New/Improved PROG/KRAUT/SPACE/PSYCH ROCK Listening Club - New albums every Friday!

80/100

http://www.listchallenges.com/top-100-prog-bands-of-all-time

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

I only scored 32 in that list; but in my defense, I only included bands I've heard a whole album by and there is quite a lot of bands I don't think are worthwhile when bands that didn't get listed like PFM, Goblin, Devil Doll, Supersister, Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Ruins, Renaissance and many others would have constituted more of an achievement as a high scoring listener.

yeah that list is pretty seriously flawed. only reason i've heard so much on it is my (quixotic) search for someone finally living up to the bigshots of the '70s. so though much of the recent-ish stuff is pretty much unlistenable (over-emotive singing of unintentionally-silly lyrics; hyper-virtuosic noodling recorded with abrasive sheen; softer interludy moments that could double for soft core porn soundtrack music) i keep giving the newbies a hearing because you never know, and occasionally the less awful albums have enough of a hint of what makes prime crimson/yes/floyd/tull/rush etc rule i catch a contact high

I do like Cairo quite a bit, glad to see them there. Need more of their albums. Some people think they suck but I think they are like ELP (but better) with post-rock style build ups.

cairo's one of the dozen or so i haven't heard. i'll keep an eye out. haken is the latest of the recent bands on that list that i'm trying to appreciate. they're a weird hybrid of prog metal and gentle giant, which doesn't work for me well enough to fall in love, but i still haven't given up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m73sUhuOPmg

..here's a track from Conflict And Dreams (their only album I have; they only have 3 albums). I remember one track having a really amazing buildup into this gorgeous serene soundscape.
I can imagine the vocals reminding people of yuppies and gillette adverts somehow but I really do love this album.
Weirdly one of the most prolific prog reviewers on rateyourmusic gave it a low rating because the lyrics scared him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EMkZe1AIEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivqKPi9I6YY

I listened to these videos a couple of years ago and they prompted me to get into Renaissance, Vangelis, Procol Harum, Devil Doll and Cairo, so I'm grateful to the guy who made them.
The first two videos have all the albums listed in the description box if you cant see them on the artwork.
There was actually a video before these two but youtube wouldn't allow it because of infringements. It was on another video site but now that is gone too sadly, but it covered the basics and some more obscure bands too.

Eloy - Ocean was the one album I didn't like from those selections that I actually bought.
Saga get a lot of flack (or do they?) but I really love that song "On The Loose", fantastic fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cygIk3acYk
This third video has far less but more lengthy and clearly labelled albums samples.
I love that Ayreon song, so over the top.

I listened to Cairo's Conflict And Dreams again. Quite a few songs are too long but they still do that dense multi-layered buildup stuff better than most and that does require lengthy tracks. All tracks have great moments (first two tracks in particular), there are several really good vocal harmonies.

just checked out that cairo song. thanks. good call on the vocals, but the swirling keybs and the "dense multi-layered buildup" do start working for me around the sixth minute. i'd be interested in hearing more. they're a lot more listenable imo than like dream theater. my problem with a lot of neo-prog and prog-metal (besides the hyper-precise production values) is they seem to be compensating too much for their belatedness, substituting complexity for originality. all too often that wrecks the mood for me. i think these guys get it right -- the build is a slowburn, but the payoff is majestic. there's also a preference for vibe over technique during the middle section i am way into

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uj4Q4zbtfM

http://cdn.tradebit.org/usr/mp3-album/pub/9002/514/514867/51486703.jpg

maybe this is an album that everyone who reads this thread will already be familiar with, but I just found this via fogotify and I'd never heard it before (I was vaguely aware of the name from bands you should check out type lists, but didn't know anything about them really) and I wanted to talk about how amazing this is, and this looked like it might be the best place?

oh, the album is Checkpoint Charlie by Checkpoint Charlie, the reissue seems to be titled Die Durchsichtige, that's how it appears on spotify

