Prog V3.0 Discussion Thread

there's a lot of value in eking out the secret prog (or whatever) influences in music that sprang up in other scenes, I think ILM does or can do that v well. not really a failing of the piece that it doesn't get into that too much, though

not saying it's a failing. the piece was great. i wish there were more like it. i was genuinely curious why CAMBERWELL NOW wasn't included, because of the chronology, not that they ape IQ or whoever. ILM has a very active 'balearic revival' thread where hey, if it sounds vaguely balearic, then great. meanwhile the resistance to all things prog in 2015, to the point where saying anything at all about it is liable to provoke discipline of some sort or outright dismissiveness, is a confounding phenomenon. 1977 was a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago

I don't really see the IQ -> Porkie resemblance

I don't really know what you're talking about, there is plenty of love for prog of all kinds on ILM, not least this very thread. But to complain about the exclusion of a very obscure avant prog/improv band from an article that specifically focused on another sub-genre of prog altogether is .oO

xp

there was zero complaint about the exclusion. there was genuine curiosity after having enjoyed a really nice refreshing article. how the two are conflated is as oO to me as not hearing how proggy CAMBERWELL NOW are

why people still act like prog is some aesthetic prion disease that needs to be quarantined is beyond me

is there some detail everyone else is missing that explains why it's "curious" they weren't included? like do you know the writer irl or whatever

is there some reason my motives seem curious?

because they weren't part of the fucking scene! nobody is questioning the aesthetic value of camberwell now or even whether or not they qualified as "prog", for some definition of "prog". what people are questioning is why on earth camberwell now would belong in a chronicle of bands whose main aesthetic principle was sounding like gabriel-era genesis, but with modern digital synthesizers. really, if the writer had for some reason decided to include camberwell now in the article that would be far more curious than their exclusion.

Yeah, I'm not getting it either Reggie. I don't think they sound enough like the core neo guys. Maybe if there was a lot more brit prog in the footnotes.

I really enjoyed hearing that track from IQ's The Wake again. I tend to hate sterility but IQ often have that sort of superclean sci-fi sound that works for them most of the time. I've got three of their albums (The Wake, Dark Matter, Frequency) and it's mostly good. I played "Sacred Sounds" a million times. Apparently the do very well in Germany. Oddly I see them in metal sections, possibly because metal magazines used to cover them. There's a Japanese tribute band too.

because they weren't part of the fucking scene!

so? why are you shocked by discussion of other british bands from the same era that were recording prog, in response to an article that talks about mid-80s british neo-prog? this is an open music discussion board, last i checked. maybe mention of CAMBERWELL NOW will lead to mention of some band from that era i've never heard of, i might want to check out, in addition to those others? or would that be offensive too somehow BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT PART OF THE SCENE?

xpost

if we talk about kraut rock don't dare mention ACHIM REICHEL because he wasn't part of the scene!

i'll be glad to talk about camberwell now related bands you may not have heard of- how about lifetones, charles bullen's post-this heat band? they're good. just don't try to tell me they're neo-prog, because they're not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljfbuLCWIXc&list=PLE163783F9570F588

or maybe we can talk about radar favourites, charles hayward's pre-this heat supergroup with geoff leigh, cathy williams, gf fitzgerald, and jack monck from stars? very little material exists and is of uneven quality, somewhere between henry cow and red balune (one of the tracks showed up on the red balune ep later on).

wow, didn't see any of this until now, but have to agree w rushomancy and others regarding Camberwell Now. Totally not a part of any group that would include Marillion or IQ. Not musically, ideologically, certainly not popularity-wise. Camberwell Now was more than just This Heat connections, it was basically the next evolution of This Heat (as CN bassist was actually in TH before they folded)-- political avant-prog (or just avant-rock), that was FAR more in step RIO bands like Henry Cow than neo-prog (or likeminded bands such as Red Balune mentioned above, or their label mates Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkest and the Black Sheep).

