Prog Rock

knowing Copeland's style, the songs are clearly his (plus, two are old Klark Kent songs). he does some background vocals I think. Belew's guitar is there and sounds pretty good (as always)

fastnbulous, what does that Caligula's Horse album sound like?

I haven't given the latest enough focused listens to write well about it, but it's their fourth album, and a step forward in songwriting from Bloom (2011). Comparisons to a harder rocking Fragile-era Yes are not completely out of bounds (they could do a great cover of "South Side of the Sky"), with a polished production not hugely different from Norway's Leprous, that I kind of wish were roughed up more. Some shredding metal guitar solos from Sam Wallen that make me half expect to hear death growls like mid 00s Opeth. Jim Grey's vocals are technically very good, but I had a hard time getting into it. The band has grown on me.

I definitely thought of Opeth a few times. The first couple tracks on that album are immense.

Sorry, Bloom was 2015. Their first album is 2011.

Kaipa - Children Of The Sounds
Swedish symphonic proggers have been around since 1973. It's a good balance of accessible melodies and stretched out epics with guitar solos, pretty great!

Bubblemath - Edit Peptide
Checked it our per Noel's recommendation above. Kind of like an updated eccentric blend of socialist prog fusion like Henry Cow, Gong, Soft Machine. Not sure if it's going to exhaust me or grow on me.

The Contortionist - Clairvoyant
I'm not big into the Djent and deathcore stuff, but people are really into their previous album, Language (2014). I'll need to revisit that and give this some more listening time. It's definitely their smoothest sounding production.

Agusa - Agusa
Third self-titled album will be out Oct 27. Good ol JJ has a track preview here: http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2017/09/28/agusa-self-titled-bertom-hemom-premiere/

Bubblemath sounds like it would be my kind of thing, I'll have to check them out.

Lör - In Forgotten Sleep
Folk prog with some power metal!
https://halloflor.bandcamp.com/album/in-forgotten-sleep

^^^great album

The Bubblemath (it's their 2nd album - the first was 12 years ago or something!) might seem very dense at first but it's addictive. Close to the top of my favourites this year, really fun and impressive.

Saint Just album is great, an odd little thing (you heard it Reggie?) Finished it and looking forward to the second one, some say the vocals are way more annoying, which is promising for me. Hipster kisses to Jenny Sorrenti.

both saint just albums are great. the second one is more straight-up "prog rock" but is still bad-ass. love the song on the first lp where jenny's brother alan guests on vocals. heard the first couple alan sorrenti discs? great stuff, wild "starsailor" type shit with jean-luc ponty all over the first one. i also have a bootleg of this band with david jackson on sax, totally badass.

any love for invisible here? i have been getting into some of their bootlegs; prog-rock spinetta is just so badass.

Haven't heard Alan Sorrenti. Saint Just's third album is called "Prog Explosion".

New Toby Driver thing was pleasant this morning: https://kayodot.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-roulette-march-2017

As ILM's biggest Driver stan (probably) I'm embarassed I didn't know that even existed. Thanks sund4r!

Finished listening to Supersister - Iskander. It's a concept album about Alexander The Great. There was a line-up change, more jazz instrumentals and less songs than previous albums. It's definitely straighter than previous albums but people exaggerate how serious it is, a couple of tracks sound quite playful to me.

It's a bit of a disappointment but it has about four great tracks. "Alexander" and "Bagaos" are particularly great. "Bagaos" has Pierre Moerlen from Gong playing a brilliant marimba part. It's like an awesome bad guy song from a musical.

Booklet says Elton Dean from Soft Machine toured with them around this time.

Studio version of "Wow" is a bonus track. I much prefer the live version.

robert, those SAINT JUST albums rule. might i suggest a little franco based on what you've been digging lately?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpXIGlA2fwI

Thanks, but I'll need to get to a device that can play all youtube videos to hear that.

it's a testament to my high opinion of you all that I'm listening to a band called "Bubblemath"

has anyone heard the new ENSLAVED album?

Are they doing an Opeth and getting less metal?

bubblemath was okay until i got to "she's a vegetarian" and the zappa thread got me so anti-zappa again i had to tap out

Oh that's their first album. I remember there being some deliberately gross lyrics in that track. The newer one isn't like that.

robert, their prog freak flag is flying high, but they're still way more metal than opeth is at this point

The metal parts of Enslaved are like a vestigial tail they refuse to just chop off - every time one of their songs seems to be going well, in comes Grutle doing death metal vocals and wrecks it. I wish they'd go full-on prog.

the saxophone is pretty shocking to hear

Yeah I kind of thought leading up to this one that they were going full prog, but it still is quite metal. Pretty good, but I never end up listening to them that often.

