The Tangent is a Progressive Rock Band consisting of a fluid lineup of musicians from England, Sweden and France. Formed in 2003 by ANDY TILLISON, formerly of the band Parallel Or 90 Degrees, the band has had among its members ROINE STOLT (Flowerkings) DAVID JACKSON (Van Der Graaf Generator) THEO TRAVIS (Soft Machine), GUY MANNING, JONAS REINGOLD, KRISTER JONSSON, JAIME SALAZAR, SAM BAINE, ZOLTAN CSZORZ and JAKKO M JAKSZYK.
All four albums have been among progressive music fans favourites of the past 5 years, the band scoring highly in polls throughout the world. Reviews of the band's work have been superlative and the band have established themselves at the forefront of present day progressive rock music. Drawing on the 1970s progressive era in general, the band avoid the "sound like Genesis" problem by searching for their inspiration throughout the whole genre, including the Canterbury Bands, Italian progressive bands and the more generally obscure material. Accompanied by lyrics that are firmly rooted in the 21st century, The Tangent demonstrate a relevance for 2008.... "If The Tangent are retro because we draw on 1976 influences, what are GREEN DAY, whose music is equally inspired by 1977?" asks Andy Tillison the band's leader and lyricist. "In an era where everybody's loud guitar sounds exactly the same as everyone elses, the progressive bands are a breath of fresh air with more funk, drive and energy"
The band have made 4 studio albums: "The Music That Died Alone" 2003, "The World That We Drive Through" 2004, "A Place In The Queue" 2006 and "Not As Good As The Book" (a double CD and NOVEL) 2008. A live CD/DVD set entitled "Going Off On One" was released in 2007. All titles are available from INSIDEOUT Music.
In May 1999 Andy Tillison and Sam Baine's band "Parallel or 90 Degrees" did a gig at Rotherham supporting a Swedish band that they'd never heard of called "The Flower Kings" Rest assured that the reverse was also true. Andy and Sam were pretty impressed with what they saw... "It was like a wake up call" says Andy "this band were showing that the music I loved so much could still be played and still be relevant in the fast approaching new millennium."
While writing the next Po90 album, "More Exotic Ways To Die", Andy began to filter out certain ideas that were more overtly "prog" in nature and pass them over to what he called a "Solo Album" Inspired by the Flower Kings albums he was now listening to on a hourly basis he decided to separate his "prog" from his rock, and the result was a Po90 album stripped of much of the floweryness of progressive music which suited that band's cause very well....
Ian Oakley sent Andy's demo to Roine Stolt of the Flower Kings, Roine liked it, offered to play on it, invited Jonas Reingold and Zoltan Csorsz to help out on drums and bass, suggested we got a saxophonist on it and Andy happened to know David Jackson's telephone number and hey presto the lineup for the solo album was almost complete. Fellow Po90 keys player Sam Baine and long term friend Guy Manning were added to the seven piece project which suddenly changed its name to "The Tangent"
The Tangent's debut (and supposedly ONLY) release was "The Music That Died Alone". It outsold Po90's entire back catalogue in 2 months. The reviews were utterly unbelievable with the word "masterpiece" in about one out of every three. After a late autumn release, by a few months later the album had chalked up number two positions in 3 polls for best progressive album of the year, only being pipped to the post by Neal Morse's debut solo album "Testimony" In the DPRP poll, (very highly regarded in prog circles), the band took #2 best album, #1 best newcomer, #1 best song, (as well as #5 best song!) #1 best artwork. More than 20 reviewers named it their "Album Of The Year"
With reactions like that, it wasn't long before the band were talking about a follow up. It became apparent straight away that Dave Jackson wasn't going to be in this time. "We knew what he was up to" grins Andy referring to the then impending re-union of Van Der Graaf Generator, "but we accepted his apologies without pushing him to admit what was going on. After all, who was I to complain about my favourite band of all time reforming?!"
