Exposé Online » Reviews of releases for 1998

ST 37 - Spaceage

From somewhere between deep space and Austin, Texas comes ST 37. The band is Dave Cameron, Carlton Crutcher, Joel Crutcher, Cisco Ryder G, and Scott Telles. They remind me of Space Ritual...

Chris Massey / David Castiglione / David Torn - Forever Sharp and Vivid

Torn again! This guy should need no introduction, he’s played with Jan Garbarek, Bill Bruford, Everyman Band, Andy Summers, Polytown, and has produced a number of exceptional albums under his...

Gerardo Nuñez - Calima

Calima is a collection of mostly guitar-led tracks in the flamenco style. The twist on this record is that there is a considerable amount of jazz influence as well. Nuñez is...

I.E.M. - I.E.M.

The Incredible Expanding Mindf*ck is one of Steven Wilson’s (Porcupine Tree, No-Man) side projects. The goal of the original IEM album from 1996 was to do an anonymous Krautrock project. The...

Hawkwind - The Elf and the Hawk

This is a must have, Hawkfans. The Elf & the Hawk is a reissue of Brian Tawn’s fanzine Hawkfan (No. 12 to be precise) from 1986 plus a few bonus tracks. Hawkfan...

Marcœur - m,a,r, et cœur comme cœur

One might suspect from the unusual title that this is not your usual fare. Indeed, Albert Marcœur is not your run-of-the-mill progressive rock musician, and while this writer can’t...

Mushroom - Alive and in Full Bloom

"Krautrock, psychedelic and Jazz influences” or so it states in a large orange label on the CD cover. I saw this band open for Kevin Ayers in San Francisco so I was already familiar with...

Nicky Skopelitis & Raoul Björkenheim - Revelator

By this point, I hope all Exposé readers have gone out and purchased at least a few Steve Tibbetts albums. If you have, and you love them as much as I do, you probably...

Ozric Tentacles - Erpland

I return to Erpland fairly frequently if only to do a quick check after listening to the nth new title by the band to see if they had always sounded like this. Because it's a somewhat...

M Efekt - Svitanie

It's interesting to pause and think about just how much Radim Hladík's Blue Effect had accomplished by this point. A debut album of pop rock, a collaboration with Czech cohorts Jazz...

Kalaban - Turn to Flame (Remastered)

Throughout 1997 and 1998, Kalaban recorded their final statement for the decade, Turn to Flame, and for nearly twenty years until the release of 2017’s Edge of Infinity, it...

Ruins - Vrresto

Vrresto is classic Ruins as we’ve come to know them over the last eight or so releases, a high intensity power duo of drums, bass and operatic vocals that is often compared to Magma...

Ruins - Vrresto

Vrresto is classic Ruins as we’ve come to know them over the last eight or so releases, a high intensity power duo of drums, bass and operatic vocals that is often compared to Magma...

Synthetic Block - Synthetic Block

Synthetic Block is not a group, but a cleverly-monikered front name for one-man Connecticut synth battalion Jonathan Block. And quite frankly, this is one of the most exciting one-man homemade...

Lhasa Cement Plant - I Am Providence

Recorded live at Terrastock ‘97, this New England based four-piece improvisational unit takes the listener on one crazy, forty minute, tripped up mind excursion. The building blocks here are...

California Guitar Trio - Pathways

The third release from California Guitar Trio finds them on familiar ground and also stretching out a bit. Familiarity is served up on tracks where the trademark CGT formula is in full evidence:...

Kingston Wall - II

A band whose career was tragically cut short by the death of leader, vocalist, and guitarist Petri Walli, Kingston Wall had at least a couple of faces. Live the band was something of a classic rock...

Kingston Wall - Kingston Wall I, II & III

Kingston Wall is a Finnish power trio who seem to operate outside the normal "progressive rock" distributors, yet would certainly be a crossover group of great potential. While the band...

Kingston Wall - Kingston Wall I, II & III

Kingston Wall is a Finnish power trio who seem to operate outside the normal "progressive rock" distributors, yet would certainly be a crossover group of great potential. While the band...

Kingston Wall - Kingston Wall I, II & III

Kingston Wall is a Finnish power trio who seem to operate outside the normal "progressive rock" distributors, yet would certainly be a crossover group of great potential. While the band...

Mystery - Destiny? 10th Anniversary Edition

This is a reissue of Mystery’s second disc, Destiny? Originally issued in 1988, it features original singer Gary Savoie along with main song-writer and guitarist Michel...

