Magma- Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh

After that humiliating performance of "Otis" last week, let's give Magma their fare due. Christan Vander, a classically trained drummer, founded the group in 1970. He decided the best way to overcome the language barrier between him and the majority of Prog rock listeners was to make up his own language, called Kobain. He then took the word for celestial in the language, Zehul, and used it to define his music (a mix of space rock and jazz fusion, which has since gone on to be applied to other bands). Magma's albums are linked together as a massive space opera about evacuated Earthlings settling the planet Kobaia, and their conflict with latter settlers. Various albums form various sub-arcs to the story. Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh, which was part 3 of the "Theusz Hamtaahk" arc (although the first released), was released in 1973. It is generally considered Magma's magnum opus. Other members include: Jannick Top (bass), Klaus Blasquiz (Vocals, Percussion), Jean Luc Manderlier (piano, organ), Rene Garber (Bass Clarinet, Vocals), Claude Olmos (guitar), Christians' wife Stella Vander (Vocals), Teddy Larsy (brass, flute), and several extra vocalists. Phew.

"Hortz Fur Dehn Stekehn West" is the first song, and at close to 10 minutes, it starts it in epic fashion. There is lots of Kobain chanting over a repeating and sinister piano riff, until brass comes in and it assumes the overall character of a march. There's some interesting changes of time signature going on here. "Ima Suri Dondai" then takes this to a slightly overdramatic level, using Vander's falsetto and a whole lot of bass guitar. This is followed by "Kobaia Is de Hundin", which segues in and segues out with more of the chanting chorus, although this time featuring drums and sax prominently. It calms down then end for a switch in sides of the record.

"Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik" starts out with a tribal chant over typical Native American drums. It quickly goes into the high falsetto/female vocals. However, here the volume is quieter and the whole affair is much more subtle. Then comes "Nebehr Gudahtt", which really is just more of the same."Mekanik Kommandoh" and "Kreuhn Kohrmahn Iss de Hundin" follow suit. I think the story here is about the war between Earth and Kobaia. Kobaia threatens use of its master weapon, the Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh.

Overall, I find myself not finding much to applaud on the album. It's got all sorts of jazzy, progressive stuff going on, but despite having separate songs each does little do develop individual ideas and sounds. The whole thing is very repetitive, as nonsensical Kobain Chants get quite tiring after a while. For all those reasons, it's a must have for the space rock fans.

Magma tried nobly with Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh, but in the end the chants start to sound comic. Grade: D+

Merry Christmas from Count Felix

Here's a little prog rock comedy from that beloved time called the 1980's as my christmas gift to you. Enjoy! (The artist is Magma, that's Christian Vander Singing.)



Please drink responsibly.

Ange- Emile Jacotey

I apologize if some of my French translations are inaccurate. I did them myself, and I'm by no means fluent in the language. Please correct me on any mistakes!

One of the best known of France's symphonic prog bands, Ange got its start with the brothers Décamps, Francis (keyboards) and Christian (vocals). The group was heavily influenced by contemporaries King Crimson and Genesis, and in turn went on to influence many popular British bands. Ange's signature is prog with the twist of the medieval epic. Chrisitan Décamps vocal style in known for being highly dramatic and pulled out. Emile Jacotey was released in 1975, album #4 for the group. Other members included Jean-Michel Brezovar (guitar), Daniel Haas (bass), and Guénolé Biger (drums).

This album has a concept of mirroring the old storytellers throughout France. Emile Jacotey is a fictionalized one, and an 86 year old man provided narration in between some of the tracks. Song #1 is called "Bêle, bêle petite chèvre" (Bray, bray, Little Goat). This song seems very aggressive for prog, as the guitars mirror Black Sabbath if anything else and the vocals are strange and violent. There's very heavy lyrics here for prog (Creé, Je te blesse, par example). It ends with a eerie electronic quiet and some narration from le vieux homme (the old man). Next is Sur la trace des fées (On the trail of the fairies). Here we have more of an emotional epic. It's one of the more spacious sounding songs here, with lyrics including flying away following the title trail to find faeries in white dresses. Pretty typical prog fair, actually. "Le nain de Stanislas" follows it up with some fast prog, reminiscent of Genesis or ELP with a French touch. Both Décamps brothers are particularly theatrical on this song, bending thier voice and keyboards to make an effective feeling of insanity. 4th up we have "Jour Après Jour" (Day after Day), which is a ballad (Day after day she becomes more beautiful). "Ode à Émile" (Ode to Émile) finishes off the side. This song is another one of sympho prog fair, and it's message is one of great hope (look, let's go past the moon and we'll never be old).

Side two consits mostly of "Ego and Deus", a song in four parts: the title track, J'irai dormir plus loin que ton sommeil (I will go to sleep much longer than you are tired), Aurélia, and Les noces (Weddings). I can't understand of the lyrics, but it's got something to do with Conquistadors. All parts of the suite emphasise the theatrical style Ange prefered, as they jutxapose soft and quiet, fast and slow, electronic with acoustic. There is one final song, "Le marchand de planètes" (The salesman of planets), which is pretty drippy (Dive into the galaxy? I'm there!) It's style is whimsy more than anything.

Emile Jacotey isn't a bad album. The problem is, it fails to do much to distinguish itself. The lyrics, and especially their delivery, are fantastic, but the instrumentation seems like an afterthought. The keyboards have generic sound settings, the typical rock instruments copy off of other bands. When there's an instumental passage, it's very bland and uninteresting (Les noces is the best example). The whole show rests on Chrisitnan Décamps, and he can only go so far.

While it's got some great parts, Ange's reputation as the kings of French prog rest upon other albums. Grade: C

France and Prog: The Sleeping Giant

With up to 64 million people, France had more population than any other nation on the Democratic side of the Iron Curtain. Yet, with all the people and all the prog, France seems to get less recognition than it's surrounding neighbors. Italy and Germany receive most of the love on the Continent, and these days the Internet will look to Spanish or Dutch prog long before the French. The problem for France seemed to be a lack of unification; much like the UK, France had many movements going on without a central style as many nations had. On one hand, it makes it harder to find exactly what you're looking for with French prog, but on the other hand, this nation gives something for every fan.

France is probably most famous for housing Zehul. This strange little subgenre came out of the head of Christian Vander, a classically trained drummer. His band, Magma, made up it's own language, Kobaian, to sing epic multi album space operas. Best described ans somewhere in between jazz fusion and Romanticism, this genre is challenging but rewarding. Besides a neo-Zehul movement in Japan, this music is almost exclusively French.

France also had a healthy symphonic prog scene. The most famous band was Ange, who went on to be a strong influence on English prog rock groups like Pink Floyd. Many of those groups, like Asia Minor and Sandrose, sung in english, while others, like Wapassaou and Pulsar, used French. Other famous sympho progers included Pollen and Moving Gelatine Plates.

There was a large tangent of instrumental prog in France from the mid 70's. Atoll is one of the most legendary jazz fusion/prog groups, and their brand influenced many copycats. The French also were very creative and experimental, with bands like Clearlight and Art Zoyd going off on avant garde trips. Art Zoyd would later be associated with the RIO movement.

When exploring French prog, like most non US/UK porg, you'll have to do some searching. Albums are not easy to come by, especially outside of the Francophone world. Yet, it is worth the effort. With so much variety, France rarely fails to deliver a good listen. Bien écouter!

Jean-Michel Jarre- Oxygene

Time for France Month! We'll be starting off with France's best known prog electronic pioneer, Jean-Michel Jarre. Son of film composer Maurice Jarre, Jean-Michel released an impossible to find album in 1972 which went nowhere. he then made no new albums for 4 years, but built a home 8-track studio with dozens of assorted synthesizers. Oxygene, released in 1976, is the result. This album won Jarre 15 minutes of fame in the U.S. and set him on pace for a notable career over in Europe.

All of the songs are part of the long piece Oxygene, with 6 parts, 3 per side of the record. Part one starts off ARP synth wails and some drib-drab vibraphone like noises. It goes for a creepy, arctic feel. Part 2 is one of the two most critical parts. Jarre tries some innovative sampling and sequencing here. Unfortunately, by using all the latest and greatest settings of 1976, "Oxygene Pt. 2" is enjoyable, but sounds immensely dated. At just 2:55, Part 3 is a short space-age interlude. The second key part is 4, where Jarre uses a Caribbean muzak rhythm to make his melody. This would influence electronic music for 40 years to come. Part 5 runs for over 10 minutes. It is similar in style to part 3, very alien and spacey. Part 6 closes on more Caribbean like beat with a melody similar to Part 1.

This album is of its time. By using ARP and Moog synthesizers abundantly (both would be out of business in less than 10 years) amongst other synth equipment from the age, it sounds more dated then almost any progressive rock. Yet, it's got a quirky and innocent charm despite the age. Oxygene is fun to nod along to in the background, and on top of that this album is great for getting electronic prog converts.

