Trout Mask Replica is Captain Beefheart's masterpiece, a fascinating, stunningly imaginative work that still sounds like little else in the rock & roll canon. Given total creative control by producer and friend Frank Zappa, Beefheart and his Magic Band rehearsed the material for this 28-song double album for over a year, wedding minimalistic R&B, blues, and garage rock to free jazz and avant-garde experimentalism.
For those new to the band's work, Polyphia is essentially a 4 piece instrumental prog rock band formed in 2014. They have yet to find a drummer they can stick with, but the guitarists and bassist are permanent members. Fans of their early work will surely be disappointed over the relative lack of drop- tuned chug riffs on this album. Polyphia have now gone strongly in the direction of super- catchy melody driven songs contrary to their more percussive counterparts Animals As Leaders and other bands in the genre…
Hot on the heels of his heralded 2017 effort Promethean, the five covers and five originals on his latest Interstellar Adventures serve as rousing calling-cards for Theo Hill as he continues his steady, determined ascent into the contemporary ranks of vital and inspired jazz pianists.
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music
Congreso are another band I was introduced to on Progarchives, and one I took an almost instant liking to.
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
A Mini-masterpiece!
Rare Bird's fab four Graham Field, Dave Kaffinetti, Steve Gould and Mark Ashton had created their own distinct sound using keyboards, bass and drums but without, unusually for the time, electric guitars.
Another stroke of genius. Vastly different from their darker and highly melodic Paradox Hotel and a nod to the jazz of Space Revolver, the happiness of Stardust we are, and the positive melody-writing of Adam and Eve. This album completely kicks out their tendencies to make an album-flow with short songs, intermissions and interludes…