This Fool

No-Man's Tim Bowness is part of this project along with Pendragon's Fudge Smith on drums. Steven Wilson mixed a couple of tracks. This is spacey, atmospheric music with lots of sax and mellotron.
Take 60's/70's influences such as early Genesis, early Floyd, Soft Machine and VDGG and mix them with Rain Tree Crow and King Crimson then throw in some Faust and Greg Lake for good measure. The album moves from delicately sung ballads that are beautiful in the extreme to music that takes a lot of work to gain the benefit from it.

APRIL FOOL was formed in early 1988 by drummer Walt "Wiggy" Kaye, who enlisted guitarist Chris Rocus, bassist Chris Mock and vocalist Dave Stradling. First order of business was a four song demo recorded at Dave Ivory's studio, Iris Sound. APRIL FOOL then hit the club circuit hard while the song "Bad Boy Willie" was receiving local Philadelphia airplay, resulting in the band's live concert following starting to grow. By the fall of 1988 Mock decided to leave the band and was replaced by bassist Roberto Lombardi. At this point the band enjoyed interest from several major labels. During the negotiations in early 1989, Rocus would be replaced by guitarist George Smith. Three weeks after the lineup changes, APRIL FOOL was back out playing live to even bigger crowds up and down the east coast.

Henry Fool’s Men Singing is an ambitious four track instrumental album featuring members of No-Man, I Monster and Roxy Music. Sometimes playful, sometimes intense, sometimes eerie and ethereal, Men Singing is equal parts dynamic drums, spiky guitars and atmospheric washes of fluttering flutes and vintage keyboards.
Produced and arranged by band founders keyboardist Stephen Bennett and guitarist Tim Bowness (Steven Wilson’s creative partner in No-Man), the album has been mixed by Jarrod Gosling (I Monster/Regal Worm), who also contributes Mellotron, glockenspiel and the wonderfully surreal artwork…

Essential: A masterpiece of progressive rock music.
Van Der Graaf's frontman Peter Hammill's first solo-album comes right at my favorite moment of VdGG history.

As the 1980s began, Nazareth decided to return to the AOR experimentation they had toyed with during the 1970s on albums like Close Enough for Rock & Roll and Play 'N the Game. They also made a play for AOR viability by hiring West Coast session legend Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to produce the album…