The little child with special appeal in a world full of somber existentialist men, Oxygene earns a Grade of B+.

8 Beatles Songs that directly influenced Prog

When you have a band as popular as the Beatles, it's almost a given that they'd influence any genre of music. There's Jazz, Musak, Soul, and even Electronic covers of the music. However, Prog still owes a great debt to the Beatles in particular for using their fame to create rather than to cash in during the 1966-1969 era. By making daring decisions that could be heard by many, countless young minds turned to experimenting with Rock music. These songs in particular are worth a mention:

"Norwegian Wood" (On Rubber Soul)
This one is notable for the sitar. By his interest in Indian music, George Harrison introduced the west's youth to non western instruments for the first time. While Prog in Europe and North America didn't use all that much of this stuff, it did make it more acceptable for non typical rock instruments like the flute and violin to work thier way in.

"Rain" (Single)
The beginning of Backmasking on Record. Again, there's no overabundance of this in Prog, but it paved the way for further studio trickery.

"I'm Only Sleeping" (On Revolver)
This overlooked gem is the best example of a number of songs where The Beatles did something pop, but fairly progressive pop. The movements flow in a way atypical of 1966, and tore down more barriers.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" (On Revolver)
This trippy song is one of the best precursors for both prog and psychedelia. John Lennon showed here exactly what can be done with a little bit of fooling around with the 60's rock formula. Also heavily employs sound effects and other prog staples.

"Fixing a Hole" (On Sgt. Pepper)
See "I'm Only Sleeping"

"A Day in the Life" (On Sgt. Pepper)
The crowing moment of the Beatles' career. In this 5 minute epic, they accomplish what many bands can't do in 20. "A Day in the Life" more than any other song challenged to-be-prog musicians to dream big.

"I Am the Walrus" (On Magical Mystery Tour)
This one needs no explanation.

"Revolution 9"(On The White Album)
This tape collage was one of the first of it's kind (the actual first was "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" by Zappa and the Mothers a good 2 years earlier). However, while Zappa remained a cult figure, the Beatles got this out onto the world stage. Lots of Krautrock follows similar patterns and ideas.

Gong- Flying Teapot

Gong is a Canterbury collective which over its history has been home to tens of members. Australian guitarist and vocalist Daevid Allen (ex-Soft Machine) formed Gong in 1967 after being denied entry into the UK due to visa problems. As a result, Gong was based in France, but is best considered to be a British Band. They have a large back mythology known as Planet Gong. While it was hinted at on prior albums, this 4th effort is the first of the so called "Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy", focusing on the protagonist Zero the Hero. Like many psychedelic albums, it's difficult to follow it all. The members on Flying Teapot were Allen, Steve Hillage (guitar), Gilli Smith (vocals), Didier Malherbe (woodwinds), Tim Blake (keyboards/vocals), Laurie Allan (drums), Francis Moze (bass/keyboards), and Richard Houari (percussion).

The album starts off with "Radio Gnome Invisible", a catchy little tune that uses psychedelic saxophone to lure the listener into a trip. The lyrics sound sort of like babble to me. Evidently, a pig-farming Egyptologist named Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" named Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from ta certain Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible. Noodling and noises that stoned people make ensue! Afterward, the close to 12 minutes of "Flying Teapot" carry us away from the Canterbury scene into pure, hard edged, Hendrix-esque tripping. If you're a fan of late 60's stoner rock, this is your dream. The story here is Mista T Being anf Fred the Fish go into a cave in Tibet and get very drunk while chanting "Banana Nirvana Mañana" over and over with a guru. Good stuff.

Just for kicks, the entire story that was going on on side A gets thrown out the window, as we shift away from it, leaving them having a good ol' time in the cave. The stuff about Zero the Hero starts up, as he receives a vision of Pot Head Pixies from the planet gong. The Pixes are green with propeller heads, and they fly around in teapots. The song "Pot Head Pixes" is amongst the best pop songs in Prog history. The "I am, you are, we are crazy" chorus is extremely catchy and wonderful to listen to, and it jumps around with a pleasant Canterbury feel."The Octave Doctors and the Crystal Machine" is a transition piece of synth noise. Next up is"Zero the Hero and the Witches Spell." Zero does not feature here, instead there's some interesting scat vocals, Latin percussion, sax, guitar distortion, and more psychedelics for 9 and a half minutes. The story then resumes with the last track, "Witches Song- I am your Pussy". Zero the Hero offers his Fish and Chips to a cat who turns out to be the Good Witch Yoni, who gives him a potion. The story is continued on the next album in the series, Angel's Egg. "Pussy" is another very Canterbury Scene song, with lots of sax. The lyrics are also discretely sexual and the f bomb is used freely.

Flying Teapot is hard to classify. While it has the defining elements of the Canterbury Scene: it includes some of the 15 or so core members (Allen and Hillage), uses lots of woodwinds, has some jazz like structure, and has its overall feel at parts. However, there's a good 25 minutes of pure psychedelia here to space out to. By breaking the traditional structure, Gong is amongst the most progressive of the progressive rock bands. The only problem here is the ridiculous story which adds nothing.

Seaming two styles together effortlessly into a unique work of Prog, Flying Teapot earns a higly respectable Grade of A-.

Progressive Linguistics

With Italy month come and gone and France month just around the corner, I've been thinking about langague and how it relates to prog. For a genre with so many international scenes, there's a great variety. There's a little bit of prog in almost every major world language. Therein lies a dilema: how can one understand all of the lyrics on the deep topics Prog rock indulges in?

I'd argue to some extent that it doesn't really matter all that much. For better or worse, English has become the dominant lingua franca of the world. This leads to two effects on prog: either singing in English despite it being a non-native language (common in Romance Language and German Speaking nations), or sticking to instrumentals (Common in the Benelux nations, Scandinavia, Germany, and to a lesser extent France). On one hand, in a genre so focused upon the instrumentation, this is not a problem at all. Many of the great guitarists, drummers, bassists, and keyboardists have come from outside the anglophone world to make great leaps forward in their craft. This theoretic state of "lyrical irrelevance" has done a great amount to spread prog into areas of the world where English is poorly understood.

The Sapir–Whorf Theory in psychology states that an individual's mother language influences their way of thinking an perception of the world. For example, the Pirahã language in the Amazon has no word for numbers above one, just a word for one and many. Tests have shown a distinction inability to perceive and function with even counting amongst these people.

This leads to a conclusion that singing in non-native languages on prog records is foolish. Since the lyrical intent of a song will be thought of in the mother tongue first and then translated, those special thoughts that are shaped by the language will be completely lost. This leads to a loss in the true message. Even sillier is to invent a new language (Magma with Kobain), as then no one will get the message and pretension ensues. Additionally, while a good portion of instrumental prog is intentionally vocal-free, to remove non English lyrics would be a silly practice. Language is a beatiful part of a person's existance, and they should use it fully in communicating thier ideas.

This leads to the question of the prog fans: should you learn languages to understand progressive lyrics? I would say no, not solely for prog. I speak one other language besides English: French. I'd say I'm at an intermediate level after 5 years in school and some outside studies of mine. Ange's Emile Jacotey is the only French language Prog album I have heard in full, and my results with it have been mixed. Parts of it I could get at the first listen, parts I'm slowly translating in my head, and others are going way to fast for me. To really get the fullest from Prog in that language would require basic fluency, which takes an immense amount of time and effort. I have many other reasons I take French however, parce-que je veux utilizer la français pour communication et culture. Rather than wanting to listen to prog and then learning a language, one should want to learn a language and then listen to its prog.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra- The Inner Mounting Flame

Time for the Prog Blog to take a dip into Jazz Fusion for the first time. The Mahavishnu Orchestra is perhaps the most famous collective within the field. Formed by John McLaughlin (guitar) in 1971 with the concept of a Jazz group featuring the violin, he made a formidable lineup con siting of Rick Liard (bass), Billy Cobham (Drums), Jan Hammer (keyboards), and Jerry Goodman (violin), some of the best jazz men of their age. They recorded and released The Inner Mounting Flame in '71 to great reception.

The album gets right into business with "Meeting of the Spirits", which introduces the mystic form of guitar Hammer uses from here on out, mystical violins, and McLaughlin's distinct playing of guitar. He plays incredibly fast against a mid-tempo background for mystic effect. Next up is a slow grove jam into guitar fest called "Dawn", not to dissimilar from what Miles Davis was doing at this time in history. Noonward Race is a strange experiment of incredibly fast guitar distortion and violin playing. Then comes "A Lotus on Irish Streams", a beautiful little classical piece. It's slightly new age, strange for something from 1971.

