Umphrey's McGee is one of my favorite bands from the jam-band scene. The reason I dig these guys, is they often venture into prog and fusion territory; they don't dwell on modal-jams as some bands in the genre tend to do. I saw Umphrey's live in Chicago a couple of years ago and was blown away. Their new album Mantis is getting a lot of attention in the prog-rock community. As a token of their appreciation, the band has released a free prog "sampler" showcasing some of their more "proggy" moments onstage. Here's the info, straight from the horses mouth:
"In the two months since the release of Mantis, we've been overwhelmed with the attention and appreciation from the progressive rock community. We admire the rich tradition that the community has, and the respect they have for many of the same artists that have had a lasting influence on us as well. We've been privileged to share the stage with such heroes as Adrian Belew, Mike Keneally and Stanley Jordan in recent years
Our latest album "Mantis" has been touted as our most progressive
studio album, and we are very proud of how it turned out. We were
glad to take the time and flesh out our compositional approach on
Mantis, and wound up with an album that stretched our songwriting and
playing to levels we hadn't been able to produce in the studio before.
While we enjoyed the experience of taking our time in the studio, much
of the Umphrey's McGee experience happens on-stage where we live 120+
nights a year. The challenge of reproducing some of our demanding
compositions live while leaving room for both loose and structured
improvisation brings out the best in us, and we encourage you to come
and experience it with us.
We wanted to let you know that Jake, Kris and Joel have embarked on a
new project, OHMphrey (http://myspace.com/ohmphrey), with OHM's Chris
Poland and Robertino Pagliari. This project is rooted in progressive
improvisation, and will release an album and support it with a few
west coast shows. Furthermore, another improvisational fusion side
project of ours, Kick the McGee, is thrilled to be teaming up with
Morglbl from France for a show in Chicago @ Martyrs' on 5/20.
As a token of our appreciation, we're offering a free digital sampler
of the "proggier" side of Umphrey's McGee to the progressive rock
community, though it's really a little bit of everything to help
provide context of the grander scheme of who we are as a band. In
this sampler, you'll find a heavy-dose of prog-metal in Wizard Burial
Ground, while a slice of the improvisation and instrumental dexterity
that UM is well known for resides inside Higgins. An electric
re-working of Safety In Numbers' acoustic End of the Road is a band
favorite, and to give you a taste of some our our playing with special
guests you'll hear Adrian Belew lending his guitar to King Crimson's
Red and Mike Keneally stopping by for some extended on-stage antics
and guitar pyrotechnics on Ringo. We’ve also included a bonus video
of “Out of Order” from our PBS Soundstage performance.
Umphrey's McGee - Prog Sampler track list
1) Rocker part II (10.28.08)
2) Wizard Burial Ground (12.30.08)
3) Higgins (12.29.07)
4) End of the Road (2.17.08)
5) Search 4 (2.12.08)
6) Red (3.17.07 with Adrian Belew)
7) The Fussy Dutchman (12.30.04)
8) Ringo (2.12.08 with Mike Keneally)
To download, visit: http://tinyurl.com/umsampler
This will deposit the FREE download in your basket from our download
site UMLive.net (run by Livedownloads.com). Registration at
UMLive.net is free and required to complete the process. We'll keep
this posted for the next 2 weeks, until April 17th, so grab it while
it's hot.
To those who've checked out our albums and/or shows, and to those who
are helping spread the word (and we encourage you to spread this
around), we appreciate your support. Thanks for your continued
interest in Umphrey's McGee, we hope to see you all on the road some
time soon!"
