STEVE HACKETT

The ex-Genesis guitarist’s first fully-fledged concept album in decades is a dizzying, delirious box of delights.

Mike Barnes

“Are you sitting comfortably?” asks the voice from the BBC Radio programme Listen With Mother from within a sound collage at the beginning of People From The Smoke, the track that opens The Circus And The Nightwhale. It’s more than coincidence that this famous phrase was first uttered in 1950, the year of Steve Hackett’s birth, as the story begins in traumatised post-war London when the national broadcaster was a reassuring presence, and follows the rites of passage of the principal character, Travla – who despite his name, is based on the guitarist. Hackett’s solo debut, 1975’s The Voyage Of The Acolyte, was a concept album, taking its inspiration from the tarot, but apart from toying with some themes on 1980’s Defector, which he states is not a complete concept…

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Prog Italia (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 147

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