Welcome to Prog's all-new Tracks Of The Week. 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 i n the voting form at the bottom of this post. Couldn't be easier could it?
We'll be bringing you Prog's 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.
Congratulations to last week's inaugural winner John Holden, whose epic video for KV62 walked off with a whopping 35% of the vote. And honourable mention to runners up My Soliloquy with Mind Storms.
So, without further ado, get watching, listening and voting. Have fun...
Devin Townsend - Heartbreaker
Another song from Devin's acclaimed Ligtwork album, the video for the seven-minute long, inevitably catchy yet complex Heartbreaker captures Devin hard at work on the song in the studio via multi-camera shots. It gives a great insight into how the maverick progger and workaholic goes about recording his music.
Amanda Lehman - An Old Christmas Day
The sometime Steve Hackett collaborator Amanda Lehman's wasted no time getting into the festive spirit, even if it is still November with this delightful seasonal offering. Originally a shorter piece recorded for a musical advent calendar for Radio TFSC, Lehmann extended the song and performed it live with Hackett at Trading Boundaries. “I wanted to evoke a kind of happy nostalgia with this Christmas tune, capturing the atmosphere of a cosy old-fashioned Christmas day and embracing the magic-filled imagination of the child in all of us with snowscapes and Christmas characters," she says.
Freedom To Glide - The Chronicle Of Stolen Souls
The UK prog duo have returned with their fourth album from which the emotive The Chronicle Of Stolen Souls is the title track. Once again the band continue the war and conflict theme that have coloured the band's previous releases - The Chronicle Of Stolen Souls is the follow-up to 2019's Seed. "The current political language is reminiscent of what we thought to be a bygone era of power politics and serves as a frightening reminder of the worst situations of the last century," the duo say. "We can only hope for peace, not a peace that is forced upon the loser but a peace without victory."
Damanek - Americana
The multinational melodic prog rockers will release their new album, Making Shore, through GEP records on January 13, and ahead of that is this taster for the album, Americana. Don't worry about the title though, they haven't gone all alt.country on us, this is still a melodic yet complex musical affair, and it's great to hear Guy Manning's distinctive vocals leading the band through a tune which reminds us of a progged-up, fusion leaning Toto. Do you agree?
Karin Park - Traces Of Me (Liars Remix)
Swedish musician Karin Park, who's been described as the 'Scandinavian Nico' and by dark ambient legend Lustmord as a 'force of nature', released her latest album, a set of nine re-recordings – with radically different instrumentation – of tracks from her seven-album back catalogue, entitled Private Collection, last month. Here she lets experimental Australian-American outfit Liars loose on her own Traces Of Me, with startling, atmospheric effect.
Laibach - The Future
In which the Slovenian avant-gardists turn their attention to Leonard Cohen, with a typically unique take on his pre-apocalyptic track, The Future. The band, who state: "There is nothing new except what has been forgotten” are famous for their reinterpretations and have previously covered Dylan, The Stones and The Beatles. Cohen himself said of The Future; for which the band have created a suitably dark video, “The Future is dark and funny. If I’d have nailed that to the church door like Martin Luther it’d be a very sinister document. But it’s married to a hot little dance track so, in a sense, the words melt into the music and the music melts into the words and you’re left with a kind of refreshment, a kind of oxygen.”
L.O.E. - All's Well That Ends Well
One of the great things about post-rock is just how much a band can seemingly squeeze into a short pace of time. Halifax's quartet L.O.E. blend sweeping grandiosity with intricate guitar-led melodies on All's Well That Ends Well, making it's three and a bit-minute frame seem so much longer. It's another track taken from the band's upcoming EP Secret Societies Rule The World, through Hopeful Tragedy Records on November 30. "Our dystopian look at how the global elite control our societies" say the band.
The Little Unsaid - Fable
Unsettling humour is the order of the day with this quirky offering from The Little Unsaid, the musical project of Yorkshire-born and South London-based musician/ producer John Elliott. Fable is the title track of the band's upcoming third album, described as a "this is what Radiohead would sound like had Thom Yorke listened to Richard Thompson instead of Scott Walker", and will be released on December 2.
Voodoo Drummer - Drunk Dionysus ft. Mamadou Diabate: Balafon
The last time we encountered Voodoo Drummer, Greek musician Chris Koutsogiannis, he was mashing up Pink Floyd and John Coltrane! This time it's something distinctly more rhythmic. Inspired by his ancestors, he has created an Afro-Dionysian experimental piece where weird Cello voices dance on top of a unique combination of odd rhythms, followed by a swinging version of a 9/8 Greek dance. Therein enters the Balafon master Mamadou Diabate from Burkina Faso. In this track, the God of wine, theatre, fertility, ritual insanity, the notorious libertine himself Dionysus, is just drunk as usual!
