Welcome to Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week! This week we've got seven more new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
Congratulations to New Jersey prog duo Datura Lodge, whose up-tempo Stone won last week's Tracks Of The Week, narrowly pipping Venezuelan quintet Changing Places In The Fire and with Japanese psych trio Maya Ongakku 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 - it 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.
HAKEN - DELIRIUM
The currently slimmed-down Haken have just announced they will release a new EP, in a fever dream (styled lowercase, before the grammar police are on our backs!), which they'll release through InsideOut Music digitally on July 17 and physically on September 18. They're helped out on bass by both The Aristocrats' Bryan Beller and Periphery's Adam 'Nolly' Getgood, and new single, delirium, is a proper prog-rocking banger!
“This EP was born from a period of reflection and rediscovery," the band say. "Over the last few years, we’ve faced challenges that forced us to look inward, both as musicians and as people, and the songs on this record are the result of that journey. This EP captures a moment in time of us finding our feet again - moving forward, taking risks, and creating from a place that feels as genuine as we have ever been.”
REZN - AERIAL BIRTH
There have been quite a few musical labels attached to Chicago quartet REZN, but 'dreamlike' is the word we'd attach to the band's new single, Aerial Birth. It's taken from their upcoming album, Cycles In The Infinite Dream, which is out through Sargent House on July 24, and which offers a sound that binds together prog, psych and something a little more muscular. We're certainly liking what we've heard so far...
“We moved towards the dream and subconscious state as a lyrical concept and melodic theme,” the band explains. “The pseudo-waking state is a reflection of a second existence—something that you can flee to or be imprisoned by.”
ENSLAVED - SPIRIT HELPER
Norwegian prog metallers Enslaved continue to explore new musical territory light years away from their original black metal sound with the release of Spirit Helper, a collaboration with Kevin Kicking Woman (his family's spiritual tribal name), an Elder of the Blackfeet Nation. Although it echoes the band's immense Havenless from 2003's Below The Lights, Spirit Helper shows the band in a whole new musical light
"Ultimately, Spirit Helper is a song about connection - between past and present, traditions and people, and the spiritual and human worlds," says guitarist Ivar Bjørnson. "For Enslaved, it stands as one of the most meaningful musical journeys we have undertaken."
"Songs are the Blackfoot way of knowing," adds Kevin. "Expressing relationship and responsibility, belonging and accountability. The purpose of this song is having the performative expression giving meaning to life. Connecting to the universes through the cosmos, earth beings, water beings and spirit beings. Spirit helper is the physical documentation in this process."
HAPPY THE MAN - FOURTH OF JULY: AN AMERICAN SUITE
US prog rockers Happy The Man have shared a video for their brand new single, The Fourth Of July: An American Suite, the first new music from the band in over 20 years! It comes courtesy of drummer Ron Riddle, originally created in the 2000s during his years as composer for the television series Detonators. It also features a nucleus of original Happy The Man members who have continued collaborating musically in recent years, including bassist Rick Kennell and guitarist Stanley Whitaker.
“This project feels strangely inevitable,” says Riddle. “The original piece already carried the DNA of Happy The Man inside it. What’s exciting now is hearing those ideas finally realised by the musicians who inspired that side of the writing in the first place.”
STICK MEN - SWIMMING IN TEA
Stick Men really should need no introduction to Prog readers, featuring as they do King Crimson’s Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto along with multi-instrumentalist and composer Markus Reuter. The trio are releasing their first new album in a decade with Let’s THRAK Again, a Robert Fripp-sanctioned homage to King Crimson’s THRAK, out via their Bandcamp page on September 4, and from which comes new single, Swimming With Tea.
"Let's THRAK Again is 60 minutes of pure, kinetic energy," notes the band. "We didn't just write 12 new compositions; we designed an entirely new sonic vocabulary for them. Our audience listens deeply. They don't just want to hear the notes; they want to understand the architecture of the sound. It’s a roll of the dice, a sonic triptych, and a tribute to the heavy, mechanical impact of the original THRAK era."
PLAYGROUNDED - SNOW
Multi-national proggers Playgrounded have announced that they will release their new album, A Flower To Water, through Pelagic Records on September 18. An eclectic bunch at the best of times, the band's new single Snow is a catchy yet brooding and meditative slice of proggy electronica that could easily win the band an army of new fans.
“We slightly lift the veil to uncover the themes of A Flower To Water in black and white," the band state. "We speak of grief as a process, its marks on time, the anticipation of the new. So… we let it go, inside the snow, today."
SUSANNA - A SWALLOW
Norwegian art rock artist Susanna is celebrating 15 years of running her own label, SusannaSonata, and will release three new albums through the label of artists she "deeply loves to listen to", as well as sharing her own video of a live performance of A Swallow, which was originally from her recent Meditations On Love album.
The video features just Susanna, her voice and Finnish/Norwegian composer, musician and producer Juhani Silvola for a sparse and haunting rendition.
