Opinion
I thought it might be fun to place all my music, book and tech type reviews under one banner. Hence OPINION. Use the main menu to find specific sections you might be interested in.
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Porcupine Tree – Closure-Continuation (2022)
As everyone must know by now, this is the first PT album in years. To say it was long awaited would be an understatement. Anyway, here it is and what is it like? The easy stuff: production and performances are absolutely first rate. Staggeringly well produced, as one would expect…
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Reading Time
This week, I have been reading A NEW DAY YESTERDAY: UK PROGRESSIVE ROCK & THE 1970s. It had been on my reading list for a while, so thought I would take it for a spin. I must say, I am glad I did. I’m 50% of the way through it…
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Remastering Process
Now that I have finished remastering another album, I thought it might be fun to share a few things that go into the process. As you know, The Story of Our Lives is a single song split into 12 parts. So, once the original master was loaded into Studio One,…
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Kindle Oasis Review
I am a voracious reader: mostly tech magazines, biographies, sci-fi and some philosophy. I tend to do most of my reading on my mobile phone or computer. I use the Kindle app on there, and it’s a pretty decent experience. However, battery life drains using it; and it’s not too…
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How I Remaster the Ancient Relics!
As several of you have expressed an interest in the remastering process, I thought it would be cool to share with you how I went about it for the 2020 / 2021 remastering campaign. DISCLAIMER: I am not a mastering engineer, nor do I profess to know what I’m doing!…
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The Progressive Underground, Vol 2
The Progressive Underground Volume 2 is out now and continues author Kevin Rowland’s deep delve into this marvellous genre. This volume covers demo and album reviews by artists from I to S. Here are the artists featured (often multiple times) : Icon, Igzit-Nine, Ilúvatar, Iluzjon, Imagin’Aria, Incandescent Sky, Ines Project,…
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Neewer Studio Monitor Isolation Pads for 8 inch Monitors
I’ve been recording music for many years and I have never invested in any isolation pads for my monitor speakers. The main reason being that I had some serious heavy duty spiked stands / isolation, so they weren’t needed. However, they broke and never got replaced. Since then, my monitors…
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How Music Got Free: What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime?
This book is all about how the mp3 file format for compressed audio took over the world, eventually leading to music becoming, effectively, free. On the surface, this may sound like a dull topic. However, the book reads like an action thriller. It’s fast paced, skips forwards and backwards in…
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The Progressive Underground, Vol 1
The Progressive Underground Volume 1 is a new series of books starring the progressive music scene as seen through the eyes, ears and pen of noted reviewer Kevin Rowland. It covers the years 1991 through 2006. Kevin has written for just about every prog / rock related magazine and…