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Toaster Mantis View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Evolution of your prog subgenre preferences
    Posted: September 15 2013 at 08:27
Not sure if I've placed this in the right forum, if I haven't then the moderators should feel free to move it to the bands/artists/genres one.

Like I alluded to in the Tales from the Topographic Oceans thread, in between 2011-2013 my hiatus from the forum I've lost some of my interest in the more "classic" types of prog/psych rock identified with not just Yes but also Pink Floyd, the earliest King Crimson records etc. Instead, I've gravitated even further towards Beefheart/Zappa-type avant-prog as well as Krautrock and most importantly the progressive electronic music which evolved out of that subculture.

I'd wager that has something to do with my overall listening habits including more and more music from the last 20-30 years. As a result, many of the classic '60s/'70s prog records sound nowhere as "out there" as they used to - often feeling downright old-fashioned to my ears, though that's sometimes part of the charm. Accordingly, I've moved further towards those artists from the era who thought a bit further outside the box than usual, or were the most "ahead of the curve". (reminds me to catch up in the gaps of King Crimson's discography, Robert Fripp has certainly modernized his project more gracefully than most musicians his generation!) Likewise, I've been listening to more electronic and less guitar-based music over the course of this decade... half because I just wanted to expand my horizons, half because I've developed a stronger interest in the technological side of music production and the electronic genres are where the most interesting things there have been happening.

Weird enough, I haven't lost interest in progressive folk at all... paradoxically because it's contemporary folk music that more than any other genre tries to sound old-fashioned and traditionalistic on average. In my perception, though, that just often results in the best of it feeling even more timeless in a good way. (the newer group Wovenhand being a good example of that)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 09:18
I never was real into symph prog. My tastes were scattered between Yes, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, King Crimson, and Can. The first subgenre I really took root in was prog folk, particularly artists like Comus, Jan Dukes de Grey, Spirogyra (minus lyrics), and the more modern Spires that in the Sunset Rise, and I liked some Avant (although I've never been crazy about Zappa). But since I've joined this site, I've gravitated mostly towards zeuhl and krautrock.

With folk being timeless, Roger Wootten said it was because of acoustic instruments, and acoustic albums not being limited by technology.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 10:13
First bands I was interested in were Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield, Jean Michel Jarre & Pink Floyd in the late 70's I never really broadened out into more Symph/Classic from there. While I was in college in the early 80's I got into Gong, Hawkwind, Caravan and King Crimson. 

Much later (last decade) when i started exploring in earnest King Crimson were really my access into Avant bands like Henry Cow, Univers Zero & Present, I also got more heavily into Canterbury via Hatfield & National Health. From there I spreadout across Zeuhl, Krautrock, Electronic. Fusion, Prog Folk, Prog Metal, Italian. 

I've only recently started to get back into Symph bands like Discipline and Echolyn, I really don't like modern symph that doesn't have a little darkness like the bands mentioned or Neo at all.

My exploration is really spread out across releases and old stuff I've not heard across those genres.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 10:49
I started in my teens with the symphonic stuff (ELP, Genesis, Yes) and the psychedelic (Floyd), then branched out into Canterbury in college.  All the while I had already been into Zappa, so I gravitated towards the RIO stuff by way of Zappa and Henry Cow, whose "Western Culture" really affected me deeply.

Then in the 90s I developed a love for "jam" oriented material by way of my obsession with Phish for several years - this dovetailed with my renewed appreciation for Krautrock and other music that found interesting ways to jam on a single chord for 20 minutes.

