[davenotdead]

british people are just jaded and mean

[reginald]

To me, the most innovative material since 1990 is the King Crimson projekcts that were done in the interim of 'official' KC material c. 1997-1999.

 

There were 4 variations of the band.


The ProjeKct One disc is probably the closest to standard jazz fusion, mostly due to the acoustic drums (all the other sets feature electronic drums and samples). Still, anyone at the Jazz Cafe who was expecting standard jazz must have been in for a bit of a shock. The Stick and touch guitar are often used to pound out some pretty hectic rhythms (check out track two), while in other places the guitars create laid-back, atmospheric soundscapes. Sometimes both things happen together. Given that this disc features the line-up that's closest to 80s King Crimson, and the most familiar instrumentation, I expected it to be my favorite of the set. Instead, it turns out that I like the other three discs more.

ProjeKct Two's disc contained some familiar material. A few tracks are live interpretations of pieces from Space Groove, and the disc concludes with a short, instrumental version of "21st Century Schizoid Man" (sounding like it was played by the Cantina band from Star Wars). There is also a lot of improv and new material, including "The Deception of the Thrush" - a mellow but menacing song with a slow, insistent rhythm section. The ProjeKct Four disc also contains a (much different) version of this song. At the end of the P2 disc, after a long stretch of silence, we get about eight minutes of audience reaction to Fripp walking off the stage because someone took a flash photo of him. It's left as an exercise for the reader to decide if this makes Fripp a hero or a jerk.

The ProjeKct Three disc isn't quite like the others. The source material for it came mainly from live improv performances, but then the music was edited with bits and pieces moved here and there to "make a better flow and cover a few, but not all, brown spots" (according to the liner notes). The result is a disc that sounds more "studio" than the others, but still retains the energy and experimentation of the live shows. This disc is probably the hardest to get a grip on - after several listens, I still haven't fully formed an opinion on it yet. As with disc two (and four), this one contains a silent section near the end, followed by a short flurry of notes. Personally, I think this little trick is getting old (since it seems that most Crimson-related discs released in recent years have something like this), and it actually goes against the liner notes - they suggest you play the disc "in random mode to continue the improvisation". Good idea, but having that blank spot show up in the middle somewhere really wrecks the flow of the music.

ProjeKct Four sounds to me like "Ozric Tentacles meets Soundscapes". The OT feeling comes from electronic "twiddly bits" that help to propel the rhythm section. I personally really like this effect, so the beginning of disc four is one of my favorite parts of the boxed set. Like disc two, this one seems more composed than other parts of the set. And like disc two, this one also features song titles. West Coast Live opens with a song in four sections (with the sections sounding like four different performances spliced together) called "Ghost (part 1)". As mentioned above, the disc also includes a version of "Deception of the Thrush", this time with a booming, pounding rhythm section. "Hindu Fizz" and "ProjeKction" follow, and finally the disc ends with the five-track song, "Ghost (part 2)". This last song begins with Fripp and Levin trading scratchy low notes and getting some laughs from the audience.


more.....

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/d...hp?rev=kc-proj


My favorite was Projekct 3, called Masque.

 

Besides this variation of King Crimson, the next type of innovation I've enjoyed was the trancing of Hip Hop. TripHop like Portishead, Massive Attack and even Sneaker Pimps.

[atsonicpark]

fucking sweet, I'd never even HEARD OF that and I love Crimson.

[reginald]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

fucking sweet, I'd never even HEARD OF that and I love Crimson.

Chekc it out ! Ha !!

Surely there are some places to sample the variations.

[Florya]

Originally Posted by dionysusundone

Also the innovative artists you mentioned were pretty strange examples, mostly early 80s goth stuff (Which I love, but easily recognize to be a synthesis of their influences). If you consider Bauhaus to be innovative, then why is something like Ponytail or Animal Collective not innovative to you? You're holding out on a weird standard that makes you come across as...well, old and bitter towards the music of today. (Not trying to be offensive)

Too late. If I'd known this thread would descend into name calling and games of musical one-upmanship I'd have kept my trap shut.

Do you seriously think that I don't like any music that isn't from he 80's?

This whole discussion isn't about what music I like. It doesn't have to be innovative and original to get my seal of approval. Good music is good music no matter what decade it comes from, and a lot of current artists have taken the innovations of yesteryear and improved them to the point that they sound like new.

I've listened to bands like Ponytail and Animal Collective - didn't find them offensive, but they're nothing special and not particularly inspirational.

Maybe it's because I've listened to too much music in the half century that I've been on the planet that I find myself comparing it to what came before.