Ian Oakley did another bit of management magic, and before long had Theo Travis secured for the follow up album. Theo had recently worked with Gong and Porcupine Tree, and had also been named as Jazz player of the year a couple of times in the Financial Times. The Tangent decided that he was the guy for the job, firstly because he was an amazing player of both Sax and Flute, and secondly because they all wrongly assumed he would be rich.
Work commenced on "The World That We Drive Through" in early 2004 in Malmo, Sweden. Just Andy, Jonas, Roine and Zoltan were there, Guy Theo and Sam did their parts individually as before.
For a while it seemed that it wouldn't happen, but in Late October 2004 Andy & Sam met up with Jonas, Roine and Zoltan just outside London and spent 3 days rehearsing. The day after that they played their first gig at a festival in Chippenham. "It was, and we were TERRIBLE" says Sam Baine, "we got no soundcheck because some idiots spent 3 hours setting up special projection systems for one of the other bands which just weren't needed at a multi-band festival, and added to that someone stole Roine's lyrics sheet from the stage while we were in the dressing room. We didn't fid that out until the audience were cheering, and Andy had to sing all Roine's parts without any time to prepare. Add all that to our first night nerves and you can see why we weren't happy with it."
The gig was amazingly well received though, despite the dissatisfaction of the band's members with it. 5 nights later the band had improved so much that the event at Ashaffenburg in Germany became the band's first live CD "Pyramids and Stars". Journalist Michael Gardiner who followed the tour says "We were watching over a few nights the birth of a band, like a sped up film. Saturday we were watching Amateurs, a week later we were watching seasoned pros who'd been doing it for years"
The tour had been greeted most enthusiastically by fans and press alike. But changes were afoot. During the tour, Roine had broached the subject that he may not be able to find any time for the Tangent in the following year, because of commitments to the Flower Kings and an assortment of other projects including his solo album "Wall Street Voodoo" Andy, Sam and Guy assumed this meant the end of the project, and were of course somewhat disappointed. Andy and Sam were, within 2 weeks of the tour finishing in the process of moving from Northern England to Southern France. For 3 weeks they existed in an empty house on the top of a hill in a rural backwater before their furniture arrived and they got a telephone installed.
After the 3 weeks of radio silence, they were surprised to learn from manager Ian Oakley that not only were Jonas and Theo still very interested in remaining with the band, but also Jonas had the name of a replacement guitarist, a suggestion for a replacement drummer, and to top it all a booking at a prestigious USA festival in 4 months time.
"This was amazing News" says Andy, "My first musical job in France was to mix the live gig for the Pyramids album. It would have been a fairly miserable affair, had it been a farewell swansong to the band. But I was able to mix it as a going concern. In fact I was so geared up by the news that I started to demo a new studio album at the same time"
The first few months were rather difficult, because as Andy & Sam found out to their horror, there was no broadband internet available in their part of France. This, for The Tangent and their way of working is a bit comparable to not having any electricity....
They worked around it though, and CDs were as usual distributed by post and the new band began to learn the songs for the album and for the live appearance at the USA festival in 3 different countries instead of the previous 2!!
In April 2005 a six piece lineup of the Tangent met up in France to prepare for the USA "Rosfest" gig, discuss the new demos and do a low key tour of Europe to warm up and learn to play with each other. Theo Travis was with the band this time, Krister Jonsson from Jonas' "Karmakanic" had taken over Roine's role, and Andy was delighted that Jaime Salazar, another ex drummer from the Flower Kings had agreed to take the drumstool in the new band.
n astonishing series of reviews and articles on the subject of "Place in the Queue". Some reviewers went as far as saying it may be the best album in 30 years. The group performed a small series of concerts in Europe including the band's first ever gig in Sweden ... home to at least half the band's history!. Two gigs in the UK were recorded and one of them was even filmed... the results of which became part of the band's first official live album and DVD, sitting alongside some of the Rosfest material from 2005. The concerts in the UK were the first ever to feature the whole lineup on stage... Guy Manning finally got on stage with the band.
