Return II Space

A return to N’Erud uncovers a mysterious place preserved in time, where alien farmlands are tended by robots for inhabitants who have long since perished. But time corrupts all, and rogue AI and robotic creations threaten at every turn while travelers search for the secrets of the colossal entity that dominates the skyline.

A return to N’Erud uncovers a mysterious place preserved in time, where alien farmlands are tended by robots for inhabitants who have long since perished. But time corrupts all, and rogue AI and robotic creations threaten at every turn while travelers search for the secrets of the colossal entity that dominates the skyline.

Steven Wilson releases his eighth studio album, The Overview, on Fiction Records. Two tracks, 42 minutes, wildly ambitious and brilliantly audacious in equal measure, the album features endlessly engaging conceptual lyrics that move seamlessly between the cosmic and the quotidian, set to genre-defying, ultra melodic music. it promises to be an utterly unique release in 2025. Available on CD with 12-page booklet.

It was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir. Serve garnished with an alluring woman on the album jacket for best results. Liberty Records co-founder Si Waronker called it Exotica; the soundtrack for a mythical air conditioned Eden, packaged for mid-century, tiki torch-wielding armchair safariers. In the five years after Exotica—Martin Denny’s 1957 landmark Liberty debut—arrived, hundreds of other ethnographic forgeries washed up in record racks all over the U.S., bearing titles like Sophisticated Savage, Sacred Idol, Chant of the Jungle, Polynesian Paradise, Exotic Paradise, Taboo, Primitiva, Forbidden Island, Afrodesia, Hypnotique, Percussion Exotique, and a barrel’s worth of other portmanteaus. “All of those ica and itiva endings I came up with because I thought I was being cute,” Waronker said. “And I don’t know why, but nobody got wise.”

It was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir. Serve garnished with an alluring woman on the album jacket for best results. Liberty Records co-founder Si Waronker called it Exotica; the soundtrack for a mythical air conditioned Eden, packaged for mid-century, tiki torch-wielding armchair safariers. In the five years after Exotica—Martin Denny’s 1957 landmark Liberty debut—arrived, hundreds of other ethnographic forgeries washed up in record racks all over the U.S., bearing titles like Sophisticated Savage, Sacred Idol, Chant of the Jungle, Polynesian Paradise, Exotic Paradise, Taboo, Primitiva, Forbidden Island, Afrodesia, Hypnotique, Percussion Exotique, and a barrel’s worth of other portmanteaus. “All of those ica and itiva endings I came up with because I thought I was being cute,” Waronker said. “And I don’t know why, but nobody got wise.”

Cusco, under the watchful direction of Michael Holm, has once again managed to adopt traditional world music melodies and instrumentation into a Western Eurojazz sound with Apurimac II. Taking the music of the Andes, with its strong rhythms and ethereal flute sound, Holm has added the music of modern technology. The result is a near full orchestra of wonderful music with new depth and complexity without betraying its native roots, where Holm had found his inspiration.