Teach Me About Chamber Rock

^ I concur with that recommendation.

A vast domain... but very interesting to explore. And not necessarily without drums or guitars, but the instrumentation can sometimes resemble more to those of a chamber music ensemble than to that of a rock band. And sometimes (often?) it is a mix of both.No intentions to "teach" you whatever, I'm not an expert, but just some recommendations to explore, eventually.

Close to compassionizer, I guess, is Roz Vitalis. I particularly like their recent album The Hidden Man of the Heart (available on bandcamp.

One of my personal favourites are Die anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (aka DAAU). Five or six years ago they issued an album - Hineininterpretierung - revisiting previous work, which is a wonderful introduction to their music.

And then there is The Penguin Cafe Orchestra as - another - major reference to explore, in my opinion (not many drums, though). There is a recent thread about them that could help you further.

Keep them coming, nice topic! Although I'm too late to the party to recommend my favourites as they have mostly already been named. All NSRO albums are great, as is Presence by Five-storey ensemble. I'd also have named DAAU, Aranis, Penguin Cafe Orchestra... I know, nothing that hasn't been said before.

Let's see whether I can come up with something not yet nominated... not sure whether people would call Karda Estra chamber prog, but for me much of their work fits here. Try out the fantastic Eve album.

Art Zoyd of course are a standard address but if you want it less dark than Univers Zero maybe that's the wrong direction.

Personally by the way I don't find genre labels that important, so I don't mind that something is called Chamber ROCK that doesn't have much rock in it. In fact I'm not quite sure from your posting whether you're asking explicitly for more "rocky" recommendations or whether you're fine with things that aren't.

PS: I listen to Megalázottak és Megszomorítottak by After Crying right now, another great album. Once more not sure about their classification but it sounds pretty chamber prog to me.

suitkees wrote: ... A vast domain... but very interesting to explore. And not necessarily without drums or guitars, but the instrumentation can sometimes resemble more to those of a chamber music ensemble than to that of a rock band. And sometimes (often?) it is a mix of both.No intentions to "teach" you whatever, I'm not an expert, but just some recommendations to explore, eventually. ...

The idea of "chamber" music would, for me, blow out the idea of "rock" ... however, there is a lot of work out there that really brings out the "chamber rock" thought to life really well, and still be some of the best defined "chamber rock" material ever.

I specially like TERJE RYPDAL's album EOS, which is done with David Darling on cello, and aside from a first cut on it which seems not to fit, but its probably designed to intentionally tell you ... either listen, or leave! ... this album becomes some of the pretties music ever recorded, even with all the special effects on the bass and the guitar, making this the one combo that you can easily put together on a stage without all the hoopla, and it is simply about the music itself ... very very classical in its context, and you get the idea quickly, that it was designed specially about the "feel" of the instruments, not as some kind of rock bullsh*t, or musical idea. It comes off as extremely classical and the beauty of the whole thing is insane ... but not something that a lot of "progressive" minions can listen to ... no drums to give you a beat that you don't have, and no keyboards to give you the illusion of something else ... and in just 2 instruments you get to see what a lot of music history has given us in the last 500 years ... some incredible beauty and it has to do with the music, not some kind of stupid "progressive" idea.

I, also, would be careful about calling it "rock" since the term itself assumes that it has a beat and is a "format". In this case, EOS is way beyond formats, something that PA has a real hard time in these threads.

I would look for "chamber music" first, and then you will find some folks that added a few elements of rock music that did not deter from the result, as a suggestion.

I listened to Terje Rypdal and EOS which I very much enjoyed. However, that music seems different from what I'd heard of as chamber music or chamber rock. At least for me, the stereotypic image of chamber music would be a quartet playing baroque music which is very much in meter and completely composed and not improvised. 

I really like jazz and especially jazz fusion and the kind of music I heard on EOS seemed more akin to certain types of fusion or even "tone poems." You can tell that there was a background planned structure, but a lot it seems improvised. I may be wrong.

It seems like we're using "chamber" with different ideas in mind.

Negoba wrote: ... However, that music seems different from what I'd heard of as chamber music or chamber rock. At least for me, the stereotypic image of chamber music would be a quartet playing baroque music which is very much in meter and completely composed and not improvised.  ...

Hi,

The 20th century and beyond works in music started with the revolution of what was (more than likely) improvised music. That music history, before that, was not improvised, is a joke and likely not quite true, mostly because we do not have the information we need to make that thought real.

The only REASON why we think it is "composed" is because after so many years, it has been scored down on a staff, and you (or anyone else) has not done that for Terje Rypdal's work, and thus, consider it improvised, which is unfair ... it's like saying that it can not be good music, and it has been pproven long time ago, that improvisation is a major tool ... THAT IS NOT ONLY USED IN SCHOOLS OF MUSIC BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A STARTING POINT IS.

To appreciate more "chamber" material, you have to get off the "composed" idea. I think you have criticized a lot of rock music, because it happens to be, just like jazz, a medium that has a lot of improvisation, specially in solos. This is what the 20th century in music was all about.

Differing the work of Terje's (in this case) as "improvisational" merely means you are only listening to something that is structured and kept in that order and format.

Very sad really. The feeling side of the EOS album is far superior than a lot of "chamber" anything out there, but I'm not sure that you can "feel" that because you think a score is needed and it has to be "composed" and not just played. You DO NOT SCORE your emotions ... you just feel them, and you stating that it has to be controlled by a score is nutz ... totally nutz, and makes no sense whatsoever in the human spirit and condition. We are mired in "improvisation, and yet, you think that the only possible existence of feelings, and specially ideas, is if they are "composed" and "formatted" to your liking ... the worst and biggest fallacy about music and its history that schools do not want to teach because it takes away their "freedom" to define music, by the history of the lies.

And for the record, according to RW on his special on Vivaldi, he was a master improviser, and could add anything anywhere ... and the guy had to go back to his "structured" universe ... and I'm sure that are many other composers that had the same problem ... in fact, Mozart, seemingly wrote from a visual perspective in a lot of his work. But we don't listen to Mozart for the feeling and far out sections ... we listen to Mozart because of the score ... what a joke. Better than "too many notes"!

I think that really breaks up what music is all about, and simply shows that one major side of music, and its history (not to mention jazz!) can't be appreciated. No one had scripted Miles Davis when he did the material he did, either ... so I guess that Miles doesn't deserve any credit either, and in many ways, some of his jazz material almost fits as "chamber" material.

Oh well ... so much for the idea of composed, as what DEFINES music, specially when it has had hundreds of years to get scored, which a lot of rock and jazz music will get in the future. I would think that the perspective in music is missing, and needs to be adjusted.

That's just the image I had in my head. Nothing really special about it. Just trying to give an example for the point that you clearly got but Moshkito took in a strange direction.

It's Pedro's way, he finds it impossible to simply provide recommendations within the parameters requested. Best advice is to ignore the lecture and check the recommendations to see if they are of interest. He isn't going to modify how he interacts with others regardless of feedback he receives.

I'll probably get a telling off from him for this response.