Author: Time Lord

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Oceania (Best of 2012 — Part 1)

On By Time LordIn 20128 Comments

The Smashing Pumpkins

One of the albums in my Top Ten for 2012 is The Smashing Pumpkins’ Oceania.

Volcanic bass guitarist Nicole Fiorentino and Rush fanboy Billy Corgan deliver some especially mind-blowing musical moments. The title track invites us to go swimming in 9:07 minutes of heavy prog wonder, in which we encounter an acoustic guitar island and then ride out more waves with multiple distorted guitar solos.

But every track is a keeper. In the album order, my four fave tracks are “Quasar” (which rocks things off with an appropriately heavy mystic quest, as the chorus sings out the Tetragrammaton—YHWH—until meditative bliss is encountered), “The Celestials” (complete with a heavenly epiphany—see next paragraph below), “My Love is Winter” (an incredibly melodic mind-grabber that builds the tension expertly in a prolonged way and then attains delirious resolution after teasing us delightfully with the extended musical deferral), and “The Chimera” (for its epic monster riffing).

“My Love is Winter” was the divinely lovely song that stayed with me most when away from the headphones; but “The Celestials” is perhaps my upper-echelon selection for epic greatness. It opens with an awesome sing-along acoustic guitar enticement. Then it blasts into rock trio orbit at 1:16 as the bass (oh yeah! dig the bass!), the guitar, and the drums prepare for the jump to light speed. And wham, at 1:52 we launch into hyperspace and the whole world suddenly accelerates and then magically slows down as, now outside time, we cosmically survey it all via the synthesizer’s lens. Powered into crazy warp speed by the ripping guitar beginning at 2:22, then eventually, at the edge of the universe, at the three-minute mark, the horizon of spiritual enlightenment is crossed as the music invites us to contemplate the spiritual master’s most divine insight (sung in harmony with the guitar): “Everything I want is free.”

Wow.

“Everything I want is free.”

Give somebody this album as a gift for Christmas.

May the music help you swim in the ocean of love. Ride on!

Oceania

Ever ancient and ever new

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Take a look at Unboxing: The Beatles Vinyl Boxed Set from Mark Judge on Vimeo.

Nothing like the tactile pleasure of opening a new vinyl LP!

Mark Judge writes over at Acculturated:

One of the reasons that I love rock and roll is that, when it’s at its best, it exemplifies St. Augustine’s observation about God being ever ancient and ever new. When you hear a great pop song for the first time there is a sensation of both familiarity and innovation; you feel like you’ve discovered something wonderful and timeless that has always existed that at the same time is fresh and mysterious. Contemporary pop music is good at the evoking the first feeling, but not the second.

He pins down the mysterious side of the Beatles this way:

Today’s bands usually begin weird and adventurous and grow bland and mainstream over time (a great exception is Radiohead). The Beatles did the exact opposite.

Prog seems to especially strive after the mysterious and adventurous. But prog’s Achilles’ heel is when, at its worst, it lacks the truly rocking sensation of freshness.

Which is why prog always needs to rediscover that fountain of eternal youth, to be found, perhaps, at the rock show…

Here’s to Love

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As “Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2” takes its expected bite of the box office this weekend, let’s get the Progarchy DJ to play some Halestorm for the Twihards.

“Love Bites” is a suitable reminder of the logical consequence of any rejection of the “path of ascent, renunciation, purification, and healing“.

And as this band hits its stride, let’s hope Lzzy learns to branch out into prog metal, perhaps thereby to enter into the realm of the transcendent…

Ne Obliviscamur

From Eric Tamm’s terrific book, Robert Fripp:

“Requiem” begins with a Fripp guitar solo over Frippertronics backing. A gloomy minor mode, fully appropriate for a mass for the dead, prevails. Before long, as Fripp works his initial statement to a climax, the other musicians enter, and soon it is free-form freakout time, the spirit of “Moonchild” and improvising King Crimson III all over again. When the thrashing subsides, the Frippertronics backing has changed to an eerie augmented harmony — the transfiguration of the soul? 

