Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist Rick Miller made his debut effort as a solo artist back in 1983 with the new age production Starsong, which shifted a highly respectable 30.000 units at the time. He would follow up this venture with Windhaven in 1987, and his efforts Interstellar Passage from 1998 and the EP No Passion, No Pain from 2009 would continue exploring similar musical territories. But after honing his craft working at Sound Design Studios in Toronto throughout the 80's and 90's, Miller wanted to have a go at his true musical love as well, atmospheric progressive rock inspired by artists such as Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues and Steve Hackett…
Rick Miller has been part of the progressive rock music scene since 2004, releasing prog rock style albums during this period while also experimenting in other musical ventures in the new age and electronic genres. Unstuck In Time was written and recorded mostly during the shutdown cause by the Covid pandemic this year. Several of the album’s tracks reflect this lyrically and musically. The album title, Unstuck In Time is a phrase taken from Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse Five and is the inspiration behind the final and longest track of the album. The overall mood of the album is dark and haunting with a hard edge the comes to the surface occasionally.
Canadian Rick Miller is back with his fourteenth album, two years after 'Delusional'. This is very much a continuation of the change in style he has been working on recently where there is much more of a rock element within his music, and his band is the same as the last album apart from this time around only Barry Haggarty provides guitar, as Kane Miller is no longer involved. Given Kane has been a mainstay since Rick's fourth album, 2004's 'Dreamtigers', that is quite a shift. But Haggarty's relationship with Rick goes back even further, while flautist Sarah Young has also been involved for more than 15 years. Both drummer Will and cellist Mateusz Swoboda also have a long history with Rick, who describes this album as being "in the genre of what I would call Progressive Rock. That term defining the type of music that was made famous throughout the 70's by bands such as Genesis, The Moody Blues and Pink Floyd"…
Here we have Canadian musician Rick Miller back with his sixteenth studio album, for which he has kept the same line-up as he had for 2020's "Unstuck In Time".
Pink Floyd has always been an influence, but there is also much on here that one could relate back to early Barclay James Harvest while Alan Parsons Project is also involved somewhere along the line. Miller is crossover in its truest sense in that he has no boundaries and instead goes where ethe muse takes him, so we can be symphonic in some places and folk in others, always with his emotional and haunting vocals bringing the listener deep inside. While many of his influences do reach back in time, this never feels like an album from nearly 50 years ago but instead is fresh and new.
Rick Miller: Altered States is my most recent album of old style progressive rock made famous in the 60s and 70s by bands such as Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project and The Moody Blues. So if you like your Prog rock with lots of heavy metal and jazz fusion, you may not find what you’re looking for here. I do hope you enjoy though.
Rick Miller: "This is my latest album, in the genre of what I would call Progressive Rock. That term defining the type of music that was made famous throughout the 70s by bands such as Genesis, The Moody Blues and Pink Floyd. The music is soft, dark and melancholy because that's the way I like it, so if you like your Prog Rock with lots of jazz fusion or heavy metal in it, you may not find what you're looking for here. I do hope you enjoy though.. and thanks for listening."
Broken China is a progressive rock solo album by Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright. It was his second and final solo album. The album is a four-part concept album based on Wright's then-wife Mildred's battle with depression, and is very much like a classic Pink Floyd concept album in its structure and overall feel. Two songs, "Reaching for the Rail" and "Breakthrough" feature Sinéad O'Connor on lead vocals, with Wright singing elsewhere. The album was recorded in Wright's personal studio in France. Broken China was only Wright's second solo record after 1978's Wet Dream and the last to be released before his death in September 2008. Wright asked fellow Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour to perform on the album, and Gilmour agreed to play on "Breakthrough." However, the approach for the song was changed later on, and Gilmour's performance was not used on the finished release.