Sunday 9 January 2022

Discus 1st (1999) and Tot Licht (2003)






Information here.

Here's another remarkable recent progressive group that sounds very much like the old classics--except when it doesn't, which is in some tracks where either they are approaching a more commercial sound with lighter melodies and standard chord changes especially those with added vocals, or when they add the heavy metal electric guitar to get some of that modern guitar-heavy thrashy prog sound that others really enjoy. From track to track it might seem like they are going in too many directions at times.  Just as you'd expect from the Indonesian origin of this there is also plenty of the gamelan thrown in but it isn't excessive.

But mostly I wanted to post this due to the astonishing beauty and overwhelming capability of composition featured in the one track called Condissonance, which you can hear here:



The beginning reminds me so much of those classic progmasters just like the recent Nostradamus going back into the chamber music European tradition but notice the music evolves into many different moods as it progresses on, always changing and hardly ever repeating any ideas. The composer's name is Iwan Hasan, for what it's worth.

The second album carries on just like the first with a mix of commercial vocal tracks, some heavy electric guitar riffing, some chamber music compositions.  The great opener is called System Manipulation and really covers everything:



I really love the crazy weird-tempoed part that commences roughly at the one minute mark though I don't think the heavy metal guitars are anything but extraneous. I guess the flip side to that is this is one area where this music is quite dissimilar to the older material it's pulling from.


5 comments:

  1. https://www104.zippyshare.com/v/r7hUG4pf/file.html
    https://www.sendspace.com/file/mfnjmc

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  2. hmmm Not convinced The violinist has bad intonation always unforgivable.Listen to Gentle Giant if you want a Prog violin that was always in tune.

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  3. IMHO the best prog band Indonesia ever had. I always loved these cd´s. Please more stuff like this.

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  4. Hi Dear Julian,


    Happy New Year!
    You said "guitar-heavy thrashy prog" and I thought about this case in Vancouver (2021): https://motherdivine.hearnow.com/


    Yours sincerely,

    Flávio

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  5. Thanks for both. Had them years ago,but not any longer..Have a great day

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