Inconia
Dave Beese & Lee Powell - Inconia
Inconia is a collaborative studio project consisting of myself and bassist/vocalist Lee Powell. Lee and I go back a long way, to the early 80's in fact, when we first started to play together in bands.
We performed together in firstly, a heavy rock band featuring the music of Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Iron Maiden, Michael Schenker etc and frankly, made a lot of noise. We saw ourselves as a little different from most bands because we incorporated three-part harmonies which gave us a huge sound plus the band had some excellent musicians in it.
The music mellowed a little as we sought more pub-type gigs and then we 'sold out' by committing musical treason; yep, we formed a cabaret/club band as we were buying our first houses. This proved a very 'interesting' experience playing second fiddle to bingo, but at the same time, providing invaluable performing experience playing all around South Wales in some of the largest venues on the circuit.
Re-uniting the old team
The 'Inconia' project started off quite by accident as most probably do, when we missed each other at the funeral of a colleague from the cabaret days. Having attended a service at the funeral home prior to the crematorium, I fell out with my satnav who made me continually circle the area without recognising the address. Lee had expected me to be there, and didn't attend the reception as he wasn't feeling very well.
We occasionally had kept in touch, but hadn't seen each other for around 30 years or more. After responding to a 'thought you might have been there' kind of message, I called Lee and we chatted about old times before Lee suggested coming up to his home studio to re-record some of the songs we wrote back in the day.
Funny how the mind works. While thinking about the prospect, I was watching a black and white western whilst fiddling around with a riff that wouldn't go away. Something made me record it on my phone and I sent it to Lee as more of a playful gesture to jokingly suggest my creative juices were coming back to life. Didn't really expect anything to come of it until Lee came back and said 'We need to develop that!'. That riff developed into the hard-hitting foot-stomper - 'Here Comes the Thunder' which features on the album and served to be the catalyst for everything that followed.
How did we record ‘The Gambler’ as Inconia?
Well…Lee is more Pro Tools (recording software) savvy, having written/produced several albums of his own. We both have our own home studios, emailing sessions back and forth as they were recorded. Technology is wonderful.
Lee played bass, wrote, programmed drum tracks, supplied lyrics, sang lead vocal, (and much of the harmony vocals), provided 24hr support when I had a disagreement with Pro Tools, and mastered the album.
For my own part, I contributed most of the demos, writing ideas, orchestration & arrangements, lyrics, vocal melodies; recorded, engineered/mixed the guitar/synth parts & my backing vocals. I love messing around with soft-synths, but loathe drum-programming, Lee loves drum programming, but loathes messing around with soft-synths. I think you can see how this worked.
Between us, the entire album was written, performed, recorded, engineered, mixed, produced and mastered – apart from ‘Here Comes the Thunder' which was mixed by Lyndon Price of Red Rock Studios.
Album Tracks
‘The Gambler' is meant to be an interesting eclectic mix of genres, which doesn’t necessarily try to pin its flag to any particular genre.
‘Here Comes the Thunder’ (with a Phrygian mode guitar solo for anyone who gives a jot), Best of Me’ and ‘Darkness of the Night’, bare the teeth of our early influences. Definitely a nod back to our early days of hard rocking, but don’t be fooled - the album holds a few surprises up its sleeve!
The opening track ‘Vorspiel’ – combines an acoustic classical-style intro , which morphs into a synth-laden ethereal Celtic folk soundscape, before giving way to a classic rock drum groove paving the way for the title track – ‘The Gambler’. This definitely has a ‘soundtrack’ edge to it, and I think my love of ‘The Alan Parsons Project’ definitely provides the drama for the arrangement.
'Gold Rush' features some lovely lead & harmony vocal work by Lee as a twelve-string guitar provides the backbone for a ballad which deals with the assertion, that all that glitters, may not necessarily be gold. We both agree that it’s one our joint favs on the album. Not quite sure what inspired me to write it, but you learn not to question it.
There’s even a spot for some blues with a 6/8 arpeggiated Gary Moore-esque blues riff that Lee sent me, with the question – ‘Can we do anything with this?’ – ‘Yes’ was the reply. The album is book-ended with the final ‘soundtrack-type’ offering – ‘Relbmag Eht! – which cryptically appears at first sight, to have German connotations – but hasn’t! You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out which track on the album provided the left-overs for me to write this one. Try looking at it in the mirror.
The Gambler by Inconia | Release date - Feb 2026