Tag: prog rock

Vinyl

Dwyer, Sawyer, Coates, Zoby, & Renteria: Gong Splat (2021)

Back from vacation and happy to see some more vinyl coming in from Castle Face Records. This time it’s the latest from John Dwyer and his constantly rotating assortment of musician friends creating more fuzzed out space jams that emphasize rhythms and soundscapes that harken back to krautrock while simultaneously pointing to distant, futuristic horizons. Call it Gong Splat, call it whatever you like, but know that like all of Dwyer’s collaborative projects there’s an undeniable pulse that will take you to points unknown in the universe.

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finch - beyond expression
Vinyl

Finch: Beyond Expression (1976)

Are you supposed to grow out of your prog phase? I’m not sure, and I’m sorry to say that my need for keyboard wankery and ever-shifting tempos, time signatures, and 20-minute long songs continues unabated. Finch was another band I discovered listening to episodes of Sea of Tranquility, but resorted to YouTubes clips to hear then since they’re not available on streaming platforms. A Dutch instrumental prog band that briefly existed from about 1974-1978, their second album Beyond Expression cater to everything that was popular in prog at the time: long, symphonic structured songs, a heavy emphasis on keyboards and changing tonal shifts within the songs. Your mileage may vary, there’s a lot here I found that really works, both as great background music and when you dig in deeper for that classic prog headphone experience.

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genesis - selling england by the pound
Vinyl

Genesis: Selling England By The Pound (1973)

Day 22 of the #mayvinylchallenge has me back on track, and demands albums from the year of my birth. I don’t want to be one of those ancient dudes who constantly harp about how much better it was in the “good ol’ days” but DAMN 1973 was a killer year. Lots of options to choose from, but in the end I decided to talk about a band and album I only got seriously into once I started collecting vinyl. I may have come to Genesis via hits like “That’s All” and “No Reply At All” from the cassettes in the back of my father’s car, but diving deeper I was overjoyed to find so much more weirdness and rocking tunes in their back catalog. Few albums mix the two so well as Peter Gabriel’s penultimate album with the group, the brilliant Selling England By The Pound.

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alice cooper - killer
Vinyl

Alice Cooper: Killer (1971)

(Yeah, we’re out of sequence but I recently picked this up at the record shop and needed a Beatles break, so even though the As are done here’s a welcome diversion) 

I grew up knowing about Alice Cooper rather than listening to Alice Cooper.  You couldn’t get away from that visage, the Welcome to My Nightmare look that’s been a staple of the man/the band for so many decades now.  But behind the paint and the Grand Guignol theatrics has always lay a band that could rock with the best of them and Killer demonstrates how versatile the entity that was/is Alice Cooper could be. Continue reading “Alice Cooper: Killer (1971)”

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adrian belew - side two
CD

Adrian Belew: Side Two (2005)

Released about six months after Side One, Side Two finds Adrian Belew in a darker, more contemplative mood.  Handling all the instruments himself, the album shows just how formidable Belew is on all fronts: as a composer, instrumentalist, and vocalist.  Despite the lack of rockin’ hooks found on Side One find myself much more drawn to the compositions on this release. Continue reading “Adrian Belew: Side Two (2005)”

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adrian belew - side one
CD

Adrian Belew: Side One (2005)

It’s no secret I’m a fan of King Crimson.  What probably is a secret, though, is that I prefer the Adrian Belew era of the band in the 80s and mid 90s-2000s to the earlier (admittedly excellent) incarnations in the 60s and 70s.  I’ve been partial to the man ever since hearing him sing “City of Tiny Lights” on Frank Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti and the live document Baby Snakes.  The first time I heard King Crimson’s Discipline I was hooked, and later tracks like “Three of A Perfect Pair” solidified my infatuation with the man’s unique melodic phrasing and percussive proclivities.  Side One, the first of three (initially) related solo releases from Belew finds those tendencies in great synchronization with his backing band, which in this case happens to be Les Claypool from Primus and Danny Carey from Tool. Continue reading “Adrian Belew: Side One (2005)”

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