Neo-prog always seemed kind of a joke to me. Granted, I wasn't old enough to appreciate bringing back of the old prog guard in the 80s, so by the time I heard, it just seemed pointless and sad, especially compared to bands I actually did like from the 80s....like This Heat and Camberwell Now! Don't get me wrong, there is something to be said about finding threads in genres/scenes that most people don't hear/acknowledge (my pet thread is between Magma and minimalists like Meredith Monk) -- but on this one, to me, there's too much a gulf in not just the way the bands sound, but in their approaches/reasons for making music in the first place.

agree - I'm way, way more into stuff like Camberwell Now but for better or worse this thread was started for prog qua prog, the dubious effete cape-wearing wacko stargazing nonsense that people still make for baffling reasons

MIND YOU

stuff like Deluge Grander rises above the majority of neo-prog by using techniques inspired by the likes of Magma and other avant-prog groups - there is a grey area and I think the grey area belongs here

and then I do wonder which other threads we have for RIO or Zeuhl V3.0…I can't think of many…

I am basically down with qualmsley's attempts to redefine prog as the Fiery Furnaces or whatever, but I am concerned that this thread might have a narrower remit. What do you all think - free-for-all or keep it Marillion?

I always lean towards more inclusive.

But why on earth is "effete" or "wacko stargazing" used as in insult?

I have very few horses in this race, seems like this thread's open-ended format would serve an inclusive free-for-all bent that invites weird juxtapositions like reggie's whereas the publication/periodical nature of tQ articles (and the necessarily self-containdness of their structures) probably benefit from a more focussed, less encompassing approach

Martin Orford from IQ has repeatedly said he hates that people changed the name of New Wave Of Prog Rock to Neo-Prog, that you shouldn't be able to rename a genre a decade later. I think he's probably right in that the "new wave" part is important because the new wave influence is obvious.

But why on earth is "effete" or "wacko stargazing" used as in insult?

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, October 31, 2015 2:10 PM (33 minutes ago)

tis affectionate

rushomancy that is a rad jam, thanks for posting

i am not trying to claim here that "Neo-prog" doesn't / didn't exist as a category of discrete groups -- marillion, pallas, IQ, etc -- or that Neo-prog groups are 'good' in the same way that CAMBERWELL NOW is 'good'

i'm thinking not of Neo-prog exclusively, but of "neo-prog" -- no capital N -- a much larger tent . . . sort of the way we talk about "neo-psych" (no capital N) -- which includes everything from the paisley underground, to elephant 6, to freak folk, to comets on fire and six organs of admittance and ghost and billions of other bands that formed after 1969 which involve in some awesome way a psych influence . . . the discussion of which doesn't seem to provoke as much strict border talk, but tends to be more expansive and inclusive, and is all the more informative (to me) for that

i say we go free-for-all because i have very little to say on the topic of marillion. i do think orford otm in that nwopr or nwop seems a more appropriate name for the music than "neo", here apparently used in its traditional context meaning "not", in that trying to assess iq, pallas, etc., without reference to the preceding nwobhm denies the movement its proper historical context, and if you're going to talk about genre at all you really ought to bring in historical context.

the idea of a "big-tent" prog certainly massively appeals to me, but the issue is that you're trying to redefine an existing word that has significant cultural baggage to describe this larger movement, and my feeling is, you know, why can't we just call it all "prog" and be done with it?

Hurrah!

Now, here's a little prog selection from a sports legend…

http://www.teamrock.com/features/2015-10-10/the-10-best-prog-rock-songs-by-steve-davis

Obviously it's full of Genesis and Floyd

steve davis otm

The next Thumpermonkey album is going to be fucking amazing btw, based on what I saw live a while back

I guess that brings us back to 3.0.

little more into the GRAILS / MASTER MUSICIANS of BUKKAKE spaghetti western noir vibes of the first song on the new TEETH of the SEA than the WIRE drilling of the second song, but digging how it settles into something mellower / LIARS-like for "field punishment"

I discovered Baron via a recommendation from Wolf People. Those of you into new psych prog, other favorites include Spirits Of The Dead, Syd Arthur, Messenger, Fuzz Manta, Fellwoods, Amplifier, Knifeworld, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, Kama Loka, Electric Orange, Atavismo. I did a rundown of Baron and others in my crassly named piece below.

http://fastnbulbous.com/progasms-progressive-rock-rundown/

http://fastnbulbous.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/proggasms-2015.jpg

xp frogbs, I'm sorry I didn't check out Echolyn before I did my piece. Them being a favorite next to Motorpsycho certainly perked my ears up.

