Bands from the past who blend it - share them here.

[HealeyIsland]

This evening I found myself listening to Van Der Graaff Generator (always been a bit of a favorite of mine). They really were a band that blended the genres, and to great effect. Very dark sounds mixing Jazz and classical with electronic sounds.

They were unfortunately labeled as PROGRESSIVE ROCK, which served only to damage them, as this label came to symbolize only the worst excesses of 70's musical decadence.

I know that this isn't really a question and, as such, serves little use as a spring board for discussion. However, if you can think of any groups that merit a listen for their inventiveness, blurry or blendyness or bendyness, pop their names in this thread.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the above band with the long name and, for that matter, any thoughts on any bands y'all suggest.

Electronic music has at least some of its roots in the music made by the likes of "the above band with the long name", as well as the likes of Gong and other great blenders and blurrers from that era.

[Angus Maiden]

I lurv Van der Graaf. Man haven't listened to that shit in ages I'm gonna spin it right away. Hey here's a recent thought I had that might amuse you all. I've been digging Infected Mushroom's latest album but it's so not psy-trance and if you say it is to someone who goes to psy raves they'll disown you heheh. It's got heaps of elements of pop in it, but imo is still psytrance, so I came up with a new tag for music like Infected, especially in regards to their latest album: "prance" (pop-trance) *giggle*

One of my most favourite genre blurrers that blew me away when I first heard them is Opeth, it was the first instance I had heard of death metal being infused with acoustic instrumentation, with clean vocals as well as growls, and is a major influence on my own music. I love the fact that "true metal" heads refuse to listen to them (partly because they can't classify them, partly because the softer instrumentation emasculates them heh). Their album "Damnation" is completely non-death metal, very trippy mellow post-rocky stuff, and is one of the main reasons why I definitely consider them blurrers.

I'm really glad so many people joined this group. Let's keep it flowing, thanks for sparking the discussion Greg :)

btw ppl, Healey Island above (Greg) is one of the most interesting genre blurrers I know and you should check out his music.

[HealeyIsland]

When Prance becomes a mature style and mutates once more, leaving behind those poppy overtones, will it become Post op Trance?

Thanks for plug - the feelings mutual Gus. Everyone should take time to check your music out - they'll love it: The Peach Tree being just one of your identities overflowing with eclectic quality.

[baskyl]

Agree: van der Graaf Generator sure was pushing the limits und blending genres.
So was "Soft Machine" imo.
Or "King Crimson", who blended Jazz, Rock (even Heavy, though not known yet as a genre-phrase at that time), Folk in a very unique way. Or "Gentle Giant".
Just to get you right, Healey, do you rate those bands as examples of the worst excesses of musical decadence? If not, which bands are in your opinion? ELP, Genesis (early years up to '77), Pink Floyd? Can, Jane, Amon Düül (just to drop some names of notorious Krautrock-Bands of that era...)?

But to me the biggest Blender of all time is Frank Zappa!
He unites a vast veriety of influences: classical (Eric Satie, Edgar Varese, even Stockhausen), Rock, Dance, soundtrack, comical (Spike Jones).

btw: "Blender" in german means something like "Pretender". A Rolex Replica is a "Blender". :)
(Always working on interlanguage puns - they never seem to work out fine. Astonishing! ^^)

[Angus Maiden]

Yes! Frank! What a genius. I actually really like King Crimson too, I really dig "in the court", and Genesis, well.. "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" was genius but the rest was a bit too naff for me. Excesses of decadence? Definitely equals 70s for me and for some reason I just wanna shout "airplane! starship!". Love the white rabbit though. How about this for food for thought: Rap + Metal. Could Limp Bizkit have pulled it off any worse? Or kid rock? I think the key to genre blurring is not just thinking "I'm gonna add A to B to make AB" but more like "I'm gonna take elements of A and B and add them together to get X", or perhaps not even thinking about the A and the B and just shooting straight for X, and see what other elements come out of it.

[HealeyIsland]

No, personally, I don't see them, or any other bands for that matter, as representing the worst excesses of 70's indulgence. It was more a point about the labeling of bands and how they can be damaged by association with a designation once that label becomes unfashionable. Fundamentally I believe that such labels are applied erroneously and are unhelpful as they miss the subtleties of an artist's music.

Yes, Soft Machine; another excellent band whose music mutated and changed across all boundaries of music; love them in all their guises (prefer the Daevid Allen incarnation best). Just started to listen to Gentle Giant in the last month - very good. I also enjoy the music of Can and Amon Duul.

Never been able to get into Pink Floyd, Genesis, ELP (perhaps a smidgen of excess here with ELP) or Yes (and may be here with Yes).

Frank Zappa - indeed, what a master, a great blender genres and styles. I'm a big fan of his music and his approach.

