QUIDAM

What better place to return to than your hometown? To symbolically come full circle? The history of Quidam was born in Inowrocław, and it is in Inowrocław that the band returns to the stage on its thirtieth anniversary.

However, when looking for the beginnings of the group, you have to go back to 1991. That was when they started playing together, only under the name Deep River and in a hard-blues-rock style. A significant change occurred four years later, when, under the Quidam banner, the band changed course towards prog-rock. It was then that the first classic line-up crystallized: vocalist and cellist Emila Derkowska (today Nazaruk), flautist Ewa Smarzyńska (today Albering), guitarist Maciek Meller, keyboardist Zbyszek Florek, bassist Radek Scholl and drummer Rafał Jermakow. These musicians, with the help of Collage members Wojtek Szadkowski and Krzysztof Palczewski, recorded a debut album simply titled "Quidam" and released in 1996. The album gained recognition from both fans and critics, almost immediately placing the band in the forefront of Polish prog rock, the first manifestation of which was participation in the 1st Festival of Progressive Rock in Warsaw's Stodoła. The success quickly spread beyond the borders of Poland and resulted in concerts in the Netherlands, France and Great Britain.

At the beginning of 1998, Ewa was replaced by flautist Jacek Zasada and this line-up recorded two more studio albums – "Sny aniołów" (1998) and "Pod niebem czas" (2002), as well as one live album "Baja Prog - Live In Mexico '99". The latter documents a unique event in the band's career, which crossed the Atlantic for the first time to perform at the Baja Prog festival in Mexico. In Europe, he performed alongside John Wetton and later Colin Bass. In 2002, with the new bassist Damian Sikorski, he performed at the Rio Festival in Brazil, but soon the Quidam musicians went their separate ways and the band suspended their activity. The band returned only in 2005 with a changed line-up: with drummer Maciek Wróblewski, bassist Mariusz Ziółkowski and Bartek Kossowicz at the microphone. The album "surRevival" showed a completely new face of the band, and the title was an interesting collage of words: survival and rebirth. Both were very successful, and this line-up became the most harmonious and lasting in the history of the band. In 2005, Quidam played at the Wyspiański Theatre in Katowice, preceding the performance of SBB, and its performances were recorded and released a year later on CD and DVD under the title "The Fifth Season". Sharing the stage with the legend of Polish rock is a big event, but the musicians had more fun in their own backyard. In the Inowrocław City Theatre they played an unusual, semi-acoustic concert, which was also preserved for posterity – on a release entitled "bez półPRĄDU...halfPLUGGED". Quidam struck while the iron was hot and in 2007 prepared another studio album, which was titled "Alone Together" and which is still held in special esteem by fans. The original and interesting idea is already included in the titles of the individual songs – read one after another, they create one sentence. However, there were fewer concerts promoting this album. And it was not until 2010 that one of them – in Konin – was immortalized on audio and video media under the title "Strong Together".

The history of Quidam is currently closed by the album "Saiko" from 2012. A year after its release, Maciek Meller left the band (he became Riverside's guitarist and solo artist a few years later) and the band soon suspended its activity.

An unusual reunion after many years took place in 2021 on the occasion of the reissue of the first album. For its needs, the old line-up recorded a new version of Sanktuarium (with one change: instead of Radek Scholl, Jarek Szajerski, the co-writer of this song, played bass). The pleasant action was repeated a year later, when the reissue of Sny aniołów was to hit stores. At that time, the composition Pod powieką once again found its way to the mature Quidam workshop.

This summer, another reunion after many years is being prepared, but this time on stage.

Band members:
Bartosz Kossowicz – vocals
Maciej Meller – guitar
Zbigniew Florek – keyboards
Jacek Zasada – flutes
Mariusz Ziółkowski – bass guitar
Maciej Wróblewski – drums

Selected discography:
studio albums:
Quidam (1996)
Angels' Dreams (1998)
Pod niebem czas (2002)
surREvival (2005)
... bez półPRĄDU ...halfPLUGGED... (2006)
Alone Together (2007)
Saiko (2012)
concert albums:
Baja Prog – Live in Mexico '99 (1999)
Quidam The Fifth Season – Live in Concert (2006)
Strong Together (2010)

Quidam online:
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CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX

Formed in 2004 by multi-instrumentalist Justin Greaves, Crippled Black Phoenix are a British-Swedish band known for their unique blend of dark rock and experimental sounds. Often described as the creators of "end-time ballads," they create majestic songs that delve into themes of love, loss, tragedy, and redemption.

The eight-person group, led by multi-instrumentalist and founder Justin Greaves, has released twelve basic studio albums over the course of its twenty-year career, entrusting the distribution of its achievements to the American-French independent label Season Of Mist in 2016.