This is a good thread. I've been gradually catching up on modern prog in the past couple years. Favorites so far are Anekdoten, Änglagård and Gazpacho. I have much more listening to go on these, still on the fence -- Kingstom Wall, Riverside, Transatlantic, IQ, Haken, Birds And Buildings, The Pineapple Thief. I like Porcupine Tree, but haven't been feeling solo Steve Wilson so much.

have you heard the new gazpacho, molok? it hasn't quite captivated me yet. there are nice folk vibes going on but sometimes i want the music itself to be more intricate

ah, just clicked on the link now. really interesting run down. i'll give that gazpacho another go or two

So no one is feeling the Baron album? I understand, you're all distracted by the excitement of this release:

http://bravewords.com/medias-static/images/news/2015%20II/wizardsalbumoct.jpg

What do we think about the retelling of very obvious Genesis passages by Big Big Train so audacious that they make early Marillion sound like Neu by comparison?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgRIvcnTeE

Well, BBT vocalist Dave Longdon almost replaced Phil Collins in Genesis, while drummer Nick D'Virgilio played on the Collins-less tour. Shame that Calling All Stations wasn't anywhere near as solid as English Electric (or Far Skies Deep Time or Underfall Yard for that matter.)

never been big into BIG BIG TRAIN or GENESIS but holy shit at NORTHWINDS and ROUNDTABLE! proceed the weedian! haven't spent time yet with BARON but I am looking forward. thanks for the tips!

how do upsilon acrux, eiko ishibashi & mats&morgan fit in here?

yowie, too, come to think of it

Upsilon Acrux album from early this year (I think) is good

Just started listening to Deluge Grander - August In The Urals. Sounds pretty jam packed, which is promising.

Anyone who liked the Upsilon Acrux album should check out Ahleuchatistas latest album Arrebato, it is really good shit.

The couple of Eiko Ishibashi solo albums I've heard are really good, as well as the one with Tatsuya Yosida. Cursory listens to her latest stuff tell's me she's gone more "indie" but it might be worth investigating more.

ok, have been trying to listen to gazpacho's new one, and that brings me to today's complaint about prog rock. either it is instrumental, or it has really bad vocals. i don't mean that they're particularly bad in a technical sense- whoever it is that's singing can carry a tune all right, i guess. it's just that most "mainstream" prog vocals are so totally lacking in personality i can't listen to it for more than five minutes on end. it's like, prog vocals today seem to combine the worst aspects of "classic rock" vocals and the keening insignificance of landfill indie. when you're going to put out a record with a sense of instrumental variety and, dare i say, adventurousness, why kill it with bland and lifeless singing? seems like these days every prog record i listen to makes me just like father damian more.

I'd agree for the most part but I can usually get along with it if the music is good enough.
I feel most metal vocals are pretty uninspired too, but there are plenty of good vocalists partly due to the sheer number of metal bands.

The current v3.0 vocalists I like tend to be outside the core "we are a prog band for prog fans" type.
I adore Mew's ultra sweet boy vocals.

I agree - definitely an issue with modern prog as a whole. We don't really have a lot of "dedicated singers" anymore like Jon Anderson or Peter Gabriel, instead you get a lot of people who are the creative or instrumental center of their band having to sing because no one else is going to. I think anyone can will themselves into being a good instrumental player but if you can't sing, there's only so much that can be done. Luckily most do get better over time, or there are bands like Glass Hammer that just hire singers as their popularity increases.

a lot of prog vocals is europeans singing english in weird accents, like MEW and AINUR. but yes, there are some singers lacking in personality in contemporary prog, like there are in R&B and country etc; not everyone is thom yorke, mary timony, or jim o'rourke, that's for sure

fastnbulbous finally getting around to listening to BARON. good call (and good vocals!). they kind of remind me of BARONESS; people who go apeshit for GHOST (not batoh's) and GOAT should be all over this though it's less kitschy/b horror movie and way more authentically mystical. dude was in DIAGONAL, right? this is lots dirgier, not as much a virtuoso contrapuntal workout sesh

i listened to baron earlier and those comparisons are self-evidently pure word-association

hey you know who MEW sound like? MUSE! and MÚM!

also fastnbulbous you do god's work but i found precious little in that prog list to really excite me. do i just not like prog as much as i used to

MEW sound nothing like AINUR (an italian RPI band) nor MÚM (pronounced "miooyyuujm"), at least to me, though maybe a little like MUSE at MUSE's best?

BARON have more than a bit of the space-dirgey neo-classic rock vibe BARONESS, GHOST (not batoh's), and GOAT are all delivering, at least compared to the straight up intricate neo-prog of DIAGONAL (a band which current BARON members alex crispin and luke foster used to be in), i'd say. maybe though prog (besides CARDIACS and the like) just isn't self-evidently cool enough anymore, and it should be collapsed into one overarching category, like people do with jazz and metal! all hip, even ‎MC dälek (pronounced "die-a-leck"), sounds the same too!