Catharsis

A French band with a very distinctive sound centered around Roland Bocquet's ghostly Farfisa organ. Their first album (recorded March 1971 at Studio ETA) was a mixture of easily accessible tunes, strange wordless chanting, high hippie spirits, Arabian elements, strong percussion and a few avant-garde excursions. Their music had a very spontaneous feeling, as if the group was assembled for some kind of occult ritual using music to reach a higher consciousness. Arguably they had some common ground with the early Pink Floyd and Amon Düül philosophically, but it lead to other conclusions musically. Masq is also notable for its surrealistic cover design…

Around the year 1600, a group of Florentine aristocrats, inspired by ancient Greek drama, gave birth to opera. They intended to move and glorify human passions in such a strong way that the spectator's soul would be cleansed of these passions. This was the process that Aristotle called 'catharsis'. Xavier Sabata grasps this highly intense moment at the heart of the destiny of legendary heroes of Baroque opera. A fascinating album by the author of Bad Guys, accompanied by George Petrou and Armonia Atenea.

Catharsis is the ninth album by American heavy metal band Machine Head, released on January 26, 2018 via Nuclear Blast.

Nick Magnus is familiar to many Steve Hackett fans as a band member of the early Steve Hackett band. Nick and Steve stayed in touch and Nick also appeared as a special guest at the Steve Hackett Event in Germany 2009. Nick has released a couple of solo albums, i.e. Hexameron, Children Of Another God and n'monix, which were both received well and both had an interesting guest list of musicians. Nick has now announced his next studio album. Catharsis will be released on 30th September. It is inspired by the landscape and legends of the Ariège in the French Pyrénées.