Late Bloomers/Second Wind

I find Art Zoyd stunningly stubborn in evolving their sound including injecting new ideas. There are many dinosaur bands to which my reaction about a new release will be "not interested", but I'm as curious and excited about any new Art Zoyd album/project as ever. It may help that they developed a distinctly "contemporary experimental music" identity rather than "rock music". This probably fits grannie-aged musicians more naturally than rock, which has more of a youth feeling to it and may fade more easily. It also gives them lots of musical space to explore.

To some extent both Düülirium and VDGG's Alt go in this direction. Düülirium is interesting in this respect because I agree with both the opinions that this is fresh and enjoyable, but also that they could have tried harder; they didn't put much into the album and it shows. It therefore doesn't feel to me like a second bloom, rather like a one-off fun thing to do.
Alt also has something youthful to it, but wouldn't necessarily suggest that this is a direction they want to explore further. It's different from Düülirium in the sense that VDGG still seem to be continuously creative and active, whereas Düülirium seems casual.

King Only wrote: Richard Pinhas started in the seventies (with Heldon) but in my opinion he has released some of his best work in the last decade. Beautiful ambient guitar noise that scrubs your brain clean.

I have one of his collabs with Merzbow entitled Rhizome and I wholeheartedly agree with you. Great fizzy sodapop like music with a strong whiff of ambient gone violent...or something to that effect. I think it's his best solo thang yet, but it's got nothing on Heldon imo. I still prefer Stand By, Agneta Nilsson, IV and Interface.

The Dark Elf wrote: Big Big Train was around for like a hundred years before they started making good Genesis albums.

Fixed that for ya
I even prefer them to The Watch.

The Dark Elf wrote: Big Big Train was around for like a hundred years before they started making good albums.

Intruder wrote: I thought Peter Gabriel's New Blood albums and tour were fantastic.....breathing life into old classics by reimagining them.

Big Big Train was around for like a hundred years before they started making good albums.

Hi,

Mellotron Storm wrote: I agree Bamsen about being disappointed by far with most older band's new releases, 90% would probably be close. YES is a good example but there's lots. CIRCLE's new one blew me away, a fresh sound from a band who's released something like 30 albums(approx.). I'm about to review KOMARA's debut and will mention that this could have been what KING CRIMSON's latest sounded like. Of course Pat on drums for both bands is the connection. That Bruford quote about "when you want to hear what music is going to sound like in the future, you put on a King Crimson album" sure didn't hold true for their latest but KOMARA showed what could have been.

Edited by Guldbamsen - February 22 2016 at 09:48

Swans best stuff is their latest stuff.     I would argue that Black Sabbath's 13 and IQ's Road of Bones in a way, both qualify.  

I've always preferred new material from older artists. To me the old veterans are more hungry to take things to new places because they've already tread so much ground. I'd suggest Henry Kaiser as older fellow still pouring out fresh stuff; from tortured avant guitar on Lake Monsters (with Sandy Ewen) to histrionic leads alongside classical keyboards on Ultraviolet Licorice (with Bob Bralove) to the Rock and Jazz intermingling on The Celestial Squid (with Ray Russell) to the Prog candy of Invisible Rays (with Morgen Ågren and Trey Gunn) to the dual randomly timed delay trick he uses on Requia and Other Improvisations for Guitar Solo making him sound like more than one person playing. He improvises everything, so it never sounds stale. I'm not sure what hip is nowadays, but I'd say he dabbles in hip with his use of bit crusher type distortion he uses on the track, March of the Wind Potatoes, off Ultraviolet Licorice (a wee bit to my chagrin, since I don't really care for bit crushers, but what the hey).