Saw Aranis last night...

[rcarlberg]

... slow, plodding and depressing - ?

Exactly -- obviously Yanks wasn't speaking from a position of strength.

[NogbadTheBad]

I'll give him depressing (though they've always made me happy) but not slow or plodding.

[Trane]

Dave, nice post, do you think Aranis are playing it safe, or that the type of music Joris wants to write & perform happens to be better paying than the UZ, Present music?

Actually, yes in some ways Aranis is playing it safer than UZ and Present, mostly because they're average music is a much happier and lighted-hearted one than their forefathers' depressive kind of music.... In their early two albums, you could dance to some f that music.... That makes a whole lot of difference for the average joe

Yeah, Aranis gets lumped in by association with RIO, and sure, they music has a not-insignificant Univers Zero vibe at times, but as far as levels of dissonance and musical challenge go, they're not too far removed from your more accessible Flower Kings or whatever. It's a band that lots of proggers should find something to like about.

Well, they started sounding a bit UZ-like with their Roque Forte album.... Obviously Kerman and Chevalier weighed in on those musical changes... the former more than the latter, who's still in the band now that they've reverted to a sound that resemble their first two albums

My only exposure to Univers Zero, I found their music to be slow, plodding and depressing. I find none of that describes Aranis, though I can understand some comparisons in terms of structure.

Well, I can understand you PoV... Don't play Present or UZ to a depressive mind... It'll help them plunge to the next step...

Hi, Ian !

I "do" think Aranis play it a bit on the safe side, meaning they don't play for peanuts, or a loss. They manage themselves extremely well, basically sticking around the home court, and usually choose to venture outside their neighborhoods only if the situation seems lucrative to some degree, or at least effective or advantageous. But this has not so much to do with the style of music, or the way it differs from others.

Truth be told, I am under the impression that Flemish Belgians have an overall easier time collecting grants than the French Belgians. But, I might be wrong, and THAT might have something to do with the music. ie ask Mike E. about the Present concert in Chicago, when we invited members of the Belgian consulate, in the hopes they might cough up some grant money for a future tour in the USA. These men in business suits, and women in chiffon-laced dresses, were extremely gracious and cordial, but sat at the back of the club, with their jaws in their laps, basically horrified at the experience. Heh heh I believe that Aranis would not have been met with the same response.

Aranis had the Flemish cultural logo on their album right from the start, while it's very(or fairly) recent on UZ albums

Well, the Flemish region is much better endowed in terms of finances than Wallonie is, that's for sure - situation that is obviously reflected in the "cultural" areas on eirther sides as well... So they (Aranis) have most likely an easier task to get subsidies from the regional authorities... In the broke French-speaking parts, they robably look at the uncompromising Daniel and the awkward-speaking Roger with wide-eyes, wondering WTF they're doing in asking for subsidies, with their band's very long caerers (77 and 81 respectively >> that's more than 30 years)...

So yeah, they're probably getting some subsidies so the cultural affairs get to see their logos on the album, but the bands are getting little assistance in finding concerts, despite some classical music influences...

[thedunno]

Here's a bit of the recent Songs from Mirage show in Gent (I saw the show in Antwerp)



I think they sound geat with a choir. Might be an idea for the follow-up on Songs from Mirage Joris is working on/

[Trane]

Because you jump down everyone elses throat the minute they disrespect a style of music you like but you are happy to describe UZ as "slow, plodding and depressing".

I don't think Tom was out to disrespect UZ and Present, just describing in his words the mood of their music...

Just for the record: For the first few years of their career, Aranis were not unaware of bands like Univers Zero, Juleverne, Present etc. When the Flemish press began to take them seriously enough to make comparisons, the band took notice. But they are from a different school of music altogether, originally influenced by Astor Piazolla, and much younger than those contemporaries. Some of them had no idea who Jimi Hendrix was until somewhat recently, whereas the principals of UZ and Present would readily admit to an intense influence. So, whereas their most compared-to colleagues are undoubtedly "Rock" musicians, Aranis are first and foremost Classical musicians (some of the most learned in Belgium, btw), who came to RIO by way of Tango, which they got together to play for fun, originally.

Also, for the record, RIO doesn't necessarily need to sound dark, or ominous, or dissonant. It merely means to be coming from a place outside of the mainstream, and therein lies the conundrum of Aranis. While they are not on a major record label, they do to some degree get funded from the "inside". But the music is excellent, for the most part, and that's why they were greeted with open arms..........

