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Trollheart · 01-24-2014, 05:08 PM

The man left in space --- Cosmograf --- 2013 (Self-released)

The first thing that surprised me about this was that the band were not German. Maybe it was the -graf in their name, but I just assumed they were from there. Turns out not only are they not German, they’re not even a they. Not really. Cosmograf is the brainchild and project of one Robin Armstrong, who hails from Portsmouth in the UK. Like his contemporaries, Willowglass and The Minstrel’s Ghost, both featured in my journals, he’s a multi-instrumentalist, composer and even producer. He does however haul in some stellar talent to help him out on this, his fourth album under the Cosmograf name, including half of Spock’s Beard and half of Big Big Train, as well as members of Also Eden and The Tangent, so he’s obviously well respected in prog circles: that’s virtually a who’s-who of prog musicians.

The album is a concept and seems to be built loosely around the idea of a mission to space, possibly colonisation, certainly mentions saving Mankind, but which goes terribly awry, hence the album title. Themes such as (unsurprisingly) loneliness, isolation, despair, the future, sacrifice and loss are all explored through the nine tracks on this opus, and while space travel/getting lost or stuck in space is nothing new --- Bowie was doing that in 1969 with “Space oddity” --- in the end the concept of the album does not matter so much because it’s so beautifully played and constructed musically.

Starting off with a man asking “How did I get here?” against spacey sound effects, the opening track of the same name is a short one, atmospherically dark and grindy, and seems to be a record of a man who went into space to “help millions” in the year 2053, but the mission went badly wrong. Against an unanswered request from ground control for a “com check”, we head into “Aspire, achieve”, the longest track on the album at just over ten minutes, the astronaut in question, who seems to go by the name of Sam, relating his tale against generally acoustic style guitar in a fairly mid-to-uptempo beat. Suddenly some pretty heavy guitar and organ cuts in, taking the thing in a more boogie/metal direction, with some fine drumming from Nick D’Virgilio, who has of course played with both Spock’s Beard and Big Big Train. Nice cutback about halfway through to single strummed guitar notes and tiny handclap drumbeats. Some great progressive rock guitar and keys then take the song, and above all rides the clear, commanding voice of Robin Armstrong himself, who in addition to being a talented composer and excellent musician is also a fine and worthy singer.

Rather oddly, two instrumentals follow then on the heels of each other. The first, “The good Earth behind me”, runs under some poetry I feel I should know, but don’t, with Gilmouresque guitar work and lush keyboards, which in about the third minute kick into a real Tony Banks style as the thing really “progs-up”, the tempo quite slow as it heads towards its end with unmistakable undertones of seventies Genesis. “The vacuum that I fly through” then is more introspective, with almost John Williams style guitar driving it in a slow path that certainly gives you the impression of drifting through space, soft synth underlying the melody until D’Virgilio’s percussion stamps its identity on the track and it becomes a little heavier, though still slow with now definite touches of twenty-first century Marillion in there.

Although at first I thought it a bad idea to have two instrumentals one after the other, I kind of see the idea now. It’s an attempt, perhaps, at conveying the loneliness and the vastness of space, and the impression of being just carried along unable to do very much as you head out of the solar system comes through quite strongly: the sense of isolation and lack of control over one’s destiny, the idea of being a tiny speck against the overwhelming expanse of space is demonstrated very well through these two tracks.

“This naked endeavour”, then, is carried on soft rippling yet lonely and almost melancholic piano while behind it plays recordings of Nixon’s phone call to the Apollo 11 mission on the Moon, as well as Kennedy’s speech at his inauguration. Guitars and drums crash in strongly then as Armstrong comes back in with the vocal, and there’s a strong sense of Floyd circa “The Wall” here, with powerful keyboards and dark guitar. We then hear the voice of the AI aboard Sam’s ship as he seems to be slipping away, lost, if you’ll pardon the term, in space, as “We disconnect” begins. He reminisces about his wife left behind, about taking on the mission and what he hoped to achieve, though it’s not really made clear what that mission is. Armstrong does his best Roger Waters here, angry bitter and a little manic. Great guitar solo joins a fine one on the keys, and the only reason I’m not giving credit to individual players is that, apart from D’Virgilio, I don’t know who is playing what part. There are several guitarists guesting, and then Armstrong plays most of the instruments himself too, so it makes it hard to keep up with who’s doing what.

