Nektar

Rednight wrote: HackettFan wrote: Journey to the Center of the Eye is an amazing album to me. I heard it described as a psychedelic album once somewhere, but to me it is the heart and soul (and eye) of Prog. It's one of my all-time favorites. Remember the Future is nice. A Tab in the Ocean is nice too, but I find some of the base overbearing. Neither of these albums has the rich and creative use of timbre to match their debut. Recycled is a little too slick for me, built up out of endless gag-me-with-a-spoon style commercial hooks, but there are times when I'm up for it. "Gag me with a spoon!"               -Moon Unit Zappa A little too slick? Do come along. And my kids used to describe things as "nice" when they were in kindergarten. Can you throw a little more details this way, please?

Wow, I don't often get requests to say more - Oh m'gosh! I just listened to both Journey to the Center of the Eye and Recycled on a long car trip the last weekend, so they were freshest in my mind. In fact I was planning on starting a music on long car trips thread if there wasn't one already. I enjoyed hearing Recycled even though I've been critical of it. There's a geeky immaturity to it in addition to all the hooks that kind of gets to me the same way too much maple syrup does, but, wtf, it fit well with pushing that accelerator down. Now I think I'll listen again to A Tab in the Ocean and Remember the Future this again evening and report back. I referred to them simply as "nice" as a comparison to the high regard I have for Journey to the Center of the Eye.

A Tab in the Ocean and Remember the Future are really good albums. What I like about them is the prominence of the guitar to the point of including some histrionics not frequently heard in classic era Prog. I'm not as into keyboards as some of the other Prog folk. The base is, once again, a little annoying to me, especially in Tab, because of how prominent it is in the mix and then it quite a number of times just does a sort of pulse following the drums. A lot of the compositions are driven by the pairing of drum and base, which transition between a lot of cycling patterns which can be kind of interesting. They could use more texture beyond base and drums in those sections. There is some organ in Tab, but it loses out in the mix. There was a lot more organ in Journey to the Center of the Eye. There was also a lot more effective use of timbre in general in Journey. And rather resourceful use of timbre; there weren't a lot of gizmos back then. Journey made a great deal of use of delays and multiple delays, probably the best use of delay anywhere by anyone up until Henry Kaiser came along more recently (in the 80s and onward). Tab departed from the use of delays and it comes across to me as a more stark and barren landscape perhaps because of it. Remember the Future is similar in this fashion, though a little more melodic in a way that seems to foreshadow Recycled. In fact it sounds like Recycled may have re-used one or two guitar guitar riffs from Remember the Future. Remember the Future eventually gets to incorporating a rather funky wah sound toward the end and I just have to turn it off at that point. I've never owned Down to Earth, so I don't know what that sounds like.

Down To Earth is a quirky album in the Nektar catalogue. It feature lots of horns, shorter songs, and HAWKWIND eccentric Robert Calvert, playing the role of Ringmaster. It's a concept album about life in a Circus. It works. Great album, the playing is there, and Taff uses a larger variety of keyboards.
No two Nektar albums sound the same, really.
I don't understand why .....Sounds Like This....... is not rated highly. Cranking this one up shakes the foundation of your house !! Explosive and indulgent - awesome album.

Finally dug up my copy of the 2004 CD reissue of Remember the Future - I really love this album, I wouldn't put it in my top 10, parts of the music get repetitive to me and parts are almost fantastic but then are kind of a let-down. Also, it seems like the keyboards could be more integral - there are times when it sounds like a 4-piece with two guitarists, bass & drums. But this is nitpicking - certainly a classic album!

JD wrote: IIRC, there were a number of releases of RTF on CD that were poorly done from quad masters leaving many of the parts unheard. My first copy of it was on 8-Track (yup, that's how old I am) and I listened to it almost non-stop in my car along with Manfred Mann's Solar Fire and Man's Back into the Future. For you young kids out there, we oldies had these bulky 8-Track tape things (before in car cassette decks became vogue) that used to cut out in the middle of songs to change to the next track on some songs. One of the truely horrible inventions of our times.

Good solid prog band.....I still play Tab and Remember The Future from time to time.

Tom Ozric wrote: The newest album under the Nektar name, Time Machine, is quite excellent. There's a 10 min track called Diamond Eyes - it is a beauty !! And an instrumental called Juggernaut. And great cover-art to boot.

I'm intrigued.

Roye stated that the 'Krautrock' movement was all abuzz around them at the time they worked on their debut, and it was hard not to be influenced by it. So, there is definitely a Krauty element going on. Floyd were also a big influence. And drugs .

Thanks both of you. That's enlightening. I'm just getting into Amon Düül II and I love it. Small wonder it appears out in that I so highly adore some common properties with the first Nektar album.

I have Phallus Dei and Yeti. Tanz Der Lemminge is on order, just waiting for it. Sounds like I have a good one coming.

Edited by HackettFan - April 28 2015 at 00:34