Gordian Knot (band)

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For other uses, see Gordian Knot (disambiguation).

Gordian Knot <tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">Image:Gknot album.jpg Gordian Knot's self-titled debut album, Gordian Knot, released in 1999. </td></tr>
Background information <tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">USA</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Progressive rock Progressive metal</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1998–present</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">Sensory</td></tr><tr><td>Website</td><td colspan="2">Sean Malone / Gordian Knot</td></tr><tr><th style="background: #b0c4de;" colspan="3">Members</th></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center;" colspan="3">Sean Malone (Bass) Paul Masvidal (Guitars) Jason Gobel (Guitars) Bill Bruford (Drums)</td></tr>

Gordian Knot is a progressive rock/metal band directed by bass guitarist Sean Malone. At times its shifting lineup has included Steve Hackett of Genesis, Bill Bruford of King Crimson and Yes , Ron Jarzombek from Watchtower and Spastic Ink as well as Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, several of Malone's former bandmates from Cynic and John Myung from Dream Theater.

[edit] Musical Style

The music of Gordian Knot is a highly professional mélange of progressive rock and -metal, Fusion, instrumental music à la Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft (replacing the clean guitar sound with distorted sounds) and his solo-work (compare e.g. Gordian Knot's song "Grace" with Fripp's "Evening Star"). Gordian Knot manage to incorporate several overlapping layers of complex melodies and harmonies into a unified whole without sounding too complex or "forced" in any way.

The music of Gordian Knot also relies heavily on diatonic guitar-melodies (although sometimes encompassing later-resolved dissonances to add a Jazz-Fusion-like flavour). The interaction between the various instruments (all played by very accomplished instrumentalists) is flawless, allowing for communication of various melody-lines, harmonies and rhythms between guitar(s), bass and -concerning rhythms- even drums.

Also, Gordian Knot cannot be categorized without disregarding certain aspects of their music. For example the piece "Komm, suesser Tod, komm sel'ge" is a transcription of a piece of the same name by Johann Sebastian Bach, while some of their pieces, most notably "Grace" have a distinct classical, even "baroque" Bach-like flavour, being made up of an interplay between various diatonic, peaceful-sounding melody-lines from the bass and guitar(s) - without drifting off into the often corny, showy neo-classical style.

Other songs, such as "Muttersprache" (German for "mother tongue") or "Code/Anticode" work with on-beat/off-beat, almost counterpoint-like interplay between two guitars and/or the rhythm- and melody-section, incorporating jazz-chords and dissonant intervals to create tension and form the basis for a mixture of jazz-fusion and progressive rock/metal.