Deus Ex Machina - Equilibrismo da Insofferenza

The recent release of Devoto was an opportunity to revisit the band's back catalog and compare...

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks Volume Eleven 9/27/72

I had a tradition for a long time after clicking with the Grateful Dead of playing a show every Sunday. This created a very strong impression on me of a sort of "deep time" vibe with...

Gorguts - Obscura

Obscura was Canadian death metal outfit Gorguts' third album, following several years later on two albums that were children of the Floridian style — Morbid Angel, Obituary,...

Boiled in Lead - Alloy

I discovered Boiled in Lead with their second album, Hotheads (1986). I’ve always liked the combination of Celtic music and rock, and this band does it like no other —...

Miles Davis - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions

I remember when I first got in this box set, there were a whole bunch of them that were defective because they inserted the discs into it before the glue dried and I had to sent it back at least...

Cream - Live Cream

In an earlier tier I discussed what to date is my favorite unofficial Cream show from...

Thinking Plague - In Extremis

In this album, where one can find all the ingredients of the American new rock and free jazz scenes, we also discover the musical embodiment of an exceptional label, Cuneiform. This large line-up...

Thinking Plague - In Extremis

Nine years since their last album, Thinking Plague is back with a vengeance. Their music is angular, drives hard and is laden with a complex and brilliant precision, one that combines the...

Thinking Plague - In Extremis

It's been way too long since we've heard a CD from this group, although, fortunately, we get them in bits and pieces from other groups in the 5uu's circle. In This Life was one...

Thinking Plague - In Extremis

Thinking Plague is yet another stunning product of the prolific revolving cast of characters that have brought us the 5uu's, U Totem, and other projects. This particular configuration is led by...

Sea Level - Sea Level, Cats on the Coast, On the Edge & Long Walk on a Short Pier

The Allman Brothers in their prime were no doubt one of the best American rock bands of the early 70s, covering a little bit of everything and doing it all extremely well — never a shortage...

Sea Level - Sea Level, Cats on the Coast, On the Edge & Long Walk on a Short Pier

The Allman Brothers in their prime were no doubt one of the best American rock bands of the early 70s, covering a little bit of everything and doing it all extremely well — never a shortage...

Sea Level - Sea Level, Cats on the Coast, On the Edge & Long Walk on a Short Pier

The Allman Brothers in their prime were no doubt one of the best American rock bands of the early 70s, covering a little bit of everything and doing it all extremely well — never a shortage...

Bassius-O-Phelius - Them No Good Phelius Boys Is Nothin' But Trouble... Trouble I Tells Ya!

Bassius-O-Phelius is a duo not unlike Birdsongs of the Mesozoic in instrumental quirkiness, with a direct lean toward early-70s free jazz and jazz rock. This is not a player's album, but a...

Glenn Hughes / Geoff Downes - The Work Tapes

Leave it to Geoff Downes to seek out another bassist, vocalist heavyweight talent as a possible big time collaborator. I honestly don't think the ex member of the Buggles and Yes has ever lived...

Sugarwood - Catch a Breeze and Fly & Love, Loss & Carparks

Sugarwood have been kicking around parts of the UK for a few years now, and seem to have gathered a following (if internet activity is any indication). They fit in more or less with the current...

Ensemble Nimbus - Scapegoat

Ensemble Nimbus play a sort of electric-acoustic chamber music. Percussionist Hasse Bruniusson of Flowerkings and Sammla Mammas Manna is joined by Håkan Almkvist on guitar and other...

Dystopia - The Second Dawn

Most of the time, when I listen to music, I don’t actively think about the intentions of the musicians. I just listen and judge the sounds on their own terms. Only later do I sometimes wonder...

Kepa Junkera - Bilbao 00:00 h

The first I ever heard of Kepa Junkera was at the first WOMAD USA festival. He was an unknown quantity that my wife and I checked out and became enraptured with. He plays the traditional Basque...

Agitation Free - At the Cliffs of River Rhine

I first heard this show on a cassette tape and it was quite notable for being perhaps the only listenable Agitation Free show in circulation at the time, I had heard one or two others that were...

Jerry Lucky - The Progressive Rock Files

Lucky is a Canadian writer and music historian with a background in radio, and an observer of the progressive scene at large. In this ambitious revised and expanded third edition, he attempts to...

Battiato - Fetus, Pollution, Sulle Corde di Aries & Clic

Franco 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...