Well, I may not be so sure that they did know of UZ before they founded Aranis (I mean, I spoke to their first pianist Axelle Kennes a few times (she was the better bilingual in the band, though Joris is quite good at it as well) when she was still in the band, and she told me that the RIO scene was a total discivery for most of them... They might have known their "cross-town rivals" in Antwerp DAAU, who dealt with a similar chamber music at their debut, but even DAAU never got (so far) to play in Carmeaux...

I can't even picture "slow" or "plodding" as applied to UZ. "Depressing" I can see. I mean, "plodding" implies a steady beat, and "slow" implies tempos that are below average. Neither is true of UZ.

Anyone that says so probably isn't very familiar with their music.

Well, obviously, that Tom's case... and I can't blame him for not deepen his familiarity.

Slow, yes (it's definitelmy not techno music)... depressing , yes, espêcially if you're not in the mood ... plosdding, if you're not into that kind of music, Promenade Au Fond d'Un Canal and many other Trigaux/Denis compositions can sound that way...

[Zeuhlmate]

I strongly disagree with "depressing". UZ is sinister & dark at times, but that doesnt make me feel depressed in any way.
How music influences a person differs widely.

Look at the happy jumping and shouting crowds to Punk, Death Metal, Heavy, etc. concerts.

Personally I can get depressed when having to listen to music I consider bad, or completely out of my range, something I cant refer to mentally at all.
Else its more a question of getting the 'right' medicine to the present symptom. Music is healing

[PeterG]

You callin' the following anything but dark, ominous or dissonant?

I'm going to need some help here. I thought RIO stood for Rock In Opposition, but there is no rock in any of those three songs. The first one is modern classical and the third one is flamenco/folk music. I don't know how to describe the chanson in the second one, other than I like it As for dark or ominous, not really, I find them all rather jolly to be honest. You should hear some of the stuff I listen to on a dialy basis if you want dark and ominous

[PeterG]

Else its more a question of getting the 'right' medicine to the present symptom. Music is healing

Amen to that brother!

[Scrotum Scissor]

I'm going to need some help here. I thought RIO stood for Rock In Opposition, but there is no rock in any of those three songs. The first one is modern classical and the third one is flamenco/folk music. I don't know how to describe the chanson in the second one, other than I like it As for dark or ominous, not really, I find them all rather jolly to be honest. You should hear some of the stuff I listen to on a dialy basis if you want dark and ominous

Perhaps *YOU* should listen to some early Swans, for example? I never thought of MDB as particularly "successful" in conveying anything dark, to be quite honest.

The three artists I posted videos from are all connected to the ROCK-IN-OPPOSITION spectrum by way of either memberships or stylistic diversity within that movement's oevre, which was not about any specific "sound" but a set of approaches and perspectives on the ethos of formative creativity itself. But no, ZNR are defined by their particular cultural heritage identity - as a "bastardic" or "post-modern" musical charicature - and NOT by its apparent abbreviation from what you yourself refer to as "modern classical". Their albums included electroacoustic setups and rhythmically based structures of composition rendering this anything but "modern classical", and the fact that this one example doesn't express this has nothing to do with any deviation from this internally defined norm. Aksak Maboul were an avant-garde *ROCK* band - in the same sense that Zappa or the Residents were so. The fact that you don't know about these names and choose to relate exclusively to what you deem on immediacy, does not change anything whatsoever. You - PeterG are not the defining currency here.

And once again; The Byrds didn't stop being a rock band just because they made a country album. "Rock" is not "rock'n'roll" - if this was the case, then we should stop discussing 95% of all names mentioned here at "progressive (rock) ears".

But it's nice that you like this, of course.

[PeterG]

The three artists I posted videos from are all connected to the ROCK-IN-OPPOSITION spectrum by way of either memberships or stylistic diversity within that movement's oevre, which was not about any specific "sound" but a set of approaches and perspectives on the ethos of formative creativity itself. But no, ZNR are defined by their particular cultural heritage identity - as a "bastardic" or "post-modern" musical charicature - and NOT by its apparent abbreviation from what you yourself refer to as "modern classical". Their albums included electroacoustic setups and rhythmically based structures of composition rendering this anything but "modern classical", and the fact that this one example doesn't express this has nothing to do with any deviation from this internally defined norm. Aksak Maboul were an avant-garde *ROCK* band - in the same sense that Zappa or the Residents were so. The fact that you don't know about these names and choose to relate exclusively to what you deem on immediacy, does not change anything whatsoever. You - PeterG are not the defining currency here.

