A Doorway Open Wide...

[Jem]

However, and whatever form any new material comes in, I will be thrilled!  I too am from the days of the whole experience of finally getting a copy of a long awaited new album, tearing it open, absorbing the album in its entirety while reading the liner notes/credits, etc...  But given progress and technology, those days are soon to be long gone.  So I will change with the tide and take any new Frost music however I can get it.
As for what that content may or may not be....I may get toasted for this opinion, but I am just hoping it is truly Frost in some semblance......I have never been a huge fan of projects in the whole TDL vein in terms of guest musicians or music by committee......guest pan flute solos, special appearance on bonerphone by.....those type of projects.  In most cases they lack some of the cohesive elements that make a band a band.   I find TDL much less Frosty than the two albums to a degree.  (though still very enjoyable).  That said......I realize Frost has always been about stretching the limits.....and the one thing I have learned well as a fan is to expect the completely unexpected.....so bring it on!

Yup, I can see that point, but again I'll raise the Gabriel model at 'cha. You've got David Rhodes and Levin and old beardy himself. To me, that's the band.  Even back to PG 2, you had people like Fripp coming in and adding cool things. It never felt odd to me that bands could and would be able to do that. Bearing in mind I write everything, produce everything and mix everything, with Mitch as my wingman, I feel the band has more in common with the Gabriel way of doing things than, say, the Genesis way of doing things.

[RacingHippo]

Hello to one and all....I'm Brodie from the IB forum .

C'mon Brodie, that introduction does you no justice whatsoever!

For those that don't know, Brodie here is a truly excellent guitarist (that I've had the pleasure to know and play alongside for some 20 years) whose first instrument is bass.. at which he's even more talented. And a Stick-player. And a bloody good sound engineer to boot.
Looks like he can come up with Good Ideas, too  

Nice to see you here ol' chum.

[RacingHippo]

I may get toasted for this opinion

I'd like to propose a toast...  

But seriously (OK, not very, but seriouslyish)...

Even in its first, "original" incarnation, Frost* was never "just" Jem, JM, TBE & JJ. As we (should!) all know by now, Jonny Boyes did vast amounts of guitar for Milliontown. And there are undoubtedly many others that have been involved along the way that we rarely if ever hear about.
Frost* has a core, yes - currently Jem, JM, Dec, Nathan and TBE (when available). But what's wrong with augmenting that line-up with additional musicians that add something that those 5 can't (or wouldn't do as spectacularly well)?  
I mean, I know Dec can sing pretty darned high, but his speaking voice isn't quite what Tara's is. And there's simply no way you can replace an electric violin with a synth and still get that same level of goosebumpitude.

I see Frost* as more of a "project" centered around a core of supremely talented peeps than "a band".
So long as it's centered around Mr G and has a certain "progressive" quality to it (note that I didn't specify "rock" ) it'll still be Frost* to me.

Maybe the "Frost" bit is the core musos and the "*" is for "extras as called-upon".

[0ldman]

The electric violin thing is the one thng in the TDL line-up that confused me - isn't JM a bit of a whizzo violinerist when he's not playing guitar, singing, producing records, playing keys, bass and sailing boats?

[Mouse]

Maybe the "Frost" bit is the core musos and the "*" is for "extras as called-upon".

As your sig would suggest, Hippo.  

[Mickdoo22]

All valid points.....at the heart of it, we know Jem and Mitch are the vision......which make it Frost.
All I know is, I've hardly taken EIMA out of my CD player since it first came out......fecking brilliant stuff!

[Geetar]

I feel the band has more in common with the Gabriel way of doing things than, say, the Genesis way of doing things.

And since it would be hard, in my opinion, to overestimate Gabriel's influence on music (at least on this side of the Pond) since he went solo.... and concomitantly difficult to underestimate Genesis' influence..... I think Jem's the one who's got it right.

[Geddy Lee]

Well, I agree and disagree in equal parts with what you say. YES, I totally think that if you are making things available via download that they should be LOSSLESS, my whole arguement against downloads is that they are usually such crap quality ( and I don't mean things that have been ILLEGALY downloaded either! Thats another arguement entirely!! ) that when I have downloaded something and decided I like it, I have then gone out and purchased the actual "physical" cd of whatever it may have been and the difference between the 2 is startling! And a nominal fee ao a pay-what-you want approach is fine, although most people that did that for Radiohead paid nothing!
The problem I have with trickles here and there is it's not a coherent piece of, for want of a better word "ART". Todays world of "I want it yesterday" has destroyed and joy I ever found in buying a bands new album. Those days were wonderful..here's a new and shiny 45mins (or whatever) of new stuff, one coherent piece, some moments in time caught forever in one place. So what if you had to wait a year, or 2 or 3 (if your bands name happens to be Rush! ), that's what it was all about, and that's what was so great about the ALBUM. All of that has been kicked up the arse now because everyone has a 10 second attention span and everything is disposable, hence the need for something "new" every few weeks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against what is being proposed, its just that I think that the album, and for that matter the cd, is far from dead. I will personally rage against the dying of the light..!

