Roy Harper – Time Is Temporary

“I THOUGHT I’D retired!” laughs Roy Harper, talking about the 13 years that have elapsed since his last album and his fresh offering, Man & Myth. Assisted by Californian musician/producer Jonathan Wilson, the 72-year-old Harper has created seven tracks that encapsulate a number of different moods, recalling facets from his storied career that now reaches back over five decades and which has inspired artists as diverse as Led Zeppelin, Johnny Marr and Joanna Newsom.

Time Is Temporary is the sound of a man who is capable of contemplating his mortality as well as musing on coincidence, convergence and circumstance.

Harper says the track is “based on a thought… that maybe I will pass you in the street, or in a train, or a restaurant, and we’ll look at each other and have the same sort of feelings, but never take it any further, never take the next step that both of us seemed to want to, so we’ll never know what might have been.”

As well as this exclusive unveiling of Time Is Temporary, Harper joins MOJO’s Editor-In-Chief Phil Alexander on the MOJO Rocks radio show on Saturday July 20, previewing more music from Man & Myth and revealing how The Who’s Pete Townshend came to play on the album.

Hear Phil Alexander's interview with Roy Harper on MOJO Rocks on Saturday July 20 from 7.00pm. The show will be repeated on Wednesday July 24 at 7.00pm

MOJO Rocks on Planet Rock can be heard on Digital Radio (Sky 0110, Virgin Media 924, Freesat 730), 105.2 FM West Midlands, planetrock.com and via iPhone & Android apps.

Roy Harper’s Man & Myth is released on Bella Union on September 23. For more information visit http://www.royharper.co.uk/.