I’m an “Old Fart” who likes Progressive and Art Rock from the 1970’s, I heard Porcupine Tree the other day and I was impressed!, they seem to be “flying the Old School Flag”. Are there any PT experts here?, what do I need to hear?
Unclviny
I’m just getting into their stuff too. Great band. I’ve decided to just go out and buy it all.
Another relatively new fan checking in. Coma Divine is the one I’ve been jammin’ to. It’s a live album, and seems to be a pretty good representation of their work.
In the same vein, you might want to check out a band called Ozric Tentacles. My dad introduced me to both bands at the same time, and I’m loving them both.
Depends on what you want. Their most proggish albums are The Sky Moves Sideways and Fear for a Blank Planet, while their earliest stuff is very neo-psychedelic. Personally I consider the Stupid Dream thru Deadwing arc to be their creative peak. I’d avoid their latest (The Incident, as it is quite a departure stylistically from their previous work (i.e. the songwriting stinks, in a relative way).
Great stuff, especially thru Fear Of A Blank Planet. I didn’t care for Incidents (like, “it’ll prolly never get played again” kind of didn’t care for) and didn’t think much more of Wilson’s solo release. He’s an immensely talented person, and he spent most of the last 2 years recording this whiny crap. Wasted his time, IMO.
Remember folks: there’s a thin line between good prog rock and wanking.
Do this.
Ozric is excellent.
Another endorsement of PT. I’m a lover of “Signify.”
I’ve heard Orzic on the some prog internet radio & thought they sounded really good. Any advice on what album I should start with?
Ozrics: just about anything really. Erpland is ostensibly their best, but they are an instrumental-only (1 or 2 exceptions in their long discography) psychedelic jam band; even to me (who has most of their stuff) they can sound kind of samey. I typically play them during long trips in my car.
No idea if you already know them or not, but another band to check out is Spock’s Beard. Snow is an amazing album.
PT fan here, and I also endorse the other recommendations of bands mentioned here.
If you’re looking for their 70s style sound, their earlier stuff is the way to go but, like many others have said here, I really their their best stuff has been the last 8 years or so where they got a really good mesh of the 70s style with some modern influence. And, yeah, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the Incident.
As one other suggestion, if you’re a fan of these guys, Steve Wilson is part of another project called Blackfield. I don’t like it as much as contemporary PT, but still decent stuff.
Sounds good to me. I wish all bands were prog rock inspired phychedelic jam bands.
Okay, maybe not all bands, but I have compiled an iPod playlist called “Musiclab.” It’s named after the old XM channel that combined prog & jam music in such a way that it really felt like a channel just for me.
Check out a band called “IQ”. Though many are fawning over their latest CD, “Frequency”, I suggest older works, such as “Dark Matter”, or “Subterranea”.
The first PT album I was exposed to was In Absentia, which is probably still my favorite. There’s a track called The Sound of Muzak which is just amazing.
I’ve been an IQ fan for more than twenty years. When Martin Orford left a couple of years ago, I thought that was the beginning of the end of the band - with him gone, I really thought their songwriting would suffer. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Frequency is every bit as good as their earlier works.
But yeah, I’d suggest The Wake, Ever or Subterranea as starting points.
The reason Frequency sounds good is that Martin did have a heavy hand in the writing; and if you believe his side of the story, a lot of his actual playing is on the CD too (uncredited). He’s miffed at that (as well as the fact that hey never even sent him a copy)
We’ll see how good the next one is - where Martin’s influence will be totally removed. I found that Martin’s writing was a good counterbalance to the other writing heavyweight, Mike Holmes. Left unchecked, I’m a bit fearful of a pure Holmes penned CD.