Side B contains the violent "Vital Transformation". This another guitar/violin workout, but the drums join in too for great effect. It does have the air of fear from a transformation. Then we've got "Dance of the Maya", which is another Davis/Coltrane-esque piece of slow feeling built up over 7 minutes. The tracks "You Know You Know" and "Awakening" close of The Inner Mounting Flame in style, repeating the major themes of aggression and passiveness with great contrast.

The power of this album hinges on the musical ability. For non musicians, it might seem like just another album, but they all play with such speed (especially McLaughlan) that it's almost uncanny. Their style wasn't all that unique despite the jazz with violin's concept, but in the end the sheer gusto of the album makes it worth it. However, it's a little repetitive, and there's a tendency to get the songs mixed up with each other. It's truly an album rather than a collection of songs on this one.

A kaleidoscope of sounds and noises to nourish the mind, The Inner Mounting Flame earns a solid Grade of B.

Birth Control- Plastic People

Time for a trip back to Germany. Not all music from that country is Krautrock, and this is an example of German Heavy Prog. Birth Control started out with straight up hard rock in the early 70's, but on this 1975 album and the followup, Back Dooe Posibilities, they went in a prog directinon. Members at this time included Bernd Noske (vocals/drums), Bernd Held (keyboards), Peter Föller (bass/vocals), and Bruno Frenzel (Guitar/vocals).

The album starts of with the bombastic title track. This song has some funk and fusion tendencies, but is generally symphonic. The guitar work here is a not dissimilar to Steve Hackett's with Genesis. "Plastic People" creates a very spacious, sun-soaked feel, carries it along at moderate tempo with high volume. It's very complex for a group just off hard rock. Next up is "Rockin' Rollin' Roller", which sounds like California pop meets Prog Rock, done by a group of Germans. Towards then end it starts to get spacey and much harder. Afterward we have "My Mind", which employs violin heavy for a slow, hard rock assault. The keyboards here make this one hell of a spooky trip after the 4 minute mark.

Plastic People continues on to side B with "Tiny Flashlight", my favorite track on this album. It's central riff will get stuck in your head. It's one of the less progressive, more hard rock and commercial songs, but it's a keeper for it's different repeated sections. "Trial Trip" follows, and it's more or less similar to "My Mind" earlier. Still rather good, but not quite up to par with what came before. Finally, the album closes with "This Song is Just for You", which has combines many themes from earlier, particularly "Rockin' Rollin' Roller", and also comes of as a bit of a relaxed low.

Birth Control did a good job here. It's not a very German album, and they sing fantastic English for non-natives. The album goes have a flaw in that it cools off a little bit towards the end, but overall it keeps bouncing around with some funky bass and creative keyboards. It's a shame they hadn't started doing this earlier.

A nice cast of Hard Prog without sacrificing accessibility or creativity, Plastic People gets a Grade of B-.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer- Tarkus

This is another one of prog's most famous albums. Kieth Emerson (keyboards), formerly of The Nice, Greg Lake (vocals/bass/guitar), formerly of King Crimson, and Carl Palmer (drums), formerly of Atomic Rooster, formed a supergroup in 1970. The general vibe and idea was a sort of "rocking the classics", as in Mozart classics, with some other assorted goodies. Their debut album was released in late '70, and Tarkus, their sophomore effort, followed in '71. This album is most famous for the ridiculous cover art.

As a blog on prog ought to have some opinions, it's time I committed my first controversial act of heresy. I really don't care for ELP much compared to other big name prog bands. Their debut is admitably a very good album, but their others are filled with lots and lots of wankiness and filler in addition to the good stuff. Let's throw in a Honky Tonk number on a Progressive Rock album! Sorry, guys, I'm not going to stand for that. However, this doesn't make Tarkus a worthless album. In fact, there's some good stuff here to find.

Most of said good stuff is in the side long title track. It has seven individual movements, and they aren't all that different in terms of style, rather they use different melodies and patterns. This song is totally dominated by Emerson. The Moog is everywhere here, and while this makes the track slightly dated, it gives it instant cred for a Prog effort. The vocals don't actually describe the story of the Tarkus (more on that later), but are an anti-war tirade. This has a very moderate tempo which speeds up,which gives it the epic quality that seals the deal. You must hear this, because so many times we hear obscure prog bands being refered to as ELP like, and this is the track that defines that major sound of that prog. The middle sections will get stuck in your head easily!

Now comes the problem. "Jeremy Bender" is the first song on the shaky side B. It's a barrel house number. I want my progressive rock! This both kills the flow from "Tarkus" and is an exercise in vanity. Then comes "Bitches Crystal" which is at least somewhat proggy. Yet, it's just got strange nonsensical lyrics, and more of that honky tonk piano that is suited for Joplin, not ELP. The comes "The Only Way (Hymn)", which is in eerie piece of pipe organ and anti religious hymn. It's not so bad, really. After a minute and a half it picks up in mood, and it's actually a little catchy. Then "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" is segued into. This is a filler piano instrumental. It also gives Palmer the first real chance to shine on drums this album. Next is "A Time and a Place" which can best be described as "Tarkus" light. Without the 20 minute epic length, it's just not the same. Finally is the joke "Are you Reddy Eddy", a homage to their recording engineer. This side of the record can best be described as an eccentric mess.

Of Course, there's that cover art. Yes, that actually is a robotic Armadillo-Tank rolling across a Rainbow colored landscape. If that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is. Weirder still is the ambivalent story told in the inner sleeve of the record. Evidently the Tarkus is born out of an egg beside a volcano in some dystopian future. It uses its tank guns to fight and destory both a Pterodactyl and a grasshopper-steel helmet-bazooka thingamajig. Then Tarkus is faced with a Manticore, who scratches it's eye. But never fear! Tarkus survives by becoming... Aquatarkus! He swims away to fight another day. I kid you not:

If you can make sense of this, you are a dedicated individual.

I've seen Carl Palmer play live, and he's the best drummer I've ever seen. However, he really gets sidelined here by Emerson and Lake. As players of their respective instruments, both are highly respectable, but they seem not to take themselves or their music seriously. If you don't treat it as a work of art, it's hardly progressive rock at all. I guess that all might have to do with their relative financial success, though.

Here, a strong Progressive Rock epic is let down by a very poor hodgepodge of eclectic and disappointing oddities. I'd give Tarkus a Grade of C-. Go for their debut or Brain Salad Surgery instead.

Adventures of a Prog Missionary

The Question: Last night, I threw a 40th birthday party for Prog. Yes, I am that much of a nerd. I had five of my closest friends over for four hours of listening. As well as bowling with plastic cups and getting a sugar high, I conducted some valuable research on what a youth that is criminally underexposed to classic prog might think of it. What appeal does Progressive Rock have to Generation Y?

The Hypothesis: In a world with about zero attention span, most of it will dud. Prog requires too much attention to detail.

Materials: One iPod, One iDock, and several helpings of pretzels and M&M's.

The Procedure: I played a playlist consisting of In The Court of The Crimson King in its entirety, because it was it's birthday, and then 25 additional songs, maximum of one per band. Total time: 3 hours, 44 minutes. I tried to go mostly symphonic prog, because it's the standard, but I put in a healthy amount of Krautrock and Canterbury. Additionally, I had Jean Michelle Jarre represent Prog Electronic, Hawkwind for Space Rock, and of course J-Tull for Prog folk. I intentionally left out any RIO/Avant-Prog/Zehul because those are a little bit too much for prog virgins, as well as Jazz Fusion, for time constraints.

The Experiment: The reception to ItCotCK was rather warm. They didn't seem to appreciate the originality of the work, but the definitely were into the overall feel of the record. "The Court of the Crimson King" was best received. Amongst the other bands, I found a surprising amount of praise for Italian Prog. Le Orme's "Sospesi nell 'incredibile" got the best reception all night, and Cherry Five and PFM went over well also. Sympho Prog was very hit or miss. Yes (as well as Chris Squire solo), Camel, Wishbone Ash, and Renaissance went down very well. My friends hated Curved Air and Gentle Giant. ELP was received lukewarmly. I unfortunately had to throw out the results for Genesis because "Watcher of the Skies" was interrupted by a terrible improvisation session. Hawkwind was well liked, and Jethro Tull got thumbs up, so their respective subgeneres have some potential. The Canterbury Scene was received very coldly, and Jarre got booed. Krautrock actually went over somewhat decently! Can an Neu! did well, but Guru Guru fell down hard. Yet, the biggest surprise of the night was that one of my friends had heard of Camel without me telling him about them first. I nearly fainted.

Results: Classic Prog may be long gone, but it doesn't have to be that way. Despite the fast paced world we live in, today's teenagers will still get enjoyment from complex time signatures and 20 minute guitar freakouts. There are still a lot of us who like this music, and I'll be damned if I don't continue to make more converts.

Potential Flaws: This was an above average group in terms of intellect. They were pretty spastic, so the whole attention span part of my hypothesis remains valid, but there might be less of ability to appreciate the inventiveness and artistic qualities of prog in the lower IQ levels.

