[Genteel Death]

Nevermind the old fogies, who do you reckon is pushing music forward? If you could explain why, that'd be nice.

[Decayed Rhapsody]

Chillwave hypnagogic popsters. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION.

[blunderbuss]

I wish I could find some folks who are pushing music onwards, but everything is hardcore recreation of the past right now. There's dub techno stuff is really thrilling me at the moment, but I'm fully aware that while it's new to me, to the people who were been digging dance music in the days when I thought it was crap, it's just retro.

And don't get me started on hypnagogic pop. I hope to God you were being ironic, Decyed Rhapsody.

[Phlegmscope]

The old fogies coming up with new fancy genre names for the press to use.
they're the real innovators of music.

[SYRFox]

Lucky Dragons ... The fact that they set the crowd at their gigs in an active, non-passive mode, allowing them to interact fully with the sound, and therefore in a sense collaborating with the crowd, and changing the live experience at every single gig, sounds pretty looking forward to me.

[Genteel Death]

Names please.

[Decayed Rhapsody]

Of course I'm being ironic. I want to know what "pushing things forward" sounds like.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by blunderbuss

And don't get me started on hypnagogic pop. I hope to God you were being ironic, Decyed Rhapsody.

"highest possible recommendation" is something that david keenan always says on the volcanic tongue when he describes records

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by Decayed Rhapsody

Of course I'm being ironic. I want to know what "pushing things forward" sounds like.

Sonic Youth at their peak, countless electronic music records, This Heat, Moniek Darge, Birchville Cat Motel, Drunkdriver/Mattin type stuff, several moments on Fursaxa's ''Kobold Moon'', Oval etc etc.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Does every band have to be pushing music forward?

Just give me unique bands and I'll be satisfied.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

Does every band have to be pushing music forward?

Just give me unique bands and I'll be satisfied.

Obviously not. I'm just interested in which musicians you think are doing things that make them sound innovative to your ears, that's all.

[Savage Clone]

Moonstone Continuum from my area are pushing the prog idiom forward in their own way, and mostly come in under the 22 year old mark. Musicianship beyond their years.

[chicka]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

Moonstone Continuum from my area are pushing the prog idiom forward in their own way, and mostly come in under the 22 year old mark. Musicianship beyond their years.

I like the name too...

[DeadDiscoDildo]

People currently trying to "push things forward," especially with guitar music, bore the hell out of me. Am I a contrarian for the sake of the contrary? I just like the tone of a clean guitar with some spring reverb. Good chord progressions. Jazz chords. Played in interesting ways. Maybe with some fucked up effects in the background.

I mean, after a certain point there wasnt anything "new" that could be done with the piano...but rather how they composed their songs on it. That is what seperated people pushings "songs" forward...their arrangements.

I feel the same with guitar music...and even with bands like sonic youth...who in my opinion were the last to push things forward and usher the guitar into the "nostalgiac" age. What else can you do with it without ripping someone off in terms of "tone" and "effects" and style.

Go buy that lame ass Moog guitar or something?

And electronic music is hardly pushing things forward either...

Silver Apples were doing the radiohead thing 30 years before radiohead...

and noise is noise is noise.

I'm going to go hide while shit is thrown at me by you angry mobs...cya

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Short answer, like said above: just give me unique bands/arrangements/combining of influences...

we've used up all our colors...cant invent new ones.

[Glice]

I don't really hear much out of guitar music that's pushing things forward. I suspect innovation might be like beauty (in the eye of the beholder) though. Personally, I've been really excited by a load of contemporary composers lately - Dusapin, Lachenmann, Ullmann, J Schwarts, Spahlinger, Pintscher... Most of these are 'new' in classical terms, but not really new in this forum's terms. But then I'm back to getting excited by Murail, Grisey, Sibelius, Strauss (etc) the latter two of whom were dead by the 50s. Pérotin excites me quite a bit, and he's been dead 500-odd years.

I suppose what I'm saying is that we're lucky to exist in a time when I'm not really confined to listen to music of my own era. That's not to say that Lucky Dragons or whoever aren't doing something forward-thinking, but I don't really feel obliged to listen to it. Someone like Tommy Potts (Irish fiddler) is fucking incredible, and this blew my mind at the time it was released.

Something DDD alluded to above - the idea of technology changing the approach to music. It's interesting that we haven't really had a new generation picking up on various technological advances. I'm thinking of things like the addition of valves changing tempered horn music, or how equal temperament revolutionised the fugue, or later on how spectral analysis inspired the spectralists. There's a few movements in classical music that are interesting on that basis - Lachenmann's concrete/ acoustic, latter digital concrete guys like Mario Radrigue, this 'micro-composition' thing (which I've not heard anything good in, yet)... but I have no idea what non-academic guys are doing with new instruments. Something like the fluid piano could produce something interesting, but rock music (generally speaking) refers to electronic devices - and most of those electronic devices seem to refer to earlier music these days. I've heard that the first generation of digital keyboards are quite desirable now, following the last decade or so of analogue fetishes. Stuff like circuit-bending produces some interesting things, but it's interesting how that, or various purely digital patches/ plugins seem to get stuck into old ways of looking at things. But again, I don't really know too much about that side of things.

Ultimately, I'm sure there are people doing something interesting things - maybe even with that museum piece the guitar - but I haven't heard it.

tl;dr: Yeah, probably.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

I probably don't listen to as much new music as you guys do, but in the last few years I like what Deerhoof has been doing. I don't know that they're pushing things forward, because I hear a lot of early 70s and late 60s in there, but they still sound fresh and unique to me.

I agree a lot with DeadDildoDisco a lot though. A lot of what interests me in music isn't how innovative it is, but purely the composition. Usually when we're talking about innovative bands from the past, they generally had excellent compositional skills.

[demonrail666]

I tend to agree with that point about composition. We seem to have a wealth of bands with sketches of good ideas but for some reason no real sense of how to craft those ideas into anything more substantial. It seems that, in today's obsession with releasing something, the things which take the longest to perfect are the quickest to be discarded.

[auto-aim]

Definatly these guys are one of my favourites http://www.myspace.com/leavethetapesrunning

Nobody knows them but they tour like fuck and the guitarist is really interesting - plays with like only 3 strings on his guitar. Their last album i recommend highly.

[batreleaser]

Pink Reason. Punk, folk and dirge finally becoming one. When the hell is the follow up to "Cleaning the Mirror" going to come out?