I Recommend...

Whoa! Outstanding stuff. I had no idea about the members, just liked the music. Thanks for the insight, its appreciated.

To be prduced by Steven Wilson, huh? That should work, he's done alright with PT and Opeth's stuff, I would have to say.

Got an odd one for the PA community today. This is a little known but deserving piece of work. It is progressive and original in the true sense of the words. Very avante-garde and experimental. This will not be for everyone one, however. It is dark and complex, at times almost tribal, at times a vortex of sound, often electronic, at other times sultry. Most of this stuff is out there a ways. It is very layered with some really odd time signatures.

It features an exceptional Warr guitar player. (If you are not familiar with this instrument, watch for a thread coming soon, to a forum near you!) He plays a 14 string model. Since you only touch the string to the neck on these instruments, both hands are free to play totally different things. (There is no picking.) This basically allows him to be playing an 8 string guitar and a 6 string base at the same time. He does it very well.

There are several people out there that play these types of guitars, of course. Trey Gunn plays only Warr guitars and Tony Levin has been using a stick off and on forever. But I digress. Back to what I started mumbling about 2 paragraphs ago.

The name of the band is 99 Names of god. Their website is: www.99namesofgod.com as you would expect. You can see some cheesy videos of them playing on their site. Even thought the sound and visual quality of the videos are bad, you can get an idea of what they are like there. The also have a myspace page which plays some of their music, as well. That is at www.myspace.com/99namesofgod as you would also expect.

If you are the type who really enjoys some of King Crimson's improv stuff, for example, you really ought to check this band out. It is a Warr guitar player, who also does all of the electronics and loop work, a female vocalist / keys player and a drummer on Roland V drums. They create an amazing amount of sound for a trio. It has an improv feeling to it, but it is all very carefully stuctured. They also sound exactly the same live.

The only place that I am aware of to buy their CD is at Amazon.com. Just go there and do a search for 99 names of god. The name of the CD is Interwoven. As far as I know, it is the only one they have out. It is from 2003. Rare piece of work.

Again, this is pretty unusual material. Those who dislike it are likey to stongly dislike it. For those who can get into it, it just keeps getting better with each listen for a long time.

Sorry, didn't mean to write a novel!

 

Now for something quite different from the above mentioned bands.

The band is AHVAK from Israel who have released so far their self titled album Ahvak in 2004.

Chaotic, emotional, crazy, melancholic - this is some of the array of feelings this band manages to convey in this album. As the reviews here say, tracks 3 and 7 are kind of fillers and unessential, but the others more than make up for it. Vivisection is like music to accompany you to a madman's brain. RIO/Avant-Garde at its best. The music tends to be brutal and eccentric. They know very well what they are doing and play very good, creating hunting "melodies". It is a very good debut album, IMO. As another reviewer stated, the production is very clean and he finds it emotionless. There is merit to this claim, but maybe this is what they were after.

A word of warning - It might be difficult to gt into this initially. It is not meant to be a friendly album. Rather a complex and full of emotions journey that the band members take you through.

Track listing
1. Vivisektia (8:30)
2. Bherta (8:25)
3. Regaim (2:41)
4. Ahvak (16:21)
5. Melet (2:53)
6. Hamef Ahakim (13:32)
7. Pirzool (0:58)

Total Time: 53:20

Line-up
- Yehuda Kollon / guitars
- Ishay Sommer bass
- Udi Susser / keyboards, woodwinds, vocals, baglama, darbooka
- Roy Yarkoni / keyboards, piano
- Dave Kerman / drums, percussion
- Udi Koomran / computer

Recognize any name? hint - he plays drums and percussions and was in PRESENT, THINKING PLAGUE, 5UU'S and U TOTEM.

 

Enjoy

^^^

Thanks for sharing.

Can you elaborate a little please? Who are they, what style of music do they play? what albums did they release, are they currentl;y active , links to their sites, etc.

 

The Saturday routine - a day dedicated to a certain subject.

Two weeks ago it was Italian symphonic day, last week a VDGG day.

And today....

South American day.

Not much credit is given in this site to the music from this part of the world. I hate to refer to it as South American because there is much diversity there and to treat it as one sort of music is humiliating, offensive and disrespectful. But I think in order to get attention to that I think I can allow myself to categorize it as one. I apologize to all those offended.

I would appreciate it if Cesar Inca, Atkingani, ivan_2068 and also Chamberry and Anael. I know Mexico and Puerto Rico is not South America, but you have proven your knowledge here, and I am sure you have many things to contribute. would join us here and give us their recomm's, since I myself am not well versed in this field of prog.

Recommended stuff by country:

Argentina:

AGNUS (already recommende that one if you remember)

AMAGRAMA (that one as well)

BUBU (excellent release they have. A must)

ESPIRITU

MIA

SUPERNOVA

CRUCIS (excellent)

MÁQUINA DE HACER PÁJAROS, LA

 

Brazil:

ALPHA III

ANGRA

BACAMARTE (Depois do Fim is an essential album)

TERÇO, O

MUTANTES, OS

CASA DAS MAQUINAS

MINDFLOW

RECORDANDO O VALE DAS MAÇÃS

A BARCA DO SOL

SHAAMAN

 

Peru:

FLOR DE LOTO (very good prog folk)

FRAGIL

LAGHONIA

(this needs reinforcements)

 

Chile:

AKINETÓN RETARD (very good)

ANGULART (relatively new band. Check out the interview wth them here in the interview section)

ERGO SUM

EXSIMIO

JAIVAS, LOS (the classic prog folk band. Legendary status)

MATRAZ

SARAX

ENTRANCE

TRYO

 

Venezuela:

PIG FARM ON THE MOON

KRÉ

ESTRUCTURA

TEMPANO

ODRAREG

FICCION

 

Uruguay:

TIRELLI, ARMANDO

 

What about Ecuador, Paraguay and Colombia? Anyone knows bands from there?