Fish - Five Official Bootlegs

Bootlegs of live shows are often a mixed bag for both artists and their fans... how many times have you shelled out $25 or more for a bootleg CD only to find that it was pressed from either a...

Fish - Five Official Bootlegs

Bootlegs of live shows are often a mixed bag for both artists and their fans... how many times have you shelled out $25 or more for a bootleg CD only to find that it was pressed from either a...

Robert Normandeau - Lieux Inouïs

Lieux Inouïs (Unheard of Places) is a digitally remixed reissue of Normandeau’s 1990 debut release. Normandeau is one of Canada’s premiere electroacoustic composers and...

Ned Bouhalassa - Aérosol

Ned Bouhalassa is a young Canadian electroacoustic composer (born in France) who has studied under Francis Dhomont. His recent achievements have included music for the cinema, television, and...

Yves Daoust - Musiques Naïves

Yves Daoust is a Canadian electroacoustic composer well versed in the manipulation and processing of natural and found sounds. Daoust teaches a course in electroacoustic composition at the...

Herbie Hancock - Sextant

McLatchey'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...

Guru Guru - Seven Reissues

Guru 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...

Mystery - Theatre of the Mind

Straddling the line between mainstream rock and a more progressive angle, this excellent six-piece from Lorraine, Quebec covers an area that is covered often but rarely done so well. This is not...

Ron Modell / Michael Mantra - Sonic Continuum

McLatchey's Second Tier

When it comes to the really, really deep drone ambient ambient albums, a style that is often tagged as "refrigerator hum" due to its symbiotic...

Five Fifteen - Six Dimensions of the Electric Camembert

For their fourth album (the first I’ve heard), Finland’s Five Fifteen continue their tradition of long psychedelic titles. Gong fans don’t be fooled, the mention of the French...

Various Artists - The Ambient Expanse

McLatchey's Top Tier #29

The late 90s/early 00s were the peak of ambient electronic music in my book. The major artists in the genre were all delivering some of their finest...

Brand X - The X-Files: A 20 Year Retrospective

The first four Brand X albums set a standard for fusion that still exists more than 20 years later. Unfortunately many of the albums that followed didn’t measure up to the band’s...

Bang on a Can - Music for Airports

Ambient music has come a long way since 1978 when innovator Brian Eno drafted his original experiment for use in large international airports. The intent was for passengers to feel good about...

Ñu - Cuentos de Ayer y de Hoy & A Golpe de Látigo

Question: How could you possibly dislike Spanish heavy progressive rock? Answer: You couldn't. A five-piece consisting of guitar / Mellotron, vocals / flute, bass, violin, and drums, Ñu...

Robert Wyatt - Little Red Robin Hood - A Documentary

It’s extremely rare, in fact downright impossible to make a film regarding any prominent Canterbury music figure. That’s the prime reason this documentary on Robert Wyatt is such a...

John Wetton & Richard Palmer-James - Monkey Business 1972-1997

When was the first time you heard “Exiles” or “The Great Deceiver” and were taken aback about the lyrics? It’s a pretty strange role to find yourself by trying to fill...

Various Artists - Vae Victis I & II

So here are two samplers chock full of French hard rock and heavy metal. Why should you care? Well, I guess cuz it comes from Musea’s hard rock offshoot label, Brennus. But then again, a...

Various Artists - Looper's Delight Compilation CD: Volume 2

This was an awesome Internet find. I discovered the Looper’s Delight web page one day and am the better for it. A site dedicated to the use of the tape loop; its origins, tech tips and...

Various Artists - Electroacoustic Music Vol.1 - Russia 1997, Disc 1 & 2

Interestingly enough, this excellent – what should be a 2CD set – is packaged as two separate discs with almost identical covers. Only the careful eye will note the small red "Disc...

Various Artists - Electroacoustic Music Vol.1 - Russia 1997, Disc 1 & 2

Interestingly enough, this excellent – what should be a 2CD set – is packaged as two separate discs with almost identical covers. Only the careful eye will note the small red "Disc...

Ash Ra Tempel - The Best of the Private Tapes

Ash Ra Tempel is one of the core founder bands of the German space rock movement along with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. But the group has suffered from less stateside notoriety than those...

Tomorrow - 50 Minute Technicolour Dream

Tomorrow is currently a hot psychedelic commodity on the market: many of the band's English UK singles fetch top dollar on the English collector's circuit. Adding to the frenzy is former...

