In late 1973 and early 1974, Nektar was at the peak of their powers, and this concept album was about to sweep over American audiences with generous radio play followed by a massive concert tour...
» Read moreArktis have a style like a mix of Cream, Black Sabbath, Steamhammer, and German bands like late Frumpy or Atlantis. Unlike some of the sub-par bands on Garden of Delights, Arktis make up for a...
» Read moreCeleste's debut album is one of the very best of the Italian progressives, and was highly regarded enough to have been reissued in three countries. Meanwhile, this CD is supposedly a lost...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
I picked the LP of this one up on high school and, like a few others, it was probably from some list back in the day of good art rock albums. I...
» Read moreSometime during the cosmic period of German rock, when bands like Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül and Tangerine Dream flourished, there was Dzyan — who were busy forging their own cosmic...
» Read moreKarisma Records has begun a reissue campaign for the catalog of Norway’s Ruphus, a band formed in 1970 that went through a lot of changes and gained some notoriety in Europe, though they...
» Read moreKraftwerk, like many of the long running German outfits, was a completely different creature at its inception then after they rose to popularity. These albums, including the pre-Kraftwerk...
» Read moreIn 1973, nearly two years before the release of their major label debut Pampered Menial, Pavlov’s Dog from St. Louis, by that time already grown from their beginnings as a quartet of...
» Read moreWhen Yellow Magic Orchestra’s first album came out in 1978, listeners around the world were treated (many for the first time) to creative music from Japan, something that wasn’t just...
» Read moreLike a comet streaking through the heavens, the vintage sounds of Cuasares (the enigmatic studio project by pianist / arranger / visionary Waldo Belloso) splashes a wild esoteric mixture of...
» Read moreAn interesting release to say the least, Cosmic Circus Music was the trio of guitarist Bernd Diesner, drummer / synthesist Ulrich Maßhöfer, and bassist Karl-Heinz Keffer. They existed as...
» Read moreKeyboradist Hendrik Schaper and bassist Rolf Rettberg had been playing together since 1967 in a trio called Trikolon from Osnabrück in lower Saxony. Early in the spring of 1971, the third...
» Read moreRupture was a one-off French musical project from 1973 that was formed by French songwriter Boris Bergman (France Gall, Dalida, etc.) and drummer / vocalist Sylvain Krief (Airto Fogo, Michel...
» Read moreWhile Embryo had used instrumentation outside of the framework of rock and jazz on prior albums, their future as a "world music" (or "ethno-jazz" or other rather weak...
» Read moreHere we have domestic releases of the consummate Krautrock band’s early albums. Though not as quotable to neo-Kraut hipsters as Can, Faust, Kraftwerk and Neu! — Ash Ra Tempel were...
» Read moreHere we have domestic releases of the consummate Krautrock band’s early albums. Though not as quotable to neo-Kraut hipsters as Can, Faust, Kraftwerk and Neu! — Ash Ra Tempel were...
» Read moreHere we have domestic releases of the consummate Krautrock band’s early albums. Though not as quotable to neo-Kraut hipsters as Can, Faust, Kraftwerk and Neu! — Ash Ra Tempel were...
» Read moreHere is the debut album Auf der Bahn Zum Uranus (On The Way To Uranus) by the Saarland based five-piece band Gäa (Gaia in English), named after the Greek earth goddess. This is one of...
» Read moreSunbirds was a short-lived (relatively speaking) jazz-rock outfit from Munich led by drummer Klaus Weiss and featuring a cast of great jazz musicians from many different countries. They left only...
» Read moreThe search for rare 70s era progressive gems is still afoot, but unsurprisingly the number of true top tier items becomes rarer and rarer. This Floridian band's only album was dug up as a test...
» Read moreIn Focus, Jan Akkerman was one of the most interesting and distinctive rock guitarists of the 70s, and with this solo album, originally released in 1973, he showed an amazing range. Six of the ten...
» Read moreThis is one of the early albums on the Virgin label that made Richard Branson famous, in fact on the original LP there's an address to write in to as if it's a small little independent...
» Read moreOn paper, Herbie Hancock went from Sextant to Head Hunters, and that was a massive stylistic change from the avant garde to instrumental funk / pop. The lineup also changed...
» Read moreGuerssen and Mental Experience have unearthed one of those Krautrock obscurities recorded and produced circa 1972-73 in Köln, Germany that was purported to have been released as an...
» Read moreCommander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen might seem to be a bit of a stretch for Exposé, but considering in the early 70s there was a considerable amount of experimentation with...
» Read moreThis was a very early show for me, right after I started getting into the Dead and started diving into the Dick's Picks series. Back then the count wasn't yet very high for official...