The band's work has been problematic for reviewers since the very beginning of its activity, who have tried to assign it to a specific musical genre. It is dominated by extensive compositions, in which post-rock guitar walls of sound clash with progressive solos, keyboard spatial landscapes, a pinch of electronics, psychedelia, stoner rock, elements of folk and metal gallops, creating multi-layered sonic stories, touching on both personal issues concerning every person and global problems afflicting contemporary humanity.

Greaves recorded his first ideas under the Crippled Black Phoenix banner in 2004, in the form of uncommitted, loose improvisations that were born in his head while he was still playing drums in Iron Monkey and Electric Wizard. Encouraged to act by bassist Daniel Aitchison, he invited other musicians to collaborate, who together with him and the aforementioned founder of Mogwai created the foundations of the band's style. The name of the project was inspired by Johnny Morrow's lyrics to the song "Big Loader" from Iron Monkey's debut album. In the following years, the band's line-up changed on individual albums, mainly due to the artists' involvement in other musical projects. However, this did not affect the development of a characteristic style, combining the tradition of progressive sound painting in the style of Pink Floyd with modernity in the form of electronic elements and heavier sounds. Greaves is particularly fond of long, slowly developing forms, in which there is no shortage of melancholy and harmoniously wandering melodies, enriched with a touch of darkness and broken by dynamic accents. Their uniqueness is revealed primarily during live performances.

The constant evolution of Crippled Black Phoenix has been reflected in numerous changes in its line-up, both in the studio and live. Among the first versions of the band, the most significant changes concerned the departure of original vocalist/guitarist Joe Volk, who began a solo career (2012) and guitarist Karl Demata (2014), who later founded the band Vly with the departing bassist Christian Heilmann. After the break-up, Greaves and Demata got into a legal dispute over the registered trademark of the band's name. In the second half of 2015, the problem with the former guitarist was solved, and the mastermind of the band Greaves was able to continue his activity under the alias Crippled Black Phoenix, following his visions and still being very productive despite the frequent turnover of musicians in the band.

A new phase of CBP began in 2014 with the arrival of Swedish guitarist and vocalist Daniel Anghede – a voice that Greaves considered ideal for his projects.

Another major change in the history of CBP came in 2019, when Daniel Anghede left the band after six years of fruitful cooperation and a series of four studio albums. Later, Anghede announced a project ("Venus Principle"), a kind of CBP spin-off, with other former members of the band. That year, Cripped Black Phoenix performed for the first time in Inowrocław at the Ino-Rock Festival, with Anghede as vocalist.

In the summer of 2020, Greaves announced the beginning of a new era of the band. In October 2020, a brand new album "Ellengæst" was released, featuring several guest vocalists. In late April 2021, Swede Joel Segerstedt was announced as the new co-vocalist and rhythm guitarist. His first recording with the band was the single "Painful Reminder/Dead Is Dead". In April 2022, Crippled Black Phoenix announced a new full-length album "Banefyre" and their first tour of Europe after the Covid-19 pandemic. In November 2024, the band celebrated 20 years of music with the double album "The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature & Horrific Honorifics Number Two (2)", which included new versions of old material and covers that have inspired the collective over the years.

Justin Greaves is a huge cat lover. He has about a dozen of them, and his favorites are Bear and Fang. They never leave his side! Justin is also a huge fan of bikes and bike rides, even the extreme ones.

This year Greaves and company will appear at the Ino-Rock festival for the second time and will undoubtedly guarantee a rich, colorful palette of musical experiences, stage spontaneity and great fun.

(the text uses fragments of the band's biography from the English version of Wikipedia)

Band members:
Justin Greaves – guitars, effects, samples, backing vocals
Belinda Kordic – vocals, percussion
Andy Taylor – guitars
Matt Crawford – bass
Lucy Marshal – keyboards, backing vocals
Justin Storms – vocals, guitars
Ben Wilsker – drums

Discography:
studio albums:
A Love Of Shared Disasters (2007)
The Resurrectionists (2009)
Night Raider (2009)
I, Vigilante (2010)
(Mankind) The Crafty Ape (2012)
No Sadness Or Farewell (2012)
White Light Generator (2014)
New Dark Age (2015)
Bronze (2016)
Great Escape (2018)
Ellengast (2020)
Banefyre (2022)
singles, mini-albums and special releases:
Sharks & Storms/Blizzard Of Horned Cats (2006)
Childhood's End (with Se Delan) (2015)
Oh'Ech-oes (with Se Delan) (2015)
Horrific Honorifics (2017)
Budapest Vigilante Sessions (2017)
Painful Reminder / Dead Is Dead (2021)
Beautiful Destroyer (bandcamp one-off track) (2024)
The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature + Horrific Honorifics Number Two (2) (2024)
live albums:
Poznań 2011 A.D. (2012)
Live in Bern 2012 A.D. (2013)
Destroy Freak Valley (2017)
We Shall See Victory (Live In Bern 2012 A.D. reissue) (2020)

Crippled Black Phoenix online:
www.crippledblackphoenix.net

ALEX HENRY FOSTER AND THE LONG SHADOWS

Canadian musician, writer, producer and composer, former frontman of Juno Award nominated post-rock/noise band Your Favorite Enemies (YFE). With his current band The Long Shadows he creates intense post-rock soundscapes with emotional lyrics.

