia, Waves, & Softube plugins.
Recorded/mixed/mastered using Steinberg Nuendo 12, Behringer X-Touch mix controller, all on a AMD Ryzen 7 Windows PC. Graphics on same PC using Adobe Photoshop CC 2022
There are no Apple Devices, no AI creative input, no “Programming” involved on this recording.
Andy proudly endorses Autotune.
.
Track Listing and Previews
1. The North Sky 11.36
Track Listing and Previews
1. The North Sky 11.36
2. A "Like" In The Darkness 08.19
3. The Fine Line 08.04
2. A "Like" In The Darkness 08.19
3. The Fine Line 08.04
4. The Anachronism 21.12
4. The Anachronism 21.12
i) Thoughts from Gen Z
ii) Character Procrastinator
iii) Red Or Blue part 1 (Thoughts from Gen X)
iv) Manarchy (sic)
v) A Visit To A Small Parochial Building
vi) Nocracy
vii) Red Or Blue part 2
viii) Turning North Again
5. The Single
4. The Single
6. The North Sky (Radio Edit) 03.42
"To Follow Polaris" is a new "full on" Progressive Rock album by The Tangent, but this time entirely by the bands leader Andy Tillison Diskdrive. It's in a sense an "absolutist" solo album and is entirely the work of one person in all aspects including artwork, layout, design, lyrics, composition, performance, recording, production, mixing, mastering and authoring. But it's undoubtedly still The Tangent!
Produced between September 2022 and December 2023, the album features Andy using his mutliple keyboards system as normal, but adds to the mix his first ever released performance on Bass Guitar and his second on Stick driven (electronic) drums. Add electric and acoustic guitars and electronic wind controller and this is a full band recording in every sense of the word. A recording which shows Andy's lifelong influence by artists such as Yes, Van Der Graaf Generator, Porcupine Tree, Earth Wind & Fire, Roger Waters and his bands, Return To Forever, Deep Purple, Gentle Giant, Steely Dan and all bands featuring the keyboards player Dave Stewart.
Conceptually Andy claims the album is, ahem, "highly optimistic" but regular listeners to his work will anticipate correctly that this optimism will not be ill founded or over-easy and will be highly critical of obstacles to that optimism and the album will look as much into the dark as it does into the light. . Overall its message is that regardless of the march of progress and great socio/political difficulties involving the apparent end of "Truth" as a benchmark, there are certain things that are slightly less transitory which can be followed and he uses the North Star, Polaris as his metaphor for hope and constancy.
Andy has written the majority of music and lyrics for more than 25 albums which stretch back to the mid 1980s. He founded The Tangent, his best known venture in 2002 with Jonas Reingold (still the band's bassist). The band have made 12 official studio albums for Insideout/Sony, plus 2 live albums, 2 DVDs... released 2 "Fan" albums and toured everywhere from Russia to Quebec. He has guested frequently with the band Argos, worked on albums by Zopp, The Anchoret, The Michael Dunn Project, contributed organ parts to Big Big Train's "English Electric" series, Cosmograf, The Backstage, Karmakanic, Maschine, Steve Anderson and many others both inside and outside the world of Progressive Rock. (Faithful backing tracks created by Andy accompany Sam Fox on her continuing world tours...)
Andy is a "tech head" and in 1995 posted what was almost certainly the first band-produced Mp3 on The Internet. He followed that with a whole downloadable album with artwork 8 years before Radiohead tried it. The Tangents early recordings were milestones in Distance Recording and in the case of the first album brought people together to play who had never met each other before and did not actually meet until the album they had made was released. All with modems and CD-rs.
Andy discovered Progressive Rock music while a 12 year old, but had his first musical performance experiences in the age of Punk and New Wave. He was highly involved as a studio technician for much of the Anarcho-Punk movement in the UKs north and worked with the likes of Chumbawamba, Saw Throat, Doom. The Membranes (and their producer Steve Albini) Civilised Society? The Ex, Electrohippes etc. When he went into Progressive Music he vowed to take with him the socio political elements which he learned from the aforementioned and he still does that to this day, sometimes to the dismay of some "Politics doesn't belong in music" critics. In 2016 he wrote the Tangent piece "A Few Steps Down The Wrong Road", a biting response to the Brexit vote in the UK, alienating some, but daring to do what most rock musicians did not at that time. He does not beloing to any poiltical party and sees none of the mainstream parties as having any realistic practical benefit to the future of life on this planet. He believes in aiming for an educated and rational Autonomy rather than Government and Rule. His heroes are a young lady from Scandinavia called Greta and two now legendary gentlemen named Anderson and Hammill. The people Andy will vote for will only be the "lesser of the two evils" as he lives in a country with a voting system so archaic that only one of two parties can actually win and only 2 parties can actually have any say in policy.
Blending together storytelliing, Prog Rock, Punk, Pop, Soul, Berlin School Electronica. Funk, Jazz, EDM, Politics, Humour and anecdote, Andy Tillison Diskdrive has been a prolific writer now since 1978. Anyone as deliberately unfocussed as this will have paid a commercial price and he has indeed done that. The new album "To Follow Polaris" is a distillation of everything this man can do as a writer, thinker, perfomer, producer, technician and graphics designer. What he has realised here is a manifestation of who he is with no-one to temper it. The name "Tillison" means "son of the ploughman" Consider the furrow ploughed.
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Track Listing and Previews
1. The North Sky 11.36
Track Listing and Previews
1. The North Sky 11.36
2. A "Like" In The Darkness 08.19
3. The Fine Line 08.04
2. A "Like" In The Darkness 08.19
3. The Fine Line 08.04
4. The Anachronism 21.12
4. The Anachronism 21.12
i) Thoughts from Gen Z
ii) Character Procrastinator
iii) Red Or Blue part 1 (Thoughts from Gen X)
iv) Manarchy (sic)
v) A Visit To A Small Parochial Building
vi) Nocracy
vii) Red Or Blue part 2
viii) Turning North Again
5. The Single
5. The North Sky (Radio Edit) 03.42