» Read moreThe pivot of the Radio Gnome Trilogy, Angel's Egg is one of the most fully realized parables of inner spirituality that ever came from the rock scene and perhaps the album where Zero...
» Read moreRocksession was one of two albums Christian Burchard sold to Brain Records after their previous label rejected them, and it came out about a year and a half after it was recorded. It's...
» Read moreBe warned, this is not an authorized release — not even close. What we have here is (a) one track ("1984") recorded live in Bremen in 1969 (no further details...), (b) the entire...
» Read moreNuova Idea are probably best known for being part of Italy's largest family tree, including the New Trolls and Osanna. Nuova Idea's Ricky Belloni (on Clowns) joined the New Trolls...
» Read moreAfter recording Sort Of, a second album emerged but Polydor pulled the plug and Uwe Nettelbeck signed both Faust and Slapp Happy to the burgeoning Virgin label in the UK. They re-recorded...
» Read moreThese two discs contain material culled from three albums released in the early 70s. The earliest album, Kivinen tie Dublinniin (Rocky Road to Dublin), was released in 1972, and finds this...
» Read moreMost used record stores in the late 80s had multiple batches of Camel albums, in fact the record shop owner who introduced me to them gave me Rain Dances first, which even to this day was...
» Read moreThere was always something a bit sinister, a bit weird, a bit occult, and a bit conspiratorial about Blue Öyster Cult and as a kid I just ate that up, in fact I'd guess BÖC probably...
» Read moreThe creative forces behind Aktuala were Walter Maioli (arabic oboe, bamboo flute, naj, harmonica, piccolo, etc.) and Daniele Cavallanti (soprano and tenor sax, clarinet) who formed the band in...
» Read moreFor me, Remember the Future has always been the Nektar album. It was the first one I heard, and the others have seemed like variations on its format (disregarding the later...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
One of the most unfortunate things about the CD issues of Gong's first entry in the Radio Gnome Trilogy is that because of the legal...
» Read moreFranco Battiato, as is well known, was an Italian pop singer who for a span in the 70s made a string of very experimental albums that fit in the vein of groups such as Opus Avantra or Pierrot...
» Read moreIn 1973 longtime John Cage associate David Tudor recorded the two pieces on this album, which could best be described as ambient sonic experimentation. Low register audio outbursts of varying tone...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
You can easily see each era of pianist Herbie Hancock's discography flow in colors. While he started in the Miles Davis Quintet, he was both leader...
» Read moreGuru Guru is one of the better known Krautrock bands from the 70s. In Spring 1973 they released their fourth album Guru Guru, engineered by the legendary Conny Plank, featuring drummer...
» Read moreGuru Guru is one of the better known Krautrock bands from the 70s. In Spring 1973 they released their fourth album Guru Guru, engineered by the legendary Conny Plank, featuring drummer...
» Read moreFunkadelic’s self-titled debut album from 1970 shows the band in search of a style. There are still remnants of the 60s soul of their background, essentially expanding a kind of...
» Read moreEarly 70s Germany provided the environment for a massive number of inventive and experimental albums, but the closest of these to what was going on in the San Francisco bay area had to be Agitation...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
The final album of the Ohr years would show the solidification of the classic Froese-Franke-Baumann trio and would perhaps show the influence of the...
» Read moreThe 70s continue to be a repository of stimulating music that new and old labels don’t stop digging out. Well, this is not all gold that glitters, but several forgotten works resurface,...
» Read moreThe 70s continue to be a repository of stimulating music that new and old labels don’t stop digging out. Well, this is not all gold that glitters, but several forgotten works resurface,...
» Read moreRevisited Records continues its reissue of the Klaus Schulze back catalog with another 12 CDs. I haven’t quite figured out their rationale, but they are releasing 12 a year covering the...
» Read moreFrom GAS (Gong Appreciation Society), the same folks that brought us Camembert Eclectique, we now have a disc featuring live recordings by this legendary 1973 Gong spinoff featuring...
» Read moreThis is a CD I really expected to like, considering this is an Italian progressive from 1973 live and unreleased. That’s not to say it's bad. It certainly has a lot of typical elements to...
» Read moreThis one surprised me a bit – I guess I was expecting it to be much worse. I suppose it's a bit dated for 1973, with definite psych / beat influences and shorter songs. In many ways,...
» Read moreAround a core six-piece of organ, guitar, bass, drums, sax+flute, and powerful lead vocalist Mirko Ostinet, Il Giro Strano were ex-members of equally obscure bands Tramps and Voodoo. They recorded...
» Read moreWhat could be more intense than a great singer and songwriter powered instrumentally only by the mighty Hammond organ and drums? For a major chunk of his recorded career and most of his live dates,...
