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Psychedelic Video Art: Tune In, Turn On, Prog Rock Out

Yoshi Sodeoka’s mind-bending video was inspired by the cosmic soundscapes of prog rock.

The ’70s prog rock genre has a bit of a bad rep. Known for being the last bastion of rock ego indulgence, it was full of overblown songs and ridiculous concept albums that were big on sci-fi imagery and lyrics about cosmic entities and chariots. Bands like Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Rush—whose music any self-respecting dad from that era owns on double gatefold vinyl (compulsory because their songs seemingly extend into forever). To the great benefit of mankind, these bands were eventually stopped in their fantastical tracks, and their pompous excesses vanquished by the immediacy and brutality of punk with its short, sharp stabs of three chord rock songs.

There is, however, something to be said for their esoteric meanderings and, while a full blown revival may be asking too much, it’s definitely not as reviled as it once was. With the BBC releasing a documentary about prog rock last year and dedicated festivals catering to fans of the long-form song rearing their hairy heads again—featuring bands from prog rock’s heyday—maybe it’s time for a reappraisal.

Helping reassess its legacy is New York-based audiovisual artist Yoshi Sodeoka, whose work is included in the permanent collections of both New York’s Museum of the Moving Image and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His oeuvre isn’t short of a psychedelic video or two, with work’s like Psychedelic Death Vomit and Devils Reign. Sodeoka has taken the concept albums that were the raison d’être of prog rock as the launchpad for an as yet untitled project, seeking to explore those astral planes that were once the vanguard of commercial rock music.

The first in a series of videos that, according to Sodeoka, were “inspired in part by the spirit of 1970’s progressive rock concept albums, ancient Greek mythology, and shamanic ritual” is the hallucinatory Sibyl. A mind-melting journey full of swarming visuals and humming guitars—the music a collaboration between Yoshi Sodeoka and Daron Murphy—that makes for quite an entrancing experience. Starting off with wobbly multi-coloured circular patterns, the hypnotic voyage trips onwards through vivid visions reminiscent of the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the heady visuals of Ken Russell’s Altered States. It then ends cinematically with surreal floating heads and a woman’s disembodied voice counting down to lift off. Turn the lights out, put the headphones on, and go fullscreen for an odyssey into the next dimension of prog rock.

[via Triangulation Blog]