Tempest - The 10th Anniversary Compilation

When I think of hard working bands, Tempest immediately comes to mind. You can find this band at Celtic festivals, Highland Games, and clubs across America. Tempest performs traditional and...

Star People - ...Are Coming

Anyone who’s seen the Ozrics on their last couple US tours may have caught these folks inadvertently as their opening act. Yes, these are those bizarre guys in tuxes that look like some kind...

Smokstik - Bugs

Smokstik is the Massachusetts based duo of John Kiehne (Chapman Stick, vocals) and Hillary Koogler (drums, vocals). Although it sounds like a pretty lean arrangement on paper, these two get a very...

Serah - Senegal Moon

Serah is an American born composer and singer who has lived in both Africa and France. Her material straddles the boundaries of new-age, world music, and pop, and this is her fourth release. The...

Jon Rose - The Fence

Continuing in the Musique Concrete experimental mode defined by Rose's last disc, The Fence is less an album of music than it is an aural documentary. In this case, Rose has chosen...

Wittox O'Hara - Blame: Mascot

This is the second album by the Canadian guitarist, and although it’s getting a bit moldy by now, it does deserve a mention here. O’Hara plays electric and acoustic guitars, and also...

Niacin - Niacin & High Bias

The cover of the first Niacin shows the venerable Hammond B3, a creature of legend. So you get an idea what you are in for. Who is Niacin? I think this would be called a "pet project"...

Neuronium - Quasar 2C361 + Vuelo Quimico

Despite the 1998 publishing date on this set, these reissues have not been generally available (other than through pricey bidding wars on eBay) until now. This brings both the first and second...

Mystery - Destiny?

Yikes, my second guilty pleasure disc this time around! Mystery are a four piece from Quebec and on Destiny? they serve up some fine slices of progressive pop, often sounding like an...

Phil Mercy - Fear of Fantastic Flight

I don't know who Phil Mercy is, but, if I had to guess from what's in the CD booklet, I'd say he's a gifted English guitarist who has always wished for a chance to record the kind...

Mercury Rising - Building Rome

Of late I have had to re-evalute my definition of what I thought progressive metal was. Take Mercury Rising, for example: the vocals are understandable, the guitar licks are not Metallica based,...

Gavin Lurssen - Restless

Restless is Gavin Lurssen's first major effort as a solo acoustic guitarist. Originally from South Africa, he came to the Americas when he was sixteen. He attended Berklee College of...

Grobschnitt - Grobschnitt

Prog fans have been enjoying a renaissance of vintage prog re-issues. Albums that either never made it to CD or were transferred poorly to begin with are being released for your pleasure. Premier...

Guillermo Fragoso - Mexxico

Fragoso practices a brand of swarthy, doomy ambient prog that bears the imprint of Peter Frohmader. Fragoso serves up dark, dank soundscapes with a love of low registers, thick textures, and...

The Ever-Expanding Suckholes - Asking Directions to Her Hair

Been looking for a band that defies classification? Here ya go. This Newark, New Jersey band is all over the place on this pre-CD cassette release. Their web page lured me in on a ‘King...

Electrum - Frames of Mind

Here are three guys who love Rush and decided to record an album together of songs influenced by the Canadian trio. It's a scenario I've seen played out over and over (see Afterlife in...

Elton Dean / Mark Sanders / Roberto Bellatalla - Into the Nierika

Into the Nierika is saxophonist Elton Dean's first trio album with drummer Mark Sanders and Italian bassist Roberto Bellatalla. Sanders has a resumé which extends from his work...

Ray de Tone - Once More... with Feeling

Although you may not know him by name, guitarist Ray de Tone has connections with a lot of artists in the mainstream music industry including the likes of Iron Maiden, Ronnie Spector, Billy Joel,...

Crises - Broken Glass

OK, another CD from Angular, yet another German Dream Theater clone. I thought the Germans liked Saga but I guess that was the good old days. Broken Glass covers all the requisite bases: James La...

Joshua Charles - A Positive Flow

Hailing from New York City, Joshua Charles is the driving force behind this entire disc, compositionally as well as handling most of the instruments and the production. This is most definitely one...

Faith & Disease - Insularia

The new Faith & Disease album is a continuation of the sound set forth on the Livesongs: Third Body album. That is slow, dreamy music, more similar in style to Mazzy Star than Dead Can Dance....

Hugh Burns - Dedication & Mindwash

For those of you who don’t know him, Hugh Burns is a much traveled and in- demand session guitarist who has played with the likes of Wham, Gerry Rafferty, and Jack Bruce. He is also involved...