» Read moreOriginally on the Magma label, Pholas Dactylus recorded one album with two side-long suites called Concerto delle Menti. Obviously a concept of some sort, my Italian is much too shabby to...
» Read moreOccasionally hailed as a classic, I for one don't see what the big deal is. Triade were one of numerous keyboard-based trios that proliferated in Italy in the early 70s. The sound was based...
» Read moreThe original enthusiastic response to this reissue was based, I think, more on the extreme rarity of the original vinyl item than on anything else. Don't misunderstand, though, the music here...
» Read moreFor 1973, Odissea's sole album was far surpassed in innovation, and the collection of shorter songs here seems fairly dated. Regardless, there are some nice moments – symphonic flights...
» Read moreDalton were another beat group turned "progressive" in 1972, and yet another one with an adventurous bent on a well-worn style. Dalton were very similar to bands like early Metamorfosi, I...
» Read moreDedalus were the jazziest of the Trident groups and this, their debut, has been the only one reissued of their two albums. Dedalus were very similar to the laid back fusion of Perigeo, with spacy...
» Read moreWith the almost complete overhaul of Magma's lineup in 1972 came a similarly drastic shift in musical style and direction. Two of the group's main jazzmen, François Cahen and Jeff...
» Read moreThe Blues Project is remembered as an innovative, somewhat erratic band of the mid-60s who combined rock with folk, blues, and jazz. In 1967 they split up, with some members going on to form Blood,...
» Read moreIf you don't dig the blues and you don't boogie, skip this review. Canned Heat's stock in trade was merging classic blues with rock, and in the late 60s nobody did it better, due in...
» Read moreIn the early 70s, there were so many great progressive bands on the Italian scene, that even some of the best were overlooked. Case in point: Alphataurus were a five-piece who released their only...
» Read moreThese albums make up the present archives of previously unreleased Latte e Miele music. Latte e Miele are best described as an Italian ELP and have a very big sound for a trio. They released three...
» Read moreThese albums make up the present archives of previously unreleased Latte e Miele music. Latte e Miele are best described as an Italian ELP and have a very big sound for a trio. They released three...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Top Tier #14
This is one of four Italian progressive rock albums in my top tier; in fact when it comes to the genre I tend to prize a lot of these more than the...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
Some of the most ambitious albums of the time weren't recorded by long-time, veteran musicians, and Semiramis' sole album was something of a...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
There are so many outstanding melodies and themes on this album that you get the impression the band might have gotten a little over judicious. As an...
» Read moreThe German band Virus is mainly known in progressive rock circles for their 1971 debut album Revelation. By the time they recorded this live radio concert in 1973, they had abandoned...
» Read moreFrom 1968 to 1974 the Swiss Gypsy Walter Wegmüller and Austrian writer and story-teller Sergius Golowin traveled Europe in search of gypsy legends. In 1973 they collaborated on a series of...
» Read moreEnough has been said about No Pussyfooting, a record of singular stature and importance to the gradual adoption of the avant-garde by popular artists, that if its creative success and...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
After members of the original Santana band started leaving the group, Carlos Santana moved the music in a jazzier direction and during the era he'd...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
The great Hatfield and the North only released two albums in their lifetime and then an odds-and-ends album a few years later, so unless you're a...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
In many ways Join Inn could be seen as the first Ash Ra Tempel Mk II. It too had a side of intense psychedelic rock and a side bliss-out, all...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Second Tier
I'm not sure how many bands in any genre had as strong a run as Germans Embryo did from their debut to somewhere deep in the 70s. This was a group...
» Read moreAnother one from the Trident label. In the early 70s The Trip produced three fairly unremarkable albums as a four-piece led by guitarist/singer Billy Gray. After the 1972 album Atlantide,...
» Read moreOriginally released on the rare Trident label, Semiramis have a very high reputation, and with good reason – their only album is a superb classic, and one of the most essential of the 70s...
» Read moreMetamorfosi were more or less a keyboard oriented trio with the addition of a lead vocalist. Their debut album was a very 60s psych/beat album with progressive touches – an overblown concept...
» Read more[Parts of this review specifically relate to the 1995 reissue on Germanofon. -ed.]
The Germany-based sextet is probably most well known as representing the baby steps of...
» Read moreEx-Soft Machine bassist Kevin Ayers left that group after their full-on live U.S. assault with the Jim Hendrix Experience in 1969. After that time, Ayers spent the following years putting together...
» Read moreArtman's Lard Free project has received considerable amount of documentation in progressive periodicals, so I won't bore you with the details. Here's a quick overview; all are essential listens —...
