Can- Tago Mago

Can is possibly the most acclaimed of the Krautrock groups, and Tago Mago their Magnum Opus. The ambitious group of Holger Czukay (Bass) Irmin Schmidt (Keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar) and Jaki Liebezit (drums) formed in Cologne, and started out with African American vocalist Malcolm Mooney. After their debut album Monster Movie in '69, however, mental health issues prompted Mooney's return to the states. His replacement, Damo Sazuki, was a Japanesse man who screeched and yelled as much as he sang, giving lots of shock value to the group. After a 1970 release of soundtrack work, the band recorded Tago Mago, an epic double album, sent to stores in 1971.

The record begins with "Paperhouse", which is a nice mix of both the heavy and mellow schools of Krautrock. Suzuki's vocal rolls out very easily, and the guitar riff carries the song forward though open air. As the song goes on, it starts to get faster and more frenzied, and then slows down. This leads into the jarring transition into "Mushroom", where Sazuki goes ape with unintelligible screaming, but then the music gets quiet and filled with guitar drone. A very weird song that grows on you with repeated listens. Next up is "Oh Yeah", which is just an absolute masterpiece of the genre. Its 7 minutes of repeated guitar riffs, backmasked vocals, steady 4/4 beat, and wind sound effects are sublime and enchanting. After those 3 songs, it's time for the side long "Halleluwah". Compared to the A side songs, this one relies much more heavily on the rhythm section. It's got a central grove that the vocals and guitar overlay on top of for minutes and minutes on end with only brief breaks, and strange sounds go overhead continually. It's not quite "Revolution 9" weird, but it's not the kind of stuff you want to introduce people to Krautorck with. However, for the fans, it's an absolutely essential piece of minimalism.

Sides C and D, however, do take the weird up to level eleven, to the point where they've left Krautrock entirely and become straight avant-garde. Another side long track, "Aumgn", is a sound collage of guitar & bass feedback, ambient strings (including violin scratching), sitar, pure electronic sounds, and what sounds like heavily distorted animal noises that take the listener for an 17 minute trip into some of the most far out music I've ever heard. I like this, although though this piece divides fans of Progressive Rock heavily. "Peking O." on the D side adds 11 and 1/2 further minutes to the trip, and it's even more intense with Sazuki's screams, and some broken pseudo melodies. The record finishes up with "Bring Me Coffee or Tea", a nice, quiet song that parallels "Paperhouse" to give the album a cycle. After the last two tracks, it's a welcome cool-down.

The only thing that everyone can agree on about this record is that it is strange. Some people will think this is a pile of crap, and others will think it's pure genius. I, for one, fall in the latter. During the height of "Aumgn", the rhythm takes me to places where not even Pink Floyd or Neu! dare tread. It's truly one of a kind, as even Can never released another album like Tago Mago (their next release, Ege Bamyasi, plays like a watered down version.)

While Tago Mago is not for the faint of heart or the fans of classical structure, it stands up with the very best of Progressive Rock albums. Grade: A

Progressive Rock in the Great Cannon of Music

Amongst the general public, artists come and go in quick succession and few have much in the way of decades-long popularity the way The Beatles or The Rolling Stones have. Amongst music junkies, however, there's a collection of recordings that always get praise year after year after year, continually being placed on best albums of all time lists and gaining notoriety. Sometimes there's overlap between the two, as Abbey Road, Blonde on Blonde, Led Zeppelin IV, Master of Puppets, and Nevermind are always there. On the other hand, there's some real oddities that many people have never heard of, like Marquee Moon and just about every classic Jazz album except for about 4. In addition, there's the ones that despite public knowledge of them today, took decades to achive any sort of acceptance, including The Velvet Underground and Nico and Pink Moon.

There's just a minuscule fraction of those albums that are Progressive Rock. While Prog is not music for the masses, and appropriately just a few Pink Floyd Albums, Aqualung, and possibly a Yes album are two are on the popular list. But what about those critics? Surprisingly, the alleged "champions of the non-mainstream" seem to hate the genre if it benefits them.