And once again; The Byrds didn't stop being a rock band just because they made a country album. "Rock" is not "rock'n'roll" - if this was the case, then we should stop discussing 95% of all names mentioned here at "progressive (rock) ears".

But it's nice that you like this, of course.

Thanks for the info on RIO, I really know very little about it. I agree with you about "rock" and rock n roll" being two very different things. However, rock does have certain necessary elements, so that a person singing to a solo piano or a solo violin is not rock music becasue if it were we could refer to a whole lot of folk and classical music as rock. In it's most basic form, drums + guitars = rock.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Thanks for the info on RIO, I really know very little about it. I agree with you about "rock" and rock n roll" being two very different things. However, rock does have certain necessary elements, so that a person singing to a solo piano or a solo violin is not rock music becasue if it were we could refer to a whole lot of folk and classical music as rock. In it's most basic form, drums + guitars = rock.

The point is usually that "rock music" - at broad - amounts to the (alleged) origins of its maker. Zappa created large masses of music which would otherwise pass for contemporary classical, musique concréte, avant-jazz (or even blues) - but he emannated from rock first and foremost, and this basically defined and identified his work no matter how it seemed to "appear in nature".

Rock music transgressed already during the late 60s (Tom Constanten of the Grateful Dead, or Joseph Byrd or John Cale or numerous others), and by the late 70s (not least due to the venture of "progressive rock") it was essentially redefined. Tangerine Dream, for instance - are NOT considered an "electronic" band if you confer with people versed in scholarly such music; they are considered a "rock group". "Actual" electronic music was defined through Stockhausen, Warchetti, Oliveros etc.

[rcarlberg]

I thought RIO stood for Rock In Opposition, but there is no rock in any of those three songs.

RIO is a very broad umbrella. One rather poorly defined -- Aranis might bristle at being characterized as "an RIO band" but if there's room for Magma at an RIO festival, there's room for Aranis.

These days it's less about "rock" and more about being outside the mainstream, "in opposition" to mainstream concepts, falling in the cracks between easily-marketable musical genres. Not rock, not jazz, not classical -- what is it? It's RIO.

[Facelift]

IMO it's more helpful to think of Aranis as chamber prog than RIO, especially if one is inclined towards literal definitions of terms.

[Scrotum Scissor]

IMO it's more helpful to think of Aranis as chamber prog than RIO, especially if one is inclined towards literal definitions of terms.

Oh... Steady!

[PeterG]

The point is usually that "rock music" - at broad - amounts to the (alleged) origins of its maker..

This is where we'll have to disagree then, as for me the weight of a title rests on the music per se and not on what the creator might have done previously, so when Zappa wrote Yellow Shark and The Perfect Stranger he was a composer of modern classical music or modern "serious" music as some call it, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with rock.

[NogbadTheBad]

Personally I think of them as Chamber Rock but that's just me.

[Scrotum Scissor]

This is where we'll have to disagree then, as for me the weight of a title rests on the music per se and not on what the creator might have done previously, so when Zappa wrote Yellow Shark and The Perfect Stranger he was a composer of modern classical music or modern "serious" music as some call it, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with rock.

But this isn't the point; Zappa had by then long since established himself within the oeuvre of contemporary composition, so the target at hand was not to "expand on rock" - whilst the phenomena referred to in the three videos I posted most definitely was - although Zazou in time more or less became his very own genre of post-modern kitsch. They were "rock" on behalf of their overall association, not on whether they "rocked". And once again; there are millions of self-confessed rock lovers who'd never acknowledge Keith Emerson's farting-out of Bach boogies as having anything whatsoever to do with "rock". It's not about what the "creator might have done previously" as you say, but about how the artist is culturally defined at large. The transition of "rock" music has been taking place for nearly 50 years now, so there's absolutely nothing controversial or "wrong" in defining Aksak Maboul as a "rock" project.

Yanni or Vollenweider or Vanessa Mae, however...

[Zeuhlmate]

RIO is usually not very rocking (In my ears) - "In Opposition" is the key part of the name. In oppostion to the rest of the rock business or the popular music at the time when RIO was conceived. Their slogan was: "The music the record companies don't want you to hear"
Henry Cow and Stormy six were politically orientated (to the left side), but Univers Zero was not interested in politics.
There is quite a musical span in the 'genre', even within a band.
Here is another tune from Aksak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfPN2HLkv9E. Quite different from the one Scrotum posted.

