space_cowboy ... Porcupine Tree Ozric Tentacles Other modern prog that is very talented
Porcupine Tree, features Steven Wilson that has been doing all those remasters/remixes of all kinds of progressive albums from the last millenia! It also features Richard Barbieri, that was in the band "Japan" before coming to PT.
PT is a band that Steven started in his garage playing all the instruments, and he sold a gazillion number of cassettes and all of a sudden found that he had to put together a band. Finding the musicians when you have the material is easy! But he added good ones, and the drummer is now considered a "progressive" important drummer, though I still think he is way too formulaic, but my idea of progressive drummer is Pierre Moerlin.
Ozric Tentacles is directly influenced by Steve Hillage, and is all instrumental work. They have not been the same, and their work has sadly gotten terribly weaker since their flute/woodwinds player left. His part added a side to the band that was more interesting and fun to listen to. Now, it's just rock music centered around Ed Wynne's abilities and he makes Joe Satriani sound like a kid in the playground. I wonder if I could get Rain to do some of that stuff! But ED uses a keyboard/midi for all his effects and sometimes you can tell he is just jamming on the effect, which is kinda different and nice.
Nowadays, the Ozrics are just the Wynne family band, with his wife playing bass and the son on keyboards, but their sound and material is not as strong as it used to be, and it just sounds like a band in search of a song, and playing around scales, and just a setup for dad's solos.