Never heard of them at all, need to check this out soon

Finished listening to Chris Squire's Fish Out Of Water.
I recently read Mark Eitzel saying it was an old favourite and that hurried it up my list a bit. It was a bit scarcer and more expensive than I expected but not unreasonably priced (CD copy).
Nothing like what I imagined (tracks of nothing but crazy fast bass) but they are full blown songs similar to Yes.
Adore the first 3 tracks, they have some really gorgeous moments; the remaining 2 tracks are a bit too long. I can see why some would regard it as a classic but I wouldn't go quite that far.
I think Squire only has one proper solo album, while the rest of the main members have loads. I kept thinking about Julian Cope calling him something like a "psychedelic visionary" and me previously not knowing Squire beyond his fantastic bass sound. Is that him singing on Magnification? He sounds totally different on this album.

I once read a fan talking about how he Squire spoiled Yes but I've never heard what bad things he supposedly did.

Anderson's debut is better than all but the very best Yes albums and I like a few of his other things. I love Wakeman's Six Wives (and I'm curious about the quality of his later infamous discography). So I'm quite eager to check out the early Howe solo albums. I doubt Bruford solo is anything like Yes.

I can't find much chat on Anderson/Bruford/Wakeman/Howe or any of the 90s albums. I'd like to hear some opinions from this generally reasonable forum and not people who only listen to progressive rock.

i'm with you about anderson's first solo album (which is one of the most underrated records there is imho), but i've never been able to get into 'fish out of water'. i don't particularly hear the "yes"ness, although lots of people over the years have said the same things you're saying, so the problem is probably me

howe's first two albums are okay, playing-wise, but the dude can't sing

'anderson bruford wakeman howe' is really only for diehard yes fans, and so is pretty much everything they've released (i'd say) since 90125, besides odd tracks here and there (about half of 'union'; "real love," on 'talk'; some of the longer songs on the 'keys to ascension's), with two exceptions: 'the ladder' and 'fly from here.' 'the ladder' is killer. they got some crazy russian keyboard player and a new producer (bruce fairbairn) and the long songs ("homeworld" and "new languages") rip in classic yes style. there's some cornball shorter songs, but most of them are alright, and "lightning strikes" is something i'd bet animal collective listened to before recording 'merriweather post pavilion.' 'fly from here' is therir last album (not 90s - 2011) and features a jon anderson impersonator (benoit david) and the return of the buggles, if trevor horn is only back in the production chair. not everything works, but when it does, they hit the same eerie sweet spot between prog and new wave 'drama' nailed back in the day

In a Yes documentary, some members gave the impression that the Union material was some of their best work ever before the producer (in their opinions) completely ruined it. I think for that reason, recently a collection of live Union songs came out and I think I'd maybe rather getting that before the supposedly ruined studio version.

there's some good stuff on that album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDHftJzkk74

I have the title track of "The Ladder" and yes it is fantastic, like maybe one of my favorite ten Yes tunes ever. I've heard the rest of the album wasn't as good. Though I do like that keyboard player in the live stuff I've heard; apparently he got sacked for hitting on a security guard. Too bad because he was definitely one of the best they'd had (outside of Wakeman and Moraz I guess).

Lately I've been voyaging out into the later Yes. Drama is underrated as everyone says. 90125 is way too slick and corporate for my tastes; though it has some better individual tracks, for my money Big Generator is a little better. I have the AWBH album; despite the tracklisting I don't think it's a "return to prog" at all, it's rather lightweight and a lot of talented players are nearly inaudible (or, like Bruford, not really playing to their strengths). I think it's a little similar to the "Emerson, Lake, and Powell" album. May have to give it another shot but I don't think you're missing a whole lot.

Just checked out the track listing for Union Live. Only ONE track from the studio album! Screw that then.
I wonder if a remix/remaster is possible because the band really did hate the way it sounded.

Any solo or Yes related stuff anyone wants to recommend? I'm quite fond of some Jon & Vangelis. Friends Of Mr Cairo has some really good stuff, the title track has some quite distracting movie star impressions and I can imagine some people finding it too cheesy but I think it is kind of unique. I still need 2 more albums of that pair.

