Beyond July

This Set include material recorded from various shows during the European tour leg in 2015, among old classics, new tracks as well as songs that are played very rarely during live shows. Vocalist Hansi Kürsch speaks about the difficulties to create such an ambitious album: “In general I would say that we’ve had a really good run on this tour and that nearly every show was perfect. But, at the end of the day, after every band member has checked each and every song and concert of those 30 shows again and again, there were only like two or three versions of each song being suitable to be used for an album. We then had to decide between those last remaining versions, which would have been the most impressive one. This was a nearly endless task!

SWEGAS were a British 'progressive' brass-rock band that existed between 1969 and 1971. They played all the major venues in the UK and made several tours of Italy and Germany where they were extremely popular. The name of the band is derived from an Anglo Saxon word for music. Swegas began life as a rehearsal band in 1969. They were put together by Brian (Joe) Spibey and Nick Ronai who had been members of the Fulson Stilwell Band before joining the soul band, Cat Road Show. The original Swegas band consisted of Joe Spibey (trumpet), Nick Ronai (trombone), Alan Smith (Tenor Sax), Jonny Toogood (guitar) plus a few pick up players. Mid 1969 they advertised for an Organist and Bass Guitarist and Keith Strachan and Roy Truman applied and got the gig.

One of the towering figures of 20th century's music, Alabama-born pianist and organist Herman "Sun Ra" Blount (1914) became the cosmic musician par excellence. Despite dressing in extraterrestrial costumes (but inspired by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt) and despite living inside a self-crafted sci-fi mythology (he always maintained that he was from Saturn, and no biographer conclusively proved his birth date) and despite littering his music with lyrics inspired to a self-penned spiritual philosophy (he never engaged in sexual relationships apparently because he considered himself an angel), Sun Ra created one of the most original styles of music thanks to a chronic disrespect for both established dogmas and trendy movements.