Prog Talk Q&A 2018

It’s finally here: the biggest cinematic event of the year – Prog Talk’s 2018 Q&A!

Join the English representatives of Prog Talk (Leth, Cerpin and SirPent) as they traverse around Leicester for a few pints, engage in a bit of banter and answer those elusive questions in life:

What is the album of the year? What is the best Rush alum? Who is the most attractive Prog Talk admin? How can Dream Theater be fixed? Plus many more!

 

I’d like to personally apologize for both the lateness of this video and its recording quality. Technology was very much against us at the meetup as I am a Luddite, so this year’s Q&A somehow being a step down from last years in almost every aspect – though I have tried to salvage it in the editing

Hopefully you’ll still find it engaging nonetheless!

If you have any feedback regarding the format, editing or filming, please let us know so we can take it on board for next time. As exasperating as editing this was, I quite enjoyed doing it and I want to persue more video-based projects like this in the future

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Most importantly, what are YOUR answers to the questions we got asked? Do you agree to any of the answers we brought up? Are we talking out of our behinds? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

 

Let’s Talk: Frank Zappa’s Ghost

Well, maybe not ‘ghost’ per se, but his hologram.

The Zappa Family Trust has announced a collaboration with Eyellusion to produce a hologram of  the deceased musician Frank Zappa to perform in future live shows alongside (living) former bandmates.

Ahmet Zappa has also teased at the premise of a full performance of ‘Joe’s Garage’ featuring the virtual Frank.

You can read the full announcement here

On a completely unrelated note, the Zappa Family Trust has suffered internal strain between Frank and Gail Zappa’s children since Gail’s passing. Ahmet and Diva Zappa allegedly hold a larger proportion of shares and control than Dweezil and Moon Zappa. The biggest controversy surrounding this debacle is Dweezil Zappa’s ‘trademark violation’ of his band ‘Zappa Plays Zappa’, in which the guitarist covers his father’s work.

Dweezil Zappa has since changed the name of his latest tour to ‘50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F@%k He Wants – The Cease and Desist Tour’ to avoid further legal from the Zappa Family Trust.

You can read more about the events surrounding the Zappa Family Trust here

But here’s the question: should a musician be brought back from the dead, either through necromancy or the wonders of technology, for the purpose of performing more live shows? Is this a genuinely well-intentioned premise from the Zappa Family Trust or are they only in it for the money? Will Frank Zappa’s hologram ever perform with Tupac’s hologram? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below – let’s talk ghosts!

Let Me Make It Clear: Nova Collective Is Good, but Nothing New

The new prog supergroup Nova Collective, encompassing the bands Between the Buried and Me, Haken, Cynic, and Trioscapes, is soon releasing The Further Side. They play some damning good tunes, as demonstrated in the video above, and in the other ones that they’ve published, but everyone calling their music ‘new’, ‘pushing boundaries’, or ‘next level’ is only putting their musical illiteracy in broad daylight. Here’s why, in a relatively short rant.

Let’s Talk: Brian Eno’s ‘Reflection’ – The Album That Never Ends

If Brian Eno drops an album in the woods and nobody’s around to hear it, does it still get a favourable review from Pitchfork?

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Back in May 2015, I spoke (rather frankly, in retrospect) of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and his 18-day soundtrack, titled Subterranea, to accompany Stanley Donwood’s art exhibition, ‘The Panic Room’. It was an interesting premise to create a single song of such length, but ultimately I wasn’t impressed.

You can read the full discussion of Subterranea on our Faecbook page here 

Brian Eno has announced his latest ambient endeavour, titled Reflection, that’s been coined as “the album that never ends”. Alongside being released as a condensed album at 54 minutes in length on January 1^st 2017, Eno is releasing an iOS application that streams his ambient music indefinitely. It’s been described as “an endless and endlessly changing generative app”, being constructed from musical algorithms on the part of Eno and Peter Chilvers. Supposedly, the music adapts to the time of day, with daybreak producing brighter harmonies, and where night-time brings a slowing in tempo, but ultimately it’s “the same river, but (it’s) always changing”.

The Neal Morse Band Releases a Lyric Video for Their Upcoming Album

Mike Portnoy often said, on social media, that what we now know as The Similitude of a Dream – The Neal Morse Band‘s next double concept album -, is the best thing he’s ever played on, and is unlike anything they have ever done before. I’m paraphrasing, but he did succeed in raising the expectations of a lot of people, myself included. We all know Neal Morse to be a stellar composer, and a great multi-instrumentalist and singer, but his compositions can feel a bit formulaic at times. The most striking example might be the twin sisters on Transatlantic’s Bridge across Forever, namely “Duel with the Devil” and “Stranger in Your Soul”. The two songs share the same length, and go through similar phases in their development. Now, maybe that was the whole concept behind the album, but you can definitely see strong similarities in other works, such as Sola Scriptura and The Whirlwind. Once again, all these albums and songs I mentioned are some of my favourites, but you just know they came from the same guy.

Let’s Talk: Pink Floyd – Animals

Admittedly, I’m not a massive Floyd fan. Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall are especially hailed and praised by the average prog fan, but I find that the dark horse of their discography has to be the fantastic Animals, which is often left relatively underrated.

Let’s Talk: Vektor – Terminal Redux

You may have realized things have been a little quiet here at Prog Talk HQ – many of us have fallen into the pit of despair known as uni finals, so exploring new music is currently on the backburner.

Although saying that – the one album that has caught my attention recently (other than Radiohead’s latest, ofc) is progressive thrash metal group Vektor’s third album – ‘Terminal Redux’.

Let’s Talk: Van der Graaf Generator – H to He, Who Am the Only One

Admittedly, I’m not particularly well-versed in classic 70’s prog, especially those groups considered second after the more popular Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and the likes. Van der Graaf Generator is one of these bands that I always knew but never indulged in. After listening to ‘H to He, Who Am the Only One’ (enticed by this fantastic name), I’m kicking myself for not having listened to them sooner.

Let’s Talk: Tiamat – Wildhoney

There is something about most popular death/doom bands that intrigue me; these bands changed their style after a few years, citing different reasons like expanding their musical horizons, reach to a higher audience, etc. Katatonia and Anathema started to drift away from their heavy side to feature a melancholic, yet calm and eerie mood while bands such as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost started to experiment a little further (34.788%…Complete by MDB is a clear example of this, featuring a while range of influences, including trip-hop). However, there is one band that is often excluded from this list, and contains one of the most interesting albums of the 90s: enter Sweden’s Tiamat and their 1994 record, Wildhoney.

Let’s Talk: Dream Theater – The Astonishing

The Astonishing really did surprise me. No, really – but maybe not in the way you’re thinking.

Dream Theater’s thirteenth album, as you already know, is a concept album spanning over two hours and 34 tracks. It’s already been said in most reviews of this album, but the biggest fault must be reiterated again – there is a LOT of filler. Most of the many, many, many ballads are too similar to distinguish between and a large number of songs and intervals are unnecessary; songs where the only commendable aspect are the vocals become completely redundant if the narrative is a repetition of what’s already been said.