Is "Nektar" real Psychedelic Prog?

Hi 

Logan wrote: It rather depends on the album, but I'd put it as more space rock than psych rock. I think it's appropriate for the Psychedelic/ Space Rock category at PA where it is.

O666 wrote: Logan wrote: It rather depends on the album, but I'd put it as more space rock than psych rock. I think it's appropriate for the Psychedelic/ Space Rock category at PA where it is. Hi Logan. How are you?  I dont agree . With this POV , Xover is a better Sub-gen for Nektar if we see all of their albums together IMO

I'm fine thanks, yourself? I only know the albums up to and including Recycled with Journey to the Centre of the Eye being my favourite, which I do think is the classic period that people into Prog at least tend to think of. That contains the albums that I have seen see come up again and again at PA over the years.

I would far prefer album tagging and multi-genre tagging for album rather than just placing a band in a sub-genre, but this is a limitation of the site architecture. Not sure if you got the point I intended, however. While I don't want to get into the "real" Psych Prog thing too much, as that's a can of worms, and we risk going madly into "no true Scotsman" territory, I meant that I was thinking that I tend to think that of the "classic" period, even if it is not Psych enough to be considered truly Psych, I believe that it is Space Rock enough to be a fair addition to the Psych AND Space Rock category.

By the way, on side-note, I think it's fair to evaluate suitability (hardly ideal under our system) for a category based on the most relevant to PA albums, the ones that one thinks Proggers will be most interested in, and the ones that tend to get the most acclaim and notice. Genesis could be in Crossover based on all of the albums. How Space and/or Psych Nektar is depends on the album.

siLLy puPPy wrote: ... The band's debut "Journey To The Centre Of The Eye" was the most psychedelic of their canon and rightfully featured a predominant psychedelic first tagging. ... Starting on the second album "A Tab In The Ocean," the psychedelic elements while still present were equally matched by hard rock and good old fashioned King Crimsonian prog. ...

Edited by moshkito - December 12 2022 at 14:18

I recall their first album being a combination of Psychedelic and or Space Rock..but..somewhat in the style of Krautrock. A Tab In The Ocean is not Psychedelic to me as I feel that it is more like YES ...in the sense that it begins with sounds of the ocean ( I believe?) and it's somehow reminiscent of Close To The Edge within the idea of how it's structured. What I mean is how the mood of the writing was conceived and that it seemed structured or pieced together in a relation to what YES would sometimes create...but they are not playing like YES or emulating personal elements of the musicians in YES like Starcastle seemed to do.

Remember The Future contained "Funk" rhythms in certain songs. I wasn't particularly fond of it. I listen to Funk and I love it. As a teenager I felt disappointed in Nektar's Funk style. I don't understand why...but perhaps it was something childish like I didn't expect Nektar to play that way and my hope was in the band staying cosmic or Progressive.

Maybe I was a fan of Tab In The Ocean and desired to hear more of the same. In the 70s I didn't think of Nektar being Psychedelic. I thought of Pink Floyd Ummagumma being experimental. The fact that "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals " was practically lifted from Ron Geesin produced an Avant-garde experimental style more so than American Psychedelic or British Psychedelic. Although Pink Floyd were part of British Psychedelic they sometimes drifted into obscure areas. For example..Rick Wright's keyboard work on the studio side of Ummagumma sounded a lot like Tangerine Dream on Atem and Zeit.

