4th wave or“Cutting Edge” Prog
I’ve seen a lot of talk about 2nd and 3rd gen bands, and about sub-genres (punk, prog metal) and standouts like Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree… But I wanted to make a list of all the 21st century schizoid stuff that I think descends from Prog (more broadly encompassing fusion, folk, psyche, Kraut, experimental); so here it is, with some album/song reccs and categories. Note: I’m leaving out a few obvious artists like Radiohead, Les Claypool… also won’t touch on “post-rock” or “math rock”:
First off I want to list a short playlist of on-the-nose prog:
Mondo Drag - “Pillars of the Sky”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “Hanoi 6”
Dungen - “Fredag”
Thee Oh Sees - “Sticky Hulks”
Mastodon - “The Sparrow”
Floating Points - “Silurian Blue”
Onward to looser interpretation!!!
1. The post-Kraut/Eno ambient line
- Mount Kimbie — Cold Spring Faultless Youth (2013)
- Boards of Canada — “Dayvan Cowboy”
- certain hip-hop adjacent producers like El-P, Kanye, and on many recent rappers’ beat tracks (esp Kendrick’s production) as a result if their influence.
2. The psychedelic chamber-pop / folk-prog mutation
- Midlake — The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)
- Midlake — Antiphon (2013)
- Sufjan Stevens — The Age of Adz (2010)
- Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest (2009)
- Dirty Projectors — Bitte Orca (2009)
- Fleet Foxes — Crack-Up (2017)
3. Progressive possibilities of shoegaze
- Sweet Trip — Velocity : Design : Comfort
- Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Seefeel
4. Studio-composition gene escapes rock altogether.
- 0neohtrix Point Never
- Floating Points — Crush (2019)
- Max Cooper
- James Holden
- Amon Tobin
- Basically all of Warp Label (Aphex, SquarePusher, Prefuse 73, Autechre)
5. Fusion’s bastard children
- BADBADNOTGOOD
- Black Midi
+ Geordie Greep solo stuff
- Floating Points Ensemble (same guy + band)
- Esperanza Spalding
- Blake Mills, Sam Gendel, Pino Palladio project(?)
6. The rhythmic-progressive lineage
- Crumb*
* ANYTHING by the band Crumb - check out their live albums after you go through the studio releases!! they literally inspired this post!
- Poliça — Give You the Ghost (2012)
- Jim James - Eternally Even (2016)
7. Concept album execution
- Arctic Monkeys — Tranquility Base Hotel (2018)
- Arcade Fire — Reflektor (2013)
- Lupe Fiasco — The Cool (2007)