Album: Second Lifetime
Artist: The New Empire
2020 Forward Motion Records (distributed by Cherry Red)
CD: FMR032

Fernando Perdomo: guitars, sitar, bass, keys, percussion, backing vocals
Mark Murdock: drums, percussion, backing vocals, strings and orchestra
Marisol Koss: lead & backing vocals

with:
Sydney Foxx [Jordan]: vocals (9)
Dave Kerzner: synth solo (6)
Preston Murdock: 2nd guitar (8)
Julianne Spicer: lead & backing vocals (5, 7, 12)
Kame Akiyama: keys (7-9)
Dennis Atlas: vocals (11)
Rikko Shonin: 2nd organ part (10)


Mixed by Perdomo, except (9) by Jez Larder, (8) by Zach Ziskin
(9) masted by Larder
Final overall master by Ziskin
Photography by Cyndi Trissel/Erik Nielson
Layout & artwork by Trissel


Tracks:
1. "The New Empire Overture" [Perdomo/Murdock] (3:05)
2. "Lost in Time" [Perdomo/Murdock] (5:51)
3. "Knights of the New Empire" [Banks] (3:25)
4. "Slow Burn Rising" [Perdomo/Murdock] (5:12)
5. "The Journey of Mankind" [Perdomo/Murdock] (3:57)
6. "Life After Life" [Perdomo] (3:36)
7. "Better Not to" [Perdomo/Murdock] (4:11)
8. "Out of Our Hands" [Banks/Jordan] (7:52)
9. "Foundation" [Banks/Jordan] (8:10)
10. "Sky at Night" [Banks/Jordan] (8:49)
11. "Looking Around" [Anderson/Squire] (3:49)
12. "Another Lifetime" [Carter] (4:22)
13. "This is Not a Dream" [Perdomo/Murdock] (5:24)
14. "Faraway Friend (A Tribute to Peter Banks)" [Perdomo] (4:44)



Notes: Empire was a band formed by Peter Banks and Sidonie Jordan, performing as Sydney Foxx, that ran (off and on) from 1974-9. The band never released any material during its existence, but multiple recordings were released from 1995: see The Complete Recordings (2017), released after Banks's death, for details. Mark Murdock was in the final incarnation of Empire in 1979. Now living in Tokyo, he hooked up with Fernando Perdomo, who is a big Banks fan, to create this band, The New Empire, to play Banks's material live and to "create new material in the spirit of the original Empire." They have the blessing of Jordan. Perdomo played on the Yes tribute album Yesterday and Today with Kerzner. M Murdock, Koss and Atlas all appeared too. Murdock and Akiyama play together in Masheen Messiah, a Japanese band named after the Yes song "Machine Messiah" and originally formed to play Drama live, but now on to their second original album.

This, The New Empire's debut album, was released 9 Oct 2020, in tribute to Banks. It mixes new material with pieces by Empire (8-10), Flash (12), Banks solo (3) and Yes (11). (9) was being developed by the final incarnation of Empire and an instrumental version was released on their album Mark III. Jordan completed lyrics for the song and sang the piece. The band released a sampler on Facebook in Feb 2019. They next released on Bandcamp (8) and then, on 4 Jun 2020, (14). In an early Jun 2020 interview with Yes Music Podcast, Perdomo said the album was about 90% completed. (HP, 24 Oct 20)
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