- Transatlantic, "The Whirlwind (Part 4) - A Man Can Feel": a track from the new Transatlantic album. Transatlantic is a supergroup: it's made of members of Marillion (Pete Trevawas on bass), the Flower Kings (Roine Stolte, guitar), Spock's Beard (Neil Morse, vocals and keyboards), and Dream Theater (Mike Portnoy, drums). In general, I don't like supergroups; they're usually more of a commercial stunt than anything else. But I love Transatlantic; and this album is fantastic - it's a bit less smooth than some of Transatlantic's earlier work, but the writing is fantastic. Highly recommended.
- Do Make Say Think, "Fredericia": a very typical track by one of my favorite post-rock ensembles. In sound, they're somewhere in between Mogwai and Godspeed, with a bit of classical influence.
- Marillion, "Man of a Thousand Faces": absolutely classic Marillion. One of the things that Yes used to do that I love is slow builds. They start with a simple pattern, and repeat over and over, adding another layer each repetition. This song is the only time that I recall Marillion doing it, and it's amazing.
- Abigail's Ghost, "Gemini Man": a big disappointment. A bunch of people recommended Abigail's Ghost to me as a great neo-prog band. I find them incredibly dull. Pretty much the only time I hear them is when they come up randomly, because I never choose to listen to them.
- The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, "Sam": wonderful jazz-influenced Klezmer. When they're actually playing Klezmer, FBKB is fantastic. Unfortunately, they often introduce songs with a sort of beat-inspired poetry recitation, which is just annoying.
- The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra, "Galitzianer Chusid": more Klezmer! Andy Statman plays very traditional klezmer. This one I feel a special connection to. My mother's family are Litvaks, and my father was a Galitzianer. (That is, ashkenazi Jews from Lithuania and Galacia, respectively.) Traditionally, the Litvaks were wealthier, and looked down on the Galitzianers. My grandparents used to tell my mother that if she weren't good, she'd grow up and marry a Galitzianer. And she did - and they were happily married for 44 years.
- Peter Gabriel, "The Rhythm of the Heat": utterly wonderful old Peter Gabriel. Security is still my favorite of his albums, and this is my favorite track off the album.
- Kansas, "Distant Vision": Often when an old band gets back together, it's pure tripe. And Kansas has reformed itself several times over the years, only to produce more tripe. This time they got it right. This album sounds like what you'd expect the old Kansas to sound like if they were writing in the 2000's. It's not exactly like their old stuff - it's grown over time - but it's got all of the beauty, complexity, and quality of their older stuff. The lead singers voice has suffered a bit with age; he can't quite pull off some of the stuff he tries to do. But it's good stuff overall.
- Parallel or 90 Degrees, "Entry Level": Andy Tillison has been very busy lately, coming out with new albums from both Po90 and the Tangent. Of the two, I think that the new Po90 is the better album - I think it's absolutely terrific.
- Roine Stolte, "Spirit of the Rebel": the leader of the Flower Kings recorded a solo album, which was intended to be a tribute to the pop bands he grew up listening to. But Stolte being Stolte, even when he's trying to play pop and R&B, he still manages to play better prog than 9 out of 10 prog bands. It's definitely on the pop side, much less challenging that tFK, but it's really good stuff.
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Mark Chu-Carroll (aka MarkCC) is a PhD Computer Scientist, who works for Google as a Software Engineer. My professional interests center on programming languages and tools, and how to improve the languages and tools that are used for building complex software systems.
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Friday Random Ten, 2/19/2010
Category: Music
Posted on: February 19, 2010 7:52 PM, by Mark C. Chu-Carroll
Comments
Have you heard 'and so i watch you from afar'? I was in a record shop during the week and they had a free gig. They were so good I bought the album. Like a lot of these postrock bands they may be more of a live thing. They have a page here http://www.myspace.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar worth a listen I think.
Posted by: davidc | March 5, 2010 10:11 AM
Just found your blog, which looks fascinating, but the thing that immediately caught my attention was your love for prog rock. Nice choices; some of my favorites. Look forward to digging into some of your math posts.
dave
Posted by: dave from knoxville | March 24, 2010 10:11 PM