The reformed Nektar will release their brand new album The Other Side through Esoteric Antenna Records on January 24. It will be the first new album recorded by the prog legends since 2013's Time Machine.
The new album will feature the songs SkyWriter and Devi's Door, which were released as a 12" single in October as well as six new tracks. The full tracklisting is:
1. I’m On Fire
2. SkyWriter
3. Love Is/The Other Side
4. Drifting
5. Devil’s Door
6. The Light Beyond
7. Look Through me
8. Y Cant I B More Like U (2020)
This line-up of the band features original members Derek 'Mo' Moore (bass), Ron Howden (drums) and Mick Brockett (lyrics and visual conceptions) along with guitarist Ryche Chandler, who played with the band in 1978, bassist Randy Dembo who featured on 2004's Evolution album and new keyboard player Kendall Scott.
Some of the music for The Other Side dates from the 1978 era when the band were writing in Mo's basement in Chatham, New Jersey. This music was put on pause for the last 40 years, and now it’s finally being released with new input and fresh ideas.
“Sky Pilot I wrote in 1978 but did not like it so much, it was OK but not finished," Moore tells Prog. "Ryche switched it around and wrote the music for the verse and it became SkyWriter, which I love. Words are by Ryche, Mick and myself. It's a story of a guy whose significant other… wife, girlfriend, mother, dies, and he is up in the sky writing letters which he hopes she will see. All part of The Other Side concept.
"Devils Door was an old 1974 song we played in a couple of concerts back in the day but we never finished it. Ryche, Mick and I wrote lyrics for it and got it ready to record. While we were getting ready I realised that Roye Albrighton's introduction guitar sounded great, I suggested starting off the song with it which was enthusiastically received by all. It became a great piece of music and the beginning vocal even sounds like Roye. The story is of flying near the and flying away from the Devils Door which is beyond the Other Side...”
This current line-up of Nektar has nothing to do with the line-up put together by the band's 2007 keyboard player Klaus Hentsch and who released the Megalomania album and toured Germany in 2018.
The Other Side can be pre-ordered here.
