There was a time, remembered by a lucky few, when progressive rock bands could record double albums aimed at retelling the Bible and still go platinum and record 20-minute-long songs that changed key and time signature at lightning speeds and still sell out Madison Square Garden.
The times have changed, but why has the ambition of musicians have to diminish? And why, if they’re truly ambitious, should modern musicians aim to use the same musical tricks or study the same philosophies that inspired their predecessors? Saturn Return’s “no strings” dreams up expansive prog-rock as an avant-garde art form, not music for those who are nostalgia-obsessed.
This EP is recorded with the same level of snotty aspiration as, for example, Yes’s overblown masterpiece “Tales from Topographic Oceans,” and with none of the sounds that would be familiar to a fan of 70s music. No, those people will simply need to tune up their hearing and readjust.
Take, for example, the opening track, ‘bynepor,” with arpeggiated synth sounds and mysterious lyrics. Whereas the original prog bands used the studio as an instrument, this is firmly a laptop-made record. Whereas the famous bands of the 70s employed the world’s best guitar players and drummers, “No Strings” is recorded and designed using exclusively electronic instrumentation.
The result is a synthetic vision of paradise, occult chants told in the modern tongue spoken by the internet. It’s music meant for digital platforms, not dusty record stores. Second track, “neidan,” sounds like what 90s producers of both Nine Inch Nails and the Backstreet Boys would’ve created had they been afforded complete freedom to implement their ideas.
Next, “kun,” with its carefully blended vocals, feels like a soundtrack to life on some deserted island of the internet to which no vessel is likely to arrive and pick up the castaways.
Where does this all leave us? With a lot of money saved up on guitar strings and drumsticks and new investments in synths and controllers, perhaps. The EP’s closing track, “Under a Supermoon,” comes closest to achieving the duo’s vision. This is occult electro-prog-rock for a new age.
Saturn Return’s “no strings” is an interesting experiment, a brave attempt at throwing away the book of rules and writing new ones. It may well prove to be an influential EP.
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