Tago Mago for Krautrock

Tago Mago are the guitar-free French neo-krautrock band of keyboardist Joris Prigent (of Nebia and Nombre Z) and self-taught percussionist Léo Leroux (of Initials Bouvier Bernois and formerly the Madcaps). The Rennes duo began playing together in 2018 after meeting at improvisation workshops in which musicians intuitively followed the movements of guided dancers, with Prigent and Leroux additionally bonding over their love of jazz.

The pair's groovy psychedelic flow is inspired not just by krautrock greats Can, Kraftwerk and Neu! but also French and American hip-hop (especially A Tribe Called Quest), hard bop artists Elvin Jones and Art Blakey, and jazz-rock like Frank Zappa, Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt and the Canterbury Scene. Both musicians handle vocals and keyboards, with Leroux known for juggling the latter in tandem with drums at live shows. The band self-released their debut album, Traversée sauvage, on CD, vinyl and Bandcamp in early 2023.

Tago Mago are stylistically similar to K-X-P, Weite, Ashinoa, Ex Canix and Zombie Zombie.



"Traversée Sauvage" (2023)
https://tagomago.bandcamp.com/album/travers-e-sauvage

Saperlipopette! wrote: Sorry for leaving a bit of a dork/negative nothing-comment here... but you really shouldn't start a Krautrock band and name yourself Tago Mago (or Tago Maga, which I first wrote by mistake:). It's just so lazy that it's off-putting. Like "we're In the Court of the Crimson King - and we play classic Prog Rock, yeah!". Try harder, please:( Admin can remove it, if they want.

I thought the same, but then again, there's a neo-prog band called Foxtrot and a few bands called Relayer.

^Really Tago Mago? I would at least gone through some tracklists and landed on something like Graublau or Millionspiel instead. Then you might get the positive bonus of fans recognizing it, and going like "yeah that's taken from "The Can Tapes". Instantly a lot cooler.

I felt bad about making this whole suggestion into sh*tting on their band name, so I actually took the time to listen to their album.

It's good stuff, solid and certainly "PA worthy" material. But band name aside I don't think this brand new French duo share enough common ground with "classic", German Krautrock. I certainly hear the influence, but find their music a little too straightforward and planned out - like many of their contemporaries. Not meant as a critique. Simply an observation. It's never really out there, improvised and loose. At least it doesn't feel that way to me. It's not like I would oppose a Krautrock-inclusion. I mean Trees Speak are there, and I could have said the same thing about them. I'm still a fan of the latter band's music though. Sonically and stylistically I think Tago Mago are a better fit in "regular" Psychedelic/Space Rock. Krautrock is also partly geographical. If Älgarnas Trädgård were a German band, they would have been placed in Krautrock by default.

-and btw, I wrote one "song title suggestion" wrong, it's Millionenspiel:)