Conclusion: Most Subgenres of Progresive Rock do have appeal to the modern teenager.

King Crimson- In the Court of the Crimson King

It is a rare occurrence that an album sounds so fresh, so revolutionary, 40 years after it is released. To do so it must posses something revolutionary, something spectacular. In the Court of the Crimson King manges to accomplish this seemingly without effort. When they evolved out of the trio Giles, Giles, and Fripp in 1969, a new chapter in rock music began. Robert Fripp (guitar), Greg Lake (bass/vocals), Michael Giles (Drums), Ian MacDonald (Woodwinds), and Peter Sinfeild (In-band lyricist) created this album at the tail end of psychedelia, and took the progressive tendencies of that genre to make a focused and fully progressive album for the first time.

While no longer all that ambitious by '69, the tracks here all last between 6 and 12 minutes. The album begins with the incredible "21st Century Schizoid Man", King Crimson's signature. This song is immensely heavy for 1969. The vocals are caustically distorted into a raspy electronic wail, and to go along is an instantly memorable riff and a general zaniness. Despite this aggression, "Schizoid" actually manages to be somewhat catchy. Look out for the wild sax from MacDonald and the stop-start section for more creativity gone amok. Next up is "I Talk to the Wind", a much more placid number. The vocals this time are more relaxed and natural, whereas instead of aggressive sax and electric guitar, we have tranquil flute and acoustics. It all works to set a very "open mountain air" tone, and the melody is genius. "Epitaph"then plays. This song, simply put, is one of man's greatest musical achievements ever. The lyrics are absolutely phenomenal:

The wall on which the prophets wrote/Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death/The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart/With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath/As silence drowns the screams.

Sinfeild took his time on this one. The instruments only increase the effectiveness of the piece, by creating and eerie medieval mood. I adore the troubadour-like guitars mixing in with the horror-film soundtrack noises from the rest.

Side two contains "Moonchild", which is another highly ethereal, highly distorted lullaby of a song. It has two and a half minutes of a children's tale, followed by nine and a half minutes of minimalism with "elven" noises. This lull of a song works together with the final track, "The Court of the Crimson King", by easing the listener along to let the opening chord menace even more. To wrap up, we have the true epic. In 9 minutes, it goes through fantasy verses, social commentary, and philosophy, all while the instruments create a thrilling mood similar to "Epitaph." Truly inventive stuff at the time, as no one had put all the parts together without sounding pretentious until then.

Is it really possible not to understate the influence of this album? It hit number 5 on the UK charts, which is an accomplishment in itself. The symphonic tendencies of "Epitaph"and "The Court of the Crimson King" would find an outlet with many prog converts like Yes and Genesis as well as new bands like ELP and Camel. Meanwhile, the hard edge of "Schizoid Man" parallels some Krautrock to come, as well as the RIO movement. The free-from of "Moonchild" would help that sub genre as well as prog electronic and jazz-prog come to the fore, and "I to the Wind" shows it's influence in the prog-folk realm. Not to mention the perfectly fitting cover art, which was one of the first of it's kind.

It would be almost heresy for a prog blog not to give In the Court of the Crimson King a Grade of A+. This one's essential, everyone should hear this before they die.

Jethro Tull- Aqualung

This is definitely one of the big boys in Prog Rock, one of the most recognizable albums in the genre. Jethro Tull had formed in 1967 as a Blues band, and only vocalist/flautist/sometime guitarist/general guiding light Ian Anderson survived from that lineup in the long run. Drummer Clive Bunker from that time is also here, although this is his last J-Tull Album. The group is rounded out buy guitarist Martin Barre, keyboardist John Evan, and new bassist Jeffery Hammond. This is their 4th release, and the blues is long gone in favor of Prog-Folk.

Aqualung commences with the title track, and its famous "dunna dun duh dah duh" opening riff. It moves through several movements, with lots of acoustic guitar. There's also tempo changes, and somewhat nonsensical lyrics about homeless people. The whole first side of the album is about that topic, evidently, but it's not worth trying to make sense of. Next up is the also famous "Cross Eyed Mary", which can only be described as an assault of flute. Then comes the quickly acoustic "Cheap Day Return", a forgettable transition into "Mother Goose". This is also mostly acoustic, and is a pastoral number. It's fairytale feel juxtaposes nicely with the hard edge of the first two tracks. Another quickie acoustic transition called "Wond'ring Aloud" follows, and then the A side closes with "Up to Me". This song combines the two prior moods, using piano and mostly acoustic guitar, but going in more aggressively.

Side B has an anti-religious theme, and it makes it a lot more clear than the message on Aqualung's A side (the back cover asserts that "In the beginning man created god.") "My God" is the first piece up, and it uses tempo and tone to create a creepy feel as it bashes god. This song also gets pretty bombastic, and there's some nice flute trills. Next, "Hymn 43" is another aggressive, but not very loud, piece of music mocking religion. It's quite endearing as it's got a simple melody. Yet another fast and expendable acoustic piece called "Slipstream" follows. Then comes the well known and menacing "Locomotive Breath." This one has another flute attack towards the end, but let's not forget heavy lyrics and guitars and a large amount of musical thrust. "Wind Up" then winds up the album, starting slowly with the acoustics, then speeding up slowly into the heavy side of Jethro Tull, and finally slowing down again for a quiet finish.

The album has varied moods, so as a continual work with two concepts it's not coherent. However, this is one concept album that works fantastically as a set of songs that are separate. Three songs get radio play on classic rock stations, and most of them are easy to get into because they're rather simple for prog rock (this is one of Prog-Folk's best strengths). The flute parts are some of the best you can find, and that's why they're Jethro Tull's signature.

A good combination of anti-religious sentiment, mastery of manipulating tempo, and progressive accessibility, Aqualung earns a strong Grade of A-.

40 Years of Prog- 6 Underrated Items

October 2009 is a milestone month, as it's now been 40 years since In The Court of the Crimson King went to store shelves and changed music. All this month, I'll be reviewing some of the best known Prog albums. To kick of the festivities, I'm going to make a nice list of underrated gems I quite like. I'll get to review them in time, but in a month where I'm intentionally going to be reviewing the most well known of prog albums, they deserve a mention and your time.

Campo Di Marte

An Italian Prog one hit wonder, their only album, which is self titled, is a cool little wonder. They use all sorts of assorted horns (not just the flute) and lots of acoustics. I'd describe them as "pastoral".

Chris Squire- Fish out of Water

Chris Squire has always been my favorite member of Yes. His distinct slap-bass like sound is what makes Yes unique, if you ask me. This solo album, released during the Yes hiatus of 74-77, showcases him in full form. He sounds great as the vocal star, too!

Frank Zappa

Famous, yes, but I think Frank gets a bit overlooked in the scope of Prog. I'm not going to argue that "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee?" is at all progressive, but a lot of his instrumental stuff, particularly Hot Rats and Waka Jawaka, is really awsome Jazzy prog. Let's not forget some of his most serious social commentary, which is defiantly prog in spirit if not execution.

Post Gabriel Genesis until 1981

For all too many Prog fans, anything Genesis did after Peter Gabriel left is considered crap. I can't say I agree at all. On both A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering it's not hard to find some truly wonderful and progressive moments, like "In that Quiet Earth", "Dance on a Volcano", and "Ripples". Even ...and Then There were Three and Duke have some value. Yet, these four albums get continually lambasted by Prog-heads, mostly based on the poor pop-rock quality of the next 4. Give them a chance, they will reward you.

Pink Floyd's Meddle

This one usually gets good reception, but gets lost in the shuffle under Dark Side and The Wall and then the two in-betweens. Meddle does offer one total clunker ("Seamus"), but you can;t argue with the sheer genius of "Echoes" or "One of these Days." A psychadellic masterpeice for sure! Not to mentioned something that sounds like a stoned cookie monster.

The Netherlands

Sitting right in the shadow of Germany, our Dutch friends tend to get a bit underrated. But, they've got some fantastic bands to thier name, like Focus, Finch, Earth & Fire, and Supersister. Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpV5InLw52U

Thijs van Leer is the most awsome person to ever live, barring Theodore Roosevelt.

Tangerine Dream- Rubycon

Today I’ll take a dip into one of my favorite sub genres of prog for the first time: Progressive Electronic. What better way to start than with this 1975 album from Tangerine Dream, the most acclaimed electro-prog band? TD’s only constant member has been founder Edgar Froese, and here he’s accompanied by longer-term members Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann. All three played synthesizer. Based out of Germany, TD released four ambient albums before their seminal 1974 work Phaedra, a landmark of electronic music. Rubycon is the follow-up, and the style here is quite similar.

It’s unfortunately very difficult to write about prog-electronic because it’s extremely minimalistic and sparse. The synthesizer of choice here is the mellotron, the world’s most famous synthesizer. I can’t say which sounds are which having never used one, but I’ll try to compensate.

