Progressive Electronic music?

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.

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

Klaus Schulze - Picture Music

Richard Pinhaus - Chronolyse

Tomita - Pictures at an Exhibition

 

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.

What else? Hmm do you know Harmonia? German electronic outfit that infused a lot of guitar into their pieces. 

Maybe also check out some French electronic. Heldon's Stand By, Põle - Rizet, Pascal Comelade - Fluence are all albums I'd recommend to folks who dig a little guitar twang with their bip bips.

Oh and where the hell are my manners...

Welcome to the site! I hope you'll stick around - maybe meet some of our much beloved music maniacs.

Not exactly, but he does feature on the first 3 Ash Ra Tempel albums, where Manuel Göttsching also plays a mean guitar. Then there's the collab he did with Far East Family Band entitled Parallel Worlds. I think he snuck in some electronics as well. even so, it's a beauty with loads of psychedelic atmospheres and guitar solos.

Check out Radio Massacre International - Rain Falls In Grey, they are mainly a electronic band but this tribute to Syd Barrett has a lot of guitar featured and is a wonderful album.

AND that can be done by anyone anytime, but the musical tendencies these days are not conducive to this kind of creativity, and is what this thread and material is all about.

 

What you are saying is that no one can play the violin today, because it can't sound as good as it did 200 years ago! Or that it can't have the same moods as it did then ... and that means it comes off like music history can not have its own personality, or repeated later.

 

It can, and it will continue to do so!

 

I also have an issue with "surreal or impressionistic soundscapes..." which is like saying that you are not allowed to have an imagination and not tell the story of Carmen or Turandot in the conventional way with dialogue so you can understand the story that is being told.

 

Phaedra, by TD, thus, is just an impressionistic soundscape ... which might have been just a title, when the whole thing is just an act of love (if we can say that), all the way to an orgasm, but saying that is surreal, and impressionistic because you can't experience it?

 

BIZARRE!