I am beyond pleased and proud to announce that I have joined the highly professional and well-regarded touring and recording band Prymary on keyboards. This band defies categorization but the closest I can get is progressive-melodic-hardrock-conceptual. Like maybe if Yes and King Crimson had a love child. They are a rare blend of challenging (nay make that very challenging) and thus interesting to play original music YET (and here's the big difference) their tunes are very accessible and thus very interesting to listen to. Hummable, even. In my quest for a way to return to my progressive roots I've either found highly technical bands that were mere chops-fests, OR cliche overly-dramatic self-indulgent bands. Prymary exists in a rare intersection and is thus significantly different. Example: When I was listening I did not even realize the complexity of the time signatures; only when I went to transcribe did I find 11/16, 5/8, 13/16, etc all within a few measures of each other. You musicians out there know that this type of thing is usually something you hear right away, so the fact that it was not in-my-face apparent is testimony to the accessibility of the technicalities. It's the type of thing that prog fans could to a Prymary concert AND take their non-prog-loving date who ordinarily would be bored AND have said date really enjoy themselves. Ya know?
The players are highly creative in their conceptual and almost classical approach to composition, they are scary-good technically, and really genuinely nice guys with not an ounce of ego or spotlight-grabbing to be seen. A portion of the band toured with Dream Theater, played in Amsterdam (and we will be again this year looks like) at a big festival, and are well known and highly regarded in musical circles, with a significant fan base. They have been very complimentary to me and my playing and have expressed their enthusiasm for the blend of prog, classical, jazz, and other influences I bring.
More information is available on their main site at:
www.prymary.com
and on MySpace at:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=40743681&blogId=497513850
Currently the band is finishing up an album -- their third -- that for various reasons has taken awhile to complete, an album to which I'll be contributing some solos on top of existing keyboards work which had been previously recorded, and which has an excellent new vocalist who also has recently joined the group, then we will tour that album, then probably begin writing anew in October or so.
If I had written up a description of my ideal project, this would be it. I am excited to have my friends come see us as we start playing out on August 1st.
Because my time is quite happily consumed with this project, I will need to pass on other projects that may come my way.
That's it for now, gotta practice....!
Neil