This is a dark piece as Armstrong sings “The light behind me getting smaller all the time; my memories of you are too.” He realises he’s probably going to die out here in space, and while not quite resigned to that fate, he knows there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. Some super guitar here and then we’re into what is probably my least favourite track on the album, “My beautiful treadmill”. Something about it just doesn’t do anything for me. Armstrong uses the old Waters device where his vocal is metallised, sort of as if it’s recorded in mono, and the music is heavy and powerful with some really striking melodies, almost heavy metal (progressive metal I guess you’d have to say) at times. Interesting vocal harmonies, and it’s a good track but definitely for me the weakest on the album. At times the fretwork here reminds me of the very best of John Mitchell with Arena, and there’s a lot of power and energy in the track, but I just can’t make myself like it.

The final two tracks are just shy of ten minutes each, and the title cut is the penultimate one, wherein some Knopfleresque electric guitar complements soft acoustic as Sam reflects on the decisions and circumstances that conspired to bring him to this place. He does however point out that his problems are bigger than those of most, as he remarks “Spare a thought for the man they left in space: he lost the human race.” I'm not quite certain if that's meant to mean he lost the company of all his fellow human beings, or if it's making the human race a metaphor for a race that is run, you know? Nevertheless, it still puts in all in perspective. He does however reflect that if you don’t take risks you miss the big opportunities in your life, and even though he’s out here floating in space, waiting to die, he doesn’t seem too despondent. At least he has tried, he has made the effort even if he failed. There aren’t any ballads on the album, but this is probably the closest Cosmograf come here to one.

There will be no happy ending though, no last-minute rescue, and this will not prove to be a dream, as closing track “When the air runs out” amply shows. With a sense of descending further into despair, panic and then acceptance, Sam begins to contemplate his imminent death and the failure of the mission as his craft falls towards the sun. A stark piano line very reminiscent of Steven Wilson’s work with No-Man and Memories of Machines takes us in, then the Floydian comparisons come back as Armstrong channels Waters on “Empty spaces” and also Bowie rather obviously on “Space oddity”. There’s a sort of guitar or keyboard motif running through this, a phrase that sounds like “WOOP!WOOP!WOOP!” and may be meant to signify a warning, an alert as the ship’s orbit begins to decay.

Powerful and desperate the song allows us to look into Sam’s last moments before death, as he asks “What should we do when the air runs out? When this ship spins out? When this life runs out?” More voiceovers of names of people who died before their time, or were brought low by addictions, then a superbly proggy keyboard runaway solo that would make Mark Kelly green with envy as the song powers towards its conclusion. In the fifth minute it slides into a slow, Russian-folk-style melody as Sam begins to accept death is inevitable. Again the old Floyd trick of using a phased vocal that’s put through some sort of mono effect is used, then a rolling piano melody brings in more of those names, spoken off a list and then melancholy guitar joins in as the AI says “Please respond, Sam.” A final crashing bass piano note ends the song, then there is a further minute and a half as a radio announcer talks about a book written by Doctor Sam Harrison, a “self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive”, and says they will be talking to the doctor, presumably before his flight into space and his subsequent death there, then the sound of a needle getting stuck in the groove of a record (yay for us oldies! We recognise that sound!) and the last words “Be a curse” repeat until the sound of a stylus scratching indicates the needle was lifted, and the album comes to a final conclusion.

TRACKLISTING

1. How did I get here?
2. Aspire, achieve
3. The good Earth behind me
4. The vacuum that I fly through
5. This naked encounter
6. We disconnect
7. Beautiful treadmill
8. The man left in space
9. When the air runs out

I know I said at the beginning that the concept was not too important, and yet it is this which links all the tracks together into one cohesive whole, so I’ve tried to understand it. It seems to me that this is about a man, selected as the only one from his race, to go into space and do … something, I don’t know what … to save humanity. It’s set forty years in the future, so it could be colonisation, except we’re talking about one man. It could be to stop an asteroid hitting the earth, but again, a crew of one? I really don’t know, but whatever he’s supposed to do something goes terribly wrong and he’s left hanging in space, waiting for his orbit to decay and his ship to plunge into the sun. So maybe it was something to do with the sun?

