After listening to the Discord and Rhyme special on Gentle Giant’s Octopus the other week I went back to the album and lived there for a few days. It’s a place where the Earlies spent a lot of time together in 2005 and 2006, joyous times. We thought we were pretty original for caring about these beautifully intricate yet astonishingly accessible sonic masterpieces but it turns out that there’s a significant subculture of the Hip Hop community that has rightly valued this treasure trove of ideas too. I saw a Questlove post about Gentle Giant a few months ago and it was written in an unabashedly reverential tone. I think British people can’t separate the fact that it’s prog, that the people who make it are dressed terribly, that the audience are all awaiting their first miserable sexual experience and the whole journalistic history of disdain for prog from what they’re actually hearing. Meanwhile Hip Hop producers in America just put the record on and think “that’s incredible, I’m nicking it!” They’re the same with Phil Collins records, they don’t have to process that fact that he’s bald and he’s a tax exile who divorced his wife by fax, they just use their ears to make their minds up. There’s something in that.
Good read. I read the Glyn Johns book some time ago - totally fabulous but as you say he’s certainly no Solzhenitsyn. I would strongly recommend ‘Are We Still Rolling’ by Phill Brown which is along the same musical lines. We will also check out the documentary. Thanks for posting.
I was unaware of this KV film. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I shall watch it immediately.
Good read. I read the Glyn Johns book some time ago - totally fabulous but as you say he’s certainly no Solzhenitsyn. I would strongly recommend ‘Are We Still Rolling’ by Phill Brown which is along the same musical lines. We will also check out the documentary. Thanks for posting.