I'm not saying that there hasn't been any original, innovative music in the last 2 decades, just that with the improvements and availability of new technology and the ease of distribution of new material via the internet, I'm surprised that I haven't heard more.

A few examples of music that I've found to be refreshingly original within the last 2 decades:

Aphex Twin
The Bristol Trip Hop scene
Mum (esp the early stuff)
V/vm (esp The Caretaker)
Peter Christopherson (soisong)
Manorexia
Holy Fuck
Sigur Ros
UNKLE
JellyApe
Venetian Snares


I'm not saying that these are the only artists that have done something new, and I'm sure some of you will take great pleasure in pointing out if and when their music is derivative. It's a personal selection. Drawn from my own experience.

[afterthefact]

Originally Posted by Florya

That's my whole point. Even if they sound 'original' and 'innovative', their music is influenced by what came before it.

I'm sorry that I haven't read every post, so I am sure this has already been pointed out, but how does music after 1989 differ from music before 1989, in relation to the above rule that you mentioned?

[SYRFox]

Lucky Dragons
this band is innovative, they do something new and I do not think anyone has done what they do before them

Style

Though their songs have been described as having "entered the postsong age", Rara said that she felt music was "still very much in a song age" as "very few people are making work without a specific duration or end point". Rara said that the structure of Lucky Dragons' songs were very different, with some songs lasting only for "a few sputters" and with others that "revolve around shepherd tones and expand for hours". She stated that many of their songs "begin with improvisation" and said it was "like a game where the only rule is that each action must generate a kind of response or new action". The improvisation enables them to "keep moving in several new directions at once".[1]

Fischbeck said "a song in my mind is something that is completed once it is distributed and can come back in a changed form through a listening reaction" and was the element that enabled him to continue to call the band's music songs, as opposed to what he called "the much more technologically neutral 'tracks,' which [don't] imply any human interaction at all".[1]

The Stranger described two of the band's older albums, Norteñas and Future Feeling, as "employ[ing] a scrappy indietronica approach that sounds like Icelandic cuties Múm if they were raised on UK post-punk spazzes Swell Maps and hit "record" while buzzed on Jolt." Fischbeck noted that he felt the band's music was "maybe a mix between political and healing—meditative punk..."[1]

Live performances

Rara said that the band's live performances are created with the idea that they should "generate equal power-sharing situations between members of the audience and ourselves."[1] This technique was described as "radical" as it was said to "encourage connections between show-goers over the standard-issue connection between a band and their creation and the audience's emotions".[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Dragons

and their last album is really great

[atsonicpark]

I'm just happy as hell to see Mum mentioned on here! I fucking love them.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Florya

The Bristol Trip Hop scene

I always want to shout 'WRONG' whenever I hear of such things. Bristol was always best for DnB and proper dancing music at the time, trip-hop is a complete and utter misnomer. I think there's always been stuff around that was like whatever trip-hop is like, and it's probably all from the Mark Stewart axis, but I always think of trip-hop as a complete non-genre.

[PAULYBEE2656]

ive had a quick flick thru this thread and very curious and interesting points are thrown up..... innovatuion doesnt really mean big sales or popularity but to be innovative you have to be heard by more than your flatmates or your neighbours right??

since 1990 we have had how many truly groundbreaking (not innovative) records... id say 5 maximum..

loveless
spiderland
nevermind
snivilisation
mirrored

i say these as they stopped people in their tracks and made a certain style or genre of music extremely publicly in demand for a while.... in the same way the sex pistols did or in the same way bill hailey did...

maybe im grasping at straws here but to me anyway, those records were highly important in recent musical history....

mnowim gonna be shot down here by listing these so in advance im gonna shoot some down, animal collective innovative.. no, highly interesting but not uinnovative.... if they are then i sugest liars

aphex twin, fucking genius but innovative..... no.....

autechre innovative.. mmm maybe but they disappeared up their own input sockets and lost it in my opinion...... lp5 was their peak..... and i wouldnt call that innovative

maybe we gotta look at artists like merzbow to talk innovativly, mayvbe we should look at artists outside our own little tiny world.. maybe there is some mali music or something happening in eastern africa which is truly innovative??? who knows???

music is too easy these days! all i have to do now to find asomething new to listen to is do a google search and bang, i have it burned to a cd in a few minutes. i dont have to preoreder in my local shop and wait an eternity tfor it to come, i dont have to wait for that trip to dublin and run into that cool shop where i think i may have seen it 6 months ago and hope its still there...... i dont get suprised when i rummage through second habnd racks anymore.... "argh, its a bit scratchy, ill download it instead"

we are all spoiled in this age, and yes we are all guilty of it.. maybe if we all didnt know so much we might find something innovative but for me ive 2 words to say and please think about this as an answer to your question....

lighting bolt????????????????????

