Derbyshire based progger Ian Neal has streamed a new track, the "pastoral, symphonic prog" of Come Haresting, which you can listen to below.
It's taken from Neal's fourth solo album Barkston Ash, which he's been working on for the past few years and is now available from his Bandcamp page. It's his first new album for eight years. You can see the new artwork and tracklisting below.
"Perusing poetry by Christina Rossetti provided an imaginary world for the backdrop of the track along with a lexicon for the lyrics here which were kind of borrowed and adapted," Neal explains of the song. "The pastoral, nature, beauty, the dream of arcadia, and the spiritual helped push the work along.
"For the technical side of things, here we have 7/4 time sig. plus, some headway in the production side of things. And, if you were wondering, yes, there is a bit of a nod to BJH for those of you who know of them, along with some other 70s prog favourites of mine."
Of the new album, Neal says: "It has been developed across the last few years and tracks have been released individually as and when they have been completed. The recent release of the final track, Come Harvesting! marks the end of the work in terms of composition and the album is good to go. There may be some further tweaking with the production side of things in the pursuit of perfection further down the line, however, any changes to the mixes will only benefit the listener and any of these original mixes will remain available and new mixes will be freebies for the buyer."
Neal has previously released All In A Golden Afternoon (2005), Out Of The Woods (2011) and Astro (2013). All are available from Neal's Bandcamp page.
Ian Neal: Barkston Ash
1. Fair Winds
2. Ash Phrixus
3. Barclay Harvest
4. Holst's Hollows
5, The Vale Of Linden
6. Come Harvesting!
