Artist	Song
Caravan	Golf Girl
from In The Land Of Grey And Pink (1971) 5:01
Robert Wyatt / Gilad Atzmon / Ros Stephen	Maryan
from For The Ghosts Within (2010) 5:22
The Tangent	D.I.Y. Surgery
from A Place In The Queue (2006) 2:16
Genesis	Watcher Of The Skies
from Foxtrot (1972) 7:22
King Crimson	Frame By Frame
from Discipline (1981) 5:08
Circulus	Willow Tree
from Clocks Are Like People (2006) 4:56
Van Der Graaf Generator	Theme One
from Theme One single (1972) 3:12
Marillion	Script For A Jester's Tear
from Script For A Jester's Tear (1983) 8:39
Emerson, Lake & Palmer	Knife Edge
from Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970) 5:05
Henry Cow	Nine Funerals Of The Citizen King
from Leg End (1973) 5:33
Steven Wilson	No Twilight Within The Courts Of The Sun
from Insurgentes (2008) 8:36
Yes	Close To The Edge
from Close To The Edge (1972) 18:39

Comment:

I conceived of this mix of British prog in 2014 at the prompting of a friend (who’d received several other mixes from me, and who was interested in prog when I described the style to him), didn’t finish it until spring 2018, and am just posting it now. But then, prog is eternal, isn’t it?

... There must be some believable world out there where music didn’t go hand in hand with lifestyle, where rock blended promiscuously and without derision with other genres, where prog was never a dirty word. Hey — maybe it’s even the one we live in now. But, the bulk of this music had to go through some narrow straits to get to this point, one where it could fully explode into consciousness. This is Music That Came Quickly From Afar.

I’ve written some poems about prog:

“Here’s the central myth and conceit of prog rock,
Which I’ve stolen from Philip K. Dick: somewhere approaching the
Early seventies, humans were infected by the sublime creative force of the universe.”
(from “Prog Rock Poem #1”)

“Why are we not out there right now,
hand in hand once more, letting Saturday night do the talking,
watching Utopia flower as alternative vision, grassy amidst black dance floors?”
(from “Prog Rock Poem #5”)

If you have to categorize, I’ll say this. Prog is its own beast. Those who feel free to disparage it, for not being true to rock’s ghost, can feel free to ignore it. It’s something else altogether. It’s a structure of transcendence. It orbits slowly all around the outside. It touches down on the tip of interest’s tongue.

(photo of Stonehenge taken by me in 2017; title from “Close To The Edge”)

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