The Tangent / Parallel or 90 Degrees
The Tangent is a 21st Century Progressive Rock Band led by English Keyboards player and composer Andy Tillison. Now in its 24th year of operations the group has made 14 albums of original work. Although the band had many different participants in its earlier years the lineup has been relatively stable for more than a decade now and indeed the first change happened this year with the arrival of Arena, IQ, Rain, Ark and Jadis alumnus John Jowitt (who replaces founder member Jonas Reingold) - and Rob Groucutt enlisted as a vital second keyboards player for the band.
The band is known for their story based approach to their compositions - in particular with their work in epic formats, having released coming up on 30 songs longer than 15 minutes over their career. While their music has a certain level of nostalgic respect for the progressive rock bands of the 1970s (especially the Canterbury Scene) the group have been consistently keen to broaden their horizons with influences of Soul, Berlin Electronica, Tech-Metal, Electronic Dance Music, Drum and Bass, Jazz, Pop and Classical music and their beloved Disco.
Added to the mix is a socially aware lyrical framework that seeks to find relevance in today’s world rather than the world of the 1970s. Politics, technology, poverty, communications, the neglect of war veterans, social deprivation, Covid, Brexit and humorous stories have been recurring themes of the band along with many lyrical references to the bands of yore. "Yeah, I'm always mentioning old stuff, name dropping and all that" says keyboards player, lyricist and composer Andy Tillison. "But I always thought that Prog could have done with blowing its own trumpet a bit more. Like Rock and Roll had songs about Rock and Roll, Country about Country, Disco about Disco. I think we found this little trait right back at the beginning, and we return to it, develop it and create new things from it."
‘Parallel or 90 Degrees’ was the main vehicle for Andy prior to forming ‘The Tangent’ in 2002. During the late 1990s, five studio albums were released but the first three were predominantly just Andy. After revisiting said albums, Andy decided that he would like to ‘polish’ some of his favourite tracks and thus ‘aftersometimelater’ was born.
