Hello! Christmas greetings from Canada!
As the above diagram illustrates, some bands hit all the sweet spots.
But however you classify it, great music is just great music, wherever it lands.
Thank you to all my fellow Progarchists for sharing so much great music this year.
Keep calm and prog on!
Or, as BBT would also say, “Merry Christmas!”
I can’t wait to hear what 2018 has waiting for us.
Well, this fits perfectly. Earlier today, our grand master of the sound stream, Craig “Yes, I’m a Folklorist” Breaden, posted about Steve Howe.
Now, as I type this, St. Nicholas and his entourage are screaming across the world, spreading love and joy, and the angels are getting ready to announce the birth of the messiah (not quite in this order, but I’m doing my best to take a trans-temporal position here).
For whatever reason–and, frankly, I’m really not sure why–I’ve listened to Yes’s 90125 every Christmas Eve since Christmas 1983.
Here I am, 34 years later, sitting in my home office, getting last minute Christmas gifts together and, sure enough, listening to 90125.
There’s absolutely nothing about 90125 that should be Christmas-y, but it is and always will be a Christmas album to me.
Drowning in stylistic audacity. . . when we reach, we believe in eternity. . .
Thank you Jon, Chris, Trevor, Tony, Alan, and Trevor. 34 years later, still Holding On.
For every Charley Patton putting songs to record in the South in the early decades of the last century, there were dozens who influenced the course of music without ever seeing a recording studio or microphone. One such country blues guitarist was Arnold Schultz, whose dynamic, syncopated thumb/index picking made an impact on musicians in western Kentucky, particularly Kennedy Jones, Mose Rager, Ike Everly, and Merle Travis. This Muhlenberg County sound, along with Maybelle Carter’s “scratch,” recast country music guitar playing, giving it a slick swing, a jazz potential, and directly shaped the music of Chet Atkins. As country music hit its sophisticated stride in the 1950s and 60s, Atkins was behind much of its transformation, his instrumental prowess, coupled with his skills as a producer, advancing an ethic of musicianship in country music that continues to hold sway. To this day much of the world’s guitar talent resides in Nashville.
And in England…
When Steve Howe joined Yes in 1970, he was able to up their game by bringing to it a music — channeling Travis and Atkins — that went deep to the roots of blues and country. He connected the dots with some hints of irony, for how could such classical posturing of the kind Yes exhibited (successfully) live tooth-by-jowl with such self-styled provincialism? That it works so well is one of the primary reasons Yes was Yes, and why Steve Howe is such a special guitarist. Like John Fahey, Howe was essentially a classical guitarist with a passion for the complex picking styles emerging from the American South decades prior. And ultimately this is what made progressive rock’s first wave what it was and gave it a freedom that could roam stylistically, because it could do justice to the styles that in their own rights were already a musical gumbo. Prog rock was and is about musicianship and musical literacy but, more importantly, it’s about creative synthesis, world music back to the source, and putting together the puzzle pieces in ways that make sense and that rock. And nothing, NOTHING, rocks like the kind of right hand action Merle Travis and Chet Atkins could bring to country swing.
Howe’s impact on Yes is is up front on 1971’s The Yes Album (his first with the group). The band was impressed enough with their new guitarist that they tucked a live instrumental, Howe’s “Clap,” in the middle of the first side of the album, setting up the “Disillusion” sequence in the next track, the prog epic “Starship Trooper.” In retrospect this was a radical move, and pushed Cream’s blues homages (“Spoonful,” “Sitting on Top of the World,” etc.), and Zeppelin’s folk tributes (thinking their reading of “Black Mountainside” and “Gallows Pole”) into new terrain. Put them in the cosmos, a space pastoral, conjuring the kind of world suggesting the LP covers Roger Dean would soon be painting for the group. Set the controls for the heart of the Delta.
soundstreamsunday presents one song or live set by an artist each week, and in theory wants to be an infinite linear mix tape where the songs relate and progress as a whole. For the complete playlist, go here: soundstreamsunday archive and playlist, or check related articles by clicking on”soundstreamsunday” in the tags section.
As promised, in addition to my TOP 10 PROG and TOP 10 METAL lists for 2017, here are my TOP TEN ROCK ALBUMS of 2017. I say “rock” but really this is the list where I include everything that is not so easily divvied up onto either my metal list or my prog list. So I guess it’s really ROCK/POP/OTHER, but that doesn’t sound as good in the title. In any case, I am sticking to the usual constraint of ten, but of course (as usual) I also abandon the metric system to make the list into an expanded imperial dozen:
Hobosexual Monolith is heavy and hilarious retro rock, so good that you will want to own it in its delicious gatefold LP edition. The lyrics will have you laughing at all the references, especially in wild songs like “VHS or Sharon Stone.”
U2 Songs of Experience is an unexpected delight, being the best album they have released in eons. It incorporates all the best elements of each of their past musical periods. I have been with these guys since Boy and October, so my opinion carries credibility. Believe me, it’s so good it takes you back to those happy memories from the early days, when you heard something truly fresh and unique and infectious.
Weezer Pacific Daydream starts off with the archetypal Weezer sound on “Mexican Fender” (a killer single) but then suddenly morphs, around about track five, into an album that mines the sounds of the 1950s and 1960s for the rest of the disc. Unexpectedly, it works. Kudos to Weezer for not playing it safe, and for taking musical risks.
Review of Chuck Dixon, Blooded: A Novel with Teeth (Bruno Books, 2017).
Blooded is a gripping, driving, and, at times, disturbing story of a real estate agent who becomes stupidly amorous with a hookup in a bar.
No sin goes unpunished.
