Guitar-less Prog Bands / Albums

[Koreabruce]

Though I've played guitar for over 40 years, I'm often intrigued by bands that don't include any guitarists. I'll mention two very different bands here.

Tonight I just pulled out the one and only studio release Pictures (1977) from the Swiss band Island after not hearing it for quite a few years. I guess you would say that this one occupies Canterbury territory (Prog Archives likes the term "eclectic prog", but I don't even know what that's supposed to mean). I was struck by how complete this record is even without any guitars, which I thought unusual for a prog band in 1977. The music is rather complex, dense, dark, and angular with a clear VdGG influence (and I find vocalist Benjamin Jäger much easier on the ears than Peter Hammill). All in all a highly unique record that, while certainly not an easy first-listen, reveals more and more with each subsequent spin. The reissue also has a equally dynamic and musically interesting track called Empty Bottles that adds another 22:36 to the CD. Though not quite up to the sonic quality of the rest of Pictures, it sits well together musically with the other tracks.

From ProgArchives:

Line-up / Musicians
- Benjamin Jäger / lead vocals, percussion
- Güge Jürg Meier / drums, gongs, percussion
- Peter Scherer / keyboards, pedal-bass, voices crotales
- René Fisch / sax, flute, clarinet, triangle, voices

I also thought of the band Yak from the U.K. Their instrumental album from 2008 Journey of the Yak is a solid release in the neo-prog vein. I especially love the atmospheres produced here; very much in the Genesis/Camel realm, and while there's nothing particularly earth-shattering, it is a very agreeable album that I pull out and spin once every few months. Martin Morgan's keyboards do a pretty good job of emulating Hackett-like guitar sounds, so sometimes you might forget that there isn't any guitar to be found here at all.

I still haven't heard their latest one from 2015.

Line-up / Musicians
- Martin Morgan / keyboards
- Dave Speight / drums
- Gary Bennett / bass

Your turn...

[Scrotum Scissor]

Island's Pictures is an absolute underground progressive classic, but I wouldn't describe it as 'Canterbury' - rather a logical extension on developments already happening with advanced artists such as VdGG, Egg, GGiant and even some Magma. To me, this was one of lthe last truly 'progressive' symphonic rock albums, arguably with the first Schicke-Führs-Fröhling and perhaps only one or two others. 'Progressive rock' from this point on was either of a different label *OR* - if "symphonic" rock - a case of attempting to move beyond what said bands achieved back in '77/78.

There were countless guitar-less acts already from the very start. In the UK I can think of several right away; Clouds, Soft Machine, Egg, Rare Bird, Still Life, Fields, VdGG, Morgan, Refugee, Secondhand - did Tonton Macoute have a guitarist? I can't remember. Traffic made a lot of music sans guitars etc. Duncan Mackay's excellent Chimera

Several bands in Germany; Tritonus, Hanuman, (early) Frumpy, (later) Tomorrow's Gift, Triumvirat (in a lot of their stuff) et al. Italians: Latte e Miele, Trip, L'Uovo di Colombo, Metamorfosi, Corte dei Miracoli.

Some South Americans as well: Som Nosso de Cada Dia (their semi-classic Snegs debut), Alas ( although Pedro Aznar would at times double on some minimal guitar parts)... A few Eastern European groups too, like Collegium Musicum in many cases, Skaldowie (sometimes), Horizont, In Spe and more.

I can think of many 'non-symphonic' progressive bands without guitars; (later) Koenjihyakkei, Pochakaite Malko, Mr. Sirius (some), Machine & the Synergetic Nuts, Etron Fou Leloublan, Art Zoyd (on several recordings), Glass, Absolute Zero plus some dozens.

[Sputnik]

I absolutely love Island, one of my favorites. What's particularly interesting to me about them being a "guitar-less" band is that they also didn't have bass. Peter Scherer does an amazing job on the bass pedals filling out the sound, and that gives Island a very unique sonic signature. I don't know Yak, I'll check them out.

Two I immediately though of sit right next to each other on my CD shelf. Blay Tritono' Clot 20 is one I spin often. There might be a touch of classical guitar on this one, but the focus is keys and bass, with some brass and woodwinds. The other is the dual keyboard and drums of Switzerland's Blue Motion. Another real stunner that lacks bass, but the keys more than compensate.