Rubycon is one single s/t song, divided in two, lasting 35 minutes (divided roughly equally). Part 1 starts out with some earthy, new-age like sounds, sweeping across the ear. It has almost an underwater feel to it, yet somehow is also airy. This continues for quite a while, and it relaxes well. This album is great for falling asleep to. After a little over six minutes, “Rubycon” switches to a much more sinister and artificial sound. It’s something like you’d get in a sci-fi movie during a planetary approach, and very cool. Eventually this enters a crescendo, then a decrescendo, then goes back to the more organic feel the piece started with. Thought all of this, there’s no melody per se, but there’s more structure than an ambient piece of music. Part 2 fades in with a long electronic wah sound, and ghostly effects. After a while, the signature mellotron keyboard comes in and takes it away with an awesome pseudo- melody. There’s some water sound effects, and the track fades out with what I believe to be the tron’s flute effects. A solid, solid piece of music.

It’s amazing how music can be so droning, yet so rewarding. With little in the way of a melody, “Rubycon” can’t be called a song. It is a piece, and a fantastic one. This is an album that draws you in and totally immerses you in its mood and feel. Try listening to Rubycon in the dark for an extra kick!

A wonderful piece of the semi melodic e-music that was strong in the mid to late 70’s, Rubycon rewards the listener each and every time with its great mood. Grade: A.

National Health- National Health

National Health were the last of the Great Canterbury Scene bands, with a brief two album career in 1977-78. Formed earlier in 1975, the band mostly centered around Alan Gowen, formerly of Gilgamesh, and Dave L. Stewart, formerly of many Canterbury bands like Egg and Hatfield and the North. Phil Miner on Guitar, Neil Murray on Bass, and Pip Pyle on the Drums rounded out the lineup. Since it was a super group of sorts, expectations were high for this 1977 debut. It was extensively toured, and featured contributions from Jimmy Hastings (Woodwinds), John Mitchell (Guava/Congos), and Amanda Parsons (vocals).

The first song on National Health, “Tenemos Roads”, fades in with synths before going into a keyboard and bass driven main melody. It’s a rather lighthearted one, but the bass really does sound menacing underneath. This song perfectly shows how the jazz influences in the Canterbury scene can work well in a rock context, and it was done during the rise of punk at that! When the vocal finaly does come in after nearly 6 minutes, it’s high pitched and a bit hard to understand at times, but it suits the light “day out” melody. One of my favorite Prog songs. Next up comes “Brujo”. This one is similar to “Tenemos Roads” with its light jazz influences, heavy bass, keyboard lead, however, rather than getting the listened involved, it meanders along with an adagio tempo, and latter speeds up but doesn’t pick up. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend much here, except for the jazzy guitar workout towards the end.

Side B opens with “Borogroves”, which has several movements. Some are slow and bass-filled, some showcase Miner’s guitar, some are keyboard driven. Interestingly, the digital version I purchased of National Health has this song cut in two; with part two coming before part one. Overall, a nice piece with few movements that are not up to scratch. The album wraps up with “Elephants”. Here they used some weird trickery in stereo to make some strange percussive effects. The guitar moves around well, also. This piece has the darkest mood of all involved. Midway through, we have a reprise of “Tenemos Roads”, leading to similar but slightly different patterns mixing themes from the two.

Where this album is strong comes from the great skill of each individual musician. You can tell they all really have taken time to perfect their craft extensively. As a result, there are many advanced structures spread through the album. However, many of them aren’t entirely interesting, especialy some of the more cliché parts of “Elephants” and the slower parts of “Brujo”.

On the whole, a solid album. “Tenemos Roads” alone is worth the price of admission. In the modern age of fast forwarding, it won’t surprise me if you skip some some parts, but it still has lots to offer. National Health gets a Grade of C+.

The Decline and Fall of Progressive Rock

This article is the sequel to my July Article “Growth of Prog”, on how and why Prog rock took root when it did. Today, I’ll be addressing the decline and near death of the genre during the late 70’s.

For one, by 1977, the world was getting progressively more conservative. This was the beginning of the era of Reagan and Thatcher, an increasingly reactionary time. As emphasis on education and social programs waned, so grew a group of rebellious hooligans that assembled into the punk movement. Punk rock is the polar opposite of prog rock, where it is as simple, unoriginal, aggressive, untrained, and crude as possible. While I understand the theory behind the movement and why many people enjoy that music, it has a tendency to be over aggressive towards everything it deems pompous, stuffy, and archaic. Well orchestrated Progressive rock fell under that category.

To be fair, the punks were becoming more and more correct about the pretensoiusness of prog. The big and most visible progressive bands were starting to produce poorer and poorer albums after 1975, most famously Tormato by Yes and Love Beach by ELP, the latter featuring a porn-like image of the trio on the beach for its cover. Both albums came out in 1978, a year after punk had become a major movement. The fans of The Sex Pistols and The Clash had no time for anything written outside of 4/4 time or with heavy doses of keyboards, and viciously attacked Progressive Rock. Britain, where punk was largest, soon went into an irreversible decline in output and quality of prog, which it never really recovered from.

The massive market in America also was plagued with problems, but not due to punk. The late 70’s marked the beginning of the dumbing down of American popular music that would continue through the 80’s. Catchy pop of disco acts took over everything, and almost every artist tried to make disco to compete. Prog suffered accordingly, as it is too complex to be danced to effectively. Sales declined, and when money dries up, rock n’ roll lifestyles follow. No longer could prog sell out stadiums or sell multiplatinum, except for Pink Floyd.

A rather conservative estimate would have the worldwide release of about 250-300 or so prog albums per year between 1971 and 1976. Suddenly, output declines to 200 by 1978, 160 by 1979, 120 by 1980, to less than 100 by 1982. Many of these albums wallowed in rarity as just Floyd and perhaps Rush maintained levels of popularity prog bands could have seen ten years prior. According to estimates by http://rateyourmusic.com/ , production bottomed out in 1987 with just 45 albums before neo-prog and prog metal movements started to up the count.

The question remains if the spirit of classic prog can make a major comeback. Besides Änglård and similar revivalist groups, little has come forth. The end of the conservatisim that prevents prog from growing, however, seems to have come with the election of Obama to the presidency. Perhaps we might just get a neoclassic prog movement.

Fab Four Forever!

John, Paul, George, Ringo. Four young men from Liverpool who changed music forever. Yesterday, the long awaited remastered catalogue of The Beatles became public domain. I've been waiting about 5 years for these myself, and I must take a time out from 20 minute epics to say a few words on The Beatles, and their relationship to Progressive Rock.

Where The Beatles begin to do something novel starts on Rubber Soul, with the Fish Eye Camera and Eastern Influences. Yet, Revolver is where they became the true Grandfathers of Prog. Just listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows" and we get blasted with all sorts of sonic experimentation and weird effects, and where do we find that again? In Prog, of course. The Beatles were the first to take in all that new studio trickery, and the first to make experimentation sell like mad. We go from teen crooners producing commercial, least common denominator pop to fun and strange new sounds and directions over a period of just 3 years, and in large part because the fab four wanted to. Sgt. Pepper, of course, takes the trend even farther, with the whimsy and all over the place "Mr. Kite", the segues between songs, the colorful and detailed album art, it truly could be a prog album if it weren't for "She's Leaving Home" and "When I'm 64." So many prog bands have namechecked the Beatles, and particularly this album, as a major influence. With Magical Mystery Tour, we've got more of the same new groove trying to raise the bar for rock music and make it even more artistic, beautiful, and challengeing. Sadly, internal struggles cause the White Album and Let It Be to have a large absence of that spirit, and I feel Abbey Road, while amongst the Beatles' strongest, is not nearly as progressive as contemporary works.

The remastering brings out the intricacies that were hard to detect on CD, which gives more reason to examine the contributions The Beatles Made. I hope you all get to hear them soon, for I have not and can't comment.

Hawkwind- In Search of Space

It’s been a while since we did a space rock album, so today I’ll review In Search of Space, the second album by Hawkwind, one of the big names in the subgenre. The group formed in 1969 in London. The only permanent member, Dave Brock (guitar/vocals) is obviously here, along with Nik Turner (sax) Terry Olis (drums), Del Detmar (Keyboards), Dik Mik (yes, that is his name)(keyboards), and Dave Anderson (bass). This album, released in 1971, is their second. The lineup went through constant changes soon after its release, and the song “Silver Machine” got the band some recognition (it appears as a bonus track). For now, however, they had yet to emerge as Space Rock giants.

