Progressive Electronic music?

 

It's tough, but you might also add Ryuichi Sakamoto to your list. He's worth it, and his list of soundtracks is very good, and he also has an Oscar for one of them with David Byrne.

 

Generally this one is tough. I just did a listing of some stuff in a friends show 30 years ago, and the list there was crazy and insane, and had, for example, Heldon, Bezombes et Rizet, Hydravion, Phillipe Grancherre (spelling!), Richard Schneider, Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Couriers, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Michael Hoenig, Peter Michael Hamel, Eberhard Schoenner, Tomita, Richard Pinhas, Conrad Schnitzler, Achim Reichel, Franco Battiatto, Beaver and Krause, Francis Monkman, Akira Ito, Mr. Takahashi, Kitaro, Chronicle, Far East Family Band, Ralph Lundstead, Robert Schroeder, Patrick Vien, Michael Bundt, JM Jarre, Steve Roach, George Harrison, Cluster, Harmonia, Fripp and Eno (only one person EVER played No Pussyfooting!), Dzyan, Space Art, 7th Wave, FM, and many many many others. And there was not a whole lot of repetition -- like there is on Live 365 or some of those silly streams of one song by the same band! -- like there is today, and the works, as mentioned by myself and others was always about the bottom 1,000,0000 instead of top ten ... but saying that here, most of you don't like it, because it makes you all feel bad! It's not meant to, but it tells you there is a world out there and it has music ... and how much do you want to hear and learn about?

 

You got to answer that first!

 

Saying that any of these is better, or worse, than anyone else, is difficult, as there are some gems amidst all of these, but having the ear to listen to any of them, or all of them, takes a different kind of person, and you can not be one that is aligned with the enemy and the top ten world of music! Most of these are way out there and different and not at all aligned with pop music, and belong in areas that are totally experimental and nuts and crazy ... and this is the part of the electronic music that is really far out and out there ... but we can not handle it well!

 

Remember that 30 years ago, electronic music was an experiment and still growing ... today, it's a joke and stupid, and just another instrument in the orchestra on a rock/pop song! You hardly find many composers of electronic music nowadays, as it is as if it doesn't exist anymore or is redundant like the folks using it, that can not create sounds and are not able to define something new and different.

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

Klaus Schulze - Picture Music

Richard Pinhaus - Chronolyse

Tomita - Pictures at an Exhibition

When I think "progressive electronic," the first bands/artists that always come to mind straight away are Tangerine Dream, Synergy and the sort. Progressive music with electronic instruments as the chief composing/performing tools.  

 

 

lucas wrote: Also worth checking out : Software, Robert Schroeder, Bernd Kistenmacher, The Glimmer Room.

 

Robert Schroeder released many great albums through the '80s. I lost touch with his output after Pegasus, but stuff like TimeWaves, Computer Voice and Brain Voyager are Berlin School classics, IMO.

 

Tangerine Dream's composed pieces that would definitely rate as ambient, but they're not an ambient group by any means. They've been Krautrock, Berlin School, symph prog, and there was that subpar stuff they issued in the '90s.

One of the benefits I find about Progressive Electronic music is that it does not give "too much" sonic information (as rock music sometimes does, especially on forced listens). Most of the time it's minimal enough without having my head feeling some kind of a burden.