Please, take time to explore these. I promise a very rewarding experience.

I won't bother you with my playlist of the day, it consists much of what is mentioned above.

Good day / night to PA forum members.

 

 

^^^

Thank you very much, Ivan.

I will definitely look for these recommendations.

Thanks avestin, Iván etc. for all the recommendations about South American prog...  I must admit, I know next to nothing about this side of prog ...

I thought I'd recommend something as well for a change.

This artist isn't even in the archives, but that's probably due to the fact that he only made one "true" prog album.

Jukka Tolonen - Tolonen!



Jukka Tolonen is probably best known for being the guitarist in Tasavallan Presidentti (one of the most famous Finnish prog bands), but he did release many brilliant solo records as well. Tolonen! was his first solo album, and it is certainly his best effort, recorded back in 1971 when the man was only 19-years old!!! He is joined by absolutely the best rock musicians in Finland, bandmate Pekka Pöyry, and almost all of the guys from Wigwam (Jukka Gustavson, Pekka Pohjola, Ronnie Österberg).

The music presented here is an amazing blend of instrumental prog-rock and jazz .... His style is not really comparable to other artists IMO. Of course, on some level it could be compared to his band TP, especially their Lambertland album (without the vocals), but Tolonen's approach to music is rather unique. The first track Elements - Earth, Fire, Water, Air shows all the different aspects that made him so great: Highly energetic guitar playing (but no showing-off), beautiful wind instruments, classically inspired piano playing etc. Brilliant stuff! A must for anyone into jazz-rock, and it's probably one of my top 10 ... (from any genre!)

His second solo album Summer Games (1973) was already quite different, still very good, but much more jazz-oriented (and highly acoustic), with influences from Indian classical music. Tolonen also did his share of somewhat mediocre blues-rock releases during his career later on, but that's another story!

I'll try to recommend something that is not from Finland next time...

Now that we're talking about Prog in other countries I want to comment that just added OSIBISA, the Ghanian band formed by musicians of this African country and Central America.

The people who know their late career may feel strange, but I ask to listen this trilogy (Specially the first two):

	1971	4.00 (1 ratings)	OSIBISA	Studio Album
	1971	not rated	Woyaya	Studio Album
	1972	not rated	Heads	Studio Album

 

OSIBISA the debut album is simply outstanding, they blend Psyche/Proto Prog/Jazz/Raggae/Afro Folk and many other styles to create something absolutely special.

I know we must not buy an album because of it's cover, but due to the fact that Roger Dean is always very careful with who does he work with is also a reccomendation for the self titled rlelease and the even better Woyaya.

Heads the third album is a bit more oriented towards mainstream, but it's still worth to listen.

Iván

Really I know very little of African Prog, except for OSIBISA's first three studio albums and the double Live one which are all outstanding.

There was another band called The Africa 70 with Ginger Baker who played with Fella Ransome Kutti a Nigerian musician who was very close to Prog  before joining Baker, but they were more oriented towards Funk or Afro Beat.

There's also the Afro Celt Sound System (appeared in Peter Gabriel's WOMAD) who blend Celtic music with African Rhythms, but it's not exclusively African and not really Prog.

Jean Luc Ponty played the album Tchokola with excellent African Musicians, even when the album was one of his weakest, because he never really blended both genres.

Peter Gabriel has played with outstanding African musicians as Jean Claude Naimro (Afro Caribbean), Papa Wemba, Reddy Mela Amissi, Styno Mubi and Matadi with African roots

Honestly it's hard to find an African Prog band, even when I remember reading something about a band from Pretoria, but I don't know if it's formed by British decendants or really African black musicians.

But try the first two OSIBISA albums, I'm sure you will enjoy them.

Iván

Thanks to our Collaborators for sharing their knowledge. I hope to see you here often. I still hope Cesar will contribute a post (I PMed him).

Anyway, after the 80's threads started up by DallasBryan I started going over 80's releases and there is actually very good stuff from that era, that is really excellent prog and not Neo-prog as is usually thought of when thinking about this era.

There is the excellent must have album Anabelas by BUBU (don't remember if I recommended it. If not, Get it. I can compare it to Ys by IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO, another essential album).

But what I really wanted to mention here is the album Marsbéli Krónikák (Martian Chronicles)  by Hungarians SOLARIS from 1984, based on the book The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, if I am not mistaken.

This a dynamic album but the music is not complex. There are three dominant instruments sharing the fromt stage - a flute, electric guitar and heavy synth. while the flute give the album its more elegant side the synth give it a bombastic element aided by the guitar. The msuci is most of the time relentless and always on the move keeping the listener in this Martian world till the end of the album.  

Well worth checking out, as well as other fine 80's prog releases.

http://www.solarismusic.com/

no offense, but upon close inspection I find Solaris in the same category with other eastern block bands from the same period, ie- Omega and Tako, following the trend of mid 70's Eela Craig from Austria, encompassing many styles and catchy as a whole. But with the time frame being early to mid 80's, I find their sound on the CHEEZY SIDE. Others may not have this opionion but I think by the 80's the really progressive sound was more mature.

Just my view on the progression of music.

Edited by DallasBryan