Various Artists - Soundscape Gallery 2

On the heels of last year's excellent ambient anthology comes a new gallery from Lektronic Soundscapes, a second overview of what is still a unique and inventive genre. There are not as many...

Adrian Belew - Belewprints: The Acoustic Adrian Belew Volume Two

The second volume of acoustic performances by King Crimson lead vocalist Adrian Belew is a different reading than Volume One from a few years ago. No bones about it, Belew is a gifted...

Group Therapy - Atlantis

No this isn’t the California band Atlantis. This is a Japanese band called Group Therapy with an album titled Atlantis. This is a seven-piece all-instrumental band: two guitarists, a...

L'Ange Vert - Le Sang des Hommes

Remember a while back, when I reviewed Tempest's Turn of the Wheel, and I lamented the fact that there weren't more bands like that out there? Well, now there's this. After...

Gerard - Meridian

One of Japan's longest lived symphonic bands, Gerard has produced a long string of albums beginning with their eponymous debut in 1984, featuring an expanded six-piece lineup, which by the...

Tatsuya Yoshida & Ron Anderson - A Is for Accident

This duo of Yoshida on drums and vocals and Anderson on guitar and vocals, is rather in the style of Ruins, the group which Yoshida a led, along with various bassists, and occasional guitarists....

Satin Whale - Desert Places & Lost Mankind

For the latter part of their career, Satin Whale were a commercially oriented rock group who's music fell way outside of much of the more progressive German rock of the era. However, their...

Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra

McLatchey'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...

Genesis - Archive 1967-75

At long last, the first Genesis box arrives. The compilers have chosen an interesting tack with this collection. Whereas many box sets consist primarily of (someone’s) favorite tracks, plus...

Magus - Lucid Dreamer

Lucid Dreamer is a compilation of tracks from the 1997 album Traveller and the follow-up Highway 375 EP, remastered for the fuller sound that Magus guru Andrew Robinson...

Alio Die - Password for Entheogenic Experience

McLatchey's Top Tier #1

This is one of three ambient electronic albums in the top tier and often considered Italian artist Stefano Musso's (Alio Die) masterpiece (although...

Pelt - Técheöd

Moby Trip - NKU

László Hortobágyi - Summa Techonologiae

Lightshine - Feeling

Anthony Moore - Reed, Whistle and Sticks, Out & Flying Doesn't Help

Before hooking up with Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause to form Slapp Happy, Anthony Moore was experimenting with some very innovative musical techniques. Reed, Whistle and Sticks is one of...

Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom

McLatchey's Top Tier #30

Not all of my favorites will have the hipster cred this album does, it might even be one of the few albums Spin magazine and I would both give a...

Gentle Giant - Out of the Fire - The BBC Concerts

Gentle Giant - King Biscuit Flower Hour

Simones - Magic Ship

Praxis - Collection

Stone Breath - A Silver Thread to Weave the Seasons

Picture if you will that it is harvest time in the heart of Appalachia. Leaves are blowing, acorns are falling, pumpkins are ripening, and all manner of woodland critters are scurrying about. That...

Maryam Mursal - The Journey

Marillion - Misplaced Childhood

Mani Neumeier & Peter Hollinger - Meet the the Demons of Bali

Lana Lane - Garden of the Moon

Zapotec - Alpha Centuri

Monolith - Monolith

Olov Johansson - Storsvarten

Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra

Sanna Kurki-Suonio - Musta

Die Anarchistiche Abendunterhaltung - We Need New Animals

The Residents - Wormwood

Yoshihiro Hanno Meets Mick Karn - Liquid Glass

Philip Pickett - The Bones of All Men

Qoph - Kalejdoskopiska Aktiviteter

Premiata Forneria Marconi - Live www.pfm.it (il Best)

Love Spirals Downwards - Flux

Area - La Mela di Odessa

Deathwatch Beetle Repairman - Hollow Fishes

Corrosive Media - Speakeasy

Final Tragedy - Trial of Tears

Rumblin Orchestra - Spartacus

Dave Weckl Band - The Rhythm of the Soul

Threshold - Clone

Kenziner - Timescape

John Fahey & Cul de Sac - The Epiphany of Glenn Jones

Tim Hodgkinson - Pragma

Happy Rhodes - Many Worlds Are Born Tonight

Body Full of Stars - Falling Angels

Blackmore's Night - Shadow of the Moon

Jon Anderson - The More You Know