By NOEL MURPHY
IT’S bit like stepping inside a time machine listening to drummer Les Oldman’s latest musical collaboration.
In the nicest way, of course, because retro’s all the rage and prog rock is no exception. The thing about it, and probably the reason there’s not more of it about, is that it’s damn hard to play.
Fortunately for Oldman and his confreres, they’re old hands in the music game.
The age of progressive rock was the early 1970s and the influences on Oldman’s crew – Trio Manipulato – are express from the era: Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Chick Corea, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Pink Floyd…
But that’s not the half of it. Jazz from the ’80s fusion of George Benson through to latter-day exponents like Nik Bartsch, Erik Truffraz and The Neck are all in there too, making for some trippy jazz-rock journeys.
But yet another dimension colours the original songs of Trio Manipulato – written by Oldman with bandmates Zoran Bilogrevic on guitar and Gary Quick on keyboards – and that’s classical music.
And some pretty heavy classical in the likes of Debussy, Bach and Paganini, who supposedly sold his soul to the devil for his violin virtuosity.
Oldman is a teacher at Geelong’s Kardinia International School, as is Bilogrevic.
“We’re a brand new band doing a rare style of music,” Oldman said.
“We started off eight or nine months ago, trying to be a straight-up jazz group, but we were already writing and jamming on ambient soundscaping, which is kind of movie tracks, those kinds of sounds.
“Zoran’s a bit of a headbanger with Satriani and Gary’s big with ELP sounds and horn sections, so you get a combination of those things.
“I’m a groove-based player, so I tone it down a bit so it’s not all smash and crash but we do have drum solos as well as keyboards solos,
“You’re not afraid to be soft, maybe just one instrument giving a dark mood, but then add colours and mood. All of us being teachers, we all think we know more than we do and we take few risks but we thought, ‘Why waste time with standards when we can do what we want to do’.”
