Which prog artists and philosophers match?

I've found that lost Flower Travellin' Band review I mentioned earlier in the thread! (it's the one by "Abominatrix") Since the band has been re-admitted unto M-A recently, the author has informed me that he's working on an updated version.

EDIT: The review lives again!


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 19 2013 at 13:15

dr wu23 wrote: Progosopher wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: Anderson's belief system is highly syncretistic; I don't know the specifics but it's likely that he's been influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Christianity and a great deal more religions and philosophies.  He would probably fit best into the broad and un-specific category of "new-age spirituality" which in itself is a syncretistic worldview. I hear a connection between him and Krishnamurti's non-denominational spirituality. I think that fits better than any particular tradition. Neil Peart has praised Ayn Rand and 2112 includes some of her ideas. Ian Anderson has raised some philosophical issues on the nature of religion but I can't connect him to any particular philosophy.   Anderson definitely has an eclectic taste in spirituality from what I can gather from his lyrics and Krishnamurti might be a good fit for him ....Krishnamurti is one of my favorite spiritual philosophers. I spent a year studying his ideas with a Hindu doctor that lived in my area. I thought Peart had said he now rejects some of her ideas. But I may have misread that . It seems to me Ian could easily be an atheist from what I can glean from his anti religious lyrics on several of his songs....but who knows?

Just going by some of the more recent lyrics, I do think Neil has moved beyond much of Rand's thought. I myself have found some good insights from a collection of essays of hers, but for the most part I find her views simplistic, materialistic, and petty. I don' think Ian Anderson is an atheist per se but he certainly rejects organized religion.

Good point.

I thought he meant real philosophers.

Dean wrote: Well, Zeit is definitely about time, though as an instrumental album how closely that relates to anyone's philosophy is open to debate. The cover notes to Zeit Paul Russell says "Zeit, which means 'time', was based on the strange if somewhat pretentious philosophy that time was infact motionless and only existed in our own minds". Not being a fan of philosophy (or of people quoting philosophers), I couldn't say whether that was Heidegger's or Kant's philosophy or Leary's or something Russell read somewhere once, but the track titles lend nothing to supporting any hypothesis of the album relating to "Sein und Zeit" and there are no lyrics to convey a philosophy with, so it is all in the act of creating the music, rather than the music itself.   And none of TD's other releases have any connection to philosophy in their titles so it's looking a bit tenuous.   Of course being predominately instrumental music, you can assign any meaning you like, that's often the goal of instrumental music.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: Anderson's belief system is highly syncretistic; I don't know the specifics but it's likely that he's been influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Christianity and a great deal more religions and philosophies.  He would probably fit best into the broad and un-specific category of "new-age spirituality" which in itself is a syncretistic worldview.

I hear a connection between him and Krishnamurti's non-denominational spirituality. I think that fits better than any particular tradition.

Neil Peart has praised Ayn Rand and 2112 includes some of her ideas.

Ian Anderson has raised some philosophical issues on the nature of religion but I can't connect him to any particular philosophy.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: Anderson's belief system is highly syncretistic; I don't know the specifics but it's likely that he's been influenced by both Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Christianity and a great deal more religions and philosophies.  He would probably fit best into the broad and un-specific category of "new-age spirituality" which in itself is a syncretistic worldview.

Edited by octopus-4 - September 23 2013 at 12:52

Duly noted, and corrected my post accordingly.

moshkito wrote: Kitaro and Zen, or a version of Buddhism

Not to mention Flower Travellin' Band, the title and cover art to Satori makes that pretty clear. There used to be a review for that LP on Metal-Archives analyzing it from precisely that angle, before FTB were taken off the site for not being metal enough.

I also think Jon Anderson from Yes at least dabbled in Buddhism at some point, the lyrical concept behind Close to the Edge being heavily informed by it.

Reminds me: I find that in the non-prog side of things, Ministry (who are big HW fans) happen to match up very well with what William Gibson was writing at the time. (hey, Ministry are big HW fans)

Concerning those industrial groups that are on the archives, I need to find out about Throbbing Gristle's philosophical inspirations. Current 93's frontman David Tibet is apparently something of a walking encyclopedia of esoteric occultism, and in his youth he also flirted with obscure right-wing extremist ideologies - but dissecting C93's lyrics from this standpoint would probably take an entire academic career. Hell, even I don't understand what they're on about much of the time.

One thing's for certain, David Tibet is probably a huge fan of Mircea Eliade. That guy's one of the best known intersection points between those two pet topics of Tibet's, though nothing I've read by Eliade shows anywhere as much of a sense of humour as I've come to expect from C93.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - September 23 2013 at 02:02

Hi,

Edited by moshkito - September 22 2013 at 12:03