What's Your Favorite Old Neo-Prog Album?

[the ferret]

What the...? I joined their fan club (I was the only US member), and I never got a letter from Davy!

of course, he might have left right around or even before i joined. It was after The Winter's Tale came out. I became friendly with Dave the drummer.

I think you must have just missed him. He seemed very enthusiastic about keeping in touch with fans.

How did you manage to find out about them in the US, in pre-internet days?

[Crystal Plumage]

What the...? I joined their fan club (I was the only US member), and I never got a letter from Davy!

of course, he might have left right around or even before i joined. It was after The Winter's Tale came out. I became friendly with Dave the drummer.

He still sang on Anagramary (from '97), but was less involved IIRC. Pretty good album as well.

[JKL2000]

I think you must have just missed him. He seemed very enthusiastic about keeping in touch with fans.

How did you manage to find out about them in the US, in pre-internet days?

The answer is simple, and yet so complicated: Robert Wolf. Robert was a vendor of prog CDs, but he made most of his sales at monthly(I think) record shows in NYC, and maybe other locations in the '90s. This WAS back in the olden days, so we used things like Usenet and services like GEnie and the postal service to communicate. Ken Golden's Laser's Edge catalogs are legendary! Ancient tomes filled with arcane knowledge.

[the ferret]

The answer is simple, and yet so complicated: Robert Wolf. Robert was a vendor of prog CDs, but he made most of his sales at monthly(I think) record shows in NYC, and maybe other locations in the '90s. This WAS back in the olden days, so we used things like Usenet and services like GEnie and the postal service to communicate. Ken Golden's Laser's Edge catalogs are legendary! Ancient tomes filled with arcane knowledge.

The good old days!

[Scrotum Scissor]

Fish mentioned the band Pendragon as being another band that he felt held some promise (like Marillion). I tried looking for something by this band when I was next doing some CD shopping, but I mis-remembered the bands name and ended up buying a Pentangle CD by mistake. I got it home, and was disgusted by it

Best quote ever.

[JohnTG8]

JKL love the Mad Puppet. Haven't heard the other 2.

[Splicer]

The answer is simple, and yet so complicated: Robert Wolf. Robert was a vendor of prog CDs, but he made most of his sales at monthly(I think) record shows in NYC, and maybe other locations in the '90s. This WAS back in the olden days, so we used things like Usenet and services like GEnie and the postal service to communicate. Ken Golden's Laser's Edge catalogs are legendary! Ancient tomes filled with arcane knowledge.

I remember those days well. The Holiday Inn on West 57th Street in Manhattan - monthly record show. He was the first person who introduced me to the term "Progressive Rock". I'm not sure what I called it back in the late 70s-early 80s but not that term. His table of CDs was like a wonderland when I saw it. I honestly couldn't believe that all of that music existed and I didn't know about it.

[dropforge]

Multi Story's East West, from 1985, is well worth a listen.

Yeah, that's a good one.

[dropforge]

A real favourite

Another one-off classic. Too bad Laura Basla vanished, apart from a sudden appearance on one song off that Momo album by Alessandro Farinella.

[Yaman Aksu]

Found this neoprog thread to post this to:

In the last few weeks, some audience-shot videos from the late 80s (and 1990) have been posted by a youtube acct. Saw there Marillion (concert, link below), Fish (only 2 songs), IQ (2+ songs).

https://youtu.be/JyD6z_oTMnU

[moecurlythanu]

I took a quick look through this thread, and the thing that stood out most is how many were posting in 2013, who are nowhere to be seen now. It's practically a who's who of PE MIA.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I don't think I've got more than 30-40-or-so releases left that I'd recognise as decidedly "neo-prog", and most of these are from the initial phase of approx 1981-91.

But there are grand exceptions to rule, thank almighty. I relistened to Iluvatar's A Story Two Days Wide from 1999 just the other day, and came to remember why I held on to it. While at times descending into some of the usual trappings of the entire stylistic commitment (like obvious aspirations at reenactment of exact moments in emotional listening impact by way of "associative" or referential passages in the music), there are traits of finesse and definite personality to much of what's on here. The mere chord progressions in the following ballad, for instance, ventures beyond anything I hear on that Underfall Yard thing I still keep from BBT.

Glad I kept it.

[TheH]

Another one-off classic. Too bad Laura Basla vanished, apart from a sudden appearance on one song off that Momo album by Alessandro Farinella.

The second Tale Cue album is almost finished...

[SteveSly]

Interesting seeing this thread pop up again. I had my I-pod on random play the other day and up popped a song from Janison Edge. It prompted me to go back and listen to the whole album which I still think is amazing. I first re-discovered the underground prog scene in the mid 90's and neo prog was a big part of what I liked. 3 albums that always come to mind when thinking of late 90's Neo are:

Janison Edge - The Services Of Mary Goode (hard to believe this band only did one album)

Crucible - Tall Tales (only did 2 albums and the 2nd one was kind of half done. These guys were great live too)

Iluvatar - A Story Two Days Wide (love all of their albums, but this one was their high water mark IMO)

[JKL2000]

Best quote ever.