Hailed by Rolling Stone as "the unexpected DIY artist", Alex Henry Foster released his first solo album "Windows In The Sky" in Canada in 2018 and worldwide in 2020. Windows in the Sky was written mainly during his stay in Tangier after the death of his father, who lost his battle with cancer. The record was nominated for the "Album of the Year" award in Canada in 2019 and made quite an impression on artists who can be considered kindred spirits of Foster.

His second album, "Standing Under Bright Lights", released in April 2021, consists of a reinterpretation of "Windows In The Sky" by an 11-piece band and was recorded during a sold-out performance at the 40th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. This concert, receiving rave reviews and comments, began a series of live performances that established Foster and The Long Shadows.

2023 started off rather inauspiciously, as Alex had to undergo emergency heart surgery and revised his plans for the coming months. The musician then decided to work on a beautiful Japanese film project titled "Kimiyo" (part of a larger project called "Voyage à la Mer") and its soundtrack. This resulted in a collaboration with the talented Japanese-Canadian artist Momoka Tobari and his longtime artistic partner Ben Lemelin. Released in April 2024, the album reached the top ten on the Billboard charts.

The project's second album, "A Measure Of Shape And Sounds," is an instrumental and was released on September 20, 2024, also finding a place on the Billboard bestseller lists.

A member of the first wave of writer-enthusiast blogs, Foster started his own blog in 2006, where he posted his artistic and community-oriented writing translated into French, Japanese, German, and Chinese, to name a few. A frequent columnist for the bimonthly Canadian Musician, he has also published the books A Journey Beyond Ourselves in 2017 and The Early Days in 2020.

A staunch human rights advocate and public speaker, Foster has commented on racism, the rise of street gangs (in which he spent his teenage years), and the resurgence of populism and extremism. He has worked with Amnesty International and War Child on several campaigns. He also founded a non-profit organization in 2004 to raise awareness of child soldiers and created The Hope Project after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. He has recently taken part in initiatives to raise awareness of mental health issues.

The musician is also known as a forerunner of a new generation of independent artist-entrepreneurs. He is the co-owner of Hopeful Tragedy Records and co-founder of Upper Room Studio, a former Catholic church in Drummondville, Canada, which was converted into a multimedia complex. It was there that the band recorded and mixed their debut album, "Windows In The Sky".

Foster founded the conceptual creative group The Fabrik, which spawned several clothing lines, as well as a special jewelry line, Red Crown Crane. In 2020, he acquired the renowned hotel La Maison de Tanger in Tangier, Morocco, which soon became one of the most coveted locations for artists from all walks of life.

That’s where he and his band are currently based. Together, they are working on a new album, set to be released in 2025.

A true baseball enthusiast and counterculture fan, Foster is also the proud father of two dogs named Leonard and MacKaye… and he likes to be simply called Alex.

Band members:
Alex Henry Foster – Vocals, Guitars, Moog, Percussion
Ben Lemelin – Guitars, Drums, Vocals
Jeff Beaulieu – Bass
Sef Lemelin – Guitars, Keyboards
Miss Isabel – Keyboards, Clarinet, Trumpet, Flute, Vocals
Charles "Moose" Allicie – Drums, Dulcimer

Discography:
studio albums:
Windows In The Sky (2018)
Kimiyo (2024)
A Measure Of Shape And Sounds (2024)
live albums:
Standing Under Bright Lights (2021)
EPs:
Summertime Departures (2020)
The Hunter (By The Seaside Window) (2020)
Lavender Sky (2020)
Snowflakes In July (2020)
A Whispering Moment (2024)

Alex Henry Foster online:
alexhenryfoster.com

PURE REASON REVOLUTION

British band founded in 2003 by Jon Courtney and Chloe Alper, presenting an interesting version of experimental art rock spiced with electronics.

The beginnings of Pure Reason Revolution's history go back to the 90s and the band The Sunset Sound, founded in Reading by Jon Courtney and Chloe Alper. The line-up was completed by guitarist Tom Leathes and bassist Bob Cooper. The debut single "Moving" made it onto the playlists of some radio stations, including Radio 1, where the group was promoted by alternative music guru Steve Lamacq.