Taking a look at Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 greatest albums of all time, a whooping 4 albums of progressive rock under the traditional definition made the cut*, three of them by Pink Floyd, and the other being Aqualung (the neo-prog Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins was on the list also, if you consider that equivalent). Now, Rolling Stone don't have an ounce of respect in the community of real music fans. Why would they hate Prog? Most of the people who bother to read it won't enjoy the genre, so why point them there when they can have pop? Similarly, internet communities with lots of teeny boppers from generations Y and Z have little to no prog on similar lists.

All is not lost however. Going to another source, the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, collected by Robert Dimery, is a collection of reviews from various music journalists. A very respectable 32 Prog albums from the classic era made their collection†. Considering they had 50 years to cover and many genres (there's some really mediocre country in that book just to make it look like they care), almost 1 in 30 albums isn't too bad. Music sites with lots of really deep fans also have good turnout for Prog. Rateyourmusic.com has 2 in their top 10 albums, almost unheard of elsewhere.

If anything, all this hubub just confirms that Prog isn't for most people, but for the lucky few it really endears itself and sticks like glue. The only question left is whether sacrificing the other genres to hear as much prog as possible is worth it, but that's for another time.

*(Using a very broad definition of Progressive rock, you can get that number up to 8 with a hand from Kraftwerk, Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart.)
†(The large definition makes that 41)

Campo di Marti- Campo di Marti

Campo di Marti were one of the Italian scene's one album wonders. Coming from Tuscany, their lineup was Enrico Rossa (guitar/ vocals/mellotron), Alfredo Barducci (horns/keyboards), Paul Richard (bass/vocals), Mauro Sarti (drums/flute/vocals) and Carlo Felice Marcoveccio (drums/vocals). The band took their name from a train station in thier home town of Florence. This band's self titled album was released in 1973. On it, they play a range of guitar dominated symphonic prog songs, from heavy to melodic to pastoral in tone.

The albums has 7 tracks, all titled "____" tempo with Italian numbers. "Primo Tempo" is the first, and at 8 minutes, is the longest. Banking on hard rock guitars. It goes back and forth between guitar and keyboard driven sections with many speed changes. "Secondo Tempo" is more up the vane of the light, flowing prog, not dissimilar to Genesis. Next, "Terzo Tempo" has lots of guitar fuzz to start off before going into a bass, piano, and guitar heavy symphonic prog workout. This one is the best on the album, filled with emotion. "Quarto Tempo" is a shorter song, and it fills out the A side of the record with lots of keyboards, reminiscent of ELP.

"Quinto Tempo" takes the flutes and turns into a piece that brings up images of the Italian Countryside. It's nice to chill out to, and meshes very well into the earlier, harder songs, a hard feat to do. Afterward, "Sesto Tempo" follows mostly the same mold as "Quarto Tempo", but the band is a little more ambitious here and takes full advantage of the drummers. Last but not least, "Settimo Tempo" ends the album on a cycle by emulating "Primo Tempo" with similar beat and form. It's got a nice groove due to almost Motorik like bass and drums.

This one really impressed me the first time I heard it and has since grown further on me. Campo di Marti is a very versatile work, with several styles going on in different tracks. Yet, they all manage to blend together into an album that is married firmly to the Progressive Rock scene of Italy while distinguishing itself in the process. Even though every member is credited to vocals, they rarely sing, but that only adds to the free form landscapes the band carves. There's a little on here for everyone, and while it might be hard to find, this is one true lost gem.

The only shame about this album is the fact the band did not do any more. Grade: A-

The Minimalisim vs. Complexity Scale

If I had to break Prog down into two categories, there's a nice little sliding scale between the bands that prefer sparse construction and the bands that like to throw in the whole 9 yards. For every Pink Floyd, and Tangerine Dream, for every Soft Machine, a Neu!. This difference bridges many divides in Prog, over many sub genres and nationalities.

