When I recorded in the UK and Ireland I was really happy to discover veins of progressive rock in the geology of the contemporary music scenes in these regions. It’s as if the half-life of bands like Soft Machine and Can could still send Geiger counters flittering. I find prog rock fascinating from a lyrical stand-point. as if Tolkien, Kenneth Graham, and Lewis Carol formed a band. Existentially earnest songs about primrose heaths, fun fairs, and haughty hearths with some calico toadstools thrown in for good measure. It’s the literary influences that make progressive rock so meaty as if the music is composed like a well-crafted complex sentence. Songs are well wrought and travel well beyond straight rock’s limits.
