3 more Prog album discoveries

Looking down the barrel of a long day of number crunching means plugging in the headphones and surfing youtube for prog albums I haven't heard yet.  I listened to Druid last week, and Eloy a couple weeks ago, and of course there's an endless supply of Yes to discover and rediscover, but the magic of youtube is the sidebar of suggestions that comes up.  Half of it is a bizarre hodgepodge of video suggestions based on the viewing habits of my kids, and the other half is music.  Here's what I discovered during my work day today:

Gryphon - Red Queen to Gryphon Three

There's 4 songs on this album, and the back of the cover shows a picture of each of the band members playing their instrument.  One of the guys - Brian Gulland - is playing a bassoon.  There's some great keyboard progressions in the songs, and some unexpected bassoon breakdowns that take the album down a road that makes me think of trippy cartoon soundtracks of the 70s.  That's not a bad thing.  These guys were exploring something.


Fruup - Future Legends

Whoa.  There's some serious jamming going on here.  Some screaming too.  Frantic moments interspersed with ethereal calm, followed by some more great jams.  I like these guys.

Nihonjin - Far Out

This is pretty sweet prog rock out of Japan from 1973.  I hear a lot of Pink Floyd's influence in here, but it's definitely got its own sound overall, drawing from some traditional Japanese music in places.