Heroic Materials
Release Date: 09-09-2022 (Gravity Dream Music)
William ‘Billy’ May looks back on his life at the age of 99 and realises the world has completely changed since he was a young man put into an impossible scenario, defending his country from the air. He no longer recognises much of the modern world but understands that the human race must live in a different way in the future.
Heroic Materials is an album about change, our refusal to accept it, but also recognising that it’s essential to our survival. The story centres on a WWII Spitfire pilot who laments a lost golden era, but reflects that the human race must change its ways in order to preserve our existence on the earth.
Robin, is once again joined by drummer, Kyle Fenton, and there is a special guest appearance from ex-Big Big Train keyboard player Danny Manners, who plays piano on the 13 min title track.
Rattrapante
Release Date: 26-03-2021 (Gravity Dream Music)
‘Rattrapante’ is a collection of 5 songs about our interaction with time; we measure it, but yet waste it more, it defines our existence and forms our memories. Some seek to beat it by being the first or the fastest and some can appear to outlive time itself through their achievements…
“The idea for the album was inspired from from my work with mechanical watches. Rattrapante is a French word deriving from ‘rattraper’ meaning ‘to catch up or recapture. A Rattrapante chronograph can simultaneously time 2 events such a lap split time and a final race time”, explains Robin Armstrong. “It was the perfect metaphor for our own interaction with time.”
Rattrapante features Robin Armstrong, Kyle Fenton, Chrissy Mostyn from The Blackheart Orchestra and voiceover artist, Tommy McNally and will be released on the Gravity Dream Music label in CD, Vinyl and Digital formats on March 26th 2021.
Mind Over Depth
Release Date: 12-04-2019 (Cosmograf Music)
Everything going on in our minds – every thought, feeling, sensation, everything we are aware of – is in fact happening only in our private internal worlds. Our reality is defined by the attention we give to these thoughts and the negative ones can inevitably lead to us feeling out of our depth…
Mind Over Depth is characteristically introspective and allegorical like much of my work, but this record is much heavier than my previous albums with influences that draw from modern progressive metal, electronica and classic heavy metal.
I’m joined on the album by Kyle Fenton on drums who played on 2017’s The Hay Man Dreams and special guest Colin Edwin (Porcupine Tree/ O.R.k), who played on the 2014 release, Capacitor.
Available Media: Digipak CD, Vinyl, Bandcamp/ Download/Streaming.
WAHDID – Electronic Remix (Single Track)
Release Date: 30-11-2018 (Cosmograf Music)
The electronic remix version of the title track from When Age Has Done Its Duty. There are quite a few changes but the key ingredients are electronic percussion, the pounding synth bass replacing the traditional 4 string and more direct, processed vocals. Steve Thorne’s performance takes on a new dimension and I wrote and played a new guitar solo to fit the new style.
Available Media: Bandcamp
When Age Has Done Its Duty (2018 Remix Edition)
Release Date: 26-01-2018 (Cosmograf Music)
‘When Age has Done Its Duty’ returns for 2018 remixed and mastered by Robin and presented in a CD Digipak with extended 20 page booklet.
“It’s considered by many to be a seminal work in the Cosmograf catalogue, so rather than just re-issuing it I thought it would be better to completely remix and master it and address some of the issues that were less than perfect on the original recording.”, says Robin Armstrong. “Many of the original guitar, bass and vocal parts have been re-recorded, new string arrangements added, and a more dynamic low volume level master produced. I’m really pleased with how it’s now sounding”.
When Age Has Done Its Duty was voted the 8th Best Reissue in the PROG Magazine reader’s poll 2018.
Available Media: Digipak CD, Double Vinyl, Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.
The Hay-Man Dreams
Release Date: 14-07-2017 (Cosmograf Music)
A retrospective album in both theme and style, Robin Armstrong’s 6thalbum harks back to the sound and feel of the classic prog era fused with the raw energy and darkness of a rock behemoth. The 6 track album is measured at a single LP length and instrumentally delivers the vintage sound of guitar, bass and drums with a sprinkling of classic keyboards.
The theme presents as a mythical tale of a farm labourer meeting an early death, and leaving a loving wife and young family. His widow builds a scarecrow effigy as a shrine to her loss, and this ‘Hay-Man’ spends his weather beaten days in eternity, dreaming beyond his field.
The Hay-Man Dreams Track Listing:
- Tethered And Bound
- Trouble In The Forest
- The Motorway
- Cut The Corn
- Melancholy Death Of A Gamekeeper
- Hay-Man
The new release will be available on CD, vinyl and all digital formats and features guest performances from Rachael Hawnt (The Beautiful Secret), Kyle Fenton (These Septic Stars), Matt Stevens (The Fierce and the Dead), Rachel Hall (Big Big Train) and former BBC Voiceover artist David Allan.
Available Media: Jewel Case CD, Vinyl, Bandcamp/Download, Streaming.
A Festive Ghost (Single Track)
Release Date: 01-12-2017 (Cosmograf Music)
Cosmograf releases a single song for Christmas. Exclusively distributed on Bandcamp, this unconventional Christmas song, is a wistful reflection on the pressures of maintaining damaged relationships at the time of the festive season.
All of the instruments on this record are played by Robin including the drums.
Available Media: Bandcamp
The Unreasonable Silence
Release Date: 13-06-2016 (Cosmograf Music)
Cosmograf’s fifth release is an existential concept album with an alien theme, based on the essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ by the French philosopher Albert Camus.