Certain Krautrock bands produced a Space Rock sound that wasn't consistent and Nektar seemed to fall into that category. For example...Hawkwind would often hold back on electronic oscillating sounds to compromise with the song writing itself. For example...I can hear..( in my head)..The Moody Blues singing Assault And Battery and the abundance of Mellotron in that song and "The Golden Void" comes across with a trademark of The Moody Blues. "Levitation is a song which doesn't represent Space Rock and is "straight ahead" Rock..where the rest of the album features spacey electronics divided in sections of songs as opposed to dominating them as they did on Space Ritual. Nektar seemed to be spacey at times..but sparingly..

moshkito wrote: siLLy puPPy wrote: ... The band's debut "Journey To The Centre Of The Eye" was the most psychedelic of their canon and rightfully featured a predominant psychedelic first tagging. ... Starting on the second album "A Tab In The Ocean," the psychedelic elements while still present were equally matched by hard rock and good old fashioned King Crimsonian prog. ... Hi, I think that Nektar was considered "psychedelic" more because of its art work and the light shows, which, if you remember, one member of the band is the lighting man! The light shows, all the way up until RTF were on all sides of the stage, including above, so it was like a theater box set, and it should rightly be considered "psychedelic", with its images and designs a really good primer to what the Fillmore and many other places showed all the time. In another post of mine in regards to light shows, I thought that these done by Nektar were more FOCUSED on the subject matter, instead of the effect and craziness of the old light shows which had very little meaning other than the show factor and its far out moments.  However, in the album SOUNDS LIKE THIS, I don't see the two LP's as psychedelic at all ... more like a far out long cut rock band, just splitting the ears left and right with some outstanding material, at least 2 pieces of which became a part of their shows and were well known, even though SLT was not released in the USA until much later ... giving it a different touch and experience.  RTF and the album blow out with Larry Fast, were "psychedelic" in presentation, although I think that the lyrics take it away from that and (specially) in RECYCLED were mostly a bunch of songs, some of which had already appeared on their shows (MM for one), and in many ways the whole thing was not psychedelic, but the powow attitude and presentation of the assault in the album from beginning to end, made it seem like psychedelic, although I would not consider it so at all ... it was way too serious for that in my book. Being listed in "psychedelic" is not the worst of all places ... worst would be "symphonic" simply because the band has keyboards, and they are not symphonic at all ... in terms of musical terms and proper definitions. Regardless, NEKTAR, was spectacular with outstanding shows, and SLT is a perfect example of the quality you saw in concert ... non-stop and totally strong ... until the days in the life of a preacher came to an end ... when Roye passed away out of air and energy. A sad going away, but the legacy and the beauty left behind is special ... very special, regardless of how it is "labelled" and thought of.

Logan wrote: O666 wrote: Logan wrote: It rather depends on the album, but I'd put it as more space rock than psych rock. I think it's appropriate for the Psychedelic/ Space Rock category at PA where it is. Hi Logan. How are you?  I dont agree . With this POV , Xover is a better Sub-gen for Nektar if we see all of their albums together IMO I'm fine thanks, yourself? I only know the albums up to and including Recycled with Journey to the Centre of the Eye being my favourite, which I do think is the classic period that people into Prog at least tend to think of. That contains the albums that I have seen see come up again and again at PA over the years. I would far prefer album tagging and multi-genre tagging for album rather than just placing a band in a sub-genre, but this is a limitation of the site architecture. Not sure if you got the point I intended, however. While I don't want to get into the "real" Psych Prog thing too much, as that's a can of worms, and we risk going madly into "no true Scotsman" territory, I meant that I was thinking that I tend to think that of the "classic" period, even if it is not Psych enough to be considered truly Psych, I believe that it is Space Rock enough to be a fair addition to the Psych AND Space Rock category. By the way, on side-note, I think it's fair to evaluate suitability (hardly ideal under our system) for a category based on the most relevant to PA albums, the ones that one thinks Proggers will be most interested in, and the ones that tend to get the most acclaim and notice. Genesis could be in Crossover based on all of the albums. How Space and/or Psych Nektar is depends on the album.

Saperlipopette! wrote: Nektar started out as some sort of space/psychedelic version of progressive rock and you'll find elements of that on all their relevant albums. As long as it's only possible to select one genre for an entire discography, Psychedelic/Space Rock is nektar's natural place. Eclectic is an embarrassing Progarchives-invention that should be scrapped. It's not a genre but more of a descriptor. All progressive rock-bands needs to be somewhat eclectic.