Prog Rock

"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!"

The NIts have become one of my very favourite bands over the last ten years, there's no prog in there, more arty chamber pop.

I'm in, whatever the genre, even if it's not Stips heavy but I'd like to start on one of the more Stips orientated albums.

Apart from Nits and Golden Earring, hardly anything on cd from the 70s and 80s. He has quite a bunch of stuff on his bandcamp but it looks like odds and ends. Some of his solo albums easy to get on mp3.

This is Robert Carlberg reviewing Rond on amazon

Robert Jan Stips has been in some very good bands -- Supersister, Transister, Nits, Sweet d'Buster, Golden Earring -- but his solo albums -- U.P. (1981), Egotrip (1995), Greyhound (1999), Rembrandt 2000 (1999) and now Rond (2008) -- do not reach the same heights. They are less well-developed than the band material and often repeat tracks from his earlier triumphs.

Nowhere is this more true than his latest solo CD + DVD, which is just him playing a grand piano and singing in a Dutch studio. Although the playing is fluid he's never been a great singer, and the lack of instrumental color puts all the emphasis on his weaknesses. Ten songs from his back catalog and only three new songs make this a sort of career retrospective, recorded in a single afternoon, with no post-production. This minimalist staging is brave perhaps ... but not particularly impressive.

Well, Stips joined in '82 (8 years after the band's inception) and he had 8 years out in the late nineties but he's a pretty integral part of the band really.

Saint Just - La Casa Del Lago.

I can see why some people didn't like the vocals. They're a bit too repetitive, too much lalala-ing. I really liked the 3rd and 5th tracks but it doesn't come close to the debut album. It'll probably be quite some time before I check out their reunion album.

Yezda Urfa - Boris

Aside from the singer stealing too much from Jon Anderson, there's some really great songwriting in here. Looking forward to Sacred Baboon but it seems to be mostly the same songs.

Did anybody hear anything about Sunbeam records folding. Somebody mentioned it on another board and I don't think I have heard it elsewhere.
They reissued quite a bit of proggy stuff.

Yezda Urfa - Boris

Aside from the singer stealing too much from Jon Anderson, there's some really great songwriting in here. Looking forward to Sacred Baboon but it seems to be mostly the same songs.

― Robert Adam Gilmour

have you heard "the basis of dubenglazy"? fuckin' craziest song they ever did, it's wild man

Yes, with all the overlapping vocals.

pre-koenji hyakkei

A friend recommended me Malicorne - Le Bestiaire and it's fantastic. Wonderful singing, folky stuff and even slightly disco-y parts that don't feel out of place.

RAM, "ashratom" is another trustworthy recommendationizer. The Fusion Orchestra is AMAZING ~

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/ashratom/post-psychedelic-proto-progressive-with-female-vocals/

i tend to get hung up on the little things. when that incessant cowbell started up i checked out. there was an archival live album this year which i gave a listen to but it's basically a mediocre audience bootleg and isn't compelling either.

Malicorne were like the french Fairport Convention but a bit darker and possibly medieval, so maybe more Steeley Span? I thought Gabriel yacoub had been with Alain Stivell since they were mining the same area roughly.
I* mainly know the first 2 s/t lps though. Which is good stuff.

Ougenweide may be a German equivalent.

now, on the other hand, this is a jam, even though i don't usually get into the dutch prog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmSVLHvdv98

New, Stips-led Supersister record and gigs coming up this year, interesting.

https://supersister.nl/

Cool. Stips previously said that they'd never do anything again because Sacha and Ron are deceased but I assume the new band (with old drummer intact) will do the old style.

He's intending to use a lot of different people it would seem and not stick to the same format as the original band.

Well, hopefully somewhat similar.

Nektar - A Tab In The Ocean

This seems to be the fan favorite but also one of the least available somehow. Really liked it but not quite as big a deal as I hoped. But this part gives me lovely shivers: "turn the key, open your door, don't make believe you've seen this before".

I always see Remember The Future as the one to have if you only get one.

Recycled was always my favourite, side 1 anyway.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/when-the-sweet-went-prog

Le Orme - Felona E Sorona

I like this quite a bit but it wasn't the slammer I had hoped but it does have some of the character I expected. Some nice crescendos in there.

I have the Italian version, I would have tried to get the one with both Italian and English if I knew it existed.

https://www.discogs.com/Le-Orme-Felona-E-Sorona/master/15370
I've always loved the cover art, turn out it's by Lanfranco Frigeri, who died only weeks ago! Frigeri's only other album art is for the band La Maschera Di Cera's ‎sequel to the Le Orme album. I've never heard of another band doing a direct sequel to someone else's album.

https://www.discogs.com/La-Maschera-Di-Cera-Le-Porte-Del-Domani/release/4435534

That’s a cool one. I’ve always linked it with the Semiramis album with kinda similar but creepier cover art: https://www.discogs.com/Semiramis-Dedicato-A-Frazz/release/6629001

Yeah, I love that too. Very good album but I think the art is so fascinating that the music doesn't quite live up to the weirdness.

Yezda Urfa's Sacred Baboon is nowhere near as good as Boris. Only 3 newer tracks and the new versions of the older songs just aren't up to the same standard.

