Prog-Electronic that is not Ambient?

Welcome to PA, excellent question!  I agree, much electronic prog is limited in terms of vocals, mixed instrumentation etc.  I look forward to responses from the PA members!  

Many prog electronic bands will have ambient moments, even if they're heavily sequencer-driven. Cosmic Ground, for example, frequently starts out ambient before transitioning to sequencer-driven. And some artists, like Tangerine Dream, make some albums that are completely ambient, and others that are more energetic. So, it's kind of a hit & miss affair. That being said, here are some of my favorite up-beat prog electronic albums...

Cosmic Ground (Cosmic Ground 2 & 3)

Klaus Schulze (Royal Festival Hall Vol 2, Are You Sequenced)

This site (https://www.synthsequences.com) has a lot of reviews of prog electronic, including their sub-genres (ambient, Berlin school, etc).

https://stevehauschildt.bandcamp.com/

 Flamen Dialis - Symptome Dei   &   Dionne Bregent - Deux

most of the highly rated ones are ambient based. Too me far too many are overrated although I do enjoy Edgar Froese - Epsilon In Malaysian Pale which (excuse the sport analogy) knocks it out the ball park in terms of ambient electronic for me.

However I enjoy the following which don't really draw from ambient ideas as much

Jean Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields/ Rendez-vous

Tangerine Dream - Cyclone/Underwater Sunlight 

Neuronium - Heritage

Hi

Terry Riley

Beaver and Krause for sure. 

Probably the two best known of them.

Most of these, though, are very experimental and a serious attempt at getting some sort of control over the electronic new instrument, and most of them failed, in the sense that things could not be replicated easily enough. Thus, their ability to go on tour and take the instruments was prohibitive, and this was a very serious issue with Tangerine Dream on their first several years in concert. They could not redo things, and that was the main reason why their bootlegs were so HOT ... it was all different, not to mention that according to Edgar's book there were massive issues with the equipment not warming up enough, and the weather and the room temperatures, one of which was freezing (not enough electricity to handle it all) and guess what ... a live album came out of it ... POLAND! In freezing temperatures!

None of these and TD's early material comes close to "prog" or "song" ... it is all pretty much a free flow or a stream of consciousness based on the sounds they were able to create. The book that will really help us learn more about this would be CHRISTOPHER FRANKE's if he ever got around to do it, but his break with TD was not good, and to this day he has remained quiet about it, and decidedly ... it looks like musically retired now!

There would be more, for example, there were electronics that were not specifically credited in the film FORBIDDEN PLANET and some other really far out sci-fi early films that really pushed the genre until the time that Ray Harryhausen brought it all to a stop with Bernard Herrmann music. However, Bernard's music was not really electronic, but the use of different instruments differently that allowed for moods and touches that were way out of town and far out. It is epic in many ways, but not something that the "rock" oriented folks in PA (for example) might enjoy left and right, but they are (by far!) some of the nicest and most exciting film soundtracks ever made.

There is an article, and I can not find it, that even describes the experimental stuff in electronica in the 60's and went so far as to say that in the West it was more free form and tripped out, and in the East it was more thought out and less trippy, and it seemed to take a different angle. In many ways, Beaver and Krause would fit as "west" while Terry Riley would fit as "east".

I'm not specifically well learned on how electronica came to Europe, specially Germany, but in the late 60's it was the Berlin group and school that helped bring it all to the foreground to what it has become today. Those early folks at that school, were very keen on "non-Western music concepts" which no doubt helped their work come alive within improvisation, which was a big thing at the time, in theater and film and some of the arts in Germany. Edgar Froese said that it was a new time, no past references (all destroyed) and many folks only had themselves and the instrument to look at and they came up with something that was different.

This last detail is a very important detail in the growth of electronic music. That a lot of it ended up mixed with rock, is way later and in many cases not even as interesting as the originals and the great ones.

If you're looking for more bands like the Ozrics (since that's not prog EM), they're out there. One is Belgium's Quantum Fantay.

I love that album, too, so that gives me a better idea of what you may like. Another album came out the same year — Synergy's The Metropolitan Suite — and it has a similarly symphonic feel. It doesn't sound like Jarre, TD, Vangelis or anyone else (but Larry Fast has never sounded like them).

If you've never heard it, try Vangelis' 1988 album, Direct. It's wonderful.

^^ Thanks, verslibre! I don't know Quantum Fantay, so I will try to get a listen to their work.

I remember having listened to a Synergy album a long time ago and it didn't really stick to me. I don't remember which album it was, I guess it was either Sequencer, or Games, or Audion..., but I don't think it was the later Metropolitan Suite... Will give it a listen too...