Now Playing Thread

[Steve Jones]

NP Joe Jackson - Happy Ending
Yes, not prog, I know ...

Cool dude, though.  I'm particularly fond of 'Big World' - a three-sided album back in vinyl days if I remember correctly.

[The Butterfly Man]

Noted.  Thanks for the tip. 

Edit: just ordered a copy following a favourable myspace audition.

Great Steve! Glad I had the honor of introducing them to you!

Let us know what you think of the album once you have it!

Tom

[Steve Jones]

Les Claypool's Frog Brigade - Live Frogs 2.  This is the one where they play Pink Floyd's 'Animals' in it's entirety, and very good it is too! 

[Nicky007]

This caught my eye:

Clive Nolan - Skeletons in the Cupboard

Spock's Beard - 'Skeletons at the Feast' 

Oh and Nicky, have you ordered When Dream And Day Reunite already after reading my comments on it?

I would have ordered it a long time ago, if I'd had a credit card. But without such, it's impossible in Copenhagen.

Thanks for the comments, Tom. They made me even more eager to get the dvd.

Tom, maybe I should send you to have a talk with my bankman, so you can tell him how important it is for a proggie to have a credit card 


Btw, Steve, is

Beardfish - Sleeping in Traffic: Part Two

prog ?



Nicky.

[Steve Jones]

Btw, Steve, is (Beardfish) prog ? 

No!    You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. 

NP Porcupine Tree - In Absentia.

[Nicky007]

Please please correct me if I'm wrong.

In fact, Paco, I'l do that straight away  

Steve Hackett's Wild Orchids from 2006 is a wonderful album, very prog, very melodic, very varied, very everything  

And I know that our Keith Morse is a big Hackett fan.

But else, Paco, thanks for your extensive comments, enlightening as usual  


Here's the Amazon.com review of Wild Orchids:

"Until his back catalog was recently reissued, it was easy to forget what an important musician Steve Hackett was in the late 1970s and very early '80s. That was when the former Genesis guitarist was releasing LPs like Voyage of the Acolyte and Spectral Mornings. Though he's continued to record albums at a steady clip, ranging from forgettable pop to flirtations with classical music, he still faded away in the '80s. Wild Orchids finds him in the terrain of many post-prog rockers, moving all over the stylistic map. He jumps from classical on the orchestral She Moves In Memories to American folk on Bob Dylan's Man In The Long Black Coat. He sings the latter in a deep baritone reminiscent of Leonard Cohen and tears off some blistering distorted blues guitar leads in the process. A Dark Night In Toytown almost sounds like an art song (as in classical, not art-rock) touched by a bit of Broadway. There are many echoes of the '60s, including references to Pink Floyd and especially the Beatles. Waters Of The Wild calls up the spirit of Tomorrow Never Knows with a trancy rhythm and Eastern overtones as Hackett mutates his guitar from a sitar to electric sarangi. An instrumental called Howl ends the album, and its demonic groove and afterburner guitar recalls one of his earliest songs, A Tower Struck Down. It reminds us that Steve Hackett hasn't quite found a voice that resonates the way it did 30 years ago - but Wild Orchids makes me think it should." --John Diliberto


And here is Keith's review on Amazon.com:

"I don't hand out fives [the maximum number of stars, nb] very often but I'll give one to Hackett's latest effort. Wild Orchids sounds like an extension of the work he started in To Watch The Storms. But where Storms sounded like Hackett had a pocketful of ideas that didn't all get fully realized, every selection on, Orchids sounds like one of those ideas with more polish and coherence.
Hackett indulges every one of his musical personalities here: cinematic-sounding themes (Transylvanian Express), gentle ballads (Set Your Compass), blues (Blue Child), lighthearted and silly (Down Street), solo nylon acoustic guitar (The Last Butterfly), Indian/Middle Eastern (Waters of the Wild) and so on.
Hackett's voice at its best is adequate. He uses a lot of processing to tailor his vocal sound to the selection and he does so to great effect. His guitar playing is, as always, top-shelf.
Aside from musical refinement, the presence of Hackett's Underworld Orchestra is the primary difference between this and Storms. Some would call that presence a link between this album and his Metamorpheus, but stylistically, this is a pop-rock album, not anything resembling one of his more 'serious' compositional works.
It's impressive that 30 years after leaving Genesis, Hackett is still producing very listenable albums, long after some of his former colleagues have run out of steam."


Nicky.

[Teunis]

Albion - Remake

[PH]

NP: Demians - The Perfect Symmetry

Anyone have their debut-album 'Building An Empire?

Well, I remember having heard bits on the myspace site. And I can also remember that I was quite impressed indeed. I'll probably buy this, but need money first...

I got it 2 weeks ago and since then not a day has passed without listening to it. Great stuff! If you like Porcupine Tree you're gonna definitely like this as well. Not saying they are ripping of PT though...

Indeed. And Steve Wilson did a special recommendation too.


Whitaker & Wyatt - Blue Sun
From their "Pedal Giant Animals" album.

Very nice. Sometimes a bit Genesis style (W&W era, with Peter-ish vocals sung like a Phil (or vice versa)).

-Paco

[PH]

Spock's Beard - Octane
1. A Flash Before My Eyes - Part 1: The Ballet Of The Impact (III. A Blizzard Of My Memories)

Oops... I mean:
2. A Flash Before My Eyes - Part 2: I Wouldn't Let It Go

That's what you get when you want to be too precise...


