Soul Trader

It's been a long time coming, but Oliver Wakeman is back with a new solo album. With contributions from Nightwish's Troy Donockley, vocalist Hayley Griffiths, and Pendragon drummer Scott Higham, Anam Cara is a celtic-flavoured melting pot of delight. The keyboardist discusses the good stories and wonderful musicians that make up a record he hopes will capture the listener's imagination.

- Grant Moon

Last year Oliver Wakeman's record label politely pointed out that he hadn't made an album of his own for a long, long time. He was taken aback; to him it felt like he'd barely stopped releasing music.

There was Collaborations - the 2022 box set featuring expanded reissues of The 3 Ages Of Magick, his record with Steve Howe, and Ravens & Lullabies, with Gordon Giltrap. The year before saw Tales By Gaslight, a three-disc set comprising his albums with Arena's Clive Nolan Jabberwocky and The Hound Of The Baskervilles plus a previously unreleased selection, Dark Fables.

In 2019 there'd been a high-profile offering - Yes 'mini-album' From A Page, predominantly made up of shelved pieces the keyboardist had written for the band during his tenure with them in the late 2000s. Add to that the live work with Strawbs, the occasional charity gig with his old man, Rick Wakeman, and hundreds of other engagements. "In my head," Wakeman tells Prog, "I'd been doing records and sessions for the last 10 years, since working with Gordon on Ravens....

The record company said, 'Yeah, but you haven't done one of your own.' But I never think about that. Every record I do is as important to me as a solo record. And in an odd way, this new one is a solo record, but it's not really it's me with a bunch of musicians that I really like working with." Anam Cara is the first album released under just his name since 2005's rocky Mother's Ruin, but it benefits greatly from notable contributors on both sides of the studio glass.