In Search of Space opens with the 15:42 “You Shouldn’t do that”, one of the most epic psychedelic trips you will ever encounter. After some synthesizer wahs leading into the main body of the song, the guitar chords begin to play and the bass starts a melody. From there, we have a textbook psychedelic jam, with 4/4 timed drums, random, distorted sax, nonsensical lyrics, strange electronic noises, and an overall disoriented feeling. It meanders along, on one hand quite minimalisticly, but on the other, absolutely filled with massive bass feedback and eeriness. Definitely the tour de force of early Hawkwind. Since it last so long, the only other song on side A is “You Know You’re Only Dreaming”. This song fades in and also relies heavily on the bass riff. The vocals are a lot clearer on this track. This song has much less psychedelic overload, but meanders on in a much spacier way. With a little stretch, this song sounds a bit like something Hendrix would do.

Next up is “Master of the Universe”, a song heavily resembling “You Shouldn’t do that”. Even the riffs and melody are highly similar. However, it’s less than half the length and includes some cool distant vocals and stop/starts. “We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago” follows, and boy does this seem out of place on In Search of Space. It’s an acoustic ballad right in the middle of a Space Rock album. Not too often do we find such a sweet little piece of work n a place like this, but it has got the most intelligible lyrics on the album, and honestly is my favorite track here (although not by much). After this weird shift, we return to the psychedelics on “Adjust Me”. Here we have lots of wah-wah guitar, sped up and slowed down vocals, and sparse parts held down with just sound effects and the cowbell. This one defiantly doesn’t live up to the massive psychedelic bonanzas earlier on the album. The album closes out with “Children of the Sun”, another acoustic piece. At 3:22, it is the album’s shortest, and it truly is an afterthought and forgettable.

The weirdness of this album is even more extreme with the original vinyl. It included a 24 page booklet called “The Hawkwind Log”. The first page featured a nude with "TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEA̋D" plastered in massive in massive print on top of it. I wasn’t able to uncover the full text online (I only own this album digitally), but you can find the images of the book here and you can read some exscripts here. After this album, Hawkwind would go on to many more highs and lows, and included amongst its members Lemmy Kilmister, later of Motörhead, and Ginger Baker, formerly of Cream. With the releases of many official bootlegs, they also have discography that is absolutely impossible to follow, perhaps the biggest in prog!

In Search of Space is a weeeeeeird little album. The psychedelic jamming might not be to everyone’s taste, but if it’s your cup of tea it’s done very well here and I’d highly recommend it to you. Grade: B-

Premiata Forneria Marconi- L’isola di niente

We’ve gone from well known to obscure and now back to well known for this Italy month. Premiata Forneria Marconi, commonly referred to as PFM, translates as “Award Winning Marconi Bakery”. The core members spent the second half of the 60’s as session players for many Italian pop stars, and officially formed PFM in Milan during 1970. They were one of the rare Italian bands, prog or otherwise, to gain some fame outside of Italy in the Anglophone world by recording some English spoken albums. L’isola di niente (The Island of Nothing) is the third Italian language album from the group, released in 1974. For this album, the lineup was Franz Di Cioccio (drums/Vocals), Patrick Djivas (bass/Vocals), Franco Mussida (guitars/vocals), Flavio Premoli (keyboards/vocals), and Mauro Pagani (violin/flute/vocals).

L’isola di niente starts with its title track. This itself starts with 2:30 of choral chants, a throwback to the liturgical traditions of Italian music. However, a nice guitar riff then takes us into the hard hitting meat of the song. The vocals here are quite strange, but the guitar playing really leads the way, with both electric and acoustic passages. The keyboard work is very sweet and pastoral to accompany. This song truly fits the “symphonic” in symphonic prog. Afterward, we have “Is my face on straight”, the only English song on the album. Due to this, vocals truly lead, and we do suffer from some of that ESL loss to translation. However, there’s a nice carnival like atmosphere to the track, with some nice keyboard work. Also of note is the strong presence of the flute in the background which helps carry the song along.

On side B of L’isola di niente we have three tracks. First is “La luna nuova”, which starts with quiet percussion and then leads into a violin melody. This song shows PFM at their most rhythmic. The synths used on this song go way be on the line of acceptable tackiness, unfortunately. There’s not too much else to make up for it, but there’s some good bass playing in particular. This one also has the festive feel. Next up is “Dolcissima maria” a 4 minute track. This sounds like it’s probably some sort of ballad. As would be expected, it’s soft, with lots of acoustic guitar. Overall, it’s a very sweet little piece that I wish I could translate. The final song on the album is “Via lumiere”, it starts with quiet bass and later guitar exercises, before, going into a hard edged assault of distorted violin and guitar. It alternates between some quieter passages and then more of the rock. This song is the most experimental and most rewarding of the tracks on L’isola di niente.

When looking at the album as a whole, I see lots of small strengths rather than anything spectacular or mind blowing. Likewise, the flaws are all minor and overlookable. What saves this from the curse of the average is that the playing is very articulate and professional. Also, “Via lumiere” provides a big boost to the rest of the album with it’s interesting loud/ soft contrasts.

I’d highly recommend this one to fans of prog, especially Italian prog. A strong effort with many little goodies to offer, I give it a Grade of B-.

Italy and Prog: An Ideal Environment, Part 2

The Prog scene in Italy was mostly a northern affair, as south of Rome poorer people stuck with older musical tradition. There was more in the way of a festival scene in the country, as opposed to the mostly solo concerts of other prog bands. “The festivals were often free of charge and boasted a level artistic freedom and competition seldom seen in popular music. Fans witnessed bands rise from obscurity to compete on the same stage as the heavy hitters. This musical competition created something of an upward spiral; everyone tried to outdo each other, producing unique sounds and incorporating disparate influences into their music. The variety of the music went through the roof, with every band sharing the same aspirations, though seldom the same sound.” [3] The avant-garde took decent hold in the mid 70’s, for example.

However, as time went on, Italian Prog suffered the same fate as British and American prog. By 1980, the scene dried up almost completely, with good albums fewer and farther between. Despite this, Italy left so many strong albums in its wake that it most certainly owns the title of one of the three most productive nations for classic prog, along with the UK and Germany.

Major bands include:

· Le Orme- I reviewed their Felona e Sorona album earlier this month, and information on their early carrer can be found there. After that album and 1974’s Contappunti, they started to decline in quality, but only after leaving a few classic albums of Italian prog showcasing the greatness of their electronics.
· Premiata Forneria Marconi- Perhaps the most famous of the RPI bands. Relased several albums, some of which even made a mark in the United States when in their English version. Their guitar work is defiantly amongst prog’smost inventive.
· Banco Del Muto Sorccorso- The last of Italy’s “Big Three”, they are also the only of the three whom I don’t own an album. From what I’ve heard on the internet, they have a thicker sound than contemporaries while still staying not far off from the Italian model. Also had some very political lyrics.
· Goblin- Evolved from Cherry Five, who’s album I reviewed last week. Famous for their horror movie soundtracks, particularly for Suspiria, Goblin also released some non- movie material.
· Area- This band is more into the jazz aspect of prog. Relased several higly rated albums in the mid 70’s, some of the stuff I’ve heard from them are quite fast and use interesting timbres.

Sadly, Italian bands all too often only released one album and disappeared, hindering there being many worth mentioning in an article this broad.

[3] http://www.progarchives.com/subgenre.asp?style=28 , “Rock Progressivo Italiano Definition”

Cherry Five- Cherry Five

Talk about an obscurity. This Italian quintet consisted of Tony Tartarini [aka Toni Gionta] (vocals), Claudio Simonetti (keyboards), Massimo Morante (guitar), Fabio Pignatelli (bass), and Carlo Bordini (drums). I’m not going to go into too much history, as it’s very broad, but as a point, Cherry Five lived in London for a while (with an English singer), and their members come from various other bands and places. As far as a style, they are something like Genesis or ELP, but with a bit of a space rock edge. Released in 1974, Cherry Five’s self titled album is their only release, and also is sung in English.

Cherry Five opens with “Country Grave Yard”, a bombastic symphonic rocker. Pignatelli’s bass brings to mind Chris Squire of Yes here. Also of note is the strong keyboards and guitar. While Tartarini defiantly is a good vocalist in the technical sense, it’s obvious his skills with English are not the greatest. This doesn’t really detract too much from the vocals on the album, but it is slightly humorous. The sheer bombast is best part of this song. Afterward, we find “The Picture of Dorian Grey”, about the novel of the same name. This track is really similar to “Country Grave Yard” as far as the production, but it overall feels more lighthearted and more melodic. The guitar riff leading into the lyrics stands up there amongst my all time favorites. If listening closely, there’s some really great drum work on this song true. Next comes “The Swan is a Murderer, Part 1”. At 4:25, it’s the shortest song on Cherry Five. Here we have a keyboard led track to the extreme, it sounds like harpsichord or harpsichord like synthesizer was used. The song builds up with lots of emotion before transitioning to a creepy voice and bell noise section and fading out.