[PAULYBEE2656]

Originally Posted by ZEROpumpkins

How about on Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin? That was one of the first popular records to use software synthesisers and drum machines.

And just listen to what he did with them

im sorry but i cant agree with that sentence at all..

orbitals snivilisation or brown album are more important. personally i dont think its his best work....

to me it just sounded like warp records back catalogue all in a blender.. it was a damn good cocktail but a cocktail nonetheless......

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by PAULYBEE2656

loveless
spiderland
nevermind
snivilisation
mirrored



autechre innovative.. mmm maybe but they disappeared up their own input sockets and lost it in my opinion...... lp5 was their peak..... and i wouldnt call that innovative

What is "snivilisation"??!!

autchre were innovative with LP5/EP7/CONFIELD.
but yes they lost it. damn that last album was weak.

[atsonicpark]

I don't think "mirrored" is all that inventive. Just sounds like an overproduced math rock group with Alvin and the Chipmunk vocals. Battles had released stuff prior to that that was better and more, um, innovative (I feel like we've all used that word a thousand times on here), not to mention a million other math rock bands before them, some that the members of Battles were already in.

Nevermind wasn't innovative. It sounds like the most predictable album ever made, as well.

Autechre have done some pretty innovative stuff, though labels like Raster-Norton come out with about 10 releases a month that put Autechre's inventions to shame... Autechre do rule though. Get better with every album though Draft is my personal favorite.

I dont' find Lightning Bolt all that innovative. They sound like a noisier godheadsilo but not as good. Someone's going to reply "BUT THE DUDE HAS A BANJO STRING ON HIS BASS!!"

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by ZEROpumpkins

How about on Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin? That was one of the first popular records to use software synthesisers and drum machines.

What????
Christ.

[atsonicpark]

No, he's right. It's one of the first POPULAR records to use that stuff and definitely one of the first EVER to use software synthesizers.

But I already said like 3 pages ago that it doesn't make it innovative, and that stuff doesn't really have a big impact on the sound and isn't even as innovative as most of other Aphex Twin's output...

[PAULYBEE2656]

yeah but adam, the dude has a banjo string on his bass...

ok..... those albums i listed... there are landmark records that stepped out of the indie closet to the mainstream that turned people on to music (snivisation- orbitals stadium techno masterpiece) i never said they were innovative (that word has lost all meaning) . just putting the point accross that music is now too diluted today to be innovative...

as for the bolt. live they are the most stunning thing ive seen, their set up their attitude their everything, i havent seen anything like it before and they appeal to a great cross section of people.....ok, godheadsilo....nah, i see the comparison but dont 100% agree.....

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I don't think "mirrored" is all that inventive. Just sounds like an overproduced math rock group with Alvin and the Chipmunk vocals. Battles had released stuff prior to that that was better and more, um, innovative (I feel like we've all used that word a thousand times on here), not to mention a million other math rock bands before them, some that the members of Battles were already in.

Nevermind wasn't innovative. It sounds like the most predictable album ever made, as well.

Autechre have done some pretty innovative stuff, though labels like Raster-Norton come out with about 10 releases a month that put Autechre's inventions to shame... Autechre do rule though. Get better with every album though Draft is my personal favorite.

I dont' find Lightning Bolt all that innovative. They sound like a noisier godheadsilo but not as good. Someone's going to reply "BUT THE DUDE HAS A BANJO STRING ON HIS BASS!!"

- Early Battles > Mirrored = win
- Don Cab were way more "inniovative" as in paving the way
- Nevermind inovative? No. Predicatble? ermmm not really
- Raster Norton? Apart from Alva Noto, Ikeda and Boghossian (whatever his name is) , it's a bunch of wankers with extremely nice artwork.
- LB / Banjo string on bass = really? Had never noticed.

[PAULYBEE2656]

Originally Posted by greedrex

What????
Christ.

thats what i said.. that was only 12 years ago right? i find it hard to believe....and it sounds really shitty in places...

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

No, he's right. It's one of the first POPULAR records to use that stuff and definitely one of the first EVER to use software synthesizers.

But I already said like 3 pages ago that it doesn't make it innovative, and that stuff doesn't really have a big impact on the sound and isn't even as innovative as most of other Aphex Twin's output...

huh

[PAULYBEE2656]

ok, look..get off the nevermind thing. i didnt put my point accross right or everyone missed it.. im sure its the former.......