Of course, there's also my band, Eccentric Orbit, whose first album is entirely guitar-free. My idea was to give the keys (and eventually wind-synth) and bass more room and to explore some different compositional approaches not involving guitar. It worked, but it was so hard keeping competent keyboard players that we finally had to modify the line-up to achieve any stability. Tom uses guitar, but generally runs it through a guitar-synth to keep with the "spirit" of the band.

Bill

[zutul]

Aardvark and Greenslade

[Sputnik]

Pochakaite Malko

Good gods, how did I forget them? One of my favorite bands! Machine & the Synergetic Nuts is really good too.

Bill

[Rarebird]

Rare Bird?

[Mascodagama]

L'Orchestre Sympathique from Quebec are a favourite of mine. They created a sort of pastoral prog-jazz fusion made up of flute, vibes, piano, electric bass and drums. En Concert à la Grande Passe is an album I can fully immerse myself in from start to finish, just wonderful.

[Reid]

[Zeuhlmate]

[Nijinsky Hind]

I have this lp somewhere in my shelves and if I remember correctly it's just keys and drums only...

[Digital_Man]

Aardvark and Greenslade

I could be wrong but I don't think Quatermass had a guitarist either. Still Life was another band from that era with no guitarist. I think when people saw the Nice and ELP do it other bands followed suit.

[the ferret]

FM - four strings good, six strings bad!

[Progbear]

Attila (if you consider them prog), The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (ditto), Ivory (the 70s US band with the album on Playboy), Ejwuusl Wessahqqan, Sixty-Nine, Madrugada (the Italian one), Häx Cel, Strinx, Zao and a lot of Magma (Üdü Wüdü and Attahk, for example).

More recently: Gerard, Ars Nova, Deja-Vu (the Japanese one), Far Corner, Psicomagia, Pochakaite Malko, Social Tension, Senni Eskelinen Stringpurée Band and Violent Silence.

Galaxy-Lin are another band like FM that only used mandolins, no guitars (unless you count bass).

[Dave]

[regenerativemusic]

Refugee.

[NogbadTheBad]

Egg & ELP were my first thoughts.

There are a whole bunch of Chamber Rock bands without guitar, Univers Zero - Ceux De Dehors is probably the best example

[Reid]

ELP is not guitar-less. Just ask Greg Lake!

[NogbadTheBad]

ELP is not guitar-less. Just ask Greg Lake!

Tell Emerson that

[emperorken]

Seventh Wave made 2 albums 1974-5, both of which had virtually no guitar. The first album, "Things to Come", was OK, but the second album, "Psi-Fi" was quite good. Psi Fi had one of the great tracks of the 70's in "Star Palace of the Sombre Warrior".

[Reid]

Tell Emerson that

He was pretty sexy for a keyboard player!

[Svetonio]

I'd like to recommend an interesting contemporary prog band - Krunkelstiltskin from Massachusetts. They released two albums, Into The Aurifice (2015) and The Legend of Sassafras (And Other Stories) (2016)


http://krunkelstiltskin.bandcamp.com...o-the-aurifice





Line-up:

Christopher Gorham - Vocals, Keys
Bion Diaz - Vocals, Keys
Richard Buonauguraio - Bass
Mike Thurber - Drums

[Crystal Plumage]

Alamaailman Vasarat.

[Progbear]

Seventh Wave made 2 albums 1974-5, both of which had virtually no guitar. The first album, "Things to Come", was OK, but the second album, "Psi-Fi" was quite good. Psi Fi had one of the great tracks of the 70's in "Star Palace of the Sombre Warrior".

I forgot about them. Virtually no guitar? I'm pretty sure nobody played guitar on these. In fact, apart from a little string bass on the second, I'm pretty sure there are no stringed instruments on these albums at all, not counting the piano, of course.

These albums are pretty hit and miss, with some first-rate electronic experimentation sitting alongside some pretty heinous attempts at pop songs. "Loved by You" has to be one of the worst songs by anyone; godawful singing, hideous synth tones, etc. The last two songs on Psi-Fi pretty much justify their entire career, though.

[NogbadTheBad]

Alamaailman Vasarat.

Good pick

[Rarebird]

Synergy?

Of course I could add a whole lot of other synthesizer-stuff.