Prog Rock Summer Sales Campaign

We continue our summer sale campaign and this week we will continue with some of our prog rock bands. This will also be the last campaign before our summer vacation in July, but we’ll be back with more discounts in August.

Karisma Records has released quite a few odd and hard to define bands over the years, and this week, we will look at some of the newer signings that are also at the outer limits of the so-called prog genre. Let’s start with an Englishman who ended up in Trondheim. Rhys Marsh should be known to many interested in progressive music, being a multi-instrumentalist and a producer. He has released several solo albums and with his bands Kaukasus, Mandala and Rhys Marsh and the Autumn Ghost. Early 2019, we released his latest solo album, “October After All”, a beautiful and atmospheric prog album, touching in on both alternative rock and jazz elements. The album also features contributions from Norwegian jazz legends Arve Henriksen on trumpet and Kåre Kolve on saxophone, as well as a choir which includes the talents of Rohey, Silje Leirvik, Anders Bjermeland and Tim Bowness.

Did we just mention Tim Bowness? Well, back in the late 80s, before his collaborations with No-Man/Steven Wilson among others and his solo work, he had a trio called Plenty. In 2016, the band reformed and they re-recorded 16 songs that were written in the 80s. The album, “It Could Be Home”, was mixed and co-produced by Jacob Holm-Lupo and we released this in 2018. Plenty was probably more art rock than prog, but you can definitely hear Tim Bowness involvement here.

Jacob Holm-Lupo is also involved with the Anglo-Scandinavian collaboration Galasphere 347, where we also can find Ketil Vestrum Einarsen, Mattias Olsson and Stephen James Bennett. Every name here should be well known to most prog interested persons, and their fabulous debut album was a masterclass of psychedelic, but symphonic, progressive kraut rock.

One band that has aroused the concert audience in the Bergen area especially and Norway in general, is Major Parkinson. This band mixes most musical styles known to mankind, and they do it in a very catchy, unconventional, danceable and energetic way. After three self-released albums, we did a collaboration with the beautiful forth release, “Blackbox”. Major Parkinson has to be experienced.

To calm things down a little bit, with another band from the western coast of Norway. Himmellegeme combines a wonderful and atmospheric mix of psychedelia, blues, prog and post-rock, and their debut album “Myth of Earth” was very well received on its release in 2017.

Another young band from Norway that we picked up is Fervent Mind, formed by vocalist and composer Live Sollid Schulerud. You could describe Fervent Mind as experimental rock with elements from post-rock and metal as well as dream pop, trip hop and contemporary jazz. The debut “Tranquilize” was released in the spring of 2019, to high critical acclaim.

Last, but not least, we have done some digging and found a quite early release that shouldn’t be forgotten. Funin was a quite short-lived band from Bergen, but we did manage to release their only album, “Unsound” in 2011. The first time anyone from the label witnessed the band, was at a concert at Hulen in Bergen, and after the show, the rest of the label was connected immediately. Imagine a weird late-night meeting between Kate Bush, Björk and Curved Air, doing an energetic jam session, and you might be near the sound of Funin. We have a few copies left of the hidden gem, “Unsound”, so be sure to get it now.