Anyway he failed and now he’s left waiting to die. As he does, he thinks about the decisions that led him to this place and whether or not he would have done anything differently had he known? It’s a very dark album, with a somewhat bitter message and yet although the title character is not saved at the end, we’re left with some sort of vague impression of hope. Maybe he did save Earth, but just was unable to return home? Perhaps he made the ultimate sacrifice, ensuring the continuation of his species in the process? Again, I don’t know, and the end bit spoken on the final track confuses me even more. Here’s what it says, in the style of a radio announcement:

(Sound of the pips telling us the hour has struck, as used to happen on radio) “It’s ten o’clock. Good afternoon. This is “For the Arts”. In his controversial book, “The man left in space”, Doctor Samuel Harrison examines the psychology of achievement. Harrison presents a compelling theory that overachievement is a “quick-fix” for wounded self-esteem, and that chronically overachieving people don’t realise that unrecognised needs are driving them from the healing conditions necessary for fulfilled lives. Does achievement beyond expectation in any field lead to obsession, dysfunction and, ultimately, an inability to perform? The reward for success, it seems, is sometimes to be destroyed by failure. In the first of two programmes, we will be talking to Dr. Harrison, a self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive and asking him if success can really be a curse?”

I think -- and I’m just guessing here now --- that this interview was made before Harrison went into space, rather obviously, unless the whole idea is a mere allegory and never actually happened, except perhaps in his mind. It shows Harrison as the type of man he was then. Perhaps after that he got the chance to sign up for the mission, was accepted and finally achieved the ultimate overachievement, saving the Earth, albeit at the cost of his own life? Or, or, OR.... perhaps the Dr. Sam Harrison is his son, writing about his father's heroic but failed mission?

I guess you could argue the meaning behind the lyrics forever, but as I said they’re not as important as the album taken as a whole. I find once again that every multi-instrumentalist I have encountered --- particularly in the field of progressive rock, where they seem to really thrive and towards which they appear to gravitate --- has impressed me almost beyond words. Steve Thorne. The Minstrel’s Ghost. Willowglass. And now I need to add Cosmograf to that shortlist. If this could only get to number 100 on the list then I am excited to see what made the higher echelons! Of course, I don’t know how that list is or was compiled: was it from album ratings, reviews, personal likes, was it arbitrary? From sales? I guess it doesn’t matter, but the point is that if an album such as “The man left in space” can only scrape in at the bottom there must be some amazing stuff further on.

I had not intended to make this review so long, but I got so into this album I couldn’t help it: you know me. Don’t be surprised to see this or other reviews popping up in my journals: after all this work, I’d be a fool not to use the writeups there.

I don’t usually rate albums, but for this list I will, if only to see if my choices more or less tally with those of the folks at ProgArchives, or if we have wildly differing ideas as to what makes a really great prog album. As far as this album is concerned, I have to award it a very solid 8/10.