Andy Tillison and Sam Baine parted company after a twelve year relationship that had seen them make ten or so albums together, both with Parallel or 90 Degrees and The Tangent. Sam also left The Tangent to concentrate on her own musical work. Andy remained near Toulouse in France for a while, but returned to Leeds UK at the end of 2006, where at he finished off the Tangent's live album "Going Off On One", and put an ambient solo album together ("Fog") while inevitably writing material for Tangent 4! A Three piece version of the band had been mooted... and at the time plans were liquid and all possibilities were being considered....
The End of 2006 polls had the Tangent very much in mind with several sites declaring TT "Queue" among the top 10 albums of the year... and at least a couple having it at the number one spot.
Summer 2007 saw the release of "Going Off On One" the Tangent's first foray into the world of video/dvd. A performance recorded in a small nightclub in England became the band's honest look at progressive music in the 2000s and was very well recieved. The CD edition also featured highlighs of the ROSFEST performance recorded back in 2005.
he main body of work for the fourth studio album took place during these months although some of the material had commenced existence as far back as 2005. "NAGATB" is the band's first double CD. Andy got stranded without his passport in Sweden during one of the recording sessions and began writing a book as he waited for the authorities to let him back into England... most of this happened in Jonas Reingold's house, particularly in the Jaccuzi. The book shared many stories that are present on the album and it was decided to release the album as a special package featuring the CDs and the novel together.
Andy decided that after Sam Baine's departure from the band, he needed another English person to work with and the band approached Jakko M Jakszyk. celebrated London based session musician and well known prog conspirateur. He'd just released a solo album with a guest list that read like a who's who of British Prog and was up for helping the Tangent build this next important album. As usual the internet buzzed with files travelling thousands of miles to take part in the same project. Krister Jonsson was still busy with his contributions to the new Karmakanic project, and TT have not sacked him, or anything remotely resembling that. The band's fluidity seems set to continue.
A tour by the band is going ahead in May 2008, just after the album's release in March. KRISTER JONSSON will return to the guitarist's seat in a four piece Tangent that is otherwise composed of Andy, Jonas & Jaime. No official lineup changes here... just another chapter in the fluidity that is The Tangent. "We can either play gigs, or wait forever until the alignments of the planets are correct" said Andy Tillison in an interview with Spanish webzine "Metal Cry".... "In the end, I'm sure people will welcome the chance to see the band play in some form and the small format band will be an exciting unit for us all"
As an added note: The band's 2008 release `Not as good as the book,' is a stunning masterpiece of progressive material. It reminds me that good new progs bands are capable of, mainly of early Spock's Beard, that can catch you with power, subtlety. technical wizardry and brilliant compositions. A must buy album!
New lineup changes for the banded happened in July, 2008. To quote Andy Tillison:
"The Tangent is on the move, too, making plans, some of which will come as a bit of a shock to you all. The first piece of good news is that we plan to make another Tangent album later this year and well into next. With that, though – in true, classic, Tangent and Prog fashion – will come another round of personnel reshuffles. This one will be a major one. It is not a set of decisions that I have taken lightly. Nonetheless, after long and careful consideration I have decided that we will move forward on this next album without Jaime Salazar, Krister Jonsson and even Jonas Reingold.
The Tangent's lineup is currently:
1. Core Musicians
Andy Tillison - Keyboards and Vocals
2. The Expanded Lineup
Guy Manning - Acoustic Instruments and Voice
Jakko M Jakszyk - Electric Guitars and Voice
Theo Travis - Saxophones and Flute
Discography
Studio albums
The Music That Died Alone (2003)
The World That We Drive Through (2004)
A Place in the Queue (2006)
Not as Good as the Book (2008)
Down and Out in Paris and London (2009)
A Place on the Shelf (2009)
COMM (2011)
Le Sacre du Travail (2013)
L'Etagère du Travail (2013)
A Spark in the Aether (2015)
The Slow Rust of Forgotten Machinery (2017)
Live albums
Pyramids and Stars (2005)
Going Off on One (2007)
Going Off on Two (2010)
London or Paris, Berlin or Southend-on-Sea (2012)