This Wiki is informative on RIO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_in_Opposition

[PeterG]

But this isn't the point

Maybe not for you, but for me it is exactly the point. The music is what the music is, it isn't the composer's history, it is the current piece of music. When I for example listen to Zappa's serious stuff I'm not thinking of Bobby Brown or a Jewish Princess I'm thinking of what that person, place object or emotion that oboe represents just there at that moment.

Rock is rock
Music that isn't rock isn't rock.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Maybe not for you, but for me it is exactly the point.

Rock is rock
Music that isn't rock isn't rock.

Did you ever lay down a basic course in primary logics? If so, then you should know that your last statement here is what usually defines as "unsubstantial" in that it appears to define itself without an externally founded premise. You can't define "war" by saying "it's conflict", a penis as "a dick" etc. There are formal variations of terminology and their semantic components, for instance a penis could be, say, "a fleshy tube of urine/semen delivery for relief of organic release processes in man".

Please don't ask for more "help" in "understanding" things that you have already decided on defining through sheer ignorance. Why not write intense letters to music historians with formal complaints about The Byrds being described as a rock band when CLEARLY that country album has allowed you to discover () something YOU and YOU ALONE was able to disclose to humanity.

[PeterG]

Personal attacks, why? Why can't you remain civil? Why resort to insult? Why can't you stick to the subject in hand, music? It seems to me that the answer to all of those is that you can't accept an opinion that differs to your own, which is often the case on this forum with self-proclaimed experts with strongly held views.

Rock is rock
Country is ocuntry
Folk is folk
Classical is classical
It doesn't matter who is playing it or what they've played before, the music speaks for itself and it is what it is to the listener.

And BTW, I haven't defined that which I asked for advice on i.e. RIO. I defined rock and that which is not rock.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Personal attacks, why? Why can't you remain civil? Why resort to insult? Why can't you stick to the subject in hand, music? It seems to me that the answer to all of those is that you can't accept an opinion that differs to your own, which is often the case on this forum with self-proclaimed experts with strongly held views.

Rock is rock
Country is ocuntry
Folk is folk
Classical is classical
It doesn't matter who is playing it or what they've played before, the music speaks for itself and it is what it is to the listener.

And BTW, I haven't defined that which I asked for advice on i.e. RIO. I defined rock and that which is not rock.

But the very fact that there *EXISTS* any such thing as an established genre out there acknowledged as 'Rock-In-Opposition' which amongst other components comprises and encompasses the very kind of music which you for some ignorant reason have decided to outdefine from "rock" - proves by its very own existence that you are WRONG!!! Can you possibly understand this?! It isn't a matter of "disagreeing" - or acting insulting, seeing how someone actually showed you "civil" respect and took the fucking "civil" time to explain you something totally elementary in quite clear-cut and precise language - it's sometimes about being basically right/wrong.

"Rock is rock, non-rock isn't rock" - this is not a definition, neither an argument and nor is your rhetoric discussion.

[PeterG]

You are rude. Don't swear at me. Don't call me ignorant. You are incapable of seeing anyone else's opinion but your own. I disagree with you. I think you are wrong. End of! Rock is rock, non-rock is not rock.

[Scrotum Scissor]

You are rude. You are incapable of seeing anyone else's opinion but your own.

I am perfectly capable of "seeing your opinion" - which is wrong, btw - and I am rude for a reason. I have absolutely no problem at all with accepting different tastes and positions on questions of diversity, but you are not complying to the ground rule of discussion - which is to respect the adversary by adressing and/or reflecting those arguments by pro-et-con rhetoric.

"Non-rock is not rock" means absolutely nothing. Was ELP "rock" when doodling those Bach-boogies? In that case, why were - or weren't they - "rock"? Was Led Zep actually a folk-band during the first minutes of "Stairway", but then miraculously turned into something more "rock" right thereafter? Were they a "jazz" band for the mid-section of "No Quarter", and then "rock" for the distorted guitar chorus?

Say if Creedence Clearwater Revival or Ac/Dc fans won't accept Yes or Genesis as "rock"; should they call you and hear that "Rock is rock, non-rock isn't rock"?

How about SOCK? In it?

[To readers: I'm sorry for the rant. I have the greatest respects for Aranis]

[ske]

Glad to see Aranis is playing live °songs from mirage°, i loved the vocal turn of the band and i hope i will see them live with vocals sometime.
Their music would fit some kind of commercials really nice, imho!