Most progressive of the 90's?

Though I'm not a fan myself, I think it's pretty clear that Tool did more than any other group of their generation to keep progressive rock popular during the 1990s with Primus a close second. (that is if they didn't form in the 1980s)

Blacksword wrote: The most progressive music - on my radar - to emerge in the 90's was electronic; FSOL, Orb, Aphex Twin et al. If we're talking actual guitar based rock music then maybe Radiohead. I thought the 90's were generally quite good for music (not specifically prog) Indie music (pre-Brit pop) was at its best, and electronica was exploding.

Have you by any chance heard the Material album called 'Hallucination Engine'? One of the few albums in PAs database to mix IDM, Indian instrumentation and a silky kind of fusion. If you dig FSOL, you'll love this one.

Cheers.

Also in keeping with this thread, I'd say that Hallucination Engine' fits right in. Listed here under fusion, it really is as far away from jazz rock as you can possibly think - even if Jonas Hellborg, Bill Laswell and Bootsy Collins all play the bass on it. This is much more of an electronic album, one to feature a cameo from Bill Burroughs no less. One of the best examples of progressive music in the 90s imo.

AS I have no idea what most progressive ever means I'll just mention some releases i thought were pretty good

Yes - Union, Talk, Keys To Ascension 1 and 2
Tortoise - Standards, Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Djam Karet - (I've most of their stuff but Burning The Hard City and The Devouring a favourites with me. But they have more...

Fripp and Sylvian - The Missing lincK - aka The First Day, Damage - The Live Album.

P Tree took a while to get to me. A tried Sky Movies  Sideways but thought... Pink Floyd derivative? Good, very good but a bit like some bands playing prog rock as a style, pleasing some but not finding favour with me. Then Signify, Stupid Dream and the superb Recordings. The links were apparent to me but now he was a they better arranged good ideas emerged.

Page and Plant weighed in with some favourite material and a couple of tours... as did Robert Plant with his own outfits at times...

JPJ's Zooma may be the most progressive release. Tell drum and bass fans it's drum and bass (which to a certain extent it is, and then watch the pieces fly...

I recall looking but not finding much beyond anything King Crimson... at first. Thrakattak was quite something after the more song oriented Thrak.

Zappa's Lather 3 Cd set was most welcome. Not strictly '90s but in terms of pop music it was pretty good to me.

Pink Floyd had a studio release and live album that have excited comment to varying degrees. All worth it and concert attendance too.

I thought the Genesis albums were fine but then, I usually do...

New electronica was interesting - I liked some prodigy but disliked some T Dream of recent years. Not all though. Their discog is too big to be summarily dismissed.

I was one of the few that found Radiohead a bit disappointing. OK PC was ok but where I would haqve expected instrumental development (for a prog band) there was none. The track would stop and i would be sitting going... already?

I 'd like to mention Riverside, Guapo, Indukti and Masfel but they were 21st Century releases (the ones I knew) and therefore don't count in this post. make a 21st Century version then they do... ;)

I wonder if Led Zeppelin and their BBC Sessions count. Archive release standing up in the 90s... a single released 28 years after first mooted... rock happening in Zeppelin time taking no account of pop trends... brilliant.

Bowie's Black Tie White Noise was pretty good as well...

So other than Wake Up Boo, that's it... ;) Oh there's more music (Jeff Beck and his techno ideas), but that's it for the post...

Think I must have slipped into a coma during the 90's as I can't even remember what music caused my fur to bristle agreeably back then. The whole decade strikes me as being very backward looking (or rather drawing upon the past for inspiration to forge the future - particularly the 60's or rather Punk's dayglo revisionist take on same)
I enjoyed NIN but consider them/him more eclectic than progressive. Portishead were genuinely innovative and refreshing with their so called trip-hop but progressive, dunno?
Unfortunately I can't offer any objectivity re Radiohead as I think OK Computer is the hipster equivalent of flying wall ducks and Thom Yorke will always sound like a successful hunger striker. Bjork is proof if any were needed that like all sensible nations, Iceland exports it's waste products. Beck, despite the impeccable taste he employs in the whole undertaking, is still just every obscure and collectable 60's record anyone's ever owned and subsequently sampled.
Mogwai were often excellent and only occasionally completely s.h.i.t but always took too long to get to the point. I pine for the days when you could put an instrumental album on at 45 rpm and reap the rewards. Even Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh and other hippy Kosmische w.a.n.k sounds kinda tolerable at that speed. This jury's still out on Scott Walker's Tilt which I do sorta mostly like and admire but can't help but feel invites us to a private party where we discover upon arrival our participation consists of holding the host's coat. The final Pixies album Trompe le Monde from 1991 was easily their worst. Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol 2 was pretty nifty, or as nifty as any whooshy, droning peripheral ,oceanic state thang can reasonably expected to be. PJ Harvey was, is and always will be a charlatan whose pretend violence and empty rhetorical threats are routinely described as dark and harrowing by people who've never been outside. A tart from Stoke susceptible to tantrums. Boards of Canada certainly perfected that cinematic collage of sampled atmospheres that sound like soundtracks to movies no-ones ever seen. Apart from that, nowt but we must avoid the trap of dismissing the 90's just because there was a dearth of what those here on PA might term Progressive music i.e. there was still brilliant music from Dylan, Lloyd Cole, Oasis, Cure, Cocteau Twins, Breeders, Primal Scream, New Order, Pulp, REM, Verve, Happy Mondays, (the list goes on)

I think Mastodon is an exeption

Um, has Dream Theater been mentioned yet? Their albums were pretty progressive, I think.

Stardust wrote: Um, has Dream Theater been mentioned yet? Their albums were pretty progressive, I think.

They were formed in the 1980s and released their debut LP in 1989, though, so I'm not sure if they count.

progrockdeepcuts wrote: This is a time period I've been examining quite a bit lately. Mr. Bungle, latter-day Cardiacs, Praxis, and Thinking Plague come to mind.

Neo-Romantic wrote: bhikkhu wrote: I would have to say Anglagard followed by Discipline, which hasn't been mentioned in this thread so far. You literally took the words right out of my mouth. Two of my absolute favorites! Unfolded Like Staircase...man...that's the album...