Ritchie Blackmore’s post-Purple band Rainbow, especially the album “Rainbow Rising”, especially Side Two, “Stargazer” and “A Light In The Black”: hard rockin’ orchestral epics about a Sarumanesque wizard who conscripts an army of slaves to build him a giant tower in the desert so that he can fly off it. He launches himself triumphantly into the empyrean, but
hits the ground like a pile of sqiushy mystic hubris in a rune-bedizened sack, and the slaves are left the next eight minutes of the song to contemplate an awfully long walk home.
It probably is as stupid as it sounds, but by the Gods Of Metal it rocks.
Clannad’s album “Macalla” is the first thing I thought of. It evokes a feeling that is very Celtic and…misty. Or something. It’s a lovely album in any case.
As already said in the thread Sigur Ros, mum, The Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine can all at their best evoke a sense of the other. Also Boards of Canada.
The video for Knights of Cydonia is about the greatest thing ever. I think if they weren’t a band, they’d all be posting in conspiracy theory threads around here.
Check out Heart’s version which has got to be somewhere around there as well. It’s the only time ever in music where I’ve heard a cover after the original where I liked the cover better. (No offense to Sandy Denny but while her and Robert are great singers, and the original BoE is an awesome song, and their individual parts are excellent they dont gel together as much as the Wilsons.)
I have to agree with you here. Funnily, I’m listening to it now. The bit where Ronnie screams out near the end, ‘my eyes are bleeding…I see a rainbow rising’ is absolutely spine tingling.
Ronnie James Dio has a strange ability of being able of being able to make even the most daft lyrics sound magnificent. For example, check out the ‘bless me, bless me’ section of Catch The Rainbow.
I can’t believe I didn’t mention this in my other post, but I would absolutely recommend King Crimson. Another poster mentioned their first LP, “In the Court of the Crimson King”, and that’s certainly a good suggestion, but perhaps even more in the line of what you’re talking about is their third album, “Lizard”, and especially the second side, which is a suite (also called “Lizard”) consisting of four movements:
Prince Rupert Awakes
Bolero – The Peacock’s Tale
The Battle of Glass Tears
a. Dawn Song
b. Last Skirmish
c. Prince Rupert’s Lament
Big Top
This is very quirky prog rock, which tends to veer between ersatz classical and Coltrane-esque jazz – it may take some getting used to, but it is very evocative. Other Crimson albums I would suggest checking out are their fourth and fifth, “Islands” and “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”. “Islands” has some very nice, drifting music, especially “Formentera Lady”, which will take you right to that island off the coast of Spain. “Larks’ Tongues” is by an almost entirely different line-up of musicians (Robert Fripp, the leader, being the only constant) and is also stylistically different… harder to describe, more free-form, but still evoking a sense of journeying to different places.
I would also recommend “Meddle” by Pink Floyd – like Lizard, the whole second side was a suite, called “Echoes”.