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cstack3 View Drop Down
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Points: 7272 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Sci-Fi in Prog
    Posted: May 27 2013 at 22:55
The ongoing thread on "The Prog Mind" has generated some great discussion about the role of science fiction in prog, either as inspiration for music or as a product of the music itself!  Some great examples;

a) the soundtracks to movies "Forbidden Planet" and "Bladerunner," both of which had fantastic prog elements!  FP had one of the earliest synth music soundtracks, and the story was amazing!  "Bladerunner" was pure genius, with a soundtrack by Vangelis! 

b) specific songs or LPs including "Watcher of the Skies" by Genesis, "Karn Evil 9" by ELP etc.  

c) prog albums that, in and of themselves, are significant works of science fiction!  I like Jon Anderson's "Olias of Sunhillow" as an example!  

I'd love for PA forum members to take this and run with it!  I'm not as interested in sword & sorcery/fantasy, but take it where you will!  Cheers, Charles!  
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Points: 6467 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2013 at 23:22
What  you exclude is interesting since I find a lot of fantasy elements in Olias of Sunhillow.  Starship Trooper has that Sci-Fi theme of course, but so do a lot of Yes songs: Yours Is No Disgrace, And You and I, Gates of Delirium.  I also find it in Turn of the Century to an extent, and Awaken.  Tons of songs.  Too many for me to list here at this time of night after celebrating the holiday.
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Points: 140 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2013 at 23:30
I was wondering when this would get it's own thread!  Thumbs Up

Obviously sci fi is very dear to my heart.  I've read a lot of sci fi, had some sci fi stories published, and my album (Hibernal - The Machine) is a sci fi concept album.  So it's something I've explored from many angles.

One recent album with sci fi themes that's really grabbed my attention is Breaking Orbit's "The Time Traveller".  I recently did a review for it here on PA as well.  That's the first one that comes to mind.
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Points: 14122 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2013 at 23:42
One of my favorite albums from one of my favorite novels

Mike Oldfield The Songs of Distant Earth album cover
I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
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Points: 177 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 00:30

Pretty much all of Ayreon's works are science fiction. And if Douglas Adams wrote a metal album it would be Ziltoid the Omniscient by Devin Townsend. And theres also War of the Worlds.
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Points: 7272 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 00:48
Originally posted by Progosopher Progosopher wrote:

What  you exclude is interesting since I find a lot of fantasy elements in Olias of Sunhillow.  Starship Trooper has that Sci-Fi theme of course, but so do a lot of Yes songs: Yours Is No Disgrace, And You and I, Gates of Delirium.  I also find it in Turn of the Century to an extent, and Awaken.  Tons of songs.  Too many for me to list here at this time of night after celebrating the holiday.

No, I wasn't excluding fantasy at all!  In fact, much of the best sci-fi and fantasy inter-twine....I just am not that interested in re-hashes of "Lord of the Rings"!  

Indeed, "Olias" does beautifully blend sci-fi with fantasy, I appreciate your comment!  I filmed this a few years ago....
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Points: 28059 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 01:20
Eloy from 1975 through to about 1983 did nothing else but sc-fi based prog. Time To Turn is my favourite but Ocean is probably their most popular album.
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Points: 397 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 01:52
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

One of my favorite albums from one of my favorite novels

Mike Oldfield The Songs of Distant Earth album cover

This. Just stunning works, both the album and the novel.
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Points: 397 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 01:55
From Arjen's output also worth mentioning is the prog metal project Star One that has songs based on various sci-fi movies and series. And his latest solo album of course, but I didn't dig that so much.
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Points: 5154 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 02:50
Alan Parsons' I Robot, Tales from Mistery and Imagination, and partly Pyramid

Devin Townsend's Ziltoid

And obviously Magma
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Points: 2121 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 03:18
GENESIS's 'Watcher of the Skies' was mentioned (inspired by A. C. Clarke's Childhood's End). Well, I think Foxtrot includes another song that's bordering Sci-Fi: 'Take 'em Out by Friday'. Just think of the "conclusion" in the problem. Genetic control... people will be shorter in height to fit twice as much in the same building size. Something like J. G. Ballard might have written.

RUSH's Neil Peart seems to be fond of Sci-Fi. 
TONY BANKS's A Curious Feeling was originally intended to be (more directly) based on Daniel Keyes novel Flowers for Algernon.
HAWKWIND collaborating with Michael Moorcock, Warrior on the Edge of Time.
NEKTAR's Journey to the Centre of the Eye (1971) is very strongly metaphorical Sci-Fi/Fantasy, as well as other Nektar albums.
Etc, etc...

I have often thought of progressive rock being "the science fiction in music", an analogy, I mean.
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Points: 361 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:18
Originally posted by bonestorm bonestorm wrote:

I was wondering when this would get it's own thread!  Thumbs Up

Obviously sci fi is very dear to my heart.  I've read a lot of sci fi, had some sci fi stories published, and my album (Hibernal - The Machine) is a sci fi concept album.  So it's something I've explored from many angles.

