and pretty much fully recorded by mid-2020 but there was one song that didn’t quite fit the rest of the album. After a lot of thought we decided to get rid of that song and write a new one.
The last time Omar and I had written something was in April of 2019 (‘Deal With the Devil’) so we felt like now it was the perfect time to create something new. A new Heyoka’s Mirror sound," he tells me. "I looked at Omar and told him: 'this is going to be the craziest song we’ve ever written so get ready!'. ‘King of Deception’ is pretty much a blender in which we threw everything we had learned in the past year. Not only what we had learned but also what Mr. Loomis had learned as well. This was the perfect way to end the album and the perfect way to end an era," he says with satisfaction. Ever since the pandemic hit, the lads decided it was a great time to just focus on finishing and releasing the album. MUSIC IS OUT THERE
"Once things get back to normal and bands are able to play live again, we would love to do a small tour around Canada to promote our latest album. It will be a great opportunity to show the fans these songs being played live. Especially now that the album is out and people have heard it, it will be very exciting to play these songs live. Fortunately, the pandemic did not affect the band much since we were focused on just finishing the album. Of course, we wish this pandemic never happened and we could maybe play a few shows here and there but it worked out for us. We got completely focused on completing the album and are very satisfied with the way we used the time in 2020. It was, however, a little bit challenging with the restrictions in the province and the studio being closed for a little while. Required a lot of planning but we were able to make it happen," he adds. The bands short term future is to promote ‘The Uninvited King’. "We plan to send it all over the world and get some air-time on the album. There are specific fan favourites that we would really like to push so that more people can get into it. Also, we would like to play a few shows to 122
promote the new album. Long term plans, we have already started thinking of ideas for a new single that we plan to release in the next few months. But ultimately, another fulllength album! We plan to explore different ideas and sounds for the new one. Both of us believe our next song/album or anything we write should be better than the last creation. Better in all aspects - writing, production, storytelling and presentation of the product," concludes Andrew, bringing an end to our conversation. ‘The Uninvited King’ is available now on CD and from all the usual digital platforms. Check Heyoka's Mirror out at http://www.heyokasmirro r.com https://www.facebook.co m/HeyokasMirror https://www.instagram.c om/heyokasmirror/?hl=e n https://heyokasmirror1.b andcamp.com/releases Band: Taskaha Album: Taskaha Label: Independent Genre: Progressive Rock City & Country: Oslo, Norway
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Description: Impressive debut album from Norwegian progressive rock act, with plenty to keep listeners interested. Influences: Rush, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Pink Floyd, Gary Moore, Mr Big, Extreme, Dokken, Iron Maiden, Genesis, Conception, A.C.T, The Beatles, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Free/Bad Company, Kings X, Faith No More and Anathema. Band Line-up: Ole Martin Svendsen drums Simen Hanssen guitars Stain Dahl - guitars David van Dort - bass Rick Holmen - vocals CD Tracklist: 1. Mind Date 2. Distressed 3. Reframe! 4. Daylight’s Fading 5. Invisible 6. Eden 7. Nature Girl 8. Friday Night 9. The Climb TASKAHA, are an impressive progressive rock quintet from Oslo, Norway. They have a new nine track self-titled album out now, which runs in at just over sixtyfive minutes long and is the band’s first album. It’s late afternoon and bassist David van Dort MUSIC IS OUT THERE
has just come home from work. The sun is breaking through the clouds and leaves are falling from the trees The smell of grilled steak from a neighbour fills the Norwegian Autumn air as David sits down on his terrace with a cup of coffee and enjoys the view over the field behind the house while a pizza cooks in the oven.
When you listen to his bans Taskaha's debut album, they stand out because of their sound. People will draw comparisons to bands like ACT or Dream Theater or Pink Floyd or Iron Maiden, but his is just a reflection of their inspirations shining through in the music. If you listen closely to other bands, you’ll hear parts that resemble parts from other major acts too. Taskaha do their own original true thing and aren’t really bothered about following the songwriting rulebook. When they write and compose, they do so without any restrictions. Anything 123
goes, and with five members with a wide sources of inspiration, you’re going to get a lot of weird and wonderful ideas on the table. The main challenge for the bad is to create something that they enjoy and what they think the listener will enjoy, and with the selftitled album, they have achieved this goal. David grew up on country music and The Beatles, and his dad was a massive country music fan, and he loved Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers, Waylon Jennings to name a few. His mother was a Beatles fan, an in his early teens he became obsessed with The Police, Ultravox and Adam and the Ants and the glam/punk scene while living in the UK. He didn’t really get into playing music until he moved from the UK to Norway. By this time he had been exposed to hard rock and heavy metal. At the age of seventeen a bunch of his crowd decided to start a band and compete in a local music contest. Being the last one in to the first rehearsal, the only instrument that wasn’t taken was the bass. That started a lifelong attachment to this beautiful instrument. His introduction to prog rock came when he heard `Images and 'Images
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and Words’ by Dream Theater. That album opened up a whole new world of music and inspiration for him, and also served as an introduction to jazz in a way as he started to explore the diverse musical universe even more.