Then I abandoned prog type things for several years, focusing more on current music that roughly fell under the "indie rock" banner, but leaned more towards the avant garde and punk, but also post rock.  I rejoined the prog rock fold several years ago upon realizing that prog now encapsulated a lot of the fringe subgenres I'd been enjoying anyway -- math rock, post rock, and some avant type stuff I didn't even know existed -- and wasn't just limited to symphonic, psych, Kraut, and Canterbury.  I've been on the hunt for "borderline" bands ever since, and have found many here.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 11:05
^My journey looks very much like yours Steve. Exchange Western Culture for Måltid by Samla Mammas Manna and other mad Swedish titles such as Ålgarnas Trädgård's debut Framtiden är ett svävande skepp, forankrat i forntiden and Myrbein's Myrornas Krig - and it pretty much fitsCool Yeah, maybe throw in a big bucket of electronic music too - a style of music I love like the sea. A large part of my collection is electronic, be that Berliner Schule, IDM, avantguarde(Phillipe Besombes, Igor Wakhevitch, Heldon ie ze French from the 70s), future garage, ambient, psytrance, Goa and the list goes on and on....


BTW Hey Toaster Mantis - I see you're digging the Krautrock brand too. You should definitely go hunt that Ålgarnas Trädgård album down. Swedish Krautrock as far as I'm concerned. Lots of folk in there as well, which you also seem to like.


 


Edited by Guldbamsen - September 15 2013 at 11:07
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 11:22
My preferences have stayed pretty much the same; symphonic, neo, crossover and eclectic. I still can't really get into most RIO/Zeuhl, post rock/math rock or most progressive metal.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 12:02
I've spent a life searchig for anything able to give me the same sensations of The Piper at The Gates of Dawn, Ummagumma, Meddle and Atom Heart Mother
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2013 at 14:42
My tastes haven't changed much since I was a small kid. I listened to the prog records of my older brothers and was already fascinated by it. Some fourty years later, bands like Genesis, Yes and ELP are still my favourite bands. 

The only thing that has changed is that I learned to appreciate jazzrock. Till my mid-twenties I basically didn't like anything jazz, even hated it. Thanks to Bill Bruford I learned to appreciate it, first through his fusionband from the late seventies / early eighties, and via his records I discovered Allan Holdsworth, and through Earthworks I even learned to appreciate some jazz with almost no rock in it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 00:40
I'd say the biggest prog subgenre to evolve/emerge in my listening isn't "technically" it's own subgenre.  It's French prog, or as I like to call it, "Rock Progressif Francaise" LOL

Starting in the mid 90's I was kinda bored with prog.  I'd been into it for 20 years and I'd explored all the back catalog 70's/80's prog I could find, and while I really liked some of the new 90's prog bands (Anekdoten, Anglagard, Spock's Beard, Echolyn) something was still missing.  I'd heard of this band called Pulsar referred to as "The French Floyd" and their album "Halloween" featured English vocals.  I took a chance on it and loved it.  As expected I wanted more, but all their other albums featured vocals in French.  I remember reasoning that I could barely understand what they were singing in English, so was it really that big of a leap to go for their French lyric albums?  I bought "Strands of the Future" and "Pollen" and went nuts over them.  From there it was a logical progression to Ange (The French Genesis) & Atoll (The French Yes).  I added others like Mona Lisa, Shylock, Versailles, Arachnoid & Quadra.  

I was bumping along happily with my new subgenre and then I found my way to PA about 6 months ago.  I started a thread asking what others fave French bands were and discovered I'd barely scratched the surface!  Using info from that thread - and PA's fantastic search function - I added a whole new collection of bands to my "French connection"...Memoriance, Artcane, Carpe Diem, Synopsis, Rapaille, and of course Magma Thumbs Up
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 02:04
To make a specific chronology: In my early teens, that be around 2002-2003 I started out with Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Hawkwind's more symphonic mid-'70s recordings. Took me pretty long to "get" some of KC's stuff, though. Around 15-16 I jumped ship to newer metal (as in late-'70s and onwards), which I'd been dabbling with for a while. When I got bored with that I jumped back to prog around 2008 or 2009.