Those “voices” kick the next side of the album of to start “The Swan is a Murderer, Part 2”. The guitar plays a larger role than the keyboard this time, and close listening will also reveal a strong bass presence. But, it’s more or less the same as part one (not a complaint). On a piano, “Oliver” starts a long journey. At 9:33, it’s the album’s longest track. It also moves the slowest at many parts. The tempo allows for more ethereal keyboard and bass parts. The vocals, however, are at the medium fast tempo of most of the album. The last track is “My Little Cloud Land”, which is unfortunately its weakest. The vocals here are boring, for some odd reason, occasionally monotone. The keyboards and bass are redeemable enough, however.

The biggest problem, which isn’t all that big, is the music isn’t very original, they’re merely adding their take on what’s been done before. However, the value of the composing and playing is very strong, and it’s not hard to tell they really cared about their music. After Cherry Five disbanded later in ‘74, Moronte, Pignatetlli, and Simonetti would go onto form Goblin, a band famed for their soundtracks to horror films.

Definitely a lost gem of Progressive Rock. The best of Italian prog with a strange and ghostly twist. Grade: A-

Italy and Prog: An Ideal Environment, Part 1

For Italy month, I looked over my collection for good review material. Out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Italian Prog albums, I only own 4. This shows that I’m quite a newcomer. However, it’s of note that I enjoy all 4 of them quite a bit. Today I’ll go into a two part study of what made Italy such a fertile place for prog, and do something of a research project into some bands I’ve just not gotten around to hearing yet.

As I’m sure we all know, Italy has defined western music perhaps more than any other region. Much of the terminology, instruments, and forms common to the West have an origin in the conservatories and concert halls of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan amongst other cities. Obviously, young Italians have nationalistic pride, which leads to incorporation of this tradition into the prog of Italy. Out of all the prog scenes, Italian Prog (Rock Progressivo) has the most classical influence, and less of the electronic experiments and jazz-like textures. Opera seems a particularly big influence, as Italian prog has a great emphasis on storytelling. Also, an abundance of acoustic guitar can be found in this music. This stems from the Italian folk tradition. Of course, there are some Jazz Fusion and Hard Prog bands from Italy, but in general, Italy’s musical past drives the direction of its progressive work.

“No overview of RPI would be complete without mentioning the use of the Italian language, by many considered one of the most musical languages in the world. It could be safely stated that the use of Italian is inherent to the soul of RPI, a critical component to the full appreciation of the subgenre. In fact, even if some key RPI albums were translated into English in an attempt to gain international recognition, most of them fail to impress.”[1] When the Italians attempt to sing in English, we often run into blocky phrases such as “You would sell your soul to Devil, Dorian Gray”[2]. While this can often be looked over, the nature of the Italian Prog being so heavily linked to Italian History lends the music to best delivery when in Italian. Even when you can’t understand the language, you can still enjoy how it can work with the instruments.

Much like the Anglophone world, the political climate of Italy led to great opportunities for a progressive rock scene to come to fruit. The nation’s great economic boom of the 1960’s led to more affluence, and highly educated people are the ones that make prog. Additionally, liberalism continued to grow over a traditionally conservative country. With lots of organized crime and anarchy, the stress and socio-political climate was right for creative was to protest.

It took approximately two years for Prog Rock to travel from the United Kingdom to Italy, but by 1971, the art had spread. Not even highly reactionary forces like the Catholic Church or Communist party prevented Prog from gaining strong footing in the Italian culture. Very similarly to the United States, high amounts of government inefficacy and lots of crime inspired young, restless teens and twenty somethings to use art as a way to change society. This led to the same transitions as can be seen in the US and England where non-prog bands decided to take that route. Psychedelic and Avant Garde influences started to import themselves first, followed by the progressive ones. Genesis, who had trouble gaining popularity in England at first, were beloved in Italy early on. The “Disco effect” took hold, where nearly every artist released some progressive work.

To be continued later this Month!

[1] http://www.progarchives.com/subgenre.asp?style=28 , “Rock Progressivo Italiano Definition
[2] Cherry Five, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Le Orme- Felona e Sorona

Today we begin Italy month on the blog, celebrating the rich progressive rock scene of that country. What better way to start than with my first Italian Prog album, Felona e Sorona by Le Orme. This band was founded in Venezo all the way back in 1966 as a four piece, but by the time this was released in 1973, only guitarist/vocalist Aldo Tagliapietra remained from that lineup. The band had reduced to a three piece, rounded out by Toni Pagliuca on keyboards and Michi Dei Rossi on the drums. Originally a psychedelic pop band, Le Orme transferred into prog during the early 70’s. Felona e Sorona is the fourth album in their discography. This album is a concept album, telling the tale of two planets. Felona is prosperous and happy, while Sorona is a horrid world filled with famine and plague. However, the fates of the two invert. Since I don’t speak Italian, I can’t say any more about the plot than that.

Felona e Sorona is relatively short for a Prog album, lasting under 35 minutes. 8:46 of that makes up “Sospesi nell 'incredibile”, the opening track. It features ethereal sounding keyboards and synths, and sounds generally spacey and isolated. The bass work here provides a solid backing for creeping synthesizer work. Overall, a good piece of prog. This is followed by “Felona”, a very short piece of bells and acoustic guitar, with an upbeat vocal. Here the band makes it quite obvious that Felona is a great place to be, but those ghostly keyboards tell something is beginning to go wrong. Another short piece “La solitudine di chi protegge il mondo”, follows with nice grand piano fills. “L'equilibrio” then begins and suddenly adds energy and aggression to the momentum of the album. More keyboards here, and this one sounds very similar to “Sospesi nell 'incredibile”, but with grand piano added. On to side two.

To accomapny “Felona”, “Sorona” gets its turn in the spotlight. As would be expected, the music is slow, gloomy, and ghastly. Another song that fits the mood it wants to portray perfectly. Follow up songs “Attese inerte” is more of the same keyboard driven mid tempo work that the band played on side A, while “Ritratto di un mattino” echoes “Sorona” very closely for its first half before switchign to “Felona” like structure. “All'infuori del tempo” continues this upbeatness with the acoustic guitar coming back to a prominent role. The album ends with a song called “Ritorno al nulla” which finally injects some needed originality to this album. Here we have the gloominess of the other numbers, but at a faster pace. Thus song defiantly sounds very alien, and ends with bombastic amounts of synthesizer.

Felona e Sorona has numerous strengths. The acoustic guitar pieces prove very nice on the ears. The real star of the show is the keyboards, as Pagliuca adds multi layered keyboards to the mix in spectacular fashion. Le Orme’s great strength lies here. However, there are weaknesses to the album. For one, the repetitiveness is extremely high, even for a concept album. Additonaly, the album aside from the keyboards is pretty generic and uninventive. On the whole however, we have a solid album showing off the greatness of the Italian keybaord in Progressive rock.

Pound for pound, this one falls short of being an essential. However, the keyboard work here has much to recommend, and the album definatly will turn listeners on to the Prog scene of Italy. Grade: B-

Yes Concert Review

So, two days ago, I went to see Yes play on thier In the Present tour at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA. As thier opening act, they had Asia, since Steve Howe was in both bands. All I have to say is I was TOTALY AMAZED! Most prog fans consider Asia a disgrace of sappy pop by prog greats, but this concert proved that's not true. As for Yes, they were fantastic.

Asia has a 9 song set, and I can't really tell you everything that was on it since I'm not familiar with thier distography. The Asia origonals sounded really good, but the higlights were songs from the member's former carrers. For Geoff Downes, they played "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. John Wetton got "In the Court of the Crimson King", which initially struck me as odd, seeing he wasn't in King Crimson till 4 albums after In The Court. Then I saw why: Ian McDonald came out to guest on flute! For Carl Palmer, they played "Fanfare for the Common Man", with a fan-tastic drum solo. Honestly, in both bands, Carl was the best player all night. Wetton and Downes played really energetically too. Steve Howe looked like he wasn't too in to it, since he probably wanted to get on to the Yes set. Overall, good stuff.

As for Yes itself, I was blown away. Since Jon Anderson is sick with resperatory problems, Benoit David of Montreal Canada got to be vocalist, and since Rick Wakeman more or less comes and goes in and out of Yes as he pleases, his son Oliver did the 'boards. Then, of course, there was Howe, Squire and White. Chris Squire was the show stealer, moving around his part of the stage and really going at that bass with is distinctive pseudo- slap style. Howe was much more into the Yes stuff than Asia, and Alan White definatly preformed well on the drums. His solo can't hold a candle to Palmer's, but then again, not much can. David not only sounded very similar to Anderson, he looks like him, too! His perfomance was strong. Wakeman was sort of invisible compared to the other four, but did his job well. Here's the setlist, with asterisks next to songs done paticuarly well:

Firebird Suite
Siberian Khatru*
I've Seen All Good People
Tempus Fugit*
Astral Traveller*/ Drum Solo
And You and I
Steve Howe Solo
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Machine Messiah
Roundabout
Heart of the Sunrise*
Starship Trooper* (Encore)

The best concert of my life. Be sure to catch them next time they come to town!