American Behavioral Scientist: "Retrospective Consecration Beyond the Mainstream: The Creation of a Progressive Rock Canon" -- https://t.co/2o53Bexk7N. pic.twitter.com/fsU6JQKZ6P

— Dan Vergano (@dvergano) July 30, 2019

Three Agents of Consecration

I just bought a ticket to see Nektar! I honestly listen to zero prog rock these days, but the Remember the Future album meant a lot to me as a youth, and the only time they ever toured here 40-some years ago I missed it. Main singer is dead and one other guy retired, so it's kind of a tribute act these days, but it's in a cool old theater and they still have their old lighting guy running a (hopefully) trippy light show, so what the hell, I'm in.

Tell us how it goes.

today i am strongly feeling that gryphon are the worst band in human history, prove me wrong

Worse than Sky? Gryphon are kind of prissy and not very psychedelic, but their combination of 70s prog with Renaissance music doesn't sound anything like anyone else from the era. Also, Tim Smith from the Cardiacs is a big fan and totally ripped off the intro to 'Midnight Mushrumps'. Plus Gryphon's main guy wrote the theme song for Gerry Anderson's post-Thunderbirds series Terrahawks. And the bassoon/crumhorn guy has an amazing beard nowadays.

Also, Tim Smith from the Cardiacs is a big fan and totally ripped off the intro to 'Midnight Mushrumps'

I am now listening to this (I think tt has mentioned Gryphon to me before but not this album)

combination of 70s prog with Renaissance music doesn't sound anything like anyone else from the era

I mean...I can think of one band ;) although tbf this is sounding even more Renaissance than Renaissance, iykwim

Also, Tim Smith from the Cardiacs is a big fan and totally ripped off the intro to 'Midnight Mushrumps'

Say no more.

Two things about Gryphon: their guitarist ended up in the Albion Band - he played on "Rise Up Like the Sun", which would look good on anyone's CV, and their drummer sang backing vocals on Wire's "Mannequin".

And he was the graphic designer for Kerrang! back in the 80s. Basically we're living in a Gryphon world and we don't even know it.

Clips of Mushrumps sound amazing. Too bad the recent compilation left out some album tracks to fit on a small number of discs, forfucksake, need to buy Mushrumps soon.

Well, I haven't heard Sky (should I?) so I can't comment on that. It's certainly possible that, say, Epidermis are a worse band - "Genius of Original Force" is, like the ICD-10 diagnosis codes for gender incongruence (at this point I'm just baiting the "posts very much in character" thread, aren't I?), one of those statements where every single word is wrong.

I'm curious as to what Tim Smith tune rips off the "Midnight Mushrumps" intro, as that might be interesting divorced from the Gryphon context. Certainly that intro is the best argument for Gryphon I've heard.

The fact that they're "unique" doesn't carry much weight with me - who in their right mind would _want_ to sound like this? As far as I'm concerned Gryphon were a band who, after failing to cut it as David Munrow knockoffs, decided to combine their crumhorn and bassoon playing with terrible prog, and unfortunately for the world this impressed Steve Howe and so we still have to hear about this crap long past the point where it's sensible. Their big hit "Ethelion" is literally the basis of Neil's "Hurdy Gurdy Mushroom Man", except I suspect that "Hurdy Gurdy Mushroom Man" is actually _better_. The side-long title track of _Midnight Mushrumps_ is, first off, actually entitled "Midnight Mushrumps", and secondly is one of the most appallingly badly edited "epics" I have ever heard. Most prog "epics" are cut and paste jobs, but that is seldom more apparent than it is with "Midnight Mushrumps".

I'm sure their bassoonist/crumhorn player has a fine beard and is a gentleman of class and quality but I don't much like their music.

Well, I haven't heard Sky (should I?)

No.

Sky: C/D

The beginning of 'Ethelion' sounds like a cheap knock-off of this famous French tourdion:

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

As an aside, 'let's wage war on this bottle' is one of the best pre-modern drinking song lyrics.

Scratch that, the lyrics were reportedly added in 1949. Too bad.

Their big hit "Ethelion"

Excuse me?

You could definitely argue that Gryphon are the worst concept for a band ever but they’re pretty fuckin good at what they do

Need to hear David Munrow as well. I love this kind of stuff but know nothing about it. Jethro Tull were often at their best when they go all Blackadder.

You could definitely argue that Gryphon are the worst concept for a band ever but they’re pretty fuckin good at what they do

― frogbs

...bub.

david munrow was fucking amazing, as far as i can tell he's the actually talented guy all of these cack medievalists keep knocking off, to the point where the entire early music movement, as far as i can tell, just completely died when he did. just a shattering loss to music.

If you want to listen a bunch of out of tune instruments that sound like a bee trapped in a jam jar who am I to criticize.

If you want to listen a bunch of out of tune instruments that sound like a bee trapped in a jam jar who am I to criticize.

― Load up your rubber wallets (Tom D.)

this is pretty much exactly what i want out of music as it turns out

I know it's still Tim Smith, but I heard more Sea Nymphs than Cardiacs in that tune, although I think Bill Drake brought a hefty dose of the early music influence too.