So I guess we'll have to open this topic right here... since there are only two active threads in this forum, and since we're talking about ROCK (which is the basis for METAL) that is experimental/progressive/avant-garde - yeah.

I've been doing a lot of research in this area, that is prog-rock, these past months due to this essay/thesis I'm writing. But this ain't a thread about my schoolings. One thing I've discovered is that King Crimson really are interesting outside of my usual In the court/Red-sphere, especially Three of a Perfect Pair & Discipline. And that YES invariably makes me happy like a kid. And that UNIVERS ZERO (http://www.myspace.com/universzerounofficial) gives me nightmares, more or less. To me they sound like Bela Bartok & Alfred Schnittke jamming out their angst & hangover in the form of a rock band.

Then the other day I got a tape with two albums from Swedish late 80's kraut/zeuhl/industrial/gothic rock band UR KAOS. Very interesting stuff, you should listen to them (or at least try finding them). And at the moment I'm listening to Belgian band PRESENT (http://www.myspace.com/present).

Olivier, you mentioned curiously named 5uu - where to find any samples? Haven't located them on myspace.

So... go ahead. Discuss. What do you like, what don't you like. Recommendations. Experiences. Anything.

and by the way... where there ever any better looking bands?

oh and I hate phil collins, even though Nursery Cryme is wonderful.

As far as regular prog rock goes, my favorite 70's bands are Gentle Giant and and Jethro Tull. My favorite modern band is definitely Ritual. Other bands I like are Anekdoten, Camel, Anglagard, Land of Chocolate, Kaipa, and Holding Pattern.

I love RIO. Like Univers Zero, 5uu's, SGM/Idiot Flesh, Art Bears, Henry Cow, Hamster Theatre, The Science Group, Present...there's probably more

I hate Krautrock, and I don't know much zeuhl, but it seems interesting.

Well, where to start. I don´t want to repeat what is already known.

I want to mention just a few bands, I will always forget about most of them, means there is lot of space for further discussions.

Speaking about 5uu, I have to suggest Nebelnest. It´s the same label - Cuneiform (which is really interesting). Little bit hardcore to listen progressive rock, not a easy listening, but def. worths attention by pretentious listeners. Also bands like Giant Squid, Canvas Solaris are quite fine, Subterranean Masquerade, these ale propably well known.

Well, also bands like Psychotic Waltz, Fates Warning, End Amen etc, little bit more to metal.

Or kraut like Amon Düül, Can, La Düssledorf... but we are not an encyclopedia.

Come on, what do you think about psychedelic/post rock? Tomorrow, I am going to see The Silver Mt.Zion and Tra-la-la band, also Red Sparowes live was propably the best gig I´ve ever visited.

RIO is a very new and open field for me. I'd heard Univers Zero, Shub-Niggurath (aaaah La Mors Vont Vie is so dark!) and Guapo and Magma long before until I recognized their specific genres. And I was very surprised to find Samla Mammas Manna there, whom I'd only considered experimental Swedish progg ("progg" in Sweden is quite different from British progrock; the Swedish progg was politically progressive, Socialist/Marxist, "everyone gets to play, crush the capital, solidarity & Lenin", with a few mroe musically experimental exceptions, such as Samla Mammas Manna and Kebnekajse - the latter moving towards folk music).

Yeah, I listened to Nebelnest while starting the topic actually! Interesting, but I think I find Guapo perhaps not more challenging but better, at least from what I've heard on Nebelnest's myspace. Cuneiform's list of bands is... awe-inspiring. Indeed a bit more challenging than the symphonic progrock bands =)



Thee Silver Mt.Zion & one of their offsprings (can't remember name) are all interesting, but from what I've heard not "challenging" enough - I crave more dissonant darkness than psychedelic flights.

On the note of Swedish progg, I saw the ancients in Träd, Gräs & Stenar ("Trees, Grass & Stones") some years ago at a rock club. They looked older than Rolling Stones, but stilled rocked, very slowly. Most of the concert was a long improvisation, very soothing but still heavy. Great when 60+ year old men still keep the psychedelic flame burning. Guess they've had their fair share of trips...



Hah! Yeah kraut was hard for me too... the connections through early Kraftwerk was what lured me. But I haven't listened too much beyond Can & Faust. For zeuhl, listen to the early Magma albums, Kobaïah etc. To me, zeuhl is the French equivalent of kraut, so if you hate kraut then don't have to big expectations on Magma...

psych/space rock puts me off just like krautrock...I'm just not a fan of jamming or improv. I like weird atmospheres as much as the next AGM guy, but the repetitiveness just doesn't attract me. Post rock seems to suffer from the same repetitive bug. I'm not terribly familiar with the genre, but I haven't found anything that really grabbed me yet.

And if we're talking prog metal too then Pain of Salvation, Ayreon, and Sieges Even are my favorites I think.

