Post Description

Tracklist: 

CD: The Loose Ends (3:11), Rainland (6:54), A Million Differences (2:05), Bad Weather Road (6:20), I'm Not Crashing (4:36), Building The Machine (3:16), Refugee (2:24), The Big Red Spark (4:51), Weak Machine (3:28), Activation (0:38), The Final Act (2:36), The Loose Ends Pt II (2:42), Wide Awake At Midnight (10:21) 

Brian Watson's Review
Let’s cut to the chase, for those of you who only scan read the first few lines of our reviews (you know who you are) – THIS IS THE BEST CONCEPT ALBUM SINCE Metropolis Part 2. 

That’s me shouting BLT, colon dash question mark comma exclamation mark. 

And no, I haven’t quite got the hang of this social networking malarkey. But then I’m not cool, hip or “with it”. Apparently. 

I don’t buy moisturising or hair products of any kind and think people who watch the X Factor should be set on fire. 

Tinyfish have, since 2006, also done their own thing regardless of popular convention or without regard to what was ‘in’. Hardly prolific, they’ve released, effectively, one album in four years. 2009’s Curious Things doesn’t really count, seeing as it was a collection of unreleased songs recorded to their 2006 eponymous debut. Yet Geoff Barton, whose opinion I rate highly, has recently awarded The Big Red Spark the only 9/10 rating he has ever given in his progressive rock review section in Classic Rock Magazine (the one written by people who actually know what they’re talking about). 

So, just who are Tinyfish? This, from their (highly professional and informative) website FAQ section: 

Q. Who are you? 

A. We are Tinyfish; four - no, five - no, four musicians from South London who love to make progressive music. Simon Godfrey sings and plays guitar; Jim Sanders plays guitar and occasionally sings; Paul Worwood plays bass and bass pedals; Rob Ramsay speaks, triggers samples, writes our lyrics and occasionally plays the harmonica. Leon Camfield plays the drums and assorted percussion for our live gigs in a smaller, whiter Chester Thompson way. 

I’ve seen them live a number of times and if you want to see pictures then head on over here. If you’d like to recreate the live Tinyfish experience in your living room, or for that matter any other room in your house you use for entertaining, then look at the pics and play their albums. Loudly. Or get yourself a copy of their cracking 2009 5.1 Dobbly (© spinal tap) offering from Metal Mind. Recorded in Poland, no less. The most excellent Mr Geoff Feakes in his review commented that 

"All in all this is a superb package that is well up to Metal Mind’s normally high production standards with first-rate camerawork and sound recording. As far as existing fans are concerned it naturally comes highly recommended but would also be an excellent starting point for those who have yet to plunge into the melodious world occupied by Tinyfish."
And I wouldn’t disagree one bit. I just wish more prog fans knew about the band. I wish, I wish, I wish… 

Three wishes? I gave everyone a single wish… 

The Loose Ends is the opening scene of the suite and sees an old professor, finger poised over the ‘on’ button of a huge machine called The Big Red Spark, ready to switch it on. The rest of the album is seen as a flashback to events leading up to this moment. The spoken word intro was performed by Simon Godfrey’s father. 

It’s a huge, cinematic, symphonic opener, which will blast the roof off when played live. 

Rainland is as heavy as heck, with awesome guitar work throughout by Jim Sanders. There’s more than a touch of the early DTs about this one early on. Simon recorded the drums in John Mitchell’s studio in Reading apparently. That was two years ago. Not easy, recording an album by yourself… 

A Million Differences is a post creation moment as the Professor tries to relax after drawing up the initial plans of his great invention. 

This music for this song started out life as a tune that was submitted for the first Tinyfish album but didn’t make the cut. When the concept behind The Big Red Spark was first put together, the band soon realised there was a lot of potential for incorporating a number of classical elements to the music. So, said original track was rearranged, and some new elements were added. Particularly noteworthy is Jim’s “Brian May guitar orchestra” solo at the end. Which is fantastic. 