[Angus Maiden]

a point about the labeling of bands and how they can be damaged by association with a designation once that label becomes unfashionable

Labels and tags are so volatile they can definitely be damaging. For me, I love the way tags and genre meanings evolve, encompassing more than what they originally were so narrowly defining. But I got heaps of shit over at last.fm because I plugged my album "Psychosis" on the techno tag page; I now have an elegant "fuck you" on The Peach Tree's shoutbox heh. But my view is that people's perceptions of a word (therefore a tag or a genre) will never be the same as someone else's. Some tag purists were like "none of these artists are techno blah blah hate hate hate", but I say if 13,000 people have tagged The Prodigy as techno, then hasn't the meaning of the tag broadened, evolved?

[HealeyIsland]

Isn't it annoying when people become hostile about tags etc and think that they have a definitive meaning for it? Definitely, all these things evolve and change by use, association, the context within which they are used. Even misappropriation, misunderstanding and misinterpretation eventually plays a part in the "final" meaning of things.

[Angus Maiden]

absolutely

[northcape]

Genres are a bit like language in a way- yes they can and should be bent, but if you ignore them entirely when labelling your music people will no longer be able to find what they want to find. So yes, it does annoy me as well when music is labelled as something that it quite blatantly isn't... of course this is subjective, but I think tags should be used with a certain amount of care.

[Angus Maiden]

I gather you checked out the "techno tag" at last.fm and saw me ranting. i don't believe at all that tags can mean anything, can be applied to anything carelessly. but it's just a simple fact that there is a natural evolution to things, including words and tags. this evolution is based on what people's perceptions of the tag is. it's not "this word means this because X said so", it's "this word is a variable, has an arbitrary value assigned meaning only when that meaning is expressed by people's perceptions of it" it's semiotics. the nature of signs and symbols and what they mean. in the case of the techno tag at last.fm, thousands upon thousands of people, by far the vast majority, perceive the tag/word to mean a broad encompassing term involving all sorts of electronic music. the people that claim that techno is merely a definitive style of electronic music are missing the point: the word means what it means because of what people think it means, not because of some outdated, structured, narrow-minded, caged, isolated, definitive value.

northcape said:

Genres are a bit like language in a way- yes they can and should be bent, but if you ignore them entirely when labelling your music people will no longer be able to find what they want to find. So yes, it does annoy me as well when music is labelled as something that it quite blatantly isn't... of course this is subjective, but I think tags should be used with a certain amount of care.

[northcape]

I'm not commenting on whether your tracks are in fact 'techno' or not here- but digressing slightly from the subject, I do disagree with your definition. Personally I have always found 'techno' a useful label for a definite style of clearly technology-driven electronic music, influenced by a range of groups in the genres history, so I wouldn't use it to describe all electronic music, and that includes my own, unless I made a more technologically focussed track. The term 'electronic' simply states that the music is made by electronic means.... BUT...any word means what it means because of what people think it means- and although its hard to assess what the majority opinion on a word is, the way that meanings are defined is by concensus. And that includes people complaining when you use terms in a way that doesn't match their own personal definition, so I think these kind of complaints are legitimate- its how terms are defined.. ;-)

Angus Maiden said
I gather you checked out the "techno tag" at last.fm and saw me ranting. i don't believe at all that tags can mean anything, can be applied to anything carelessly. but it's just a simple fact that there is a natural evolution to things, including words and tags. this evolution is based on what people's perceptions of the tag is. it's not "this word means this because X said so", it's "this word is a variable, has an arbitrary value assigned meaning only when that meaning is expressed by people's perceptions of it" it's semiotics. the nature of signs and symbols and what they mean. in the case of the techno tag at last.fm, thousands upon thousands of people, by far the vast majority, perceive the tag/word to mean a broad encompassing term involving all sorts of electronic music. the people that claim that techno is merely a definitive style of electronic music are missing the point: the word means what it means because of what people think it means, not because of some outdated, structured, narrow-minded, caged, isolated, definitive value.

[Angus Maiden]

hmmm... I never thought about it that way, thanks Alistair that's a valuable contribution that I will take on board. Certainly a lot more constructive than the trolls and tag nazis that just put a big "fuck you" on The Peach Tree page at last.fm

I understand tags are important but I also know from experience people can get carried away with the box "their" music belongs to. I used to hang around "true metal" heads. Ugh. Ugly. As. Fuck.

Also, I don't think it's any crime to use a term to tag something as I have learned it. Whether it's ill-informed or whatever, it's the way I use the word. It's my perception. As I have said though things grow and evolve and perhaps by informing myself better I will be able to apply that knowledge to my continually growing sense of the term, be it "techno", or whatever term we could choose to debate over. In the end though the world is not a fixed reality. It is fragmented into the billions of different perceptions that people have. There is no One True Definite Answer for anything. That's my only, main, point.

northcape said:

although its hard to assess what the majority opinion on a word is, the way that meanings are defined is by concensus. And that includes people complaining when you use terms in a way that doesn't match their own personal definition, so I think these kind of complaints are legitimate- its how terms are defined.. ;-)