The Night Watch

“I’ve known Peter Hammill over the years and more recently I’ve been bumping into him at the Prog Awards,” says Jakko Jakszyk. “He would say, ‘Jakko, have you started making a solo record yet?’ and I would say, ‘No.’ He’d say, ‘You are mad’, because in the time it’s taken me to not make a solo record, Peter Hammill’s made about 15.”

“I think you get caught in that [pop] trap, so I moved into music I found interesting, that was a bit more eccentric.”

Mad or not, , which is out now, is Jakszyk’s first solo album since (2009), a self-released companion to 2007’s . He’s played guitar and sung lead vocals in King Crimson since 2013 and his new song-based collection features musicians from that group, as well as old friends. “I sent it to Peter and he sent it back with backing vocals with lyrics, and he even played a bit of guitar,” Jakszyk notes.