That's when I getted more specific with prog subgenres, going into psychedelic/space rock (not just the progressive side of it) as well as Krautrock and post-rock. Finally got into Zappa and Beefheart too, whom I tried to understand during the mid-2000s but both just didn't click back then. Not sure exactly how I explored progressive electronic, though. I've been a casual listener of at least Brian Eno's ambient albums, Kraftwerk as well as Moroder and Vangelis' film soundtracks for a while, but things like Schulze and TD didn't come around until 2010 or so after I had started listening to newer electronic music. (Biosphere, FSoL, Lustmord, Orbital etc) I also returned to metal around that time too. Much of the really overtly 1970s prog/psych I tired of around 2011 I think.

Will look out for that Ålgarnas Trädgård by the way.

Edited by Toaster Mantis - September 16 2013 at 03:05
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 02:52
I started at age 13 with Pink Floyd and Yes. Started? Not really. From the age of 10 I liked Ekseption and a single edit version of Supersister's A Girl Named You was one of my favourite listens at 11. Not much later ELP, Mike Oldfield and Genesis joined in. I developed a tunnel vision for symphonic prog.
In my twenties I discovered folk, which was an addition. It took me longer to appreciate bands like Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant and King Crimson and genres like Canterbury Scene and Zeuhl.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 04:08
I've been fluctuating a lot recently. This time last year, I wasn't very big on any metal subgenre, but now a lot of my favorite bands fall into those categories. I'm becoming a lot more discerning about my taste in symph bands, as the good ones are standing out more and the ones I don't like as much are receiving less patience than ever. I'm losing my taste for Tool and Pink Floyd. I'm not into folk so much either, and I've yet to be enticed by Canterbury. The only consistent element throughout all these changes is that I still consider eclectic to be my favorite. Bands in that category who didn't entice me before, such as Gentle Giant, now seem so much more appealing. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 08:11
Hi,
 
I was never into a "style", or "idea" ... about music. I always thought that was stupid, mainly from an experience in a writing class ... that kinda told me about things from the stage, instead of us here as a "fan", or audience member ... this is a very important concept!
 
I listened to many things, and some folks thinking they had to listen to this or that, and ignored Beverly Sills or Luciano Pavarotti doing a couple of things, is bad ... they had some magnificent roles as well that fit their abilities.
 
My bigger issue with listening to only one thing, is that after a while you are tired of it, and you have lost the ability to listen to it objectively ... and then you rely on the lyrics to "tell you" what this is about ... and all you are showing us is some inner emptiness and a lack of desire to learn for yourself about this.
 
As I like to say ... I listen to MUSIC ... and the rest is not important ... only that "moment in time" is valuable and the rest is idealistic at best and has absolutely nothing to do with the music itself, except in your ideas or mine or someone else's. I try not to do that ... the only "review" I always give you is how I felt, and what I saw ... the rest is immaterial!


Edited by moshkito - September 16 2013 at 08:18
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 08:21
I think you're over thinking this a bit, we're not saying we're only listening to one thing (well I'm not). Describing things by genre is just a helpful technique to describe things that have similar traits. Otherwise we'd have to just list all the traits rather than use one word that people understand to cover the style similarities. 

So I find myself listening to a lot of music that features regular use of dissonance and atonality, extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements, free or experimental improvisation, fusion of disparate musical genres and polyrhythms and highly complex time signatures. Isn't it more easily understood to say Avant?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 09:35
I guess I'm like most that have to have things categorized relating to similar traits no matter how I think I do not. I listen to Prog 95% of the time; after working I just want to be taken away (no drugs, or alcohol to help that). Some genres provide that function more than others. I have had great difficulty enjoying post/math, zeuhl, or electronic music, though I have tried to force myself to like it. 

I still gravitate towards Italian bands (my mother land), lots of symph (I love classic Ange), eclectic, neo, folk (Jethro Tull always makes me feel fantastic), and Canterbury (Caravan the most). After playing in a Prog metal bands for decades, the metal stuff doesn't do it for me as much anymore (Orphaned Land's All is One is probably my favorite now from that category). I guess it depends on the particular mood for any given day--it is never boring, for sure. The other 5%? Some classic rock and Alt-country (Ryan Adams, Son Volt) for a bit of change.

