Welcome to Prog's Tracks Of The Week. We've got seven new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
Congratulations to Norwegian proggers Laughing Stock, whose Not Today with vocals from Tim Bowness won last week's Tracks Of The Week. They were pushed all the way by UK post-rockers blanket, with a late surge for brand new single True Blue and with Norwegian/Costa Rican musician Ozul in third place.
The premise is simple - we've collated a batch of new releases by bands falling under the progressive umbrella, and collated them together in one post for you - makes it so much easier than having to dip in and out of various individual posts, doesn't it? The idea is to watch the videos (or listen if it's a stream), enjoy (or not) and also to vote for your favourite in the voting form at the bottom of this post.
Couldn't be easier, could it? We'll be bringing you Tracks Of The Week, as the title implies, each week. Next week we'll update you with this week's winner and present a host of new prog music for you to enjoy.
If you're a band and you want to be featured in Prog's Tracks Of The Week, send your video (as a YouTube link) or track embed, band photo and biog to us here.
THE OCEAN - EVEN DEEPER
It takes a brave band to tackle a Nine Inch Nails song. It takes a very good and brave band to do it well. Step forward Germany's The Ocean, who deliver an excellent take on Even Deeper, originally from Nine Inch Nail's 1999 album The Fragile, and here taken from Best Of Nine Inch Nails Redux, another of Magnetic Eye Records' covers albums, which is being released on November 28, alongside The Downward Spiral Redux. Former Ocean vocalist Loïc Rosetti also features on the recording.
"The Fragile has been an eye-opening record for Loïc and me in many ways. The sheer scope of it, the production marrying fat electronics with broken, organic and acoustic elements that are intentionally slightly out of tune… no-one else had done it like that before," says The Ocean mainman Robin Staps. "We wanted to do The Great Below initially, but someone else had already picked that track, so Even Deeper was only our second choice. But in hindsight I’m happy, it’s the right track for us and I believe we managed to make it ours, while honouring the original. Special thanks to Simen from Spurv and Orestis from Playgrounded for contributing trombone and synths. This is also farewell, thank you and send-off to Loïc, as it’s the last track we recorded with him on vocals."
![The Ocean - Even Deeper [Official Visualizer] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XzD082JCUyw/maxresdefault.jpg)
THE HIRSCH EFFEKT - DAS NACHSEHEN
Das Nachsehen is the second track Hanover trio The Hirsch Effekt have released from their upcoming album, Der Brauch, which they will release through Long Branch Records on January 30. The album is without a doubt the most progressive-sounding release from the trio, although as Das Nachsehen builds to its climax, the band show they're not beyond making an almighty big rock sound as well
"The song Das Nachsehen is basically about how I – and some people around me – deal with conflicts," says singer Nils Wittrock. "Instead of talking to each other, interpersonal conflicts are negotiated with third parties. Many people shut themselves off behind their noise-cancelling headphones and smartphones. This stands in stark contrast to how many (especially) men walk around with a great sense of mission – be it loud engines, phone calls on speakerphone or Bluetooth speakers. Sometimes it seems to me that we are forgetting how to talk."
N20 - RADIO
Featuring the musicians of The Alan Parsons Live Project under Alan Parsons’ direction, who also produced and mixed the track, Radio is from the band N2O, whose mainman, Robert Frances, also CEO of PEAK Financial Group, founded Music Is Medicine to raise money for the Brain Tumour Foundation Of Canada to advance research, education and patient support programs. The release of Radio follows the sold-out benefit concert by The Alan Parsons Live Project held on May 14 at Place des Arts, which raised more than $600,000 for brain cancer research and marked the official launch of Music is Medicine.
“Losing a friend and bandmate to brain cancer had a profound impact on me,” says Frances. “I wanted to turn that experience into something meaningful. Working with Alan on Radio brought that vision to life.”
“It was a privilege to collaborate with N2O,” adds Parsons. “Knowing the story behind David’s lyrics makes Radio even more powerful. It is an honest and timeless song that proves music connects generations.”
ALEX HENRY FOSTER - CITY ON FIRE
Although he started life very much in the post-rock field, there's an increasing grandiosity in Foster's music, typified in this pulsating live rendition of City On Fire, which was recorded at his band's performance at this year's 2Days Prog + 1 Festival in Italy, that pushes his sound further into the porg territory (admittedly, both porg and post-rock do fold over into one another anyway). It's available on streaming platforms from December 5 and released on vinyl on December 12
"City On Fire is a song that has been vibrating within me for quite some time already. It came and went in my life when I least expected it, but I guess it became much more significant for me as I’ve been horrified by the new measure of atrocities human nature is inflicting on the world," Foster says. "I understood that beyond the fire raging within us and the subsequent cynicism we now have to deal with lies the notion of trying to find some inner peace through it all, to transcend the fear we have to lose ourselves in our own flaming disillusions.”
JAIME - ABOVE AND BEYOND
Hailing from the musically fertile Bergen in Norway, prog metal quintet Jaime are in good company. The band have just released their debut album, Above & Beyond, from which they have released a video for the title track. They make a big cinematic, but also technically proficient sound and it's no surprise that their FFO suggestions include Dream Theater, Devin Townsend and Nightwish.
The band describe their new album as “the most ambitious prog-metal project from a Bergen band in a long time." They've got balls, we'll give them that!
MASSIMO PIERETTI - COME HEAVY SLEEP
It's quite clear from his video for Come Heavy Sleep that Italian progger Massimo Pieretti favours making a regal statement of intent. Pieretti's take on English Renaissance composer John Dowland's melancholic song features on his upcoming album The Next Dream. The track itself features a guest appearance from John Hackett, while the likes of Dominic Sanderson, Rob Townsend, Nick Fletcher and Mattias Olsson feature on the album.
"Come Heavy Sleep is an old song dating back to 1600 by the British musician John Dowland which I have rediscovered rearranged and renewed in order to fit with
our times and as part of a wider attempt of mine -to start a small social revolution, as well as acontinuation of my research and musical experimentation started with the song Out Of This World from A New Beginning, my first album," says Pieretti.
THE CHEMISTRY SET - STP
Cult London psychedelic scientists The Chemistry Set are about to release a new double A-sided single for their label Fruits de Mer, of which STP (Space Time Perception) is one side, the other being The Tragic Fridge Magnet, which is released through the label on December 15. The suitable trippy video is courtesy of Drain Hope, who has made videos for Gong, Nad Sylvan, Pure Reason Revolution, Thumpermonkey and Michael Woodman.
“The lyrics are kind of a continuation of an earlier Chemistry Set song, Paint Me A Dream, with lots of visions from the skies, surrealism and a bit of comedy," explains Dave McLean, one half of TCS. "A man takes a tab of (STP) LSD, which was the variety known in the 1960s as STP (and the tab had the STP motor oil decal on it). We are making a video and will have the STP typography but transformed into LSD… then the trip begins..."
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