RIO albums OPO

floating to neo-tokyo on OPO

univers zero heresie

Cheer-Accident - Introducing Lemon

Samla Mammas Manna Måltid

Thinking Plague - In Extremis

This Heat - Deceit

on the london FAP thread tom d (discussing what to look out for in paris) mentioned he'd just seen a french "marxist avant-skronk henry cow meets magma octet [=the kami octet] playing extracts from a concept album about workers". well i am listening to that very work (workers: un musique populaire) on tidal right now: it is extremely likeable (so far they seem less frantic than magma, but i have high hopes of the later stages of cut no.3, which is called "strike" and is 14 mins long)

practically speaking RIO doesn't really exist any more of course: but this is very much "in the spirit and tradition of"

Some of the vocal parts reminded me of Magma, but it's much more Henry Cow.

Is it really quite so dead? Aksak Maboul released a great album as recently as 2020. Cheer-Accident released a great album this year. And deeper into the underground, there are as we speak some remarkable moves taking place - my good friend just released the following extremely RIO-inspired EP (Henry Cow is one of the main influences), and it's even (in part) about a worker's struggle!
https://coriandher.bandcamp.com/album/optical-photoconduct-or-through-his-eyes-ep

Will have a listen to this Kami Octet...

Listening now also, on Apple Music - so far, first track, they sound like a fairly conventional modern large size jazz outfit? Reminds me quite a lot of some of Dave Holland's late period ECM ensembles.

Ahh, once the vocals come in there's more of an Archie Sheep/Art Ensemble BYG vibe.

Kami Octet clearly even more underground as they're not even on RYM!

Finding their album to be a bit pedantic and stale though, it's all a bit polite jazz noodling, the RIO cosplay of calling the album 'Workers: une musique populaire' isn't matched by the music. Strike sounds like a bunch of programmers moaning about the temperature of the canteen coffee

oh god this spoken-word bit. come on

lol that bit just seemed none-more-french tbh (yes i have watched too many mao-phase godard movies and i liked ALL of them a LOT)

I haven't listened to the album but I suspect they were more skronky and improvisational live. The alto sax player, who seemed to be directing the proceedings, looked like his head was going to explode every time he took a solo. Music all written by the guitar player.

xpost imago

Those recent Aksak Maboul albums are rad, think I might prefer them to their original run of albums.

Interested in checking out your other recs, I haven't listened to any recent RIO-inspired music as far as I'm aware.

Is it really quite so dead? Aksak Maboul released a great album as recently as 2020. Cheer-Accident released a great album this year. And deeper into the underground, there are as we speak some remarkable moves taking place - my good friend just released the following extremely RIO-inspired EP (Henry Cow is one of the main influences), and it's even (in part) about a worker's struggle!
https://coriandher.bandcamp.com/album/optical-photoconduct-or-through-his-eyes-ep

Will have a listen to this Kami Octet...

― imago

listening to the EP you linked (I don't use Spotify so no Kami Octet for me) kinda highlights for me the limitations of "RIO". It's 2024. "Progressive" rock isn't. You can still buy "Prog" magazine in bookstores! I went to a dead mall (but I repeat myself) a couple weeks ago. They were trying. They had a zamboni going over the ice rink. Anyway, they had a Borders or something there, and they had the latest issue of Prog magazine.

That's not a knock on the EP you linked - I thought it was really good! Really interesting! It's not because it's inspired by RIO, though. The things that make it interesting to me would make it, I think, offputting and alienating to a lot of the progheads I grew up around, including some of the ones into RIO. I can see it alienating me, in a past life. It's taken me a lot of work to get used to computerized vocals, for instance, and instrumentation that doesn't sound like "rock" music. "You call this RIO? Where's the bassoon?" Something like that.

Because if I look at RIO inceptionally, it wasn't primarily a left-wing movement, although some of its founders were left-wing. I don't think it was explicitly defined what they were "in opposition" to, but I feel like a lot of it was their inability to get record contracts! I mean, the world doesn't _work_ like that anymore. Femtanyl isn't trying to get signed by Virgin Records. You make a record, release it, and then try to find an audience yourself. That's the real work, to me - not just doing the thing, but getting anybody to listen to it!

Even for bands like Henry Cow, who were left-wing... they did a 15-minute song with tone rows and shit about the alienation Tim Hodgkinson experiences as a proletarian under capitalism, and there was some conflict in the band, ideologically, about that. Not that any of them were clamoring to go full Cornelius Cardew, but even though I haven't heard the Kami Octet, I can easily imagine how their record could be risible in places. Henry Cow, to be clear, isn't, I don't think. I do think "Living in the Heart of the Beast" does speak to some extent about the world as it is today, or at least my experiences in same. But I mean, you don't exactly have to read Marx to understand that shit is fucked.

