On Beacon Hill: at twilight we find Anthony Moore, a lone veteran of art rock and experimental sound, roots winding backwards to the halcyon days of Slapp Happy and the ‘70s progressive art rock scene. With the accompaniments of AKA & Friends, he now breathes infernal new life into songs from his six decades of music making, wrapping his avant/pop traditions into a darkly radiant coil of folky chamber music for the ages. On Beacon Hill is out November 21; hear the first song, “No Parlez,” today.

AKA are Anthony Moore, Keith Rodway and Amanda Thompson, a pagan family of sound worshipers hailing from Hastings, England, whose humble tools of choice for this endeavor are guitar, piano, organ, synthesizer and vocals. The Friends of AKA are Tullis Rennie, trombone and electronics; Olie Brice, double bass; Richard Moore, violin; and Haydn Ackerley, guitar. Leaving the drums (and their drummer) at home to realize these dream-laden songs, the group manifests a sensuous post-devastation lounge act here On Beacon Hill, like final-phase Johnny Cash on a lost episode of Twin Peaks. Anthony’s innate gravitas is a light through the surreal landscape; his gothic jazz orchestra carves delicately through his songs, releasing the melodies and the melancholy to drift upward, like smoke against a sooty and scorched backdrop.

Sitting fierce at the piano keys, Anthony pokes a finger, long and bony like the reaper, at the far distance on “No Parlez.” With AKA & Friends in serpentine support, on acoustic bass, violin, trombone and voices, the mournful progression increases. Its prophetic refrain — “You hate your children to rise/You hate your children/Still you put the hammer in the hands of children” — rises to anthemic incantatory on a misty swirl of cirrus clouds.

On Beacon Hill scores fantastic, prophetic journeys, dry eyed but deeply affected, through the shadow depths of Anthony Moore’s mirror. Gravitate and journey to the sounds of Anthony Moore with AKA & Friends on November 21, 2025.