"I learned to embrace a lot of different genres and draw inspiration from them. This has probably influenced my playing too, enjoying a complex groove with many notes as well as a straight ‘in-the-pocket’ groove with a few notes, not to mention the music that happens between the notes," he tells me. As mentioned, he listens to and draws inspiration from a lot of different genres. "I can’t really mention artists as there are too many inspiring artists to mention, but as a bassist, I have been and continue to be inspired by Billy Sheehan. He can shred on bass but knows the value of keeping basslines simple and in the pocket. He is also one of the most humble MUSIC IS OUT THERE
and nice human beings I have had the pleasure of meeting! I do listen closely to many other musicians-Victor Wooten, Mike Portnoy, Paco De Lucia, John Petrucci, Jaco Pastorius to name a few, who are all masters of their instruments and their levels of proficiency inspire me too," he enthuses. For David, the inspiration behind the self-titled album was to finally create something that he could look back on and be proud of. The inspiration behind the songs is a collective effort with each member contributing his ideas, jamming on them and eventually ending up with a good song. David's main interest outside of music is spending time with his son. "He’s just started drum lessons so I hope he’ll continue and experience the joy music gives you. I also like to travel and see new countries and cities. Doing some historical research on a city prior to a trip can really make a difference and is something I do before any travels. Besides that, I like to take my son and visit my mother and sister in the UK, I do a bit of trail biking and like reading and fishing. Football is also a passion, played at a very amateur level and the English Premier League is followed 124
closely with my support going to the club with the best song, sung before."
For guitarist Simen Hanssen music has always been a part of growing up. His dad is a jazz musician, and his mum was in a choir, whilst his brother had passion for heavy metal. His brother started playing guitar, and Simen kind of tagged along after a while. This culminated in him playing in his brother’s band at the tender age of sixteen along with Rick and David, who are in the current Taskaha line-up. When he turned seventeen, he spent a year in America in a school exchange program and took private lessons from a guitar tutor. This helped him grow as a guitarist and opened up a lot of new avenues to explore both tonally and stylewise. "Classic rock and prog rock has always been my go-to music although I do listen to a lot of other genres for
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inspiration and ideas," he expresses.
His main inspiration comes from prog bands such as Rush, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Pink Floyd. But also more heavy metal and rock-based artists such as Gary Moore (the old stuff), Mr Big, Extreme, Dokken and Iron Maiden. "The inspiration behind the album and songs lie in the desire to create something unique to us and something that was both interesting and challenging to play while having fun at the same time," he tells me. Simen works in advertising, so that takes up a lot of his time. His other interests include trail bike riding, something I would like to do more, staying at my cabin by the sea, activities with my family and Stian has been so kind to introduce him to the wonderful world of craft beer!!! Music has always been one of guitarist Stain Dahl's interests. There was always music played in the house when he was a child and he started out early, MUSIC IS OUT THERE
listening to bands like Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Metallica and also classical music by composers like Grieg, Paganini and Chopin. Soon guitar started to be sort of an obsession. At the age of eleven or twelve he got a classical guitar from his parents and he started to take regular lessons.
"There were a lot of local bands with great guitar players at the time, and that inspired me to buy my first electric guitar that I practised on for several hours a day. MTV Headbangers Ball and Guitar World magazine was a huge influence on me in my youth. Headbangers Ball gave me musical inspirations and the latter gave me guitar lessons and valuable insight from established players. Several bands later with a lot of music written, experiences from recording in different studios and a lot of live performances lead to this amazing band we 125
have today," he enthuses. Stian personally listens to a lot more than just prog and he enjoys classical music, folk, pop, rock, metal, jazz, fusion, blues, country, funk, world music Hip Hop, electronica etc. Taskaha has been a melting pot for a lot of different inspirations. "The prog scene in general is of course interesting as well as seeking other genres in order to bring something new to the table.
