Electronic Music?

What I wanna know is, are any other prog fans in the same boat as me?  I'm finding the world of progressive music to be less and less exciting partly because of the lack of activity/releases from my favorite artists, while guys like Flying Lotus are turning out LPs every year, and even releasing EPs between them!  I mean seriously Opeth was my long time favorite, but without hearing ANYTHING new for the past 2 years (going on three), I've gotta switch camps.  

But seriously, any other electronic music fans here?  Tell me some artists you enjoy if you are amongst the many! 

At least now maybe I can enjoy a Dream Theater album since Portnoy's gone...lol!

And being the proghead I am I've been listening to Ozric Tentacles and the like for a while, but the two are completely different.

Oh and I was youtubing some Kraftwerk the other day, boy were those guys weird!

video is pretty amusing too!

 

Kind'a glad to read this.

 

My tastes have always been about "music" and they never got into "styles" since they tend to be repetitive and after a while, really boring. I like to make fun of one label, where all the bands are Zappa wannabe bands, and the only difference is that in one band, it's the guitar, in the next the saxophone, and the next a keyboard ... and the music is almost all the same ... what I like to call "the loungelizardfridaynightjazzbandmusic" at the local bar.

 

I have been a "follower" of the best that electronica has had to offer in the past 40 years, and I go all the way back to Beaver & Krause and Bob Moog and Terry Riley ... and have stuck with Klaus Schulze, Bryan Eno and Tangerine Dream all this time, and have even enjoyed the likes of Orb and Timeshard, and that offshoot from the Ozrics, and a few others.

 

I, just recently, went through a large collection of KEYBOARD magazines, and I enjoyed reading Bryan Eno's  couple of interviews. But one bit caught my eyes. Bob Moog had an article about ... "where's the knobs?" ... and that one had me. He mentions that the desire to search and play with the sound was falling off ... that everyone was going for samples and were not exploring the sounds anymore ... and this is so very true, and one of the reasons why so much music in myu ear, these days, sounds "pre-fabricated" and not very original ... it has become like the bar stuff mentioned above ... nothing new ... and it all sounds the same on top of it, except that we're going to find another sub-genre for something else tomorrow or next year.

 

In the end, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream and Bryan Eno, are still experimenting and twisting the knobs (if you will -- although you now can set this up with the parameters instead of flicking a knob), and creating new things ... that most are not capable of enjoying ... it has become an acquired taste and one that not everyone can handle. I thought that KS and Lisa Garrard was great ... on another board, someone trashed me for it's stupidity and the idea that groans and moans makes lyrics, or music, for that matter!

 

I did not enjoy Aphex Twin, for some reason ... I had this thought that the music was too regimented and afraid to step away from the beat and just fly ... Klaus tends to also depend on beats, but he also has a lot of stuff that does not have a beat. Tangerine Dream changes enough with their personel that it is hard to say ... they are still doing the same thing. Catch their Phaedra 25th Annicversary Concert and you can see how the analog then is now played today ... and still sounds lovely as ever.

 

The biggest issue, is that publicity and appreciation for many of these acts is minimal ... even Keyboard magazine would rather feature some bruhaha about some keyboard player in a secondary band, than even mention something about people that really deserve it. The same for all the other magazines in that grouping, including Guitar and Bass Player. It's become a sell, selll, sellll, selllll, sellllll ... for the folks they support and are involved with ... a veritable media control and show situation.

 

We will never see Vangelis, or Klaus Schulze in America ... and no one cares ... you know how sad this is?