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It’s a good time for Rick Wakeman to be returning to deep space and the surface of Mars. If only he can get there before Bezos or Musk land in a cloud of red dust and plant some sort of flag to claim dubious mineral rights.
They’re not the only ones aiming for the stars. Phobos – the oddly shaped moon that orbits Mars and was once thought to be hollow or some alien craft – will be visited by spacecraft next summer and have some of its soil flown back to Earth for analysis, which will be the first time that samples from the Martian system have been collected. Has no one seen the TV show Alien: Earth, which is looking more like a documentary by the day?
Thankfully, Wakeman’s follow-up to his acclaimed 2020 album The Red Planet is a more genteel journey, filled with the fantastical and musical notes that conjure up blazing sunsets across the Red Planet and hazy clouds of crimson dust as he once more trains his gaze on a world that has inspired countless films, books and music; more a love letter to Mars, and less things with teeth.
Talking of inspiration, Wakeman gives a nod to his late friend and musical contemporary on David Bowie’s Vision, vocalist Mollie Marriott (daughter of Steve) imagining the moment where the actual Spiders from Mars descended towards Earth, played out against a towering wave of church organ and amassed choral voices. To say it’s quite the thing is to understate it a bit.
For his part, Wakeman immersed himself in planetary research, data and mission reports from Mars before a single note was written. “Once I started looking at the new data and photographs, I realised there was an entirely new album waiting to be written. There was simply too much more to say about Mars – musically and spiritually,” he says. Which might suggest that this new-found geological spin on the Red Planet is lacking in romance or emotion.
Not a bit of it. Wakeman’s ardour for the celestial body hasn’t dampened a bit. Take the charged Noctis Labyrinthus – harried along by the excellent English Rock Ensemble band – or the swirling, epically felt The Epochs Of Mars, which encapsulates Wakeman’s wildly ranging musical highs in less than eight minutes. Positively deft by his standards.
What a trip.