| As far as the 70's Ital-Prog scene one of the clear standout album IMHO is Sorrenti's ARIA. A strange dream-like folky prog album for sure with the centrepiece superlative enigmatic vocal escapades of Alan Sorrenti. The 70's Ital-Prog scene was watermarked with creative and many unusual yet strong and beautiful vocalists (ie.Francesco Di Giacomo, Demetrio Stratos, Gianni Leone, Linio Vairetti). One could and should add Sorrenti's name to this long list and one listen to the 20 Min epic title track "ARIA" will clearly encapsulate you deep into this album ! Sorrenti is supported by a great band that includes the e-bow master Jean-Luc Ponty ! Musically this album ebbs and flows from Genesis-like progressions to the folk solemness of Nick Drake...all surrounded by the theatrical and powerful voice of Alan Sorrenti. Absolutely essential for any fan fo 70's Ital-Prog. | |||
| Here is an album that I would not pass up on if I were you. It is great when yes a modern band draws elements from all era's and applies a heavily creative and progressive approach to their music. I am not really sure what you guys/gals will think of my inclusion (nor do I care) of Yoshimi but I dig this album big time. This Oklahoma based band has been around for a number of years, but it was until the concept album of Yoshimi that I paid much attention to them. On "Yoshimi Battle the Pink Robots" they mix vintage keyboards with spacey lyrics and creative songwriting to create an awesome album that will grab yor attention and hold it for the duration over and over again (at least it does me !). The crazy thing is that some songs are quite pop-like and others quite spacey, and others just plain old wierd!....just what I like to listen to ......a bit of a challenging album that will not bore you. | |||
| Lindsey Boullt's "Composition" is a wonderful recording that explores some magical and imaginative territory! I have honestly not had this gem off my stereo since I first played it. Boullt's watermark characteristic is his uncanny ability to transform the guitar and adopt it into whatever he wants. To this end, "Composition" takes pieces of Heavy Progrock (aka King Crimson and Porcupine Tree) and blends it with Mahavishnu-like fusion creating a consistent and delicate album that commands your attention every bar of the way. Boullt is joined by some pretty ear-popping friends including Derek Sherinian (Dream Theatre), Jerry Goodman (Mahavishnu Orchestra) and Mingo Lewis (Miles Davis). I would highly recommend this album to any lover of progressive rock who can handle the twists and turns that only a creative mind like Lindsey Boullt can throw at you. | |||
| Eloy's live album is a stunning example of great progressive rock! Fans of Eloy's classic album "Ocean" will absolutely drool over the powerful live version here. This is one of those live cd's that you just put on the ol cd player or turntable and veg out for 80 mins. I have recently snagged this gem on Remastered Harvest records CD which offers a more dynamic soundscape for sure. The original master tapes do have a slight buzz/hiss which may dissapoint some. I personally am not put off by this and treasure the whole recording....hiss and all!. | |||
| Since his departure from Spock's Beard I have been into Neal's "preech-prog" to be honest, but without question (no pun intended) this album is Amazing ! With odes to both Spock's Beard and Transatlantic this album does it for me! This is some of the strongest most "Progressive" music he has done in some time. Definitely eclipsing his past few attempts this spirtual yet heavy album ebbs and flows from spanish guitar to heavy dark progressive moments. Morse is assisted by the talents of The Flower King's Roint Stolt, Mike Portnoy, Steve Hackett, Jordan Rudess and brother Alan Morse. Morse's biblical exploration thru his lyrical development is still present but lets say a whole lot less in your face and much more tastefully and less forcefully done. I would highly recommend this album to anyone who is looking for some great modern prog to showcase. | |||
| Here is a real cool album that I am sure 70's Prog jam fans will love from start to finish! Proposer is not a typical Krautrock outfit from the 70's and sound a lot more British than anything else. Musically Prosper is a mix of King Crimson with bits of Mahavishnu, Ash Ra Temple and Pink Floyd. Overall a pretty strong stylistic album with tons of uniqueness and a tendency to wind out into a jam rock approach. There are some pretty trippy parts with wild guitar solos and complex support (bass, drum and keyboards). Lead Vocalist Fritz Fey has a very fitting voice and supports the quirkiness of the music. Prosper were heavily influenced by jazz and incorporate strong learnings into their music giving an almost Canterbury feel to the album. I love the keyboardist and the sounds he adds on all the songs (Highlight for me is "Dance Of An Angel"). Highly recommended gem form the depths of Progland Germany. | |||
| Years ago I really self discovered the wonder of Eela Craig with "One Niter 1976" and "Hats Of Glass (1978)" both of which are great albums. The debut album in review here is very different for their mid 70's albums that I was familiar with carring a less symphonic approach for sure. This is pure classic 70's Krautrock thru and thru ...and an amazing album for sure. Saturated in tons of organ, sax, flutes, e piano this album really will blow your mind! Again very spacey and the band really like to ebb and flow between more serene moments and heavier parts. Lead vocalist Wil Orthofer has a great voice and a deep soul which really adds nicely to the music. Throw in a couple of 10 min tracks and you have an album that will work for all lovers of 70's Krautrock. | |||
