underworld and prog jazz/rock

[bryantm3]

i see lots of similarities in prog jazz/rock and underworld's unique style. it's almost to the point that i can't describe the close similarities. anyone else notice this?

[BeautifulBurnout]

Yep.

I was a huge prog rock fan back in the day, but my tastes developed over time, as did my love of dance. (Tried dancing to anything by Yes or ELP? ;) )

UW has always seemed to me to represent the natural progression - no pun intended - from the long, complicated experimental, and sometimes cacaphonic, pieces of the 70s to intelligent, structured dance music. A prime example of this would be Juanita/Kiteless/TDOL. They took prog rock down the road it should have gone, imo, nurtured it, developed it, perfected it.

I am not saying everything the guys ever wrote is perfect in that sense, but most of it is, for me. :)

[//\/\/]

it's not unknown for them to have been given the "progressive house" tag...

[holden]

The closest i've felt that UW came to prog rock, in the 70's sense of the word (bands like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, etc), was "Stagger"...reminds me of something from that time and style. Maybe also "Tongue" and some of the more lengthy ambient pieces ("ansum" is a possibility).

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

I think what you're looking for is more along the lines of Squarepusher. Underworld is progressive, yes, but it's very far removed from ELP, Genesis, King Crimson, et al., although there is *somewhat* a similarity with Yes, because Yes is plenty danceable. More similarities could be drawn with Orbital, particularly in the Snivilisation/In Sides period (remember the 28-minute long version of "The Box" which was framed exactly like "Close to the Edge"?)