The next morning, he finds that his “score” is really a vampiress, and she’s turned him into a vampire as well. Though we know next to nothing about the protagonist, we quickly and rather sympathetically follow his exploits as he has to figure out how to live this new life.
We learn of him—in a genius aspect of Dixon’s writing—only by the choices he makes from that fateful morning forward. Does he embrace the new lifestyle? Does he keep his old morality (which, from what little the reader knows, was already pretty shady)? Does he remain a human who now has supernatural powers (and limits)? Or, does he become the monster he must become to survive in this new form?
In Part 2 of Yet Another ‘Best Of’ List, I showed you the albums that I’d ranked sixteenth to ninth; now its time to conclude proceedings by counting down my top eight releases from 2017…
8. Damanek – On Track
I confess to being ignorant of Guy Manning’s repertoire, which is very remiss of me if this is any way representative of his output. Put simply, this album is an absolute joy, wonderfully melodic and catchy as hell – read Erik Heter’s excellent review if you want a detailed breakdown of its myriad delights. A sure sign of a great album is the difficulty you have in singling any track out for special praise, but I feel compelled to highlight the cool jazz-funk of Believer – Redeemer and the extended soloing in Oil Over Arabia as particular favourites. Guaranteed to get those toes tapping!
7. White Moth Black Butterfly – Atone
The second album to emerge from Daniel Tompkins’ collaboration with Skyharbor’s Keshav Dhar. (I’ve yet to hear the first.) When I checked my music software stats, I just couldn’t believe how often I’ve played this. To these ears, it is a thing of beauty, flowing effortlessly from one track to the next, with Symmetry and The Sage the tracks that particularly stand out. Critics may lament the lack of bite, but if you just sit back and give it a chance, its gentle charms may seduce you and warm your soul. Who needs chemical stimulation when you have something as genuinely mood-enhancing as this?
Haha, one of the year’s very best ROCK albums… coming soon to my forthcoming TOP 10 ROCK list, which will supplement my TOP 10 PROG and TOP 10 METAL lists…
Hey Progarchists, a plea and an appeal. Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman have launched a Kickstarter pledge program.
Please, please, please support them.
The campaign lasts until February, and they’ve received about 30% of what they need at this point to complete and produce the album.
For those of you who might not know, these are the two who brought us the exceptional and outstanding [headspace] albums. These guys are genius, and they very much deserve our support.
To support this project, please go here.
As the resident metalhead among the Progarchy editors, I offer not only my Top 10 (Prog) Albums of 2017, but also my TOP 10 METAL ALBUMS of 2017 (below). Ever since I first discovered Rush, my favorite genre is prog metal, and you’ll observe the tilt in taste in that direction below. If you like prog, then you will enjoy all the complex and satisfying metal that has made my list below.
Witherfall Nocturnes and Requiems has perfect metal vocals combined with breathtaking musicianship (the blistering guitar work and intricate drumming are astonishing), making this a truly superb album achievement.
Every few albums, Rush would include a pure instrumental showcase, but what if they had ditched Le Studio and took off to Scandinavia to record an entire album of instrumentals? That’s what sleepmakeswaves Made of Breath Only sounds like to my ears, and it puts a smile on my face every time I hear this amazing album.
Odd Logic Effigy gives you everything you want in an advanced prog metal album, woven here into an especially satisfying, coherent musical whole, and it is truly a shame that this band is not better known, because their art is magnificent.
Soen Lykaia is a distinctively original metal album that combines all the sounds you love from intricate metal into a highly unique whole, marked with upper-echelon musicianship.
Lucid Dreaming The Chronicles Part II is an incredible heavy metal concept album with populist vocals that sound like the cast of a Broadway musical, in service of the dramatization of The Chronicles of Prydain. (Dream Theater totally blew it with The Astonishing pile of crap, but Lucid Dreaming shows what a stage musical metal concept album should really be like instead.)
Leprous Malina is a mysterious and infectious slab of metal that I can thank Progarchy editor Carl for turning me on to, and its richly dark textures get better and better with each listen. Thanks, Carl!
By neglected, I don’t mean by the world. I mean, by me.
In a few other posts, I have had the privilege of listing my top albums, in the order I loved them. My 2017 list goes, from no. 10 to no. 1: Anathema, The Optimist; Bjorn Riis, Forever Comes to an End; My Tricksy Spirit; Ayreon, The Source; The Tangent, The Slow Rust of Forgotten Machinery; Cosmograf, Hay-Man Dreams; Glass Hammer, Untold Tales; Newspaperflyhunting, Wastelands; Dave Kerzner, Static; and Big Big Train, everything released in 2017!
There are, however, a number of great releases from the year that I simply did not have time to grasp fully or immerse myself in the way I think necessary to review properly. None of this, however, should suggest–to my mind, at least–even a kind of lesser quality or second-hand citizenship in the world of Prog, or in the republican anarchy that is progarchy.
For what it’s worth, I thought each of the following extraordinary as well, and, I hope, when Kronos allows, time to embrace each in the way it deserves.
***
Lifesigns, Cardington. I think John Young is a treasure of a musician and composer, and I’m honored to travel this world at the same time as he. Intelligence radiates from everything the man does, and, even better, it’s an intelligence utterly in the service of good things. The first Lifesigns was a shock of joy to me. This one as well, though I’ve just not had the time to dive into it.
When I listen to Lifesigns, I actually think of Young and the band as the anti-Radiohead guys. Imagine the darkness of Radiohead and then do exactly the opposite, in terms of melody and lyrics. And, you might arrive at Lifesigns. My favorite track on this new release is nine-plus minute “Different.”
Progarchy 