Bad Weather Road was, apparently, a troublesome song to record. According to Simon: 

“even though the demo sounded great, try as we might we just couldn’t get that energy to translate to the album version. I was about to give up the ghost when in a moment straight out of the Brian Eno handbook, our bass player Paul patched his bass through the filter section of a Moog synth which created a bubbling noise that gently rose up out of the note right after he played it. In addition, our producer Mike Varty put the opening bars through an external speaker and recorded the results, which give it the sound of someone listening to the band from outside the room”.
It’s got a great Blue Oyster Cult Shooting Shark vibe to start, reprised midway through and even later on. The song gets funkier, and jazzier as it progresses. Like the theme from a Bond film. Which DPRP CD review editor Bob ‘Blofeld’ Mulvey (pictured removed ;0) would know all about. Great use of quiet/loud bits too. 

I’m Not Crashing is “possibly the oldest song on the album as the tune dates back to a tune (Simon) wrote… in Hammersmith back in the early noughties”. A lot of that demo survived, especially the e-bow feedback guitars. Lyrically, and musically it’s prog/pop Holidays in Eden-era Marillion with what Simon describes as “Jim’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ melody guitars”. 

Building The Machine is an almost entirely classical sequence (bar a few guitars). Simon “was after an Elmer Bernstein circa ‘The Magnificent Seven’ feel, but I think it came out sounding more Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter And The Wolf’. The story is really propelled along, War Of The Worlds style. It’s utterly intoxicating and the climax makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. 

Refugee was one of the last tracks to be recorded for the album and as such it was recorded entirely on the band’s new Pro Tools 8 system. There’s an utterly fantastic spoken word performance by Iain Houston. The piano part is Simon “trying very hard (and failing naturally) to be Mark Hollis from Talk Talk”. 

The title track is suitably anthemic, in a Frost*y, It Bitesy way and is based on a dream Simon had. Now, I dream about rolling around on a pile of money with the Scottish weather presenter from the BBC Breakfast programme, but hey, each to his own. The guitar work and soloing is a tour de force and the best I’ve heard this year. And it ends like an outtake from Wind And Wuthering. 

Weak Machine is all acoustic-y and slow build-y, in a Marillion style with the benefit of some slide guitar, and mellotron and organ by a certain Jem Godfrey (who he?). 

Activation brings us back to the moment at the beginning of the album where the professor switches the Big Red Spark on. It’s the shortest track on the album but features all three voice performers. 

And so we’re into The Final Act, the last track to be recorded and completed for the album (literally days before the mixing sessions). It’s a semi-instrumental reprise of Rainland that serves “as a backdrop to the fiendish multi-dimensional doomsday machine doing its fiendish multi dimensional dirty work”. Godfrey plays lead guitar, apart from the slide solo... 

The Loose End Pt II rounds out the suite and is a suitably orchestral, trumpet-y, cinematic climax. There are little nods to albums like Pacific Ocean Blue by Dennis Wilson and Skylarking by XTC in there. 

Three wishes? I wish I had been spared this wish 

Wide Awake At Midnight is the longest song on the album with amazing bass work by Paul Worwood, stunning Rotherty-esque soloing and fantastic vocal harmonies. Think Beach Boys and Pat Metheny. As to whether this song is part of The Big Red Spark suite or not Simon hasn’t quite decided yet. Nevertheless it’s my favourite song on the record because of its energy, its overall vibe and said vocal work. And the guitar playing is sublime. It encapsulates just why I love Tinyfish. The world's smallest Progressive Rock Band. 

For a self-release the sound quality is quite stunning. The booklet is fantastic, but you’ll need your glasses to read it. I spilt a bottle of Lucozade over mine in the car, so it’s a bit stuck together. 

This is a brilliant album that everyone who loves prog needs to go and buy right now. Wink, comma, smiley face asterisk. Nose. 

NB: Just before their performance at this year's Summer's End Festival, (Concert Review Special imminent), I spoke to Simon Godfrey - read the interview here... 

Geoff Feakes' Review
Although this is the fourth Tinyfish review to appear in these pages in reality it’s only the b