Magenta (Welsh band)

Magenta
Origin	Wales, UK
Genres	Progressive rock
Labels	Tigermoth
Members
Christina Booth, Rob Reed, Chris Fry, Keiran Bailey
Past members
Allan Mason-Jones, Martin Rosser, Matt Cohen, Dan Fry, Colin Edwards

Magenta are a Welsh progressive rock band formed in 1999 by ex-Cyan member Rob Reed. Reed takes his influences from bands like Genesis, Mike Oldfield, Yes, Eurythmics and Björk.

Current Lineup

• Christina Booth: lead vocals.
• Rob Reed: keyboards, backing vocals.
• Chris Fry: lead electric guitars, backing vocals.
• Keiran Bailey: drums.

History

Although heavily influenced by progressive rock, Reed is a professional songwriter and has done many other projects for both film and television. The most successful of these projects was called Trippa, featuring Christina Booth on vocals and Rob Reed on guitars and keyboards. Reed asked Christina to be lead vocalist for a progressive rock project he had in mind, and the initial ideas for Magenta were born. Booth went on to guest on a number of Cyan albums.

In 2000, Reed started writing for what would become Magenta's debut release, Revolutions. Reed wanted to do something new, bigger and more conceptual. "Current prog bands are always scared and shy about admitting the influences of the great bands of the 70’s, and I wanted to come clean and admit and celebrate those influences, and hopefully create something as worthwhile as those classic bands" said Reed. "To do this, all I had to do was to give priority to melody rather than technical showmanship, something I have always tried to do with all my work." Revolutions was named "Best New Album" in 2001 by Musical Discoveries, an online resource for female vocalists in the music industry.

Magenta's second album, Seven was released in March 2004 and sold out of its first pressing within four weeks. The band's first single, "Broken" was released in June 2004 - from the EP Broken. While shorter than any of the epic tracks on Seven, Broken retains the classic prog rock sound of Magenta, with a slightly more modern edge. In November 2004, Magenta released the double live album Another Time, Another Place, recorded on tour in Europe from 2002-2004. The live concert DVD The Gathering was also released in late 2005 and a series of live shows followed.

Current status

The band remains active, with more touring and the completion of the new studio album, Home, which was officially released on June 1, 2006. The album is a concept piece and tells the story of a woman who emigrates from Liverpool, England in the early 1970s to "find herself" in the USA. The CD is 68 minutes long and includes contributions from a variety of guests including Magenta regulars Martin Shellard on guitar alongside Troy Donockley (Iona, Mostly Autumn) on Uilleann Pipes and whistles. Once again, the album has been written and produced by Rob Reed, with lyrics by Steve Reed. Musically, Home represents a further development for the band, combining the Magenta sound established on Revolutions, Seven and the two singles Broken and I’m Alive. The new album was released in two separate versions, the single disc Home and the double disc version featuring the New York Suite. The second disc contains four longer pieces of music which could not fit onto the single disc version.

Magenta: The Singles was released in summer 2007. The album features re-recorded versions of various singles and album tracks. Rob Reed explains, "The first reason for doing the album was to get definitive versions of the songs recorded. We’d been playing some of the songs live for 3 years and we now had Dan on bass, and he’d brought his own character to the songs as they’d developed. Also, the original versions had been recorded quite quickly and we wanted to get high quality versions of the songs down, as we’d done with "Speechless". It was great to take a bit more time with them and record them properly. Also a lot of Prog fans don’t like buying singles, they’d much rather have the album format, and at 79 minutes we certainly have an albums worth of material. We can delete the singles now."

In addition, another DVD was recorded on the 23rd of November at The Point in Cardiff.

On 30 November 2007 it was announced that drummer Allan Mason-Jones had left the band. He has since been replaced by Keiran Bailey. On 11 December 2007 it was announced that guitarist Martin Rosser had also left the band to work with Dan Fry and Allan Mason-Jones on their new C-Sides project.

Their fourth album, titled "Metamorphosis", was released to registered fans on March 23, 2008, with an accompanying DVD featuring footage of the recording process and a full 5.1 version of the album. (The official release date for these items is April 21.) Prior to its release, Reed said it is "unlike what Magenta fans have heard up until now."

On 4 March 2010, it was announced on the Magenta homepage that bassist Dan Fry has also left the band and they were planning on holding auditions to fill the position. Fry's leaving also caused two shows in Holland set for May to be canceled.

Awards

Magenta at the CRS Awards (2004)

In 2004, Magenta received the Classic Rock Society Award for "Best Female Vocalist" and "Best Live Band". The Classic Rock Society (CRS) honors groups or artists who are popular with the public, but whose music remains unpublicised by national media and radio station programmers. Other past contributors and recipients have included Pallas, IQ, Spock's Beard, Flower Kings, Mostly Autumn, Karnataka, Pendragon and many others from the progressive rock genre.

• Best Live Gig - Classic Rock Society 2004, 2008
• Best Band - Classic Rock Society 2005, 2008
• Best Album - Seven - Metal Hammer, Poland
• Best Live Album - Hungarian Prog Rock Society 2005
• Best Foreign Album - Home - Italian Prog Awards 2006
• Best Female Vocalist - Christina Booth - CRS 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008
• Best Guitarist - Chris Fry -CRS 2008

Discography

Studio

• Revolutions (March 1, 2001)
• Seven (March 1, 2004)
• Home (June 1, 2006) *Re-released & remixed 2CD set* (March 20, 2010)
• New York Suite (June 1, 2006)
• The Singles (May 21, 2007)
• Metamorphosis (April 21, 2008)
• Rarities, Vol#1 - Exclusive download release (January, 2010)
• Seven (the instrumentals) - Exclusive download release (January, 2010)

Live

• Another Time, Another Place...Live (November 1, 2004)
• Live at the Point (October 27, 2008)
• The Gathering - Exclusive download release (January, 2010)
• Live at Real World (September 19, 2010) - Acoustic concert with a string quartet

EPs

• Broken EP (June 1, 2004)
• I'm Alive EP (November 1, 2004)
• Wonderous stories - CD single (November 15, 2009)

DVDs

• The Gathering (October 24, 2005)
• The Metamorphosis Collection (April 21, 2008)
• Live at the Point (October 27, 2008)
• Live at Real World (September 19, 2010) - Acoustic concert with a string quartet

References

External links

• Magenta-web.com: The official Magenta website
• Magenta MP3 samples
• Progrock.co.uk
• F2Music.co.uk
• Magenta @ Myspace.com
• [1]: Digital download page

Related

• Musical Discoveries.com: Progressive female vocalists
• Prog Archives.com