Friday Random Ten, 2/19/2010

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.

2 thoughts on “Friday Random Ten, 2/19/2010

  1. dave from knoxville

    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

    Reply

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