-Paco

[Steve Jones]

Previously: Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
Now: Porcupine Tree - Staircase Infinities

[Nicky007]

NP  Genesis:  Wind And Wuthering   

What a relief !  After forcing myself to plow thru Stations, Dance, Touch, and Self-titled, I was beginning to fear that I had problems with Genesis altogether. But W&W is wonderful, phew 

This is prog at its best !

Man, what happened    These guys really sold out like hell    The stuff on their post-Abacab albums (with a few exceptions, where they seem to have remembered that they were once a groundbreaking group) is only slightly better than the standard radio trash. Did Mammon take over these talented musicians' lives ?

Good Lord, I could continue ranting. What a tragedy 

Nicky.

[Draco chimera]

Jimi Hendrix, Purple Harze

[Bupie]

Cool dude, though.  I'm particularly fond of 'Big World' - a three-sided album back in vinyl days if I remember correctly.

you must be right, Steve.

NP Joe Jackson - Right or Wrong

[Nicky007]

Leave the fills to Phil, the rock to Ray. (hehehe joke hehehe)

OK, Paco, the joke was good (RRS, roomie rough style), but else I disagree: I consider Phil a very fine singer with a lot of subtle nuances, and an excellent drummer too, but my guess is that his beloved wife leaving him knocked him out totally, and he wanted to prove himself to her, and he did that by making sweet love songs and smashin radio (not raydio) hits. Thus progworld lost an extraordinary talent. But we must remember that also musicians have their private lives, and an artist will always be influenced by major occurrences in his/her life  

Nicky.

[Steve Jones]

Today I've managed:

Dream Theater - Live Scenes from NY
Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime II
Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime Live
Ozric Tentacles - The Floor's Too Far Away
A.C.T - Silence

[maddox]

Pineapple Thief - Variations on a Dream

[The Butterfly Man]

Pineapple Thief - Variations on a Dream

NP: The Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound

Already heard that one Mad? I think it's fab!

Tom

[The Butterfly Man]

Tom, maybe I should send you to have a talk with my bankman, so you can tell him how important it is for a proggie to have a credit card 

Good idea, but a real good proggie doesn't need a creditcard, since I don't have one...

Here's a tip: A good proggie improvises in those tricky situations, that's much more rewarding!

But if you really want to I can talk to your bankman 'cause you see, I've always wanted to go to Scandinavia someday...

Tom

[maddox]

NP: The Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound

Already heard that one Mad? I think it's fab!

Tom

No i haven't. That's the new one, right?
Hmm i first thought it was going to be a cheap year for me but it's getting more expensive by the month. 

NP> Phideaux - Chupacabras

Man, this is good. 

[The Butterfly Man]

No i haven't. That's the new one, right?

Yes it is. Check http://www.kscopemusic.com/thepineapplethief/tightlyunwound.html for information about the album and, most important, some previews!!

Tom

[Steve Jones]

Demians - Building an Empire

Great Steve! Glad I had the honor of introducing them to you!
Let us know what you think of the album once you have it!

Well I'm only half way through it, but I'm already impressed. 

Porcupine Tree end of the market, without being a Porcupine Tree clone.  The album seems to have that 'savage beauty' that Steven Wilson seems to do so easily while everyone else struggles. 

French, too.  It's not often a French band makes it out into international waters and lands in my collection, I think the last one was probably Telephone...

[maddox]

And now for something completely different:

Orphaned Land - Mabool

Track: Ocean Land (The Revelation)

[Steve Jones]

As I'm easily influenced, I've just dug out Joe Jackson's Big World.  Not played it for a while, and it's even better than I remembered it. 

Just noticed that Amazon UK have some of his albums at a mere 2.98.  I will not buy any more CDs.
I will not buy any more CDs.
I will not buy any more CDs.
I will not buy any more CDs.
I will not buy any more CDs.
Ahhhhh, b*ll*cks! 

[PH]

OK, Paco, the joke was good

I know! Er... ahem, I mean: thank you man!

but else I disagree

How unfortunate...

I consider Phil a very fine singer

Yup.

with a lot of subtle nuances

Yup.

and an excellent drummer too

Yup.

but my guess is that his beloved wife leaving him knocked him out totally, and he wanted to prove himself to her, and he did that by making sweet love songs and smashin radio (not raydio) hits. Thus progworld lost an extraordinary talent. But we must remember that also musicians have their private lives, and an artist will always be influenced by major occurrences in his/her life 

Speculation.

Y'know, it would be a lot more odd when I would say "leave the fills to Ray and the rock to Phil". Although this sentence sounds really cool, the music output wouldn't.
I know that Ray can play guitar, actually quite good. And he can play mouthorgan extraordinarily! But drums? And I agree: Phil's a great singer and I LOVE his voice(!!), but Ray's voice is simply more rawk. Simple as that. The rough and low voice fits perfectly with the metal-ish electric guitars. Did you ever notice how different Phil's voice sounds when you compare "Invisible Touch" and "We Can't Dance"?

Phil became the old American-sounding drumbot programmer. For all things progressive we need Phil for more than the four/four foxtrot. It's good to be filled with the feeling of Phil's fitting fills. But for "Calling All Stations" Ray's rough rocking throat is perfect.



Somehow I feel an appetite for speculaas...


-Paco

[Bupie]

French, too.  It's not often a French band makes it out into international waters and lands in my collection, I think the last one was probably Telephone...

You know Téléphone  I'm impressed ...

NP Téléphone : Téléphomme  A very old song with an extraordinary guitar solo