Yes- Close to the Edge

Tomorrow, I’m going to my first ever prog concert, Yes. To commemorate, I’m reviewing the album that generally is considered their best, Close to the Edge. At this time in their carrer, Yes consisted of Jon Anderson (lead vocals), Steve Howe (guitar/vocals), Chris Squire (bass/vocals), Bill Bruford (drums), and Rick Wakeman (keyboards). The band had broken through with The Yes Album (1971), and became one of Prog’s superstars with Fragile (1972). With these strong albums under their belt, Yes made Close to the Edge with little reservation.

This album is the first of a few more by Yes that are centered around one massive track, with shorter ones taking up what’s left of the record. In the case of Close to the Edge, this is the title track. “Close to the Edge” contains four distinct parts making up an 18 minute suite: The Solid Time of Change, Total Mass Retain, I Get Up I Get Down, and Seasons of Man. For the first movement, nature sounds lead into the album. After about a minute, Howe takes over with a truly amazing guitar solo. His style here is very Prog at heart, with lots of fast and technical chord changes and time changes. This, after a semi- stop, leads into the vocal harmonies, with Anderson’s distinct high pitch voice caring the piece (due to a vocal cord defect, he sings in a permanent falsetto.) The song goes through its chorus several times, with little changes between each repetition. The Total Mass Retain phase is brief (less than two minutes), and is very similar in style to what came before. I Get Up I Get Down starts, and suddenly everything mellows. Wakeman adds some keyboard sounds to carry over for a while. This section has little music for its beginning, with just vocal parts over the electronic sounds. Wakeman adds a pipe organ solo at the end. Seasons of Man returns to the structure of Solid Time of Change, with the same guitar, bass, and drum parts. The Keyboards, however, are different. After a vocal only reprise of the other parts, “Close to the Edge” fades out.

That song takes up a whole side of vinyl, but the songs on side B are no slouches either. The first of two songs here is “And You and I”, a love song. Once again, it is a suite, lasting 10 minutes. It also has 4 sections: Chord of Life, Eclipse, The Preacher and the Teacher, and Apocalypse. The sections are less distinct here. Howe’s Acoustic guitar leads in, and he puts in a fantastic performance. Anderson solos for much for much of this song, and his frail voice perfectly fits the lyric content. “And You and I” talks about how when in love, a person is incomplete without the other, and how lovers ought to try to spread this message of Love. This is all done in extremely spiritual way. The keyboards help to create an ethereal mood during the second half of this song. Perhaps Prog’s greatest Love song, it ends by stripping down to the basic guitar part and vocal. Lastly, there’s the nine minute “Siberian Khatru”, the first Yes song I ever heard. After an opening riff, the song has a four measure structure, with three 4/4 ones followed by a 3/4. Vocals come in after about a minute. This song is not a multi part suite, but features many solos by Wakeman and Howe. Squire’s distinctive bass style is very evident on this song, with many slap-bass like notes. Bruford also shine on the drums. “Siberian Khatru” has an energetic feel as parts, but at other parts feels as icy as Siberia.

Close to the Edge was heavily influenced by the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring also factored into the feel of the album. Roger Dean, the famed Prog Artist, contributed the gatefold illustration, which featured the signature sci-fi landscapes of his work for Yes (above, image from Wikipedia). After this album, Bruford left to join King Crimson, and Yes released Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973), which was received with mixed attitudes.

Close to the Edge is one of the best known Progressive rock albums, and deservadely so. It has great art, lyrics, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals, and is inventive. What more can we ask from a Prog Album? Not much. Grade: A

Neu!- Neu!

Today I'll take my first dip into one of the largest and most misunderstood subgenres of prog: Krautrock. Neu! were a German duo consisting of Klaus Dinger on drums and Michael Rother on Guitar. In 1971, these two split from famed electronic band Kraftwerk due to their perception of lack of focus. Neu! Began playing underground, and released this self titled debut album in 1972. It sold poorly (30,000 copies), but it is hailed today as a masterpiece by many musicians and fans alike.

This six-track album starts off with “Hallogallo” which is typical of this form of Krautrock in its sheer mellowness. This song is a great example of Dinger’s “Motorik” beat (or “Apache” beat), where he would strip down traditional rock structure to a minimalist, repetitive 4/4 beat. This beat became Neu!’s signature. Rother adds sparse guitar throughout, which creates a mellowed out feel. A cool, spacey little track. After a little over 10 minutes, “Hallogallo” ends and “Sonderangebot” starts. In total contrast to what came before, the song opens with claustrophobic electronic sounds. It continues through all sorts of strange noises, making a very eerie impression. After fading out from ringing noises, we reach “Weissensee” via segway. This song falls somewhere in between the two prior songs, as the feel is both claustrophobic and mellowed. More repetitive drumming from Dinger, but he changes it from time to time so “Weissnensee” can’t be called Motorik. Towards the end, Rother’s guitar takes prominence. The track carries on with minimalism and ends side A.

The B Side begins with “Im Glück”, and water noises. Electric guitar fuzz fades in eventually. The song merely hums along with little things going on in the background. No drumming features, and by far “Im Glück” has the most minimalistic approach on Neu! Water noises take us out of the track for a cycle. Afterwards, “Neagtivland” begins with a jackhammer, dogs barking, and screeches. Neagtiveland is not so much like Neu! Or other mellow Krautrock, it’s more similar to Faust or Early Can, abrasive and difficult on the ears. It flies around with Motorik beat, guitar fuzz, guitar riffs, and a general aggressive feel. “Neagtivland” certantly is the least accessible but most interesting track on the album, including other surprises like sudden stops and tempo changes. The final song is “Lieber Honig”, and unfortunately I consider it Neu!’s weakest. An infant like moan dominates the track, and it is annoying as anything. This is truly a shame, as the guitar in nice and relaxing under it.

Neu! Is not always an engaging album, but is always a strange one. The tracks contrast with each other more than most other albums, but the contrast crates quite a bit of interest. Neu! Pioneered a new minimalist electronic style, which would go on to influence acts as diverse as David Bowie, Radiohead, New Age acts, and their old bandmates in Kraftwerk. Soulless but oddly human, mellow yet slightly aggressive, Neu! proves to somehow be accesable. The album itself is hard to take as a collective since there isn’t great cohesion between many of the tracks. However, when effort is made to seem those few similarities together, we have a work that is fun to listen to. Krautrock is rarely flows so well. Nothing is perfect, yet nothing is horrid.

Neu! Has such strength in its pioneering of drum beats and electronic music that its weaknesses are very easy to overlook, and I’d recommend it for your Prog collection. Grade: B

Welcome to The Machine: Growth of Prog

1969 began Prog, but why then? Why not earlier or later? Tonight I seek to answer that question by looking at the history of Rock n’ Roll as a whole, to examine why rock music logically led to prog. Later, in September (after a special Yes feature to commemorate my first prog concert and Italy month in August), I’ll tackle why prog fell.

Rock music was approximately 15 years old at the time of In the Court of the Crimson King. It evolved out of the blues music from the south, which had in itself evolved from religious chants of African American slaves on plantations. Blues, admirably, does nothing to interest me. I find every song to be the exact same, same chords, same melody, only the words change. Obviously, this was not stimulating enough for some. So in the mid 1950’s, the rock n’ roll era of rock came to be.

Stars like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard played this music much the same as the blues. While the same noises and chords are repeated, melodies now changed from song to song. Again, this music wasn’t very challenging or interesting from a music theory perspective, but it became popular the world over out of sheer novelty. This state was not to last.

A combination of deaths, drafts, and mediocre records led to “The Wilderness Years” of rock, the early 60’s. Billboard’s chart was flooded by teen idols and pin ups. The music itself became more commercial and less sincere to its roots. This paved the way for the British Invasion. The Beatles came on the scene, and it was the first time a guitar band really became bona-fide stars. They altered all parts of their music, but in their earlier days it was within safe limits. Afterward, The Animals, The Who, and similar bands picked up on the trend.

So, as we can see, rock music evolved from less complex forms of music, and then it continued to become more sophisticated with time. This pattern makes it obvious why proto prog and later prog formed. Yet, more than just the music itself created prog. The historical setting of the era also lent a hand into making progressive rock a reality.

As everyone knows, the 60’s were a time of turmoil and stress. Society nearly buckled under pressure from Vietnam, race riots, drugs, student protests, and the largest shift towards the left since the French revolution 170 years prior. What does this mean for music? With the extra freedom in the philosophy, musical artists challenged themselves with creating more art. This allowed for the emergence of new and more innovative styles.
To be continued.