01-24-2014, 05:08 PM	#25 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	The man left in space --- Cosmograf --- 2013 (Self-released) The first thing that surprised me about this was that the band were not German. Maybe it was the -graf in their name, but I just assumed they were from there. Turns out not only are they not German, they’re not even a they. Not really. Cosmograf is the brainchild and project of one Robin Armstrong, who hails from Portsmouth in the UK. Like his contemporaries, Willowglass and The Minstrel’s Ghost, both featured in my journals, he’s a multi-instrumentalist, composer and even producer. He does however haul in some stellar talent to help him out on this, his fourth album under the Cosmograf name, including half of Spock’s Beard and half of Big Big Train, as well as members of Also Eden and The Tangent, so he’s obviously well respected in prog circles: that’s virtually a who’s-who of prog musicians. The album is a concept and seems to be built loosely around the idea of a mission to space, possibly colonisation, certainly mentions saving Mankind, but which goes terribly awry, hence the album title. Themes such as (unsurprisingly) loneliness, isolation, despair, the future, sacrifice and loss are all explored through the nine tracks on this opus, and while space travel/getting lost or stuck in space is nothing new --- Bowie was doing that in 1969 with “Space oddity” --- in the end the concept of the album does not matter so much because it’s so beautifully played and constructed musically. Starting off with a man asking “How did I get here?” against spacey sound effects, the opening track of the same name is a short one, atmospherically dark and grindy, and seems to be a record of a man who went into space to “help millions” in the year 2053, but the mission went badly wrong. Against an unanswered request from ground control for a “com check”, we head into “Aspire, achieve”, the longest track on the album at just over ten minutes, the astronaut in question, who seems to go by the name of Sam, relating his tale against generally acoustic style guitar in a fairly mid-to-uptempo beat. Suddenly some pretty heavy guitar and organ cuts in, taking the thing in a more boogie/metal direction, with some fine drumming from Nick D’Virgilio, who has of course played with both Spock’s Beard and Big Big Train. Nice cutback about halfway through to single strummed guitar notes and tiny handclap drumbeats. Some great progressive rock guitar and keys then take the song, and above all rides the clear, commanding voice of Robin Armstrong himself, who in addition to being a talented composer and excellent musician is also a fine and worthy singer. Rather oddly, two instrumentals follow then on the heels of each other. The first, “The good Earth behind me”, runs under some poetry I feel I should know, but don’t, with Gilmouresque guitar work and lush keyboards, which in about the third minute kick into a real Tony Banks style as the thing really “progs-up”, the tempo quite slow as it heads towards its end with unmistakable undertones of seventies Genesis. “The vacuum that I fly through” then is more introspective, with almost John Williams style guitar driving it in a slow path that certainly gives you the impression of drifting through space, soft synth underlying the melody until D’Virgilio’s percussion stamps its identity on the track and it becomes a little heavier, though still slow with now definite touches of twenty-first century Marillion in there. Although at first I thought it a bad idea to have two instrumentals one after the other, I kind of see the idea now. It’s an attempt, perhaps, at conveying the loneliness and the vastness of space, and the impression of being just carried along unable to do very much as you head out of the solar system comes through quite strongly: the sense of isolation and lack of control over one’s destiny, the idea of being a tiny speck against the overwhelming expanse of space is demonstrated very well through these two tracks. “This naked endeavour”, then, is carried on soft rippling yet lonely and almost melancholic piano while behind it plays recordings of Nixon’s phone call to the Apollo 11 mission on the Moon, as well as Kennedy’s speech at his inauguration. Guitars and drums crash in strongly then as Armstrong comes back in with the vocal, and there’s a strong sense of Floyd circa “The Wall” here, with powerful keyboards and dark guitar. We then hear the voice of the AI aboard Sam’s ship as he seems to be slipping away, lost, if you’ll pardon the term, in space, as “We disconnect” begins. He reminisces about his wife left behind, about taking on the mission and what he hoped to achieve, though it’s not really made clear what that mission is. Armstrong does his best Roger Waters here, angry bitter and a little manic. Great guitar solo joins a fine one on the keys, and the only reason I’m not giving credit to individual players is that, apart from D’Virgilio, I don’t know who is playing what part. There are several guitarists guesting, and then Armstrong plays most of the instruments himself too, so it makes it hard to keep up with who’s doing what. This is a dark piece as Armstrong sings “The light behind me getting smaller all the time; my memories of you are too.” He realises he’s probably going to die out here in space, and while not quite resigned to that fate, he knows there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. Some super guitar here and then we’re into what is probably my least favourite track on the album, “My beautiful treadmill”. Something about it just doesn’t do anything for me. Armstrong uses the old Waters device where his vocal is metallised, sort of as if it’s recorded in mono, and the music is heavy and powerful with some really striking melodies, almost heavy metal (progressive metal I guess you’d have to say) at times. Interesting vocal harmonies, and it’s a good track but definitely for me the weakest on the album. At times the fretwork here reminds me of the very best of John Mitchell with Arena, and there’s a lot of power and energy in the track, but I just can’t make myself like it. The final two tracks are just shy of ten minutes each, and the title cut is the penultimate one, wherein some Knopfleresque electric guitar complements soft acoustic as Sam reflects on the decisions and circumstances that conspired to bring him to this place. He does however point out that his problems are bigger than those of most, as he remarks “Spare a thought for the man they left in space: he lost the human race.” I'm not quite certain if that's meant to mean he lost the company of all his fellow human beings, or if it's making the human race a metaphor for a race that is run, you know? Nevertheless, it still puts in all in perspective. He does however reflect that if you don’t take risks you miss the big opportunities in your life, and even though he’s out here floating in space, waiting to