I think there are better things to be defined by than opposition. And rock? Y wood u call it rock? Aqsak Maboul's new albums _are_ good, I think better than their older stuff as well, and there's nothing on the ones that I've heard that sounds remotely like "Cinema". Because it's not 1979 anymore!

the alienation Tim Hodgkinson experiences as a proletarian under capitalism

Er...

the kami octet did dwindle a little after "strike" failed to break out into the desired (by me) magmoid frenzy but aksak maboul's made to measure vol.48: une aventure de VV (songpiel) is exactly as uninvolving as were the first 47 made to measure volumes (lol): i do like that many of the songs are very short, the longer ones shd also all be much shorter tbh

enjoying that every single write-up you can possibly find of RIO now or back then every time reaches first for the word "adventurous" and a littler later for the word "challenging" -- my version of this wd be "sometimes these records do achieve some nice passages yes, but mostly the musicians apparently can't tell the difference between what's good and what's boring, get on with it u nerveless fvcks"

tbf the final cut ("brown dwarfs") is a bit livelier, it reminds me of sheila chandra

anyway i'm now playing the most recent univers zero LP (lueur: i liked them best way back in the day (before aksak were even in RIO iirc), they were scratchy

still quite scratchy 👍🏽

tho this took ends up lapsing into quirky time-sig pulse as minimalist automatic writing, where the ensemble are all counting like crazy thus not really paying attention to the effect of the output (nothing special)

someone shd have sat wim mertens in a room with nothing but mott the hoople records for like a decade: belgians learn other expressive tricks challenge (they can't)!

is there anything in the entire RIO catalogue as insane and silly and grebt as hocus pocus by focus? there is not, they are "in opposition" to being insane and silly and grebt

counterpoint: there's loads, hang on

Can I also say that before I opened this thread today I checked out Femtanyl by complete coincidence and really liked it. Is it RIO? No lol, but it goes hard

If I were to state what RIO is, or vaguely means, nowadays, I'd say it's a technique of highly composed music performed largely around the rhythmic skeleton of rock but with basically any other available instrument on top, that uses atonality ALONG WITH consonance to achieve an ambiguity that straddles pop and avant-garde. I'd say it's fairly distinctive still, and what's changed is the scope of 'pop' and 'avant-garde'

having set the bar as high as i could (while still being below the crazy frog) i shall simply sit back and enjoy the various indie-prog pretenders to the hocus pocus crown

Strike sounds like a bunch of programmers moaning about the temperature of the canteen coffee

― imago, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 bookmarkflaglink

No need to tell us your demands are tiny and insignificant.

There's no time like the present: this comes out tomorrow and it's going to be playful AND kickass. Using the rise and fall of a legendary gangster as a metaphor for ecological destruction, pretty big demands being made I'd say

https://papangu.bandcamp.com/album/lampi-o-rei-3

is there anything in the entire RIO catalogue as insane and silly and grebt as hocus pocus by focus? there is not, they are "in opposition" to being insane and silly and grebt

This is like criticising Iannis Xenakis for not being Crazy Frog. Also check out Samla Mammas Manna for RIO wackiness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8SF16WMPdo

I mean I have loads more examples including a forthcoming pop video with a rather recognisable starring actor, but one thing at a time. Will definitely check this^ out!

I'd rather these people stayed away from wacky tbh.

"This is like criticising Iannis Xenakis for not being Crazy Frog."

Well..

Strike is an ok piece before the vocals (they'd get their coffee hot though its not exactly a high bar to clear), but I'd like to see Kami Octet play live.

I mean, I'm sure they'd be decent live too. Horse Lords are a good example of a modern arguably-RIO band (definitely politically) who lose their inhibitions in a live setting.

Anyway, here's Hocus Pocus Taken To New Levels, or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAv_v-7M5hY

the alienation Tim Hodgkinson experiences as a proletarian under capitalism

Er...

I'm curious what aspect of this description of "Living in the Heart of the Beast" is incorrect.

is there anything in the entire RIO catalogue as insane and silly and grebt as hocus pocus by focus?