The songs are not directly inspired by other songs or bands, but if you break the songs down to individual layers and parts you will of course find similarities with other bands and music, but these might be masked when the next layer is added," he explains to me. Stian likes to spend his spare time making music in his own professional studio at home. !One of my other passions is motorcycles, both on road and on racetracks, including MotoGP, where my biggest idols
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are Valentino Rossi and Fabio Quartararo. I also love hiking with my dog, a large Leonberger called Lucas. Norway does have some great scenery to explore and to get inspired by and that can also inspire the music. I must also admit that I have a passion for craft beer, as a brewer myself and I am always on the search for new beers, styles and great beer festivals abroad." Drummer Ole Martin Svendsen started to play guitar when he was ten, and he did that for about two to three years. He never became really good at it, so the motivation faded out eventually. He still had a slight interest in music though and he used to listen to mainly hard rock/metal bands such as TNT, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Joe Satriani to name a few. At fourteen, a friend of his- a guitar player taught him a few grooves on the drums, because he needed something to jam along to. "From then I was hooked on drums, and this has been my main instrument since. Later in my teens, during the mid-nineties, I played quite a few gigs up and down the coastal and rural areas of northern Norway, in the most remote places you can imagine. During this time, my musical universe expanded, MUSIC IS OUT THERE
towards both more complex music such as progressive rock, but I also found pleasure in the quality pop music released at the time, such as Sting and Björk. Jazz was also starting to inspire me as well, though I didn’t have the skills to play it at this point," he explains. "To make a long story short: these early inspirations have been a part of the foundation for the last twenty years of playing until today, where I’ve been playing a wide variety of musical styles in different bands, resulting in three albums. Music is mainly a recreational purpose for me, and whatever comes out of it is a bonus." Ole find's inspirations in a variety of musical artists and styles from pop, rock, funk, jazz, prog, country music, and so on. "Where the album and the songs are concerned, most of the song ideas were already finished at the point I entered the band, so my job for this album was to add the appropriate drum parts that would fit the songs well," he says. One of Ole's other passions is fixing and repairing old and/or damaged drums. "There is nothing quite like a vintage kit that has been nicely restored! Trying out new grooves and techniques on these is fun too! I sell the 126
occasional kit too if I don’t have room to keep it after restoration. Besides that, I like to spend time with my wife and kids, and to reside at my cabin in northern Norway where I find peace and relaxation. I also try to spend time outdoors," he smiles. Ever since singer Rick Holmen was a toddler he has always been interested in music in all forms. He was always sitting in front of his dad’s stereo making mixed tapes of his records, and playing them over and over again. Growing up, his taste in music was quite broad, but as soon as he discovered hard rock, blues and progressive rock, he was completely sold. He started to play bass and sing in a band when he was fourteen years old, and immediately wanted to emulate his musical heroes. The bass was soon shelved as his interest in singing grew and after a few years he joined the band that Simen and David were in. This band laid the foundation for today’s line up and they have always wanted to release an album together, something that has finally been realised. Rick has quite a large base of artists and groups that he admires and loves. From the classical music greats, blues and rock, and of
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course his run of the mill encounter with NWOBHM. But bands like Genesis, Dream Theater, Conception, A.C.T still tend to get his juices flowing. "I also get much from Beatles, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Free/Bad Company. These are merely the tip of the well-known ice berg. I guess it depends on the mood I have from day to day. I also want to endorse Kings X, Faith No More and Anathema. Just great, great bands. All of which is very influential to our music. I think you’ll find a lot of these mentioned artists in our music if you listen closely to the vocals and backing vocals on the album," he points out. Rick dreams of making a living of my music, and making enough income to support his family, but he stresses that he must have a realistic approach to this situation. "I work with media and marketing, which I also am quite passionate about, so most of my time on a daily basis is used on my work. But I am a huge football fan (European football), both playing as a hobby and of course keeping an eye on the results of the big European leagues. I play squash with some friends, although I'm not very talented. I also have some musical projects with local MUSIC IS OUT THERE
musician which I love, and I am a keen fan of reading about history," he smiles. This album took four years to complete, a most of the songs were finished when Ole joined the band, but he certainly put his mark on them! Rick had written the lyrics, most of them based upon past experiences, moods and emotions you encounter in life and relationships. "We feel that we have managed to create a lot of musical atmospheres if you will, that support the lyrics and, at the same time, keep things interesting for the listener. I also think that the order the songs appear in on the album is significant in maintaining the listeners interest, some up-tempo tunes with a more laidback tune in-between and of course, the thirteen-minute epic as the grande finale," expresses David. This is our first release as Taskaha and the first release that David and Simen have perform on. "We can’t really speak of any differences to previous releases. Stian, our other guitarist has released a solo effort earlier, under the name ‘Soundborne’ which was instrumental so I guess this gave him a whole new challenge incorporating lead and backing vocals into his songwriting process. 127