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Great Moments in Prog — Part 3

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Temple blocks! Cowbells! OK, citizens, let’s go exit stage left (see video below), for “The Trees”… where things really get interesting at 1:46; the tension starts to build at 2:24; and — whoa! — now, here we go at 2:52! Alex’s amazingly effective solo starts at 3:08. And then, one of my favorite “great moments in prog” happens from 3:25 to 3:54.

The rest of the song is appropriate election commentary.

Peart fans: check out the drum part analysis starting on p.43 of Neil Peart: Taking Center Stage – A Lifetime of Live Performance Book. And this book has all the info you need in order to build your own replica of the drum kit used in the song!

Great Moments in Prog — Part 2

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Steve Hackett’s latest has me thinking again of great moments in prog. I will always remember the time when, gathered around the record player with some buddies, sitting on the floor in a friend’s bedroom, we first listened to a vinyl copy of Selling England By the Pound. Hackett’s new double-disc celebration of great moments from Genesis reproduces for me a couple of those moments of elation when the magic happens. Take, for example, “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”. For me the truly great moment (in the original recording) is at 3:18 as the guitar gloriously sings out, right after the thrilling build-up starting at 2:57. By the way, I have always found annoying everything after 4:57 in this song, because it seems inorganic and tacked-on. But that still doesn’t take away from the magic moment, where Eddie Van Halen and the rest of us are shown the way into the dimension of transcendence. So, I am pleased to find that the magic is still there on Genesis Revisited II (build-up at 3:13; break-out at 3:34). See also the clip below (build-up at 3:25; break-out at 3:47).

Discipline: The Phenomenology of Prog (Part 1)

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Socrates: “But what you call ‘self-indulgence’, is it not rather a kind of discipline?”

Phaedrus: “What do you mean, Socrates?”

Socrates: “Do people not say of prog songs that they are very long?”

Phaedrus: “Yes.”

Socrates: “Well, is it harder for a musician to play a short song or a long song?”

Phaedrus: “That depends on how difficult the song is, I think.”

Socrates: “Are not prog songs usually more difficult and complex? At least that is what people also say about them.”

Pheasdrus: “Yes, there are the changing time signatures that we mentioned earlier.”

Socrates: “Well then, do not long songs with things like changes in time signatures require a higher level of skill to play?”

Phaedrus: “It certainly seems so.”

Socrates: “Well then, that is what I mean about prog being a kind of discipline. Perhaps no musician could play such songs without having achieved the opposite of self-indulgence; namely, a kind of discipline.”

Phaedrus: “Yes, I imagine it is some form of envy or resentment that leads people to call prog ‘self-indulgent’.”

Socrates: “Perhaps in some cases it could become self-indulgent, but only when the discipline goes awry. Because what seems to be the essence of prog is that it is in fact a kind of discipline.”

Phaedrus: “But exactly what kind of a discipline, Socrates? For it seems that if it were simply a skill like the skill of playing instruments or singing well, then how would the essence of prog be any different from any other type of music where songs are played well?”

Socrates: “By the dog, Phaedrus! I believe you have hit upon the main difficulty in our quest. If prog is a kind of discipline, how then is its essence different from other types of skill or art?”

Phaedrus: “Which returns us to your earlier question…”

Socrates: “Indeed! If we can solve the question of what kind of discipline prog is, then do you think we could answer the question that began our discussion earlier on: namely, ‘Can prog be taught?'”

Phaedrus: “I do, Socrates.”

Great Moments in Prog — Part 1

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What was your great moment, when you first “stepped out” (Latin: progressus) and went forth, advancing into prog?

Can you recall those great moments when you proceeded to access prog’s transcendent “worlds within worlds”… to go wheeling through the galaxies of “genres within genres”?

I’ll never forget the first time I heard “Xanadu”, especially when it all came together with Alex’s outro solo…

Nota bene: That solo kicks in below at 8:20.

A Different Kind of Progressive

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A Different Kind of Progressive
Prog rock preserves Western traditions.
By Bradley J. Birzer

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299126/different-kind-progressive-bradley-j-birzer