Dreadnought - A Wake In Sacred Waves - Denver band with roots in jazz and classical, past albums deal with avant prog as much as doom and sludge. The new one is probably their best and darkest, along the lines of SubRosa.
https://dreadnoughtdenver.bandcamp.com/album/a-wake-in-sacred-waves

The Quartet Of Woah! - Second album from Portuguese band, graduated from stoner rock to psych prog.
https://thequartetofwoah.bandcamp.com/album/the-quartet-of-woah

Ne Obliviscaris - Urn - Australian prog metal, am going over their older albums again, very interested in hearing this one in full when it's out 10/27.
https://neobliviscarissom.bandcamp.com/album/urn

Himmellegeme - Myth Of Earth - On Karisma label with Wobbler and Tusmørke. Smooth, Norwegian Floydian psych prog.
https://himmellegeme.bandcamp.com/releases

Centipede - Septober Energy (1971) - Just read about this in the new issue of Prog (am now subscribed on Kindle, and it has nice features on Motorpsycho, Opeth, Enslaved and Ne Obliviscaris). 50 person supergroup that includes members of King Crimson, Nucleus, Soft Machine and Patto.
https://youtu.be/PgrDxr4EbaI

lol at the hype text on that first link. a mythical connection exists between dave gilmour's personal houseboat and music!

They're a good band though

as much as i try to move on, on the grounds that there's so much good music out there that isn't prog, i keep coming back to it. most if this is probably ashratom. my tastes don't entirely overlap with his, but he keeps digging up these obscure prog records and writing about them in an interesting enough way that i listen to them. some of them i like. today i'm listening to pentwater's "out of the abyss", which gets compared to yezda urfa - that gentle giant style us prog that went nowhere in america. it is, but what hooks me on music isn't the composition or the performance but the attitude. typically i decide within five seconds whether i like a record or not. this one's just ok, i think. still, it's better than epidermis.

that PENTWATER album is pretty good. the american prog ashratom reps is a revelation; it's like he's reporting from an alternate 1970s. the silver lining in prog getting negged so long is there is vintage shit waiting to be heard for the first time stoned to the gills

and the well hasn't run dry, either. the new WOBBLER album rules

I've brought up Alexander Gradsky on the prog threads before. He does all sorts, singer-songwriter, composer, opera singer and quite a bunch of his work fits quite nicely in prog.
Been meaning to buy some albums someday but last time I checked there's very little written about him in English despite him being a fairly big deal in Russia.

I love the song that starts around 6:15 and really wish I could get a soundtrack of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8aItG4HYjM
A lot of the still images are by the great Anatoly Fomenko.

i am enjoying this:

<q>The Quartet Of Woah! - Second album from Portuguese band, graduated from stoner rock to psych prog.
https://thequartetofwoah.bandcamp.com/album/the-quartet-of-woah<;/q>

but they have *got* to change that spelling to Whoa...i'm not sure i can recommend them to ppl as long as it's Woah

crap, sorry for the bad formatting. was trying to quote Fastnbulbous

have we talked about the Physics House Band?

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown)
Current album seems rather good on a couple of listens, especially the proggier bits like 'The Astral Wave'. I'm into it. They seem to have received short/no shrift here. Maybe a better fit for the leftfield prog thread

yeah they get closer to more proper math rock territory at times like Battles etc but they seem like they come from a nerdier prog place rather than descended from Don Cab or etc

my year-end round-up had me checking out the new accordo dei contrari. sounds good! altrock seems to have the best prog qua prog stuff out now.