Kind of tempted to buy the 12 Yes albums I don't have and a few solo albums in one go. But if I do that I'll be tempted to do that with several other bands I've neglected.

you ever hear the Refugee album? its way more an offshoot of The Nice than Yes, but it's definitely one of my favorite one-offs

refugee is pretty good. so is mainhorse. patrick moraz is cosmic. peter banks' post-yes band, flash, isn't bad, either. never could get into tony kaye's badger, though

http://thequietus.com/articles/14936-henry-cow-unrest-review

Thanks for the article.

I saw this Chris Cutler interview a while ago...
http://www.mitkadem.co.il/RIO_interview.html
"Personally, I have to say that I never had much time for King Crimson. I disliked their first album and, apart from a track here and there, didn't find much I cared for on later albums either. To make things harder, they were contemporaries of Henry Cow and we were often pointlessly compared with them (especially Fred Frith who got foolishly compared/confused with Robert Fripp). But we never saw the connection really; they were working in a much narrower musical field than we were. And when they began to make big statements about their originality for improvising (around Jaimie Muir/Larks Tongues time) we found that frankly rather pathetic. But that was their way - after all Fripp claimed to have invented 'frippertronics', which is either a mark of ignorance on his part or outrageous arrogance, since every guitarist 'invented' that obvious procedure"

I never knew what Frippertronics meant.

I have to say again how fantastic the first three tracks of Chris Squire's Fish Out Of Water are. Really love them.

ram, have you listened to much john zorn?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpDNNKQP-Rs

I wouldn't say that every guitarist was using tape delay by the mid-70s but, yeah, I also find it a bit ridiculous that Fripp basically used reel-to-reel tape delay and named it after himself. Frippertronics obv = some of my favourite music ever though.

cutler makes some fair points. on the other hand, henry cow never, to the best of my knowledge, opened for black oak arkansas, so i'd take what he has to say on the topic with a grain of salt.

Thanks for the Zorn clip, one of many artists who have been on the shopping list for years but I haven't got around to yet.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hPbJWEaiL.jpg

North Sea Radio Orchestra - s/t

http://open.spotify.com/album/6eu8FXY7tCL7u4O1cVOUxg

standout track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX2rUUcs0G4

This album overwhelms me. It's enormous, sprawling and unutterably ambitious without once going above speaking volume. No fuzz, no sonic gymnastics - but in its pastoral/neoclassical psychpop it locates something I can't get anywhere else. There are no original lyrics - all non-instrumental tracks are adaptations of English poetry. The melodies are spry and astounding, as you'd expect from a band firmly located in the post-Cardiacs fallout. However good the ensemble musicianship (mostly classical, with acoustic guitars and synths) is, the composition is the main draw (along with the voice of singer Sharon Fortnam, whose husband Craig is the principal songwriter). The whole thing is like Kenneth Grahame trying to remember his childhood in a slightly overgrown rose garden as dappled sunlight catches a butterfly's wing. It's airy, sublime and complete. Its arc is leisurely but yearning; one feels one can make a home within its folds - cling to these truths before all is obliterated. It's a London album, in fact - written in and about the capital, as the Fortnams discovered something in the city that more than resembled the most idyllic and untainted wilds of bucolia - a synthesis, indeed, that works more convincingly the longer the album progresses - the longer the dream elaborates.

Anyway, none of you (well, barely any of you) have heard them and they're astonishing, so I post them here in the hope someone latches on.

anyone want to get this doggie going again?

listen to that NSRO album, it's one of the best things ever

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=6139812&boardid=77&threadid=81522

(For Michael B)

Lol sorry nm

awww i thought this had been revived to start over again

Lmao no...my bad, folks

Shall we?

yes

The youtube algorithm came through with this French band Meule, two drummers + guitarist/modular dude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnvJVKw7xCc

I too latched on to that North Sea Radio Orchestra album.