Welcome to Prog's Tracks Of The Week. Six new and diverse slices progressive music for you to enjoy.
Chilean prog rockers Aisles take the honours this week with their 13-minute instrumental prog suite Bahamut, closely followed by The Fierce And The Dead's Shake The Jar with The 3 Clubmen's Aviatrix in third place.
The premise for Tracks Of The Week 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.
So get watching. And get voting at the bottom of the page.
INFINITE RISING - NOCTURNAL SKYWATCHERS
Infinite Rising are a new Italian instrumental prog trio who feature Federico Albanese (guitar), Silvia Pistolesi (bass) and Alessandro Formichi (drums). Technical prowess abounds on Nocturnal Skywatchers, the band's latest single which is taken from their upcoming debut album Awakening, which the band will release on October 3.
"We are a progressive music trio, the band state, "our music is inspired by space, Sci-Fi movies and series as well as books about the universe. Our sound is influenced by the new progressive music of artists like Plini, Animals As Leaders, Liquid Tension Experiment, Arise In Stability, by film and video games music score and by Japanese pop and rock music."
HATS OFF GENTLEMEN IT'S ADEQUATE - BURN THE WORLD
Quirky and industrious prog duo Hats Of Gentlemen Its Adequate are Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland, two of the men behind the annual charity prog event Prog The Forest. The Light Of Ancient Mistakes is the seventh full-length album from the duo and will be released on September 9, from which comes the climate change-inspired Burn The World.
"Many of the songs on the album were inspired by books," the pair say of their latest release. The centrepiece of the album is Walking To Aldebaran, inspired by the science fiction novella of the same name by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The tracks Avrana Kern Is Made Of Ants, The Requisitioner And The Wonder and Gothi And Gethli are references to a character, two spaceships and a pair of crow-like creatures which insistently deny they are sentient in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children Of Time series."
GERD WEYHING - 90 SECONDS
Gerd Weyhing is a German guitarist and part time vocalist who lives and works in a small quiet village in the Palatinate Forest, and who took advantage of our call for artists to send music in to feature in Tracks Of The Week (so that does work folks, in case you're interested) and whose richly complex near-13-minute 90 Seconds is taken from Weyhing's upcoming album IAR.
"This is one track of three of the forthcoming album IAR," says Weyhing. "Originally it was planned to release the compete album at once. But due to circumstances the album will not be finished for quite some time. So here is the first finished song of the album. The lyrics are about the fact that emotions, good or bad, last only 90 seconds in our brains, after that they're gone, dissolved and absorbed into your blood. That is... unless you keep them boiling."
SILENT SKIES - CONSTRUCT
Silent Skies area cinematic prog duo who feature Evergrey frontman Tom S. Englund and pianist Vikram Shankar and who will release their third album Dormant through Napalm Records on September 1. The music is way less bombastic than Evergrey's pounding prog metal, featuring as it does stunning piano melodies, atmospheric keyboards, lush and expansive soundscapes, and hauntingly beautiful and intense vocals.
“We are thrilled to present Construct, the first offering from our new album Dormant," the pair say. "Construct is an encapsulation of the ethos that informed the creative process for this new record. Musically it explores textures and soundscapes that are new additions to our sonic universe, but the reflective melancholy that defines what we do is still very much present. The conceptual theme for Dormant has been ‘conversations with life, about life,’ and in Construct, you will hear the first part of this conversation. We hope it provokes conversations within yourselves in turn.”
TUSMORKE - DEN BEHORNEDE GUDEN
Imaginative Norwegian prog folk quartet Tusmorke are back with an album of new prog material, following the release of several intriguing albums aimed at educating young children in the ways of folklore and music (a worthy cause if ever there was one). Hestehoven will be released through Karisma Records on August 13, from which comes Den behornede guden, which translates as 'the horned god'.
"True Norwegian finger-clicking, butt-swinging, prog rock. No more, no less – but cerebral in excess," the b and say about their new album. |Spring has sprung! If it is all too much to bear, close your eyes and think about the flowers. Hail Pan. The horned god is the joyous spirit of spring, bursting forth as nature is sprung from the prison of winter. Rejoice in the chorus of praise, a manifold chant of hallelujah for the horned one. Give thanks to the king of the forest, he who puts the wild in wilderness."