Rick, our vocalist has also collaborated on a release and Ole Martin, our drummer released two albums with Gentle Knife, a prog rock collective with no fewer than eleven members! All in all, we’re extremely pleased with result and proud of what we’ve achieved so far. When we have released a follow up, we can give you a proper comparison," he smiles. The band tracked the drums in about fourteen days at Lionheart Studios in Oslo. Øyvind Voldmo Larsen engineered the process. The rest of the instrumentation was tracked at Stian home studio at Nesodden, just outside Oslo. He has a fully equipped professional home studio so the guys could take their time with all instruments and vocals. This gave them the opportunity to really focus on what Ole Martin had done on the drums and adapt to that. "He really shone on this album and we found ourselves reconstructing the bass, guitars and vocals to a certain degree to augment his fantastic playing," marvels David. Stian had the role of engineer and producer although everyone had a production role regarding their own instrument and sound. He did a fine job of
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getting the best out of everyone in the band. The whole process took about four years and Øyvind Voldmo Larsen of Lionheart Studios was given the task of mixing the album. "He did an amazing job and was a tremendous joy to work with. Øyvind plays guitar in his own prog metal band, Withem so he knows the genre and we couldn’t be more pleased with his role in the whole album. The mastering was handed over to none other than Jens Bogren of Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. He is a modern-day mastering genius and has worked with the likes of Haken, Pain of Salvation, Opeth and Sepultura to name a few. He applied the icing to the cake and lifted the album to another level," he says with satisfaction. The highlight of the album, for David at least, has to be ethe epic, ‘The Climb’. "I can remember writing this one and only having two sections that we jammed on. Over time more sections were added, moved around, shortened, lengthened until we had a rough eight or nine minutes," he expresses. The last section was then added and finally the intro giving the band a tune clocking in at thirteen minutes long! "I feel that MUSIC IS OUT THERE
this song just represents Taskaha as a band and covers a lot of what we feel is important in a song with heavy parts, calm and atmospheric intros, up-tempo and technically challenging parts, fabulous guitar solos, parts that throw the listener an unexpected curveball and lots of good lead and backing vocals. This is a lot of fun to play and a number of reviewers have stated that it is on the favourite list as well," he says with spirit. Taskaha have played a number of shows prior to entering the studio and during the recording process and played some of the material live. "The response was great and we really look forward to being able to go out and play live again. We haven’t had any live shows after the release unfortunately due to the pandemic, but the response from reviewers and listeners has been above all expectation! When this whole Covid thing has subsided, we hope to play some gigs both locally and abroad if any venues and/or prog festivals will have us! The pandemic situation has affected us in the sense that we can’t do any gigs to promote our album, but we’re doing the best we can with our own online promotionsending out e-mails for review requests, 128
streaming and getting added to different streaming playlists, Social Media interaction, radio play etc. The whole music scene is dependent on normality to function and for bands to succeed financially. Without gigs, the merchandise sales drop and nowadays this is basically all bands have to make ends meet. Streaming music won’t pay the bills. We all have day jobs and families and strive to create a proper balance between daytime jobs, family and other interests and creating complex music and producing it properly," David explains to me. A lot of what’s in store for the immediate future depends on the pandemic situation really. "We hope that a vaccine will be developed and the virus will be contained and finally disappear. When things are back to normal, we’ll book gigs and play live as much as possible. In the meantime we’ll continue to write new music and rehearse so we’re ready for any gigs when that time comes. We also want to do a second album and will use the future to do just that write, create, rehearse and plan for the future. Our music often starts with a riff or groove that will be presented to the band, and this might be
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jammed on. We then do a pre-production recording as soon as possible and the song will evolve from that. New parts will be thrown in and some parts might be skipped. We all have home studios and we allow each other creative freedom so we can track our parts separately. Music can be made, even in a total lockdown," concludes David, bringing an end to our conversation. 'Taskaha' is an impressive album, and is available now on CD and from all the usual digital platforms. Check Taskaha out at https://www.taskaha.co m/ https://www.youtube.co m/channel/UCcoidN1AX cz3I_sQ4LFIFIg https://www.instagram.c om/taskaha_official / https://www.facebook.co m/Taskahaband
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FEATURING: BONNIE TYLER AXEL RUDI PELL POWERWOLF PAUL GILBERT DEE SNIDER HELLOWEEN MYLES KENNEDY
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Nicky Baldrian Playlists:
Out Of This World - Out Of This World Touch - Tomorrow Never Comes Nancy Wilson - You And Me Sweet Oblivion Feat. Geoff Tate - Relentless Steve Cropper - Fire It Up Joseph Williams Denizen Tenant The Cadillac Three Tabasco & Sweet Tea Imelda May - 11 Past The Hour Kayak - Out Of This World Levara - Levara The End Machine Phase 2 Eric Church Heart/Soul Bonnie Tyler - The Best Is Yet To Come Mark Spiro - Traveling Cowboys Chez Kane - Chez Kane Marty Friedman Tokyo Jukebox 3 Dropkick Murphys Turn Up That Dial Gilby Clarke - The Gospel Truth Nad Sylvan - Spiritus Mundi Electric Boys - Upside Down
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