I did end up liking Pentangle later on!

[Flightwave]

Some of my favorites:

Iluvatar - first album (same title)
Ines- Hunting the Fox
Big Picture - same title
Jadis - More Than Meets the Eye
Landmarq - Solitary Witness

[aith01]

Ines- Hunting the Fox

Ines was quite good. I've got all of her albums, and there's a lot of enjoyable stuff on them. She really nailed that Tony Banks sound sometimes, which can be hard to do.

[Top Cat]

I love Hunting the Fox...there are more albums?
Love Illuvatar as well, I don't have the "A Story" album, will check it out.
Illuvatar reunited several years ago, and released From the Silence which has some good things on it.

Tinyfish w Simon Godfrey(brother of Jem)The One Night on Fire is a great DVD concert.

[JKL2000]

^ I didn’t know Simon was Jem’s brother. Do you have a favorite Tinyfish album? I have The Big Red Spark, but can’t recall a note of it.

[Top Cat]

^ I didn’t know Simon was Jem’s brother. Do you have a favorite Tinyfish album? I have The Big Red Spark, but can’t recall a note of it.

I don't have any of the cd's because once I bought the DVD they pretty much play stuff from everything, including the Big Red Spark, which for me has a memorable hook in The Big Red Spark chorus..lol
I think it's a great performance and captures their quirkiness, with Simon being the leader/vocals/guitar. Great group of musicians in the band, at least to me.
I did buy Simon's solo album under the name Shineback which is more electronic based, but has some good songs on it.

Simon is also known for being part of the Tabletop Genesis group of folks who podcast Genesis discussions.

[Mikhael]

I will echo IQ's "Ever", and speaking of echo, a band I've not seen mentioned here: Echolyn. I got into them through "As The World", and it's still my favourite of theirs.

[fiberman]

I don't think I've got more than 30-40-or-so releases left that I'd recognise as decidedly "neo-prog", and most of these are from the initial phase of approx 1981-91.

But there are grand exceptions to rule, thank almighty. I relistened to Iluvatar's A Story Two Days Wide from 1999 just the other day, and came to remember why I held on to it. While at times descending into some of the usual trappings of the entire stylistic commitment (like obvious aspirations at reenactment of exact moments in emotional listening impact by way of "associative" or referential passages in the music), there are traits of finesse and definite personality to much of what's on here. The mere chord progressions in the following ballad, for instance, ventures beyond anything I hear on that Underfall Yard thing I still keep from BBT.

Glad I kept it.

One of my favorites, I have always loved Iluvatar, a really classy band.

[JKL2000]

I don't have any of the cd's because once I bought the DVD they pretty much play stuff from everything, including the Big Red Spark, which for me has a memorable hook in The Big Red Spark chorus..lol
I think it's a great performance and captures their quirkiness, with Simon being the leader/vocals/guitar. Great group of musicians in the band, at least to me.
I did buy Simon's solo album under the name Shineback which is more electronic based, but has some good songs on it.

Simon is also known for being part of the Tabletop Genesis group of folks who podcast Genesis discussions.

I didn't know he was part of Tabletop Genesis either!

[Scrotum Scissor]

I did end up liking Pentangle later on!

I assume you've heard Basket of Light from 1969 then, their milestone all-acoustic third album?


A tiny handful of non-anglo "neo" names worth investigating. And displaying how even such a proudly/self-admittedly derivative venture can indeed destine for a personal expression.

Montefeltro's Il Tempo Di Far La Fantasia from 1992; often namechecked as "retro" due to lyrics in mother tongue and the rich Italian "symphonic" rock chronicle in general, their main influence was apparently actually IQ and Pallas. Instrumentation neither "retro" but digital and effect-laden. Warm sound still, though. Vocals aren't always their strong gong, but it's a fine album in total.

Mandragora's Pecado Tras Pecado from 1992; again from a wealthy tradition, this time Argentina. It was never a popular or appreciated ditty, and definitely not with "neo" audiences in my experience, partly because of its idiosyncratic caricature on style. Some deemed their oddness "ironic/parodic", but so did many a reaction I saw when seasoned listeners were presented with Lush Attic and the timbre of vox set in.

Abraxas' Centurie from 1998. A private fave of mine. The Poles always seemed to love their "neo", although in fairness several of these acts (Lizard, Quidam and so on) steeped deeply into "retro" eventually. After all, "neo" rests on a particular rendition of very old stuff. And that often gets a bit tuff. Abraxas sought traces of VdGG, Gabriel and the usualties, but you can even detect trinkets from 80s British goth (Bauhaus and The Cure especially) here.

[SteveSly]

I will echo IQ's "Ever", and speaking of echo, a band I've not seen mentioned here: Echolyn. I got into them through "As The World", and it's still my favourite of theirs.

Not sure that I would classify Echolyn as Neo Prog, but "As The World Is" a great album. I love all things IQ as well.