I was also trying hard with kraut for a long time until I´ve heard 35007, from that time I have no problem with this genre. It was somehow the starting point.

Same as postrock, for a long time it was boring for me, but now it´s different. Yes, it´s true that postrock bands are copying each other sometimes, but man has to search for quality ones and search for basics of the genre(yep, Montreal postrock is quite fine). It´s a long range run. Now I am trying bands like Art Bears, Shub Niggurath, will see, wish I will like them after a while.

I tried to get into the band, Neu!, but was bored stiff by the repetition. It just didn't go anywhere. Their whole album was like a 2-second loop that just repeated for 20 minutes.

If you like the RIO or "zheul" sound (or how ever you spell it), try an American band called Absolute Zero. The original drummer, Paul Roger was from my hometown, and was replaced by Pip Pyle for a while (right before Pyle passed away in 2006). Paul is one of the first guys I knew who played a completely electric drum kit. And this was back in 1992! I think he retired from music and moved to Florida with his wife.

Oh, and the better the prog musician, the geekier/uglier he usually is. Except John Wetton, freakishly handsome bastard.

Well, Neu! is propably the worst choice for someone who is just starting with kraut... Maybe Amon Düül II or Faust could be better.

True for most except Dave Gilmour, pre-Dark Side. That's a fancy-looking man. Model, though. But still.

you guys are like a collective encyclopedia of obscure stuff........whatever the topic, be it noise, black metal or now prog, there is sooo mcu stuff mentioned that i have never even heard of, much less heard........

what the hell is RIO and zeul sound........?? i will research it later but could someone describe the basic themes, sound wise...and the founders

the more standard fare im a fan off...and actually found a lotta kraut stuff to be kinda like what a lotta metal veered off into in the late 90's...i.e kik ass.......

ashra tempel and faust seem to be the strangest, most haunting and layered of the lot
neu is an aquired taste btu that first album is pure genious
VDGG is probably one of the best

and why does no on seem to listen to Eloy ???? they have an absolutely amazing back catalogue...the first 4 are straight classics.......

suprised no one has mentioned eskaton. unless i missed it.

Suleiman!
RIO = Rock In Opposition, not really a genre but a group of bands who in the late seventies had this festival, UNIVERS ZERo headlined, also performing were Stormy Six and Samla Mammas Manna. The latter haven't I heard that much, but Univers Zero, who I guess is the ultimate RIO band, sounds like... well, Bela Bartok, Alfred Schnittke and Dmitri Shostakovich rehearsing as an instrumental rock band with a severe hang-over. Very long and dynamic and intricate compositions; the Red-era KC tag "Experimental chamber rock" couldn't be more appropriate. To quote Motörhead: they sound like a nightmare, in the pure Lovecraft sense of the word. Guapo continues in the RIO tradition, methinks.
ZEUHL = invented by the mad-man behind French MAGMA. The word means something in MAGMA's make-up language (like Japanese Ruins), a language called "Kobaïah" (I think). The albums I've heard from Magma remind a lot of the kraut-tradition, repetitive and completely deranged, but with a larger and wider sound than e.g. Faust who are pretty "necro" to me.

VDGG as a kraut band? Interesting, I see them as a prog band, mainly because of their UK-ness.

Bassist: Eskaton? Never heard of, where do they fit in in the pantheon - modern, old, metal, not metal...?

Well, also new Guapo album (Elixirs) should be also mentioned, quite expressive material, more experimental than older materials. Pity I missed their live show few weeks ago.

Zeuhl is a progressive rock subgenre typical for french progressive bands, founded def. by band called Magma. Zeuhl is a name for that music in Kobaian language, special language created just for Magma lyrics. How it sounds? Well, sounds like a strange and introverted jazzfussion sometimes, my girlfriend does not like it every evening ("Hey, I´ve got a headache of it!!!") mostly because of it´s dissonance and chaos-like rhytms (which are not really chaotic, but for common listener they are). Mostly french bands - Zao, Shub Niggurath, Magma... but there are also lot of japanese zeuhl bands like Ruins(I didn´t know for a long time that they are also counted as a zeuhl band, heh - I´ve heard about Ruins show in Switzerland with only two paying attendants, hihihi), but I´ve got to say, that the japanese zeuhl is more noisy and agressive, far away from the genre roots. But some another interesting bands are hailing from different countries - mentioned Guapo are from UK, or already mentioned 5uu´s is a band from US. Sry, I am not educated in a music to describe it somehow relevant. Best idea is to go and find some bands, find some albums, or buy it (try maybe with Cuneiform records, but there are lot of small labels). I´m lucky one, there are people in Cze importing tons of this material, it´s little bit expensive because of it´s ´undergroundish´(more than $25/cd in common), but at least it is.