Art by Nolan

Neo-prog band Pendragon formed in London during the heady days of punk, but didn't coalesce until 1983, when the band began playing around London and earned a small spot at that year's Reading Festival. The lineup stabilized, after the 1985 album Jewel, around vocalist/guitarist Nick Barrett, bassist Peter Gee, drummer Fudge Smith and keyboard player Clive Nolan. Pendragon recorded the live album 9:15 in 1986 and began to establish a continental fan base the following year. European audiences proved enthusiastic, spawning a contract with the French M.S.I. label; nevertheless, the group was forced to form its own Toff label just to release material in England.

THE SAMURAI OF PROG was born in 2009, project and nickname of Marco BERNARD who worked on Colossus and Musea; its philosophy is to integrate guest musicians according to album releases; 15 including three per year since 2020, impressive. Kimmo PÖRSTI and Steve UNRUH forming the backbone, after covers of MARILLION and other groups, they embark on personal compositions from 2014 to make music of quality and emotion; themes on short stories such as Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe or Grimm's tales. Here it's S-F composed by Marco GRIECO for a symphonic prog stamped 70's. "Anthem To The Phoenix Star" on travel with the constraints of time and space as a preamble, a PINK FLOYD sound for bass, Marek's sax and Juhani's guitar, voice-overs including that of Clive NOLAN forming a spatial soundtrack where the synthesizer is king and where the universe shaped is indeed dystopia…