The C:Live Collective – The Age of Insanity

Also available in a bundle with This City Is London:

Bundle price £13.50

Related products:

This City Is London EP

The Age of Insanity is the first release from The C:Live Collective. At its heart is Clive Mitten’s new hour-long four-part opus, The Fifth Estate, which comprises a powerful revised version of We Are Sane (Part One), and specially arranged instrumental mixes of Parts Two to Four. The album closes with an emotive new version of This City (with additional lyrics) set in London.

Music written, arranged and produced by Clive Mitten.

Lyrics: Geoff Mann (The Fifth Estate – Part One), Geoff Mann/Clive Mitten (This City Is London)

Stephen Bennett: Piano and keyboards

James Mann: Vocals (This City Is London) and backing vocals

Clive Mitten: keyboards, orchestrations, bass, lead and acoustic guitars, drum and percussion programming, noises and effects

Fudge Smith: Drums

Mark Spencer: Guitars, vocals (The Fifth Estate – Part One), additional vocals (This City Is London) and backing vocals. General afterthought.

CD artwork: David Read of Azalea Porch Productions

Here are excerpts from a couple of the fantastic reviews that the album received.

“What comes through very clearly is that Clive Mitten is an angry man and very much angered by this current-day media, the cult of fake news and how the world is suckered into believing fiction as fact – a scenario Twelfth Night wrote about 36 years ago on 1982’s Fact And Fiction album.

The Age Of Insanity – Part One takes that album’s We Are Sane as a launch point for this suite, albeit in a far more sinister manner… a chilling tale of a world gone mad.

The next three tracks are all instrumentals. Part Two is a fairly pastoral type piece…. an 80s’ type synth sound that works well… and a simple but effective melody overlaying the bass riff, as the guitars take the song off in new directions. This is a piece that grows on you. A piano motif and more synths build on the melody to create a great yet slightly sombre mood that is somehow still both majestic and winning.

Part Three opens in similar vein with more synths and percussion effects in the background before the melody is established and emerges slowly, delicately and tentatively almost, before more bass lines unfold against ripping synths and an organ part in almost a jazzy manner. Later a more strident section with dancing synths and pounding drums and a descending scale played to great effect and aplomb. This is a seriously good track!

Part Four opens with sparse keyboards and synth. This song is a journey through bleakness and despair, eventually revealing itself to be hopeful and all the better for that too, a masterpiece.

Final track This City Is London has a very electronic backbeat to it and voiced by James Mann (Geoff Mann’s son) to great effect with its definitive chorus of “we are all this city” as it speaks of the wealth and the poverty that co-exist together in this city. A rather poignant song for our troubled times really… It concludes with hopefulness and rounds this remarkable album up worthily.

This is an album that will challenge and hopefully inspire you… to change the way you view and react to the world. Plus, the music is excellent too!

Simply magnificent, a definite must have for any prog fan.

A potential album of the year.”

John Wenlock-Smith

“I won’t blame people, when hearing Part One, for thinking this would be how Twelfth Night would sound like today. It’s a heavier, more modern version… there are more layers. It is also a scarier version. Mark Spencer’s voice adds to the creepiness of the lyrics and meaning of the song. Thirty-six years on, the world has become a crazier place… It’s scary how fitting the lyrics to We Are Sane still are….

The more I listen to this suite as a whole, it seems to be it is the score to a film that has yet to be made, evoking pictures and moods of contemplation and thrill.

Some parts sound like something that would not be out of place on an album between Fact And Fiction and Art And Illusion.

An excellent album… with its long instrumental parts it remains exciting throughout because of all its power, beauty… unexpectedly diverse influences and styles feeling like they belong together.” 

Jerry van Kooten