One recent album with sci fi themes that's really grabbed my attention is Breaking Orbit's "The Time Traveller".  I recently did a review for it here on PA as well.  That's the first one that comes to mind.

I've been addicted to that Breaking Orbit album for a few months now.  It's pretty amazing.  Simon Collins' new band, Sound of Contact, recently released a debut album, "Dimensionaut".  It's very sci fi, and very good, too.  I wrote a review for it for powerofmetal.dk, though it's not metal in any way (I'm basically the prog guy there). http://powerofmetal.dk/reviews13/sound_of_contact_review.html 


Edited by Second Life Syndrome - May 28 2013 at 05:19
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Points: 140 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:30
Great review Jason!  I checked a film clip for "Not Coming Down" on Youtube and he sure looks like his old man.  Might be my imagination but he sounds a bit like him too.
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Points: 4828 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:38
Here's one charming oldie with a sci-fi related theme Smile (progarchives page)


 
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Points: 4287 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:43
21 century schizoid man, may qualify as some sort of Horror Si-Fi
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Points: 397 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:50
Oh, and Jean Michel Jarre did a show called "Rendez Vous In Space" which was in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke who appeared on the screen reciting some epic thoughts and aphorisms, if I remember correctly. The music was quite horrible though, so I haven't watched it more than once.
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Points: 4287 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 05:51
Bowie in a lot of songs, make an Si-Fi impression, even if the songs do not clearly contain Si-Fi lyrics.
 
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Points: 14122 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 06:03
There was a sci-fi magazine published in Italy in the early 70s, called "Galassia"" (Galaxy). I have read on one of them an article about sci-fi and music. It was not properly about prog as I think the word prog didn't actually exist. I remember the author mentioning Magma, Jefferson Starship, and even a now ancient pop-star whose first album had something of prog: Riccardo Cocciante and his suite "Mu". Of course Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream were mentioned as well. I'm sure that I still have that copy in some box in a garage.  
I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
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Points: 1420 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 07:51
This thread!!!

I'm a huge sci-fi fan and collector. From manga/anime and series to oldschool books. Well, my TOP PROG SCI-FI CONCEPT:

3 - ELP - Karn Evil 9
2 - Khan - Space Shanty (album)
1 - Voivod (everything)

I have many musical projects, most about sci-fi, but unfortunattely, you will only find some Turtopsy demos at internet and stuff from the last release at the myspace, and it's extreme music, so too many people around here will not get into this project. Actually, I'm recording a prog album within jazz/fusion, symphonic prog, avant-garde, psychedelic rock and death metal influences. The name for the project is Rashaverak (taken from C. Clarcke's Childhood's End) but it's not definitive. A tracklist:

The Sprawl Suite: a) Neuromancer b) Count Zero c) Monalisa Overdrive

Freak Show From Outer Space / Attack of The Nuclear Beast Creatures (original from Turtopsy, an early Technical Death Metal project of mine)

Somewhere Between Asteroids 

For Tyrannobot Rex

...
and some suits aren't named yet

here's the lyrics for Somewhere Between Asteroids, it's a voivod-like prog metal song

a strange lab in spaceship;
our bodies was diving
in capsules. countdown to destroy!

(awake!) eyes wide open
the capsule is broken
now who wants to play with our enhanced moves?

aliens - are everywhere
the robots - are watching
but commanding and conquering we're stronger than all

-

timeline bugs! disturbing delays! the alarm rings!

- open the gate!
-  enemies reinforcement! calm down, everything is under control!

-

without orientation,
we're crossing dimensions
throug shooting stars and laser beams.

there are UFOs burning and battleships turning
around. nothing left to annihilate! (nothing left to destroy!)

-

hey, you! why don't you join us?
can't you see? there's no reason,
there's no reason for you to hide.

so the day has come to blackmail the earth.
we're taking hostage mankind to the depths dungeons under moon.


have you been lightyears searching,
and there's no place for you to call home?
prisoners, you've been banished
and you guys will be slaves from now on
the great infinity, explore and colonize,
makes no difference to you, the space fortress is mine.

til' the day i die i'll rule the only sky.
from the day i born, a legend was shaped.
the connection is lost but i'll live forever and more.
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dr wu23 View Drop Down
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Points: 20623 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 28 2013 at 10:22
I always thought that Rush's 2112 Temples of Syrinx suite was all about an alien world where music was banned..?
There are sci-fi themes in several Hawkwind songs. ...Moorcock even wrote lyrics and themes for them.
 
A few IQ songs seem to have a futuristic earth theme to them also.
Pioneers Over C by VDGG is about space travel to another world.
 
 
 


Edited by dr wu23 - May 28 2013 at 10:32
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