“It’s essentially a more modern re-telling of Camus’s writings about mankind’s struggle to understand the universe and our role within it”, says the concept’s creator Robin Armstrong.“Camus described man standing face to face with the irrational, longing for happiness and reason which leads to a confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”
Between our quest for knowledge and refusal of the world to give up its secrets, lies the concept of absurdism. In his original essay, Camus describes Sysiphus, a mythological character condemned to a pointless labour, to illustrate the absurdity of human existence. Robin Armstrong twists the story to portray a modern character that has become disillusioned with his own life to the point that he believes his destiny may reside in another world. As with previous Cosmograf albums, the concept is played out with a very cinematic feel and explores the themes of paranoia, social withdrawal and conformity, and ultimately the search for meaning in our own existence.
The Unreasonable Silence features guest appearances by Nick D’Virgilio, Nick Beggs, Dave Meros and Rachael Hawnt as well as a number of voice acting contributions.
Track List:
- echo $abduction;
- This Film Might Change Your Life
- Plastic Men
- Arcade Machine
- RGB
- Four Wall Euphoria
- The Uniform Road
- The Silent Field
- Relativity
- The Unreasonable Silence
Musicians:
-Nick D’Virgilio (Spock’s Beard/ Big Big Train), Drums – All tracks except RGB.
-Nick Beggs (Steven Wilson/Steve Hackett/ Mute Gods), Bass – Four Wall Euphoria.
-Dave Meros – (Spock’s Beard), Bass -Arcade Machine.
-Rachael Hawnt , Vocals – The Unreasonable Silence, Four Wall Euphoria, Relativity.
-Robin Armstrong – Vocals, all other instruments.
Available Media: Digipak CD, Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.
Capacitor
Release Date: 02-06-2014 (Cosmograf Music)
Capacitor features guest appearances by Nick D’Virgilio, Colin Edwin, Nick Beggs, Andy Tillison, Matt Stevens, and Steve Dunn and contains seven tracks in total.
The theme for Capacitor is the storage of the human spirit, and how the imprint of our lives is left behind both in a spiritual and technological sense. The album is heavily loaded with cinematic atmosphere and there are plenty of dark corners in which the imagination can wander – especially for those listening in the dark with headphones.
The record was released in June 2014 and achieved great reviews appearing in a number of best prog album of the year lists.
Tracklist
1. The Spirit Capture
2. The Fear Created
3. The Reaper’s Song
4. The Drover
5. White Car
6. The Ghost Gets Made
7. Stuck in the Wood
Available Media: Jewel Case CD, Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.
The Man Left In Space
Launch Date: 05-02-2013 (Cosmograf Music)
“In our race for achievement and success, we sometimes gamble with our lives only to collect isolation, unhappiness and failure.”
‘The Man Left in Space’ is a concept album exploring the themes of aspiration, achievement, and the failures that our quest for success, sometimes brings. The story is played out against the analogous theme of a doomed space mission, launched in a bid to save mankind. The story provides a metaphor for the perils of success, such as boredom, isolation, unhappiness and ultimately failure…
The 9 track progressive rock album draws on many past and contemporary influences in music, and takes a journey into the unknown to feed the imagination, and appetite of the listener of intelligent music. It features a number of special guests from the progressive rock community including Nick D’Virgilio (Spock’s Beard/Big Big Train ), Dave Meros (Spock’s Beard), Matt Stevens, Greg Spawton (Big Big Train), Simon Rogers, Steve Dunn ( Also Eden ), Lee Abraham ( The Lee Abraham Band ), Luke Machin ( Ex-The Tangent/Maschine ) and Dave Ware.
The album was released on the ‘Cosmograf Music’ label and is available to buy now on this site.
TMLIS has received critical acclaim in the progressive rock music press and is often cited in the numerous ‘Best of 2013’ lists from a number of leading of Prog bloggers . The album lead to Cosmograf being nominated for a ‘Limelight’ award by Prog Magazine in 2013.
Available Media: Jewel Case CD, Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.
When Age Has Done Its Duty
(Released September 2011 – F2 Music)
‘When Age has Done Its Duty’ is an 8 track concept album centering around the theme of ageing against the background of personal experiences growing up. The album features a number of special guests from the progressive rock community including Bob Dalton ( It Bites), Steve Thorne, Simon Rogers (Also Eden), Steve Dunn ( Also Eden), Huw Lloyd-Jones (Unto Us), Lee Abraham ( The Lee Abraham Band), Luke Machin ( The Tangent) and Dave Ware.
‘WAHDID’ gained the interest of a number of UK based record companies resulting in the album being formally released on the Festival Music label in September 2011 by F2 Records Ltd. The album brought Cosmograf to the consciousness of the progressive rock community gaining critical acclaim from a number of respected publications, both online and in the traditional music press.
Available Media: CD out of press (replaced by 2018 remix edition), Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.
End of Ecclesia
(Self Released November 2009)
‘End of Ecclesia’ was self released in 2009 on CD-R format, and it’s theme plots a course through the conflict between science and religion. The 10 track album took 8 months to produce and was recorded, mixed and mastered in Robin’s earliest incarnation of his home studio in Portsmouth, UK. ‘End of Ecclesia’ is an ecclectic mix of traditional and neo prog with some obvious lapses into neo classical, contemporary rock, and metal. Track 10 – ‘The Dark that follows the Light’ also features the electric guitar and bass talents of Steve Dunn from Also Eden. The album is a little rough and ready in presentation but lead the way to better production for the subsequent albums, and attracted some very good reviews in the prog press.
Available Media: CD-R out of press, Bandcamp/Download/Streaming.