| One must always respect a musician who is capable of shifting both mood and melody from album to album and this is exactly what Steve has achieved here. "With or Without" is is compelling and profound album on which Steve takes us on a progressive and interpersonal voyage into the sea of his mind. This time out Steve mixes a lot more instrumental aspects into his music and creates some great new atmospheres and clearly has recorded here some of his best and most creative music ever. Highlights for me include the instrumental Hackett'esque "Vintervagen" and the expansive musical soliloquy aptly titled "Swans". Steve is also assisted on this album by Ken Baird who adds some great Keyboard work. On "With or Without" Steve has clearly not tried to record a prototypical progressive rock album or get caught up in the prog cliches, but instead has created an honest sounding and more natural album that clearly shows a more mature and other side of his creativity. You can contact Steve at www.spiritcompass.com | |||
| Now if you have not heard Nucleus' Elastic Rock then you have clearly not lived man. Imagine taking the creative energy of Miles Davis and the space vibes of Embryo and mixing in some Soft machine then you might have something close to this album ! Pure fusion land kids ! IMHO this is one of the great fusion albums to own! With a high degree of improvisation and creativity this album mixes it all. Ian Carr's trumpet and flugelhorn mixing with John Marshall's complex drumming, Chris Spedding fret work, Jeff Clyne's tireless bass work, Brian Smith's Sax and Flute and Karl Jenkins oboe and piano make this an extra special album. The album pretty much runs straight together from the start to the finish and is one of those albums that end far too soon. IMHO Nucleus never got better than this album and for me stands out as a magical piece of work. | |||
| As you know I am a huge fan of the 70's Prog Quebec scene and certainly one of the greats were Contraction. "La Bourse ou la vie" (money or life) was their second release and further expanded Contraction's sound into a more progressive camp. On this album is also wrote and recorded a superb 18 Mins epic title track which in itself is worth the admission ! Fans of Harmonium and Beau Dommage will love this album. Contraction blend ethernal flutes, with great guitar and great bass and drum interplay and mixed in is the lovely voice of Christiane Robichaud. Musically this band offer some great musicanship and creative song writing which will please all prog rock fans. | |||
| Eroc is best known of course as the percussionist and creative genius of Germany's Grobschnitt (as well as music engineer). This was Eroc's 3rd album and is an excellent and sometimes strange eclectic mix of songs and experiments. Fans of Grobschnitt will love this solo album which contains many allusions to songs of Grobschnitt including the great "Tontillon" (which also appears on the Repertoire remastered version of Rockpommel's Land. Perhaps the best known track off the album is "Wolkenreise" which in the remastered form sounds fresh and new. My personal favourite track is the 10 mins "Sunny Sunday's Sunset" which could have been on any Grobschnitt album and shows us how much Eroc meant to this band musically! Overall Eroc 3 is a great album and one that should be in your collection. | |||
| Canada's Mahogany Frog keep getting better all the time! Their latest album strangely titled "Do 5" is a highly imaginative album that soars with real deep conviction and a certain magical presence. IMHO this is their most complete and most compelling music yet combining some great melodies and huge progressive builds. This 4 piece band create a huge wall of sound that blend Psychedelic, Progressive , Jazz and Electronic genres. The music on "Do5" also covers a nice range of moods and tempos and moves from high testosterone pulsing vibes to serene pastel-like atmospheres. This very well might be best album I have heard from Canada in a long long time and I would highly recommend you find yourselves a copy of this album. If you are lucky enough to have them play near you I would strongly suggest you go see them live. !! | |||
| Join Inn was a great discovery for me. After hearing a track on the Garden Of Delights sampler #9 I picked up this litte gem. With engineering credits given to Eroc back in 1974 this album blends heavy jazz and progressive rock elements into a very captivating album. I do not really think this album fits the genre of the Krautrockers and instead feels more like Canterbury as a sub genre. Musically these guys were amazing too mixing saxes, organ, guitar with a steady core of bass and drum in support. My favorite track is the self titled Kentalope Island which creates a Sun-Ra like space vibe to the mix. A very interesting album and for those who like to explore in new directions will likely find a little relief here. | |||