[gr8gonzo]

The iTunes generation doesn't share our love of full-length albums because they're accustomed to digital music a la carte, so there's no appreciation for CDs, much less vinyl. Liner notes? What's that? But while the physical product generation wants to latch onto what's fast becoming nostalgia and not let go, the fact is the music retail model is in shambles. Today's artists are lucky to break even on a recording project. Luckily for us, folks like Jem are willing and able to do it for the love of it. He can't please everyone, though. No matter what he decides to do, someone will want something else.

[Mickdoo22]

He can't please everyone, though. No matter what he decides to do, someone will want something else.

Nah....I think we are all in agreement........a new Frost album every couple of weeks or so.........is that too much to ask?  :lol:

[DannySoisSage]

The iTunes generation doesn't share our love of full-length albums because they're accustomed to digital music a la carte, so there's no appreciation for CDs, much less vinyl. Liner notes? What's that? But while the physical product generation wants to latch onto what's fast becoming nostalgia and not let go, the fact is the music retail model is in shambles. Today's artists are lucky to break even on a recording project. Luckily for us, folks like Jem are willing and able to do it for the love of it. He can't please everyone, though. No matter what he decides to do, someone will want something else.

*SPOILER: I wrote a shitload by accident. You can just skip to the end and its summed up, I just couldn't bring myself to delete all of it lol*

I actually think the reason is completely different to this. I'm not convinced that album sales have gone down where albums are being made; what has happened (IMO) is that more singles are being made, and albums are made as packages for singles. For example, Lady Gaga's album was released with 8 tracks. They then released a load of singles and instead of releasing a new album, they rereleased the album with a 'bonus CD' of another 16 songs (these included Poker Face). In pop music its become more of a standard to just download the single. When it only costs what, 50 to 80p it makes better immediate financial sense than blasting 7-12 pounds (or more) on an album when you only really want one track. You hear a track on the radio or in a nightclub and you can get it very quickly and cheaply. Not always totally artistically fulfilling but certainly aurally so.

However, where the album is still an art form (prog, rock/metal notably) album sales aren't really that low in perspective, or perhaps more accurately they are more appreciated as a 'body of work'. We've discussed this quite a lot around here and this news kind of supports it, albums are NOT always fun things to make; and they are very rarely cash cows. More and more it's clear that the most financially beneficial approach to music is to tour like crazy and release material regularly in small chunks; although there might be an album at some point, the approach is to release singles around that, either releasing a few, then an album, then some more, or an album then singles, whichever, all supported by massive touring commitments.

So then the alternative to that is to make an album one hundred percent as an artistic expression. How do you want to do that? Tinyfish have been making their album for three years. I'm sure it will be absolutely fantastic but that is one hell of a commitment, not only to putting three to five years of creative juices into one project but then to saying that potentially you won't make another artistic statement for another three to five years. Jem's proposal leads him to be able to quickly deliver the products of his juices (lol) quickly and with an immediacy that allows him to move on to the next project very quickly; the freedom of expression is there for someone like Simon to release an album every three years and for Jem to release a song or three every couple of months, and its there because the aim is not to make a shitload of money (indeed you might argue that that isn't an option at all).

Wow I wrote too much lol. Essentially, the album is still appreciated as an art form, but less albums are being made as art forms and more singles are being made to fill that gap. The singles are more famous but the albums are more artistically fulfilling to listeners and hopefully artists.

[Geddy Lee]

Well....I think that you miss my point. I don't think that the "physical" product IS fast becoming nostalgia. I think that we choose to belive what we are being told by the "industry". I think that "they" want to get rid of cd's and instead go down the "digital download" route, so by telling us that they are on their way out, make us believe and go along with what they say. The actual facts don't show this to be true. Yes, I download stuff, yes, I don't know what I would do without iTunes now (only becuase it helps me get ALL of my music onto 1 device), but I still buy loads of cd's. If I go into HMV anywhere there are still the same amounts of people buying cd's as there ever were, so who's fooling who? I use downloading ( in whatever form it may take!) as more of a try before you buy. Nealry everything I have downloaded I have then gone out and purchased the actual "physical" cd.
In terms of chart success, the main thing that fuels this whole "downloading" thing, well...most of anything I have ever listened to has never bothered the charts anyway, with a few exceptions, so what's changed? To me absoultely nothing.

[Jem]

I still buy CD's. I've just ordered 5 from Amazon. However, as soon as they arrive, I whap them into the hard drive on the Beemer and then they sit in a Sainsbury's bag in the garage with all the others.

It's nice to know they're there. :lol:

[Geddy Lee]

I still buy CD's. I've just ordered 5 from Amazon. However, as soon as they arrive, I whap them into the hard drive on the Beemer and then they sit in a Sainsbury's bag in the garage with all the others.

It's nice to know they're there. :lol:

 :lol: It must be nice to have a "hard drive" in your car!!! Us plebs however have to make do with connecting their iPod!!

[Pedro]

"connecting their ipod"?

You were lucky....  

My CD player doesn't have an aux-in and the FM transmitter I have only fits my old white-brick iPod and was crap anyway.
So I have to cart discs with me but I'm happy to burn discs from legal downloads.