It is not often that you pick up positive reactions to brand new music as strongly as people hearing on my radio show music from Do You Dream of Luminous Things, the album from Jamie Parker which can best be summarised as an expansive set of progressive rock songs deliberately moulded in the spirit, although I emphasise not in the derivative sense, of artists such as Pink Floyd and Steven Wilson.

I have now played two of the tracks on my Saturday afternoon show at Progzilla Radio. In our live chat room, you could almost see grown music fans swooning with delight over what they were hearing, and these are, of course, hard bitten music fans, those veterans not easily swayed by passing fads.

Simply put, this album is a work of genius. It is one of the best new works I have ever heard. It deserves to be in all rock critics top ten list at the year-end (I don’t do those, but it is a surefire certainty that these tracks will be in contention for a Lazland Award). You can get a copy by visiting https://jamieparker.bandcamp.com/album/do-you-dream-of-luminous-things Don’t mess about - your record collection will leave you and sue for divorce if you do not add this gem to it.

Parker hails from Dorset, a county in the south of England which also spawned the likes of Fripp, Lake & Wetton. He wrote, arranged, and produced all the music here, with Jack Ansell co-writing A Grief That Does Not Speak. The story and lyrics are by James Ousley, and string arrangements are by Lucy Hackett, who contributes said strings and synths on five of the songs.

There are several class musicians brought in as collaborators. On all six tracks, Parker plays guitars and sings the words alongside Molly Waters; Rick Veall hits the skins; Will Sear plays organ, piano, and synths; and Jack Ansell is the bass guitarist.

The whole thing was mixed and mastered by Gareth Matthews at Echotown Studios in Dorchester. It sounds sumptuous, a fully modern musical odyssey, and is old fashioned only in the sense that it is one of those albums that demands your attention, gives up its secrets slowly, the listener gaining something new and beautiful with each listen, the type of LP you took home after spending your hard-earned and locked yourself away in sheer musical solitude nightly in order to fully appreciate.

Six pieces of music. Let’s discuss and play.

We begin with over seventeen and a half minutes of epic progressive rock in The Radient, the outmoded spelling of all thing’s luminosity. I will be playing this on my Progzilla Radio show the day following the official release date, so Saturday 5th July. There is a pastoral sense to the start, and the vocal harmonies between Waters and Parker are very pleasing, her voice in the mix above the music very effective, and as we progress, the epic takes complete control, but with a decidedly modern feel. Call it post-progressive, call it what one likes, but it takes classic influences and shifts them at warp speed into 2025. For example, the superb guitar solo six minutes in, which is preceded by a thoughtful passage, never thinks of outstaying a welcome, instead a short, sharp burst, the story then continuing before Will Sear provides a synth solo which takes one to the heady days of the resurgence of progressive rock in the UK when we thought it was dead and buried, then simply gorgeous piano work is created in a mix which could easily have been recorded in a classic studio decades ago. Such a clever way of presenting music, and you then welcome with open arms the mellotron which places a cap on it before an extended instrumental passage full of bread and circuses, a smoky sax from Amy Williams which is quite lovely, set against a background I know fans of The Flower Kings especially will wallow in, before the final segment provides for an expansive noise which demands pumping the volume up, Parker and friends proving they can rock out with the best of them, loud and proud before a rock gospel vibe, asking whether this is punishment, takes us to a definitive post punk conclusion, angry and explosive.

You might have guessed it – there is quite a lot going on in there.

How do you follow that? Well, with the single which took our collective breaths away on the radio station, How I Caught the Moon. The video of this is embedded below, and you can also read my thoughts on release at the time by clicking on the button link.

Steeped in Burning Flowers is the shortest track here, at almost five and a half minutes, so no slouch. Veall is very prominent on this, and as a rhythm section works well with Ansell, Hackett providing swirling organ against the relentless riffs of Parker’s guitars, some mighty harmonies with Waters, in a classic rock dream fused with electronica marginal effects, some of the lyrics quite stark, for example even the wasps wouldn’t take the sugar off your lips.

A Place I Can Disappear immediately takes you to a quieter zone, the spoken words and background synths very strongly influenced by Wilson talking of a brother as companion, she telling us of a journey in the dead of night in an empty place, the manner in which she speaks these words showing she has fully brought into this project, a fascinating poetical joy set to a soundscape of stark beauty, the sounds of the creatures of the night hitting the senses, entering a megalith, the music as it moves on becoming ever louder and increasingly expressive as the journey reaches a state of nirvana. It is brilliant. It is a song of sheer wonder, the aftermath poignant. I have been very fortunate to review this past couple of weeks incredible music set to the spoken word, firstly Chakra Vimana (Shane Beck) and now this.

Waking in the Land of Giants is next, the title instantly taking those of us of a certain vintage to that classic Irwin Allen show. It is the second epic of the album, marginally short of fifteen minutes. It opens fast and furious, a space rock epic before the vocals completely fill the senses, more delightful harmonies, the synths creating the canvas upon which all else is painted. Amy Williams provides us with a flute solo which takes one back to the halcyon days of prog, this exemplified by the mellotron taking on the soundscape duties. Parker also cleverly provides us with some deliberate changes of both sound and musical tempo, at once imbued with a Canterbury jazz feel, interspersed with more than a dash of Americana, all the while building up a sense of drama and more than a tinge of menace, dark blues rock, then expanding in a haze of joy with another expressive sax solo which has to be allowed to wash over one from Williams, who is a real talent, and she then locks horns with Parker on his axe before we embark on a psych-infused madcap sequence, sirens wailing, flute swirling before the track lifts off and explodes, the ship crashing, danger everywhere, the words, organs, and riffs crying into the ether. I tell you; it is impossible to be bored listening to this.

We close with A Grief That Does Not Speak, and the third epic track – did I mention that Parker is not short of ambition? There is a futuristic rock vibe to the opening bars, a sort of Tangerine Dream does Rush, Parker’s words when they arrive spitting with anger, this sense exemplified by the sax which is in stark contrast to the contributions previously heard, and after the riffs disperse, there is another fine contrast in feel, mix, and volume, as we are transported back in time, an operatic turn following before Williams provides us with a sax burst that is about the finest I have heard since clasping ears on Helliwell or Jackson all those years ago, the track expansive and a sheer aural delight. As we move into the closing sequence, we are treated to a space infused symphony, some magnificent strings from Hackett creating such a dramatic scene before Williams revisits the finest sax moment in some fifty years rising above the symphonic and glorious racket created by the collective beneath it.

This review has, as usual, been through a few drafts, but I will close with the words I concluded with on my initial draft.

Don’t just support independent artists for the sake of it. Drink in and experience real talent. An album as rich and as fulfilling as this comes along rarely. It will likely be ignored by the mainstream. Let’s proclaim our love of it with pride and shout it out.

Indispensable music for 2025.