Press Releases from Ivory Tower Music

July 12, 2004

LAND OF CHOCOLATE RELEASES SECOND FULL-LENGTH CD, REGAINING THE FEEL

With July 9 release of their sophomore effort, Regaining the Feel, Chapel Hill’s Land of Chocolate seem to be gaining momentum as they roll through the summer.  The band timed the release of the new CD to coincide with the North Eastern Art Rock Festival (NEARfest), which has been held annually in July for almost a decade in the Philadelphia/Bethlehem area and marks the beginning of a series of festivals held in the US to celebrate progressive rock music.  After several online radio stations previewed the entire CD, Land of Chocolate debuted Regaining the Feel live at The Sterling Hotel in neighboring Allentown on the eve of NEARfest, and sales of the CD were brisk all through the festival weekend.  

Following up on the NEARfest debut of the new CD, Land of Chocolate will join the Erik Norlander Trio for a brief tour of the East Coast in August, with stops in the New York, Boston, and Washington. DC areas, and end the summer with shows at ProgDay (an international festival held in North Carolina) and Prog in the Park, an open-air festival in Rochester, New York.  

While the future is bright in the Land of Chocolate these days, things have not always been easy for this quartet of progressive-rock musicians.  Keyboardist and singer Jonn Buzby first formed the band in 2000, after breaking with Finneus Gauge—a band that garnered much critical acclaim for its two studios albums but that also fell victim to the proverbial “artistic differences.”  Land of Chocolate’s freshmen release, Unikorn on the Cob (Slipt Disk), was released in 2001 and sold well, winning fans and receiving dozens of rave reviews.  The band soon began to experience a series of personnel shifts, however, and Buzby eventually decided to leave his native Philadelphia area—and his remaining bandmates—to re-form Land of Chocolate in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

The new Land of Chocolate line-up consists of Buzby, with Wes Hare on drums, Gerald Wilson on bass and vocals, and John Covach on guitar and vocals.  Hare and Wilson are relative new-comers to progressive rock, but guitarist Covach, who is a music professor at the University of North Carolina, has a long reputation in the prog-rock community.  With a Ph.D. in musical scholarship, Covach is recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on the history and analysis of rock music, having written numerous articles and editing scholarly books and journals, in addition contributing to a regular column in Progression, a quarterly magazine devoted to the prog scene.  As a performer, Covach has also played both rock and classical music in the US and Europe. 

Covach’s teaching at Carolina played a chance role in his joining Land of Chocolate.  “After I finished teaching a class one day, I stopped to check out one of the message boards in the department.  There was Jonn’s ad looking for a guitarist.  I pulled the ad down so no one else could respond and called him right away,” Covach admits.  Musically, Buzby, Hare, Wilson, and Covach clicked immediately and began to rehearse furiously.  By August 2003 the new line-up had released Assorted Non-Pareils, a limited-run EP containing four tracks.  Fans liked the band’s new sound and the EP would prove to be a musical taste of things to come.  Recording sessions for Regaining the Feel began in early 2004, as the quartet balanced recording with several live performances over the first half of the year.  “We ended up with about an album and a half of new material,” says Covach, “so we had to cut a few tracks.  They’ll make it onto the next album.”  By June, the new CD was mixed and mastered, and ready for the July 9 release. 

“Jonn writes most of the material—he comes in with a lot of it pretty worked out.  But he gives me free rein in the guitar department.  I can really do whatever I want,” says Covach.  “Jonn’s a bit younger than me, so his musical influences are mostly 80s and early 90s bands.  I guess I’m a 70s kind of guy, since my favorite electric players are Steve Howe, John McLaughlin, and Steve Morse.  But the blend of musical styles works well together.” 

Buzby’s writing frequently employs odd time signatures and quick harmonic shifts, suggesting the influence both of classical music and jazz fusion.  According to Covach, “Jonn has a keen ear for harmony, and likes progressions that shift between keys a lot.  I wouldn’t say the music shifts around as much as Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps,’ but it does keep us all on our toes!”  

The ten tracks on Regaining the Feel range stylistically from the moodiness of “Misanthropic Cattle” and “Ungrateful,” to the heavy aggressiveness of “Killing with Kindness” and “Regaining the Feel,” to more straight-ahead rock numbers like “Film at 11” and “Military Mindset.”  Building on the firm foundation of Wilson’s solid bass and Hare’s intricate drumming, Buzby and Covach weave layers of keyboards, guitars, and (with Wilson) choral vocals to create tracks that are often symphonic in scope. 

“We’re all very happy with the way this CD turned out and we love to play these tracks live,” says Covach, “but we’re also eager to get back into the studio to record the next album.  There’s a lot of music in this band right now!” 

Land of Chocolate can be contacted through Ivory Tower Music: ivory_tower_music@yahoo.com, (919) 968-9562. 

More information is available on the Web: 

Land of Chocolate: www.landofchocolate.com

John Covach: www.johncovach.com

Erik Norlander: www.eriknorlander.com

NEARfest: www.nearfest.com

ProgDay: www.progday.com

Prog in the Park: www.prog90.com 

Land of Chocolate, Regaining the Feel (Slipt Disk Records).  Produced by Land of Chocolate; music by Land of Chocolate, lyrics by Jonn Buzby (10 tracks, 52 minutes).