die, he doesn’t seem too despondent. At least he has tried, he has made the effort even if he failed. There aren’t any ballads on the album, but this is probably the closest Cosmograf come here to one. There will be no happy ending though, no last-minute rescue, and this will not prove to be a dream, as closing track “When the air runs out” amply shows. With a sense of descending further into despair, panic and then acceptance, Sam begins to contemplate his imminent death and the failure of the mission as his craft falls towards the sun. A stark piano line very reminiscent of Steven Wilson’s work with No-Man and Memories of Machines takes us in, then the Floydian comparisons come back as Armstrong channels Waters on “Empty spaces” and also Bowie rather obviously on “Space oddity”. There’s a sort of guitar or keyboard motif running through this, a phrase that sounds like “WOOP!WOOP!WOOP!” and may be meant to signify a warning, an alert as the ship’s orbit begins to decay. Powerful and desperate the song allows us to look into Sam’s last moments before death, as he asks “What should we do when the air runs out? When this ship spins out? When this life runs out?” More voiceovers of names of people who died before their time, or were brought low by addictions, then a superbly proggy keyboard runaway solo that would make Mark Kelly green with envy as the song powers towards its conclusion. In the fifth minute it slides into a slow, Russian-folk-style melody as Sam begins to accept death is inevitable. Again the old Floyd trick of using a phased vocal that’s put through some sort of mono effect is used, then a rolling piano melody brings in more of those names, spoken off a list and then melancholy guitar joins in as the AI says “Please respond, Sam.” A final crashing bass piano note ends the song, then there is a further minute and a half as a radio announcer talks about a book written by Doctor Sam Harrison, a “self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive”, and says they will be talking to the doctor, presumably before his flight into space and his subsequent death there, then the sound of a needle getting stuck in the groove of a record (yay for us oldies! We recognise that sound!) and the last words “Be a curse” repeat until the sound of a stylus scratching indicates the needle was lifted, and the album comes to a final conclusion. TRACKLISTING 1. How did I get here? 2. Aspire, achieve 3. The good Earth behind me 4. The vacuum that I fly through 5. This naked encounter 6. We disconnect 7. Beautiful treadmill 8. The man left in space 9. When the air runs out I know I said at the beginning that the concept was not too important, and yet it is this which links all the tracks together into one cohesive whole, so I’ve tried to understand it. It seems to me that this is about a man, selected as the only one from his race, to go into space and do … something, I don’t know what … to save humanity. It’s set forty years in the future, so it could be colonisation, except we’re talking about one man. It could be to stop an asteroid hitting the earth, but again, a crew of one? I really don’t know, but whatever he’s supposed to do something goes terribly wrong and he’s left hanging in space, waiting for his orbit to decay and his ship to plunge into the sun. So maybe it was something to do with the sun? Anyway he failed and now he’s left waiting to die. As he does, he thinks about the decisions that led him to this place and whether or not he would have done anything differently had he known? It’s a very dark album, with a somewhat bitter message and yet although the title character is not saved at the end, we’re left with some sort of vague impression of hope. Maybe he did save Earth, but just was unable to return home? Perhaps he made the ultimate sacrifice, ensuring the continuation of his species in the process? Again, I don’t know, and the end bit spoken on the final track confuses me even more. Here’s what it says, in the style of a radio announcement: (Sound of the pips telling us the hour has struck, as used to happen on radio) “It’s ten o’clock. Good afternoon. This is “For the Arts”. In his controversial book, “The man left in space”, Doctor Samuel Harrison examines the psychology of achievement. Harrison presents a compelling theory that overachievement is a “quick-fix” for wounded self-esteem, and that chronically overachieving people don’t realise that unrecognised needs are driving them from the healing conditions necessary for fulfilled lives. Does achievement beyond expectation in any field lead to obsession, dysfunction and, ultimately, an inability to perform? The reward for success, it seems, is sometimes to be destroyed by failure. In the first of two programmes, we will be talking to Dr. Harrison, a self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive and asking him if success can really be a curse?” I think -- and I’m just guessing here now --- that this interview was made before Harrison went into space, rather obviously, unless the whole idea is a mere allegory and never actually happened, except perhaps in his mind. It shows Harrison as the type of man he was then. Perhaps after that he got the chance to sign up for the mission, was accepted and finally achieved the ultimate overachievement, saving the Earth, albeit at the cost of his own life? Or, or, OR.... perhaps the Dr. Sam Harrison is his son, writing about his father's heroic but failed mission? I guess you could argue the meaning behind the lyrics forever, but as I said they’re not as important as the album taken as a whole. I find once again that every multi-instrumentalist I have encountered --- particularly in the field of progressive rock, where they seem to really thrive and towards which they appear to gravitate --- has impressed me almost beyond words. Steve Thorne. The Minstrel’s Ghost. Willowglass. And now I need to add Cosmograf to that shortlist. If this could only get to number 100 on the list then I am excited to see what made the higher echelons! Of course, I don’t know how that list is or was compiled: was it from album ratings, reviews, personal likes, was it arbitrary? From sales? I guess it doesn’t matter, but the point is that if an album such as “The man left in space” can only scrape in at the bottom there must be some amazing stuff further on. I had not intended to make this review so long, but I got so into this album I couldn’t help it: you know me. Don’t be surprised to see this or other reviews popping up in my journals: after all this work, I’d be a fool not to use the writeups there. I don’t usually rate albums, but for this list I will, if only to see if my choices more or less tally with those of the folks at ProgArchives, or if we have wildly differing ideas as to what makes a really great prog album. As far as this album is concerned, I have to award it a very solid 8/10. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 01-17-2023 at 08:37 AM.