Prog rock (also known as progressive rock or prog) is a genre of rock music that appeared in the late 60s in Great Britain. Also “art rock” very similar to «prog rock», but obviously having some crossovers between these genres, they do not mean the same.

The creation of this subgenre of rock music was an attempt of British rock groups to break traditional verse-chorus-based song structure. They were Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant and many others bands that played uncommon compositions with influences of classical, jazz, psychedelic and folk music. Another feature of new born genre was using of conceptual, philosophical lyrics. The first proto-prog albums were “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” by Pink Floyd and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles that were released in 1967. And from that time creation of concept albums in prog rock had become a good tradition.

Nowadays there is a number of subgenres in prog rock such as neo-prog, prog fusion and many bands, playing this genres. In 2007 there were a lot of festivals to celebrate the 40 years anniversary of Progressive Rock “1967-2007″.

The musical characteristics of progressive rock are:

• Uncommon song structure

• Irregular beats and complex time signatures

• Using a wide range of musical instruments from traditional acoustic to electric instruments

• Concept lyrics, long songs (often called “epics”) and theatrical elements

Rock music appeared in Uzbekistan in 1960’s when uzbek people started listening to Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and the Beatles and created first local semi-professional rock bands. But progressive rock appeared much later. One of the first Uzbek prog bands was Rare Bird created by Albert Khalmurzaev, Viktor Sinko and Valery Vorobiev in 1988 in Tashkent. First their concert was acoustic art rock show in memory of John Lennon. In 1990 band recorded debut album “Music for Relatives” and in 1991 band gave first concert using electric musical instruments. Then was the “Scarlet Sails” musical . In the beginning of 90’s band performed several times at the Youth Theater of Uzbekistan and quit in 1995.

Also on of the most famous prog rock bands in Uzbekistan was Edgar Poe featuring Vitaly Popeloff that was created in 1991. In 1993 band performed at “Tashkent’s Woodstock” rock festival.

In December 1996 Vitaly Menshikov (ex-Edgar Poe, an author of Progressive rock encyclopedia) with Albert Khalmurzaev and Valery Vorobiev (ex-Rare Bird) created a new band, named X-Religion. This band recorded 2 albums – Dances on Gobelins and Sodom and Gomorra XXI that were released only in 2001.

Nowadays In Uzbekistan there are several progressive rock bands. The most internationally famous is FROM.UZ that was created in 2004. In 2007 after signing a contract with American 10T Records FROM.UZ released prog rock 3 albums. All prog rock bands perform not only in small clubs but also at the biggest Uzbek Rock Festival named IOSIS Fest.