Yesterday, I had my six-year old daughter with me on a trip to the grocery store (she loves Banco and Steven Wilson's new one), and I had on Pink Floyd's, "Dark Side of the Moon." We arrive and I take her out of her car seat, and she asks, "are we going to listen to that on the way back home?" I responded, "why, did you not like it?"  Her reply: "that was amazing!" I am starting her off right. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 10:43
Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad Nogbad_The_Bad wrote:

... I think you're over thinking this a bit, we're not saying we're only listening to one thing (well I'm not). Describing things by genre is just a helpful technique to describe things that have similar traits. Otherwise we'd have to just list all the traits rather than use one word that people understand to cover the style similarities.  ...
 
I learn more if you tell me what ticks for you when listening ... since just catching one "style" tends to limit your expression to your "mental" side of things ... and I trust the inner view better because of the way I am.
 
I'm a fairly logical and detailed person ... and very good at working with "invisibles", as was the case directing for the stage, and you can see it in my preferences ... I don't direct via any style, and can do all kinds of different theater because of it ... and even create exercises that fit Ionesco that don't fit Shakespeare, or Marlowe!
 
For me, yes, the designations are fine, but a question like that, kinda defeats the purpose of the genre, which was to help you be able to identify a few things, but not to say ... that artist is now locked up in his closet  and can no longer do anything else in his/her life ... and both you and I are going to fight our way out of that one so fast, it wouldn't be funny!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 16 2013 at 10:57
The main difference here Mosh, is that most of the people using these terms here on PA, don't exactly buy into the stickers. I don't believe that. They're merely reference points, so as our peers can better understand where we're coming from, understand what we listen to - and what we dig at any given point in time, and communicating the inherent traits of whatever "style" on the agenda. I understand your sentiments on this, and am very much like that myself. I just don't think most people, be that from the current generation - or the prog rock generation, deals in invisibles, as you call it. It's much easier to use the existing language to convey your opinion instead of having to create a new one, every time you instigate a new conversation.
The real problem is when musicians only think in boxes, when they're making the music. As for us mere mortals, the casual fans, I think it's pretty cool to have words for different branchings of our beloved art form, just like we have distinctions in classical music, varieties of fruit and different clothing fabrics. What you then decide to do with these distinctions, is of course entirely up to yourself. I just don't believe everybody buy into the stickers, and consequentially can't think outside of the box and enjoy the music for the music and nothing else.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 17 2013 at 03:55
Yeah, I'm also only for the purpose of this discussion using the subgenres listed on the side as shorthand for the general stylistic directions they cover, or the social subcultures they came out of which I like exploring from a scholarly perspective. I think it's clear that most of them are meant as guideposts more than anything else, and doubt that very many musicians think in boxes like "eclectic prog" being distinct from "crossover prog" when composing and recording their music. There's some bands I like I've been seriously surprised to find on the archives, and not just under the crossover/eclectic/proto-prog categories. (Current 93, for one)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 17 2013 at 06:03

Get tired og things and want new music, but i wouldent say I dont enjoy the old masters anymore.

Regarding my direction, the last 4-5 years, been spending more time than i did before with :
 
Heavier Rock, especialy Opeth, TMV, Green Carnation, Tool. many others inside and outside Prog.
This may be the major change, didnt listen to much hardrock before 2000.
 
Jazz traditionals like Evens, Monk, Webster. (on the other hand, not much with resent Fussion)
 
Classic artists from modern to contemporary. (Debussy, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Ravel ect ect.)
 
Avantgarde/Experimental, in the most wide sence of the term.
(from Unexpect over Bondage Fruit to Acid Mothers Temple)
 
And spend more time with new-age/ambient too. (im beginning to belive in a Japaneese GOD called  "Kitarō")
 
 


Edited by tamijo - September 17 2013 at 06:06
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 17 2013 at 08:05
Rush to classic prog in general to instrumental prog to whatever Beardfish counts as (neoprog?) to tech metal.
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