From my genre breakdowns: http://fastnbulbous.com/lucky-17/#breakdown

Psych Prog
1. Motorpsycho – The Tower (Rune Grammafon)
2. The Dials – That Was The Future (Gear Discs)
3. Amplifier – Trippin’ With Dr. Faustus (Rockosmos)
4. Agusa – Agusa (Laser’s Edge)
5. Gungfly – On Her Journey To The Sun (InsideOut)
6. Electric Eye – From The Poisonous Tree (Jansen)
7. Cavalier Song – A Deep Well (God Unknown)
8. Sundays & Cybele – Chaos & Systems (Beyond Beyond Beyond)
9. The Physics House Band – Mercury Fountain (Small Pond)
10. Kairon; IRSE! – Ruination (Svart)
11. Wucan – Reap The Storm (Hansel & Gretel)
12. KOYO – KOYO (88 Watts)
13. Mother Engine – Hangar (Heavy Psych)
14. Ghost Against Ghost – Still Love (Out Silent Canvas)
15. Himmellegeme – Myth Of Earth (Karisma)
16. L’Ira Del Baccano – Paradox Hourglass (Subsound)
17. Samsara Blues Experiment – One With The Universe (Electric Magic/World In Sound)
18. The Quartet Of Woah! – The Quartet Of Woah! (Raging Planet)
19. Tusmørke – Hinsides (Svart)
20. Atavismo – Inerte (Temple Of Torturous)

Prog
1. Caligula’s Horse – In Contact (InsideOut)
2. Wobbler – From Silence To Somewhere (Karisma)
3. Leprous – Malina (InsideOut)
4. Krokofant – Krokofant II (Rune Grammofon)
5. Kaipa – Children Of The Sounds (InsideOut)
6. Steven Wilson – To The Bone (Caroline)
7. Dutch Uncles – Big Balloon (Memphis Industries)
8. Premiata Forneria Marconi – Emotional Tattoos (InsideOut)
9. Peter Hammill – From The Trees (Fie!)
10. Major Parkinson – Blackbox (Karisma)
11. Anathema – The Optimist (Kscope)
12. Sky Architect – Nomad (Freia)
13. Gold Key – Hello, Phantom (Venn)

Fast, what a list!
I know what I’ll be doing tonight

thatd be one crazy playlist for a bar calchief

Here's a playlist! https://open.spotify.com/user/1212496385/playlist/6N4mdJBAsTgGgqS7FcUVFi

fastnbulbous that WOBBLER album is so good. there are stretches of vintage virtuoso vibes on there that point the way forward still

xpost intrigued, are those all more or less contemporary?

fastnbulbous i'm surprised to see no mention of king gizzard, who just might have had the best year in prog since 1973 when YES released TALES and YESSONGS. can't help but be curious about that

Ya they're all 2017 releases. I had King Gizzard in my psych list, though I know they dabble with prog some. Nothing this year felt that proggy to me. It is fascinating to me the following they've built up pretty quickly. They have toured pretty hard which I respect. It's impressive how much they've cranked out, but I don't know that I'll be returning to much of it. I'd like to see them take their time on an album.

sketches of east brunswick is super-Canterbury. the latest of their four (!) 2017 albums, polygondwanaland, is totally progged out. give it another bong session if you're ever bored!

http://teamrock.com/feature/2017-12-20/2017-the-prog-critics-choice

1) Steven Wilson - To The Bone
2) Anathema - The Optimist
3) Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley
4) Roger Waters - Is This The Life We Really Want?
5) Peter Hammill - From The Trees
6) Mastodon - Emperor Of Sand
7) Big Big Train - Grimspound
8) Steve Hackett - The Night Siren
9) Leprous - Malina
10) Motorpsycho - The Tower (
11) Amplifier - Trippin With Dr Faustus
12) Enslaved - E
13) Von Hertzen Brothers - War Is Over
14) Arcane Roots - Melancholia Hymns
15) Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar
16) Paul Draper - Spooky Action
17) Mogwai - Every Country’s Sun
18) Bent Knee - Land Animal
19) KOYO - Koyo
20) Soen - Lykaia

Not too bad. The only one besides mine that had Motorpsycho and Amplifier. Bent Knee is growing on me.

"Now with your toes in each others nose, rather nice I should say"

Supersister - Spiral Staircase

A conscious return to their early sillier material, very much like Gong with their pothead pixies stuff. They had an early song about a spiral staircase gnome and this album expands on it. It's fun and I might be more likely to give it a spin than some of the previous albums but I kind of wish it had been just a bit more ambitious, because the fun leaves you wanting a bit more. I think it was intended as a last album and they just wanted to have fun with it. Sadly one of them died before they could do a reunion studio album.

The bonus tracks (I waited patiently to find a decently priced reissue with the bonus tracks included) are a collaboration with a band called Los Alegres, including a cover of Harry Belafonte. But I could swear this band also appears on the main album for "Gi Ga Go"

I should start with The Nits soon.

"I'm schizo ohohoho

I'm schizo yiho yiho yiho!"