» Read moreRevisited Records is busy reissuing classic Krautrock albums by Klaus Schulze, Kraan, Guru Guru, Holger Czukay, and Amon Düül II. These latest discs are Amon Düül II’s fourth, fifth, and...
» Read moreLove, with Arthur Lee at the helm, were the undisputed kings of psychedelic rock in Los Angeles in 1966 when they were originally signed by Elektra along with the Doors. Their first album was...
» Read moreMcLatchey's Top Tier #3
The singular Italian jazz rock band of the 70s created classics after this one, but I'm not sure any of their other albums had quite the grooves this one did....
» Read more[Note: This review was written upon the release of the albums on DRT in 2005.]
DRT is Derek Shulman’s US based label, which has taken ownership of the band’s North America CD...
» Read more[Note: This review was written upon the remastered release version of In a Glass House from 2000]
Having owned the re-issue of this album by the Terrapin Trucking Company, I...
» Read moreKollektiv, an obscure Krautrock band, released their self-titled album in 1973. Three months later they recorded an hour-long session for SWF radio in Baden-Baden. Long Hair released this session...
» Read moreAnyone hearing this disc for the very first time might well conclude that this is the weirdest album ever produced. On one level there is an Orwellian concept running through all the tracks, but...
» Read moreAlong with the reissue of this quartet's amazing self-titled debut album from '73 (which originally appeared on the Vertigo label), Long Hair has released these two collections of archival...
» Read moreAcqua Fragile is best known as the band that featured singer Bernardo Lanzetti prior to his joining PFM in time for their Chocolate Kings album. But in fact from their very beginnings,...
» Read more
2021-02-14
SoundQuest Fest 2021 –
SoundQuest Fest, first experienced as a live festival in Tucson Arizona in 2010 was created by ambient music pioneer Steve Roach. This 2021 event will unite a worldwide gathering of artists and audience members together for a 3-day online event unique in the realm of ambient music. From March 26-28th a continuous flow of streamed performances, audio-video wonder worlds and deep immersion zones will burn bright on Roach’s YouTube channel. »
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2021-02-10
Chick Corea RIP –
The sad news has reached us that Chick Corea has Returned to Forever, so to speak. The innovative keyboardist and composer died on February 9 at the age of 79. With a career that spanned from the 60s until shortly before his death, Corea touched many listeners with the incredible variety of music he produced in his lifetime. »
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2021-01-18
Asia Minor Third Album on the Way –
On January 29, AMS records will be releasing the long-awaited third album by classic Turkish-French band Asia Minor. Released last year in Japan, this will be the widespread debut of Points of Libration. The album features original members Setrak Bakirel (vocals, guitar) and Eril Tekeli (flute, guitar). »
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2020-12-09
Harold Budd RIP –
Harold Budd, one of pre-eminent American composers of avant-garde and minimalism, has died of complications from the coronavirus. Budd came to prominence in the 70s, championed by Brian Eno on his Obscure Records label, with music that blended academic minimalism with electric jazz and electronic music. Much of Budd's best known work was done in collaboration with other artists, including Eno, Daniel Lanois, Robin Guthrie, Andy Partridge, John Foxx, Jah Wobble, and many others. »
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2020-11-20
25 Views of Worthing Finally Gets Released –
A while ago, we wrote about the discovery of a "long lost" Canterbury-style gem by a band called 25 Views of Worthing. And now we're pleased to find out that Wind Waker Records has released their music on an LP. »
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Basilwink - Bipolar Bliss – Basilwink is a Milwaukee based project featuring Jeff Marcus (guitars, keyboards, bass, engineering), and Jim Bloedel (percussion, keyboards, loops and effects), and the disc at hand is their fourth... (2009) » Read more
Space Ritual - Otherworld – Space Ritual is a new band formed from the remnants of Hawkwind. Consisting of Nik Turner (sax, flute, and vocals), Dave Anderson (bass, electric guitars, acoustic guitar, and vocals), Terry Ollis... (2008) » Read more
Rain - Cerulean Blue – Rain is the moniker taken by an anonymous British poet as another solo artist who has crafted a minor conceptual masterpiece mostly on his own. The project is staged with recited scenarios by Rick... (2006) » Read more
Errata Corrige - Siegfried, il Drago e Altre Storie – In #4 I reviewed the new reformation album by this obscure 70s group. This album was their debut in the mid-70s and is not surprisingly quite a bit different from Mappamondo. This album is a beautiful... (1995) » Read more
JBK (Jansen Barbieri Karn) - _Ism – _ism is the latest project by this trio formerly from the bands Japan and Raintree Crow. This is the group’s third distinct album and first real collaboration in their six years on their own... (2000) » Read more