MAGENTA

The Welsh band strike up the orchestra on album nine. Robert Reed has a proven ear for symphonic arrangements beyond standard rock boundaries. Magenta aside, look no further than his Mike Old-field-channelling Sanctuary series, or Beneath The Waves, the sole album from his Kompendium project. For Magenta’s ninth album he’s gone all in: The White Witch – A Symphonic Trilogy is an orchestral suite, with performances from a handful of classical musicians sweetening Reed’s ambitious arrangements, painstakingly composed in his studio using state-of-the-art orchestral sample libraries. “The arrangements are grand in sweep, rich in dynamics.” Opener Sacrifice is a 22-minute remounting of The White Witch from Magenta’s 2001 debut album, Revolutions. Here, a medieval white witch called Sarah heals villagers throughout the plague- and war-riddled 17th century, using herbs and…