When IQ announced earlier this year they were to bring their classic album ‘The Wake’ to the stage for the first time, the reaction of the fans was overwhelming. The concerts for the ‘25th anniversary tour’ took the band from sold out venues in Spain to Holland, from Germany to Belgium, from Italy to the United Kingdom.
One of the highlights of this more than succesful year was without doubt the performance of IQ in front of an exalted audience at The Boerderij in Zoetermeer. Even for the high standards IQ have set over the last years, the visualisation of The Wake was unique and astounded critics and audiences alike.
The show in Holland was filmed and recorded by the same crew that shot the highly acclaimed bonus live DVD packaged with IQ´s last studio album ‘Frequency’.
A 2 disc CD/DVD set of The Wake in concert is released by GEP this autumn and is to be sold at a very special price, intended as the perfect additon to ‘The Wake 25th anniversary’ four-disc boxed set of The Wake, released by GEP earlier this year.
The box set documents the development of an album, seen by many as the defining progressive rock record of the eighties, in a truly singular way.
Disc 1 – CD
Outer Limits
The Wake
The Magic Roundabout
Corners
Widow´s Peak
The Thousand Days
Headlong
Disc 2 – DVD
Outer Limits
The Wake
The Magic Roundabout
Corners
Widow´s Peak
The Thousand Days
Headlong
It´s an album without words, but tells it´s own story. It´s a journey deep into the heart of music, where melody and sound are as pure as they can be: Simple and outregeous, surprising and echoing alike.
‘Regeneration’ by The Lens knows no boundaries, the eight songs ranging from ambient trance, through pumping rock, to all out prog, and reflect the wide musical knowledge, skills (and taste) of Michael Holmes, the mastermind of this unique project.
Although Holmes did write all the material it would be too simple to describe it as a solo album by the respected and venerated guitarist of IQ.
It´s a sequel to a prequel...
Formed in 1977, a time when musical genres weren´t so narrowly defined, The Lens absorbed inspiration from british progressive rock, german electronic music and american disco, creating an ‘inimitable event’ of sound. GEP would eventually release the debut album ‘A word in your eye’ 20 years after the band transformed into IQ, the UK´s leading progressive rock band.
Using the past as a path to a playground of full artistic freedom, Holmes resurrected the original idea of The Lens as a loose band of talented musicians and recorded the album together with veteran Lens drummer Niall Hayden and IQ-companion Paul Cook on drums, supported by saxophonist Tony Wright.
Intelligent music for an open minded audience - it is not a progressive rock album and it´s not an ambient album, it´s not post rock and it´s not dance. It´s a smart combination of all those genres that may well be fused together here for the first time.
Whatever, it´s a ‘regeneration’ of a fantastic project.
Tracklist ‘Regeneration’
Choosing a farmer, part IV
...to the power of 5
Twenty eight
Dreams
Sequential
Full of stars
A little robot juice
Slowdown
