The Tangent

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The Tangent is an international progressive rock supergroup.

Formed in 2002 by keyboardists Andy Tillison and Sam Baine of Parallel or 90 Degrees and Flower Kings guitarist Roine Stolt, bassist Jonas Reingold, and drummer Zoltan Csörsz. The septet was completed by renowned saxophonist David Jackson of Van der Graaf Generator and multi-instrumentalist Guy Manning. Since 2003 amid several personnel changes the band has released three albums, played concerts and festivals in the USA, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and France. All achieving great worldwide success and acclaim among listeners of progressive rock.

The band also have their own Roger Dean, Belo-russian artist Ed Unitsky, who works closely with the band when designing their album artwork

The Tangent has a highly improbable history, that turns on a couple of tiny events for the lack of which the band would never have existed. They were "formed" in 2002, they've already had numerous changes in personnel. 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.

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....

And the 'left over' music that was put to one side began to gather digital dust.... until Andy had a row with a Flower Kings crew member Ian Oakley. "I made the fatal mistake of slagging Po90 off in a review of that first concert the bands played together" remembers Oakley, "I was obviously reviewing the Flower Kings, and I'd not in honesty paid that much attention to Po90's set. I guess what I wrote must have looked a bit dismissive, just a couple of lines about them. I got this mail from Andy that tore me to bits. I wrote back and told him it was the actually the very first review I'd ever written. He wrote back to me and apologised, we started to talk a lot about prog music, discovered we had a lot in common, and he sent me this CD of demos he'd been sitting on. Suffice to say I am now the Tangent's manager...."

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 resulting album, The Music That Died Alone was welcomed by the progressive rock community with open arms seeing the band scope 'Best newcomer', 'Best artwork', 'Best debut' and 'Album of the year' in nearly every worldwide 'progressive rock' poll. Each subsequent album has achieved similar acclaim.

Though the original line-up has changed significantly, Tillison remains the driving force behind the band, and they have of late branched out from the usual symphonic prog format to include jazz, funk, Canterbury scene, electronica, and a variety of other styles.

For early 2007 the Tangent is planning the release of a double live CD on InsideOut Records. The material will be taken from recordings of recent UK shows and much of the ROSfest USA recordings will be included. The album which will feature music from all three albums. The line up for the band will feature Swedes Jonas Reingold, Krister Jonsson and Jaime Salazar and Brits Andy Tillison, Sam Baine and Theo Travis on all tracks and Guy Manning on some tracks.

In 2007 a new variant line up of The Tangent will be also started: a trio consisting of Jonas Reingold, Andy Tillison and Jaime Salazar. Their live shows will be advertised and promoted as "The Tangent presents: Tillison, Reingold, & Salazar" and will feature new music, familiar Tangent favorites in a new arrangement, and - although no details are given - the trio are planning a full performance of a "major, well loved progressive rock classic". This could also be accompanied by a limited independant band release of a new studio version of said "progressive rock classic".

2008 should see the next full blown Tangent release (on Insideout).