This raises the question about which is superior. The general opinion seems to favor the complex over the simple, as bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, and King Crimson remain very popular and respected while Prog electornic seems to slip into obsucrity with each day. Minimalistic art in any form is always hardest to comprehend, as there's not much direction given to the audience. Still, I think that the criminaly underated Progressive Electronic Genre is so wonderfull due to its minimalizim, that trance of sound that exists.

However, it's not for everyone. So, I'm going to introduce a sliding scale of minimalisim to use in my reviews. I've put some groups to use as benchmarks to comapre to.

1- Extremely Minamalistic- Tangerine Dream
2- Minimalistic- Faust
3- Somewhat Minimalistic- Hawkwind
4- Neutral- Genesis
5- Somewhat Complex- Pink Floyd
6- Complex- Soft Machine
7- Extremely Complex- Gentle Giant

My hope is that this can help pin down how "Proggy" an album is, as the more compelx, the more progressive. Over time, perhaps you can get a feel of where you like your music.

Pink Floyd- Animals

Time for yet another wonderful Floyd album. After Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd were on top of their game. Popular the world over, they had great expectations for their 10th album, Animals, released in 1977. At this point, Roger Waters was really starting to take control of the band, their artistic vision becoming his artistic vision. This is the last album where Gilmour, Mason, and Wright had much of anything to do until Waters left. Despite this shift, Animals still packs that massive Pink Floyd punch of Prog splendor. The album is another one of Floyd's good old concept albums, this time a take on George Orwell's Animal Farm with an emphasis on isolation (the overarching theme of all of Pink Floyd's work.) This is also by hard Floyd's hardest album as far as the style goes, especially Gilmour's guitar.

We kick off the album with "Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 1", a 1:25 acoustic little love ballad. It's not bad, but a bit non sequiteur and forgettable compared to what follows. The guitar then leads into "Dogs", who are business-like people willing to sacrifice anyone around them to make personal gain. The lyrics criticise these people for being emotionally devoid and soulless, only to get "dragged down by the stone". This piece is all about Gilmour, who sings most of the vocals, plays the best guitar performance of Floyd's career with hard rock solos to die for, and just seems to command the flow. The others all add in nice little touches to make the song seem straight from distopia. There's lots of distortion of the keyboards to contribute a grittiness to the song. "Dogs" lasts 17 minutes, so the record then flips.

Next up we have "Pigs", who are the moral police. These people try to edit society not by destroying, but by molding it to suit their needs (like politicians, censors, jet setters). This one has more bass guitar which gives it as certain bounce, like a battle. The guitars and drums add to the frey to produce lots of force to back up the attack on the pigs, who are "nearly a treat, but really a cry". Ha ha, charade they are indeed. For the final animal, we've got "Sheep." Rather than attacking them, Waters more mocks them for being the followers who just go along with whatever society tells them, and get slaughtered by dogs as resources. This one is chilling, using a scream-into synthesizer effect, crazy guitar, and thick beat, all in contrast with a lush keyboard opening. In the end the sheep revolt, and if the music is supposed to represent what they had to go through, I can't blame them. "Pigs on the Wing Pt. 2" closes the album the exact same way that Pt. 1 opened.

This is defiantly a change in direction for Pink Floyd. Animals alludes to Orwell's work but does not tie itself to it in such a way as that the interpretation is similar. Rather than being anti-communist, this album is anti-capitalist if anything due to the heavy attacks on The Dogs as ruthless extortionists and the Sheep as hapless consumers. Overall, I think that this one supplements the themes on Dark Side and Wish, and rather than concentrating on the isolation of individuals from other individuals, Animals looks at isolation of different segments of society from each other. Back up all that existential depth with some kick as instrumentation, and we've got ourselves one hell of an album.

While it's farther from the progressive mold than many albums on this blog, Animals manages to trump them in terms of musical might. Grade: A+