HACKETT & ROTHERY: The Black Sea | Reaction & Analysis | The Daily Doug - Episode 1122

[00:00:00]It's the Daily Doug. [music] >> Hey y'all. Welcome back to the Daily Doug. Thanks for being with me today, my friends. We are finishing our first full week in our new place. I am still moving things around and getting all of the settings dialed in. I still don't have the lighting exactly the way that I want, but the music just will not wait.

[00:00:26]I I I'm going, y'all. So today for our first Masterpiece Friday in the new location, we're listening to brand new music [clears throat] from Steve Hackett and Steve Rother. I love these two gentlemen, and their music's pretty damn good, too, y'all. These are two of the most revered and beloved progressive rock guitarists of the last 50 plus years. and uh they've got the resume and the work ethic and the sounds to prove themselves worthy. Y'all, it's it's wonderful that they have uh combined to make an instrumental album that celebrates the guitar and how they play back and forth. I mean, neither one of these folks uh the two Steves are like the most virtuosic on their instruments, but to me they are uh two of the best emoters and folks that use the guitar in a profound melodic and emotional way and they're just masters of their craft. So, they have announced that their long- awaited album uh The Roaring Waves is now complete. It is scheduled for full release on August 28th of 2026. The album will include seven instrumental tracks that are connected via the theme of the profundity of the sea. And so the first song is called The Black Sea and I have not yet heard it. Uh it got released the first single from this album on June 26th just as Megan and I were in the midst of moving and I didn't have any bandwidth or opportunity to listen to new music, let alone celebrate it and share my thoughts with all of you. So, the time is now and I'm ready to hear it, friends. So, let's get rolling. Uh, Steve Hackett is on electric and acoustic guitar. Steve Rothri is on electric guitar. They have Ricardo Romano providing keyboards and playing bass guitar. And on this particular track, Leon Par is on the drums. As I read, uh, they they're not including lyrics. They're not uh including a vocalist here, so they're letting their guitars do the talking.

[00:03:25]So, let's hear it, friends. This is Steve Hackett and Steve Rother with their song called The Black Sea. Here we go.

[00:03:50]Almost sounds like a wind chime.

[00:04:08]1 2 3 4.

[00:04:12][music] Cool.

[00:04:17]>> [music] >> Okay. What are they doing?

[00:05:00]Yeah, I'm hearing [music] when they go to that F sharp melodically, the ninth or the second melodically Hello.

[00:05:19]Relative major, right?

[00:05:28]To the four minus three.

[00:05:39]suspended five to [singing] five.

[00:05:42]Ah, resolve back in the minor E minor.

[00:05:51][music] Okay.

[00:06:09]It's just a plagal cadence that they've got going.

[00:06:13]Okay.

[00:06:22]Whoa.

[00:06:39]>> [music] >> Just set up for another run.

[00:07:01][music] Down to seven. 21.

[00:07:18]I think I got it.

[00:07:35]E to D to A over C sharp to C B minor.

[00:07:48][music] Don't want to play over these guys, but I I can't help it, y'all.

[00:08:25][music] >> [music] >> This is going to be a favorite record.

[00:08:53]I just love their tone and their phrasing.

[00:08:58][music] There's magic in the way a human interacts with their instrument that you can't get from a purely digital source.

[00:09:19]bending the note down. [music] The atmosphere is wonderful.

[00:09:55]Nothing virtuosic, but just achingly human.

[00:10:16]I can't wait to hear the rest of it. I really can't. Filmed at Real World Studios. We listened to some Peter Gabriel on Wednesday, y'all.

[00:10:28]Wow. [sighs] you know, on social media, I saw photos of these two guys uh at Realworld Studios uh earlier uh in the spring. And I'm like, that that piqued my interest. And lo and behold, they guess what they were doing? They were filming a music video, y'all.

[00:10:56]That's cool. Let me talk for a second about the basic nature of um what they were doing, but how really interesting it can make the sounds. So, they're in E minor. Uh at the beginning, they were hanging out over that seventh of the key and then down to the fifth, you know, just there.

[00:11:28]that motive can get um turned upside down and become and when they go from the E minor chord to the A minor chord to [music] the four, all that they do is melodically go down to the F sharp.

[00:12:02]And when you combine that with that minor four chord and then you add the sixth on top of it, here becomes uh the chord that uh we all love. It's a minor chord with an added major 6th in it. A minor chord in this case a minor. and we get an F sharp over the top of it. Now, in my classical upbringing, I would call that an Fsharp half diminish seventh chord in first inversion. The root is an F sharp [music] third, seventh, 3rd, fifth, seventh, root, third, fifth, seventh.

[00:12:43]Right. Right. But it's really got those upper three notes are a stable minor chord. And when you throw the F sharp on top of it, it really does work like an A chord, like a four chord. And in this instance, really, it doesn't really matter if it's the two chord or the four chord. Is is F sharp the root or is A the root? It really doesn't matter because it just goes back to here.

[00:13:18]And that E is in both chords. [music] And there's where they brought in the major four right on the way down. Uh in another spot there, down to there, down to there, down to there, down to there.

[00:13:41]That was it. Right. The [singing] A to B to E. Then over C sharp.

[00:13:48]Then they switched it up [music] and you could expound on that, expound on that for days and just emote and live in the moment.

[00:14:08]And it's wonderful.

[00:14:11]It's wonderful. It's there's like I said, there's nothing groundbreaking about it, but it doesn't have to be.

[00:14:18]Those are the tools of rhetoric and musicianship that we have.

[00:14:23]And uh they're using it to their advantage.

[00:14:28]And they're telling us that they're dwelling on the profoundity of the sea, its depth, its darkness, its mysteriousness, and that's what's going to be driving their melodic and their musical choices throughout the album. Can't wait to hear it, y'all. The Black Sea. So, uh, we can see these folks right this year. They're out performing. In fact, both of these guys are uh prolific performers. They tour all the time. Steve Hackett is heading back out on tour this fall in the UK and Italy especially. He's playing some some Genesis classics as well as music from his own catalog.

[00:15:16]Steve Rothri is touring with Merillion.

[00:15:20]He's the longest serving member, I think an original or uh if not original, pretty darn close uh member of Merillion. And they are quite active this summer as well as this autumn throughout all of Europe. And uh they're they're doing their stuff, y'all. And in the middle of it all, we get this wonderful little gift of uh a musical album. The album is called The Roaring Waves. It's available for pre-order now, and it will be fully released on August 28th, 2026.

[00:16:04]I think I will have to go and pre-order it as soon as I'm done filming this, my friends. Wonderful to be back with you.

[00:16:11]Thanks for hanging out with me. We'll get the um uh the studio all together.

[00:16:16]It's still coming together, but it's it's not too bad, y'all. I'm feeling at home already, and I'm thankful to be back in the chair with all of you. And this week, we've been uh listening to and lifting up brand new music. And uh how great is that? So, we got a lot more coming up next week, but that is all for me today. I thank you very much for being with me. We will see you next time on another edition of the Daily Doug.

[00:16:45]>> It's the daily.

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