Sunset Sound transformed into Pure Reason Revolution when Jon Courtney met Jim Dobson and Greg Jong while studying at Westminster University. After releasing their first single – "Apprentice of the Universe" – in the autumn of 2004, the group signed a contract with Sony BMG.

2005 brought two more singles – "The Bright Ambassadors of Morning" and "The Intention Craft". The title borrowed from Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and the length of the first one were received as a clear declaration of the band's progressive ambitions. In October, the debut mini-album, entitled "Cautionary Tales for the Brave", was released. This is the release on which Greg Jong can be heard for the last time at that time - he was replaced in the band by Jamie Wilcox in the spring.

2006, with the release of the first full-length album, "The Dark Third", in April, opens a new chapter in the band's activity. In April 2008, the band signed a contract with the German label Superball Music and planned to release the album under this name. On November 28, 2008, they confirmed the release of the second album and gave its title - "Amor Vincit Omnia". The album was released on March 9, 2009, and four days earlier the band began their longest concert tour to date, which included Poland. After releasing their second full-length album, the band was classified as new prog. The band's genre affiliation was confirmed on their third album "Hammer And Anvil", which premiered in Europe on October 18, 2010.

After releasing the aforementioned album and completing its promotional tour, the band decided to suspend their activity indefinitely.

They returned in 2020 with another excellent album "Eupnea", on which they skillfully combined elements of the experimental style from a decade ago with progressive rock. The next album "Above Cirrus" from 2022 had a similar character, which solidified their position among the group of rock innovators. Greg Jong reappeared in the band, returning after a dozen or so years.

In September 2024, Pure Reason Revolution offered their last album to date – "Coming Up To Consciousness". With it, there was a significant change in the band's line-up. Chloe Alper has left her bandmates and joined the band James. She has been replaced by Annicke Shireen, who works with Heilung on a daily basis. The new album explores themes of betrayal, deception, fear, regret, mortality and questions of mental health, showing the band's constant evolution and exploration within the genre.

Pure Reason Revolution's journey from "The Dark Third" to "Coming Up to Consciousness" shows their ability to adapt and innovate. It is thanks to this that the band has made a lasting mark on the experimental and electronic rock scene.

(the text uses fragments of the band's biography from the Polish version of Wikipedia)

Band members:
Jon Courtney – vocals, guitars, keyboards
Greg Jong – guitars, vocals
Annicke Shireen – vocals, keyboards (simultaneously in Heilung and his own band Shireen)
Ravi Kesavaram – drums (simultaneously in My Vitriol)
Ingo Jetten – bass, guitars, vocals (simultaneously in Lesoir)

Discography:
studio albums:
The Dark Third (2006)
Amor Vincit Omnia (2009)
Hammer and Anvil (2010)
Eupnea (2020)
Above Cirrus (2022)
Coming Up To Consciousness (2024)
concert albums:
Live at NEARfest 2007 (2008)
EPs:
Cautionary Tales For The Brave (2005)
Valour EP (2011)

PRR online:
www.purereasonrevolutionofficial.com

TOŃ

A funeral industry entrepreneur, an electricity lawyer, a singing teacher, an MTV translator and a Polish stoner's daddy – together they play music on the border of good vibe and bad trip.

A funeral entrepreneur, an electricity lawyer, a singing teacher, one of the fathers of Polish stoner and an MTV translator go down to the basement with a deer skull on the wall, photographs of deceased people, a digital, ex-church Technics organ and a ton of other instruments to create music from the border between reality and dream, in which weight and throaty screams mix with harmony, expressive female vocals and subtlety.

Their joint musical journey began in 2021, at the initiative of Kuba and Robert, who were soon joined by Wojtek, Monika and Jagoda. The band's music cannot be clearly classified into genres, combining elements of stoner, psychedelia and post-punk with folk and forest motifs to extreme metal. Each song is different, each tells a different story, but each one reflects the loss of man in the modern world, the longing for unity with other people and with nature and the desire to find one's way in the storm of adversity.

The debut, self-released album "Korzenie" was released in June 2024 and contains 8 songs, the album was preceded by 4 singles: "Odwilż", "Las, głaz, ćma", "Wdech/Wydech" and "Niesława". The songs were recorded in Nebula Studio by Tomek Stołowski, and most of them were mixed and mastered by Maciek Karbowski. The title track was mixed by Robert Szydło (Mikromusic).

In November 2024, Jagoda Podskarbi left the group, and Mikołaj "Miko" Malanowski took over the drums.

Band members:
Monika Adamska-Guzikowska – vocals
Jakub Guzikowski – guitar
Robert Wiśniewski – guitar
Wojtek Górecki – bass
Mikołaj Malanowski – drums

Discography:
Korzenie (Roots) (2024)

TOŃ online:
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