An entire prog subgenre founded upon this song is a nightmare vision

The idea of Tim Hodgkinson as a proletarian gave me pause.

opposition everywhere we look

When my baby smiles at me
I go to RIO

I think I will travel to RIO
Using the music for flight
There's nothing I know of in RIO
But it's something to do with the night

https://morganrichter.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Rio-Duran-Duran-featured.jpg

"RIO is dead"

this is from an album that doesn't come out until October. tbh I could happily post 50+ songs ZP has been involved in itt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv7eP5yf7GA

"so tell me about Cheer-Accident then"

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

"RIO hip-hop doesn't exi-"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zJWA1yY274

here's chris cutler's (1978) version of the RIO manifesto btw: https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/rock-in-opposition/8673

someone -- not me and definitely not cutler lol -- shd try and join the dots between the formal musical principles being established there (and i guess still trundling on) and the political stance, such as it was (does it also still trundle on)?

"we make this music because we like the way it sounds -- and it's a principled intervention to be this way and not others ways bcz [insert argument here]"

Lol @ this:

"Concert organisation in Italy is the province of the left political parties — usually any commercial promotion is a financial disaster, or Italian youths refuse to pay, or it is thoroughly vandalised so that promoters refuse to take the risk again. (I remember Santana leaving after only one concert last year, which was completely wrecked.) This is normal in Italy."

That does indeed seem to have been the case in Italy in the 70s! But there were riots all over Europe at rock concerts in the 70s.

the years of lead (mahogany rush refuse to play tuscany)

Cutler's writing on Euro 'folk' music in that manifesto is giving me racisty anti-migration vibes.

I agree that it's an oversight that he didn't address the possibility of opposition to US/UK cultural hegemony coming from other continents (and indeed from movements within the US. Was he listening to what say Sanders and the Mwandishi group were doing? Is that not IO too?)

I don't get a racist vibe from it though; it surely wasn't such a dogwhistle then (it would be now obv)

The idea of Tim Hodgkinson as a proletarian gave me pause.

― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.)

well, this is why i tend to back off when things get overly "political"! i haven't actually read marx, it's my _read_ of the lyrics. like, here's what i take from it:

-

in the stories of the past, we all worked together to share a common struggle, but god, it sure don't seem like that now. what's with these fucking high-flown stories about how great things used to be? why do y'all _talk_ like that?

we talk about "mutual aid", you know what we say "mutual aid" is around these parts? passing a $20 bill around from one person to another. that's how much we can help each other, the way things are now.

all the shit people say about their values, how much they support us, but what does it translate to? it seems like all these ideals devolve into people just shouting at each other, tearing each other apart.

we were born to serve you all our bloody lives.

we've seen it all. we know the kind of shit you're up to. we know what you're _doing_ to us. we're fucking sick of it. it's time for us to act together. to do something about this bullshit. the rich people, the people in positions of power, don't listen to those motherfuckers, their works, their empty promises. we're in charge of our own fucking destiny.

-

maybe that's not what he's saying. that's just what i hear in the lyrics. that's what's important to me, not whether or not tim hodgkinson or me or anyone is truly "proletarian".

Cutler's writing on Euro 'folk' music in that manifesto is giving me racisty anti-migration vibes.

― xyzzzz__

it just makes me think of the way people in oregon talk about californians tbh

it just makes me think of the way people in oregon talk about californians tbh

― Kate (rushomancy)

like here these folks are trying to make locovore prog rock and they talk to anybody where they live about what they're doing and people always, always respond with "oh, like frank zappa?" no, not like fucking frank zappa, we're not sneering misogynist assholes, and he is. like there's great fucking music being made right here, but y'all don't even know it, all you know frank zappa over at the hammersmith odeon. fuuuuuck.

When my baby smiles at me
I go to RIO

listening to top imago pick KHAMI LEON's new LP (IHATOV, dropped this may), yes it's nice

we shd now clockwork-orange cutler to get him to agree that this is what RIO has become tho: first we explain it to him, quoting his manifesto and waving our arms around, then we get *him* to explain it back to *us*, "yes this is exactly totally what i always had in mind, yes, get these things off me"

https://www.evphil.com/uploads/9/2/0/3/9203498/clockwork-orange-eyes_orig.jpg

the real opposition is tons of jan hammeroid electronic keyb solos

Listened to (some of) the Kami Octet LP and, yes, that first (jazzy) track isn't really like anything they played live.

They actually opened up the gig with a long sort of drone thing iirc

lolll mark

the papangu album is amazing btw. RIO + forró!

it's on tidal now so it's getting a "spin" as we gen alpha oldsters say

the real opposition is tons of jan hammeroid electronic keyb solos

― mark s

"don't you know" is opposed to everything that is bad and terrible in this world, fuck playing tone rows in 17/8, just listen to "don't you know" extended to 10 hours like the kids on youtube do

that's what i said yes