| Born out of the ashes of Chicago's 70's Psych rock band "Rock Island". "The Sound Of Rain" is an amazing album with some fantatsic organ, bass , guitar and vocals. Rain features guitarist Mike Kennedy, keyboardist Bob "Cobb" Bussinger, drummer Frank Schallis and bassist Ric Criniti (who would later go on to form 80's hair band supergroup Cinderella). I love this album and the wide range of influences it draws on making this album very hard to catergorize but totally amazing. Musically Rain blend soft vocal harmonies with some superb musicianship and great song writing and it is hard to believe that this album went un-noticed. | |||
| aneige) and got to tell him how much i have enjoyed thier music and thanked him for the music after all these years. | |||
| The Maneige albums are special albums and each offer different musical perspective. On their debut album Maneige were an all instrumental psych-jazz-prog band who in many ways remind me of a mix of Ummagumma era Pink Floyd with pieces of Mike Oldfield, Jethro Tull and traces of Canterbury prog tossed in. Their music is captivating and like many of the 70's prog quebec bands carried a high degreee of musicianship and deep song writing ability. On this first album maneige mix a wide range of instruments with some great mallet work, flute, various percussive tones, woodwind and sax. This is my favourite of all the Maneige albums and an absolute essential album to own. In the summer of 2007 i got a chance to meet Gilles Schetagne (percussionist in Maneige) and got to tell him how much i have enjoyed thier music and thanked him for the music after all these years. | |||
| The album has nothing to do with a Space Opera as the title might suggest but is a wonderful album! Born out of the ashes of Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit and Greenhill, Space Opera are a West Coast inspired harmonic foursome who wrote and recorded a magical little album in 1972. This album has a CSNY charm with deep vocal harmonies, 2 great guitarists and some progressive and pop influences scattered across. What makes this album for me is the way they put all the pieces together and create a real authentic sound. Many I suspect might not consider this pure Progressive Rock but I hear lots of progressive attributes on this album. Truely Brilliant stuff ! | |||
| Although "Electric Silence" (reviewed later) is the more popular album and much more praised album of the three first albums it is this (the second) that I seem to go back too more often. Essentially Dzyan were an ethnic-inspired krautrock-jazz quintet that reached great heights on their first 2 albums. "Time Machine" is absolutely for the first time brought to life in this remastered version (no name label) and to be honest everything else up to now has been muddy sounding. With deep progressive tones and depth this album completely absorbs the listener and takes us into some pretty magical musical places. Now this might sound like a cliche but here it goes.....my favourite track on this album is the 18:00 mins epic (Time Machine) which achieves greatness they never reached again (IMHO). This album is full of noodling but not needless stuff and I find it all builds to create an interesting series of layers to work from. I also love the drum and bass interplay on this album which stillbrings a smile to face when I hear it. Definitely an album you have to listen to closely and without interrutpion to get into. | |||
| "Electric Silence" is widely regarded as one of the top Progressive krautrock albums of the 70's and deservidly so. "Electric Silence" is another masterpiece of Krautrock for sure! On this their third album the band introduce mellotrons, synthesizers and Sitar while (like their first 2 albums) puddle away in a free from jazz fusion format with huge results. I love the instrumental chaos these guys get into with always a wonderful backdrop of bass and percussion. This albums also features some great hand percussion! Finally also we have on this newly remastered (no name label) the real mix! This album sounds brigher and warmer than ever and is the first time I think I have really truely heard this album as it was intended. Throw away those inferior Bellaphon pressings! Absolutely an essential album ! | |||
| I have been a big fan of Embryo for a long time and are what I would consider one of the most original and sigificant bands of the Krautrock era. Led by band leader and percussionist god Christian Burchard, this act take the complex disciplines of fusion-era Miles Davis and blend in the 70's German Krautrock and Eastern influences throughout. If you are into rhythms (and I know a few who are) then this is your album and maybe your band ! Surfin' was another creation of Burchard's imagination, this time blending ethereal vibes, Eastern raga-like structures and stoner rock into a swirl of complex and angular pieces. Bong'tastic | |||
| Here is a whimsical little album full of addictive yet slighly strange music. It took me too a few listens before I got this album! I don't know a lot about this band but I believe they were one of the first American acts to sign to Vertigo Records. This was Daddy Longlegs second album and musically is a mix of Country, Vaudville and Prog Rock genres. They were Kurt Palomaki ( Bass, Clarinet, Vocals , Peter Arnesen (Keyboards), Cliff Carrison (Drums), Gary Norton Holderman (Guitar, Vocals). The songs are this album are varied and plays like a number of small musical vinettes. The song "Lonely Way" is truely emotional and features a solemn piano piece. | |||
