 style: psych pop
country: uk
audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
size: 316 mb
issue: Japan 1St Press Cp32-5465
Wiki:
Walls and Bridges is the fifth album by John Lennon, issued on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono (June 1973–January 1975), the album captures Lennon in the midst of his "Lost Weekend". Walls and Bridges was an American Billboard number one album and featured two hit singles "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" and "#9 Dream", the first of which was Lennon's first number one hit in the United States as a solo artist, and his only chart-topping single in both the US and Britain during his lifetime.
The album was certified silver in the UK, and gold in the US.
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 style: prog
country: sweden
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 35'42" size: 192 mb
Scented Gardens of Mind:
Originally a quartet, their group name roughly translates into "The Spoilt Quartet"! Kattvals (1973) was one of the best albums released on Gump. It's completely instrumental, with a tremendous interplay between electric guitar and Hammond organ. Somebody has referred to them as "the Swedish" Santana, but KSS were more related to their domestic colleagues Flдsket Brinner, (early) Kebnekaise and Ablution, interweaving Nordic folk tunes into their powerful rock music.
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 style: psych popcountry: germanyaudio: mp3 (lqvbr) size: 54mb 01 - Come back 11:18
02 - Silver Buildings 18:13
03 - Dakkar 16:01
04 - Miracle Days 12:36
05 - Luft und Liebe 14:40
06 - Psychedelic Man 16:38
07 - Inner Circle 20:09
08 - Disbanned Shake 14:19
09 - Colourcave 25:47
10 - Alles Gute 12:18
11 - Feierabend 20:35
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 style: jazz
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
size: 443 mb
Crack In The Cosmic Egg:
The story of Kollektiv is quite complex. Originally a school band playing pop songs in the mid-1960's as a trio called The Generals with the twin brothers Jogi and Waldemar Karpenkiel, and Jürgen Havix. During the late-1960's the three went their separate ways playing in di
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 style: psych
country: uk
audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, book scans)
size: 245mb misc.: Recorded: 1969-2008
01 - The Introduction 0:15
02 - 21st Century Schizoid Man 3:48
03 - Astounding Revelation Pt. 1 0:52
04 - Form NO.2 KCVII 2:39
05 - Astounding Revelations Pt. 2 0:43
06 - Improv/Tomorrow Never Knows 6:48
07 - Shocking Confessions 0:28
08 - Steinberger Melody 4:24
09 - The Terrifying Tale of Thela Hun Ginjeet 7:59
10 - Starless & Bidble Black US Radio Advert 1974 1:02
11 - Improv: Brescia 10:27
12 - 21st Century Outtake Man 1:16
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 style: psych
country: uk
audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
time: 34'37" size: 218 mb
Wiki
Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With is an EP by the band King Crimson released in 2002, a companion to the subsequent album The Power to Believe (2003).
Bude - 0:26
Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With [Edit] - 4:12
(Belew/King Crimson)
Mie Gakure - 2:00
She Shudders - 0:35
Eyes Wide Open - 4:08
(Belew/King Crimson)
Shoganai - 2:53
I Ran - 0:40
Potato Pie - 5:03
Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Pt. IV - 10:26
(Belew/Fripp/Gunn/Mastelotto)
Clouds - 4:10
Adrian Belew - Guitar, Vocals, Producer
Trey Gunn - Bass, Guitar
Robert Fripp - Guitar, Producer
Pat Mastelotto - Drums
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 style: psych
country: uk
audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
size: 429mb (without booklet) time: 1:07'16"
issue: 30th Anniversary Edition (2002)
From ProgressiveRock :
a. In the past few days, I've been going through my live recordings of King Crimson in their 1972-74 period (my favorite and arguably their prime). The trouble is, there are just so many good renditions of so little material that I'm having trouble differentiating between recordings. I mean, "Fracture" as a composition is so ferocious that I don't really need 20 versions of it to find one that kicks my ass - they all do. That said, while most King Crimson fans seem to believe that The Great Deceiver and The Nightwatch together are all the live '72-'74 Crimson anyone needs (and admittedly, that's already 6 discs of material), I'd have to add USA to that list.
The first thing that struck me upon first listen was the sound quality. It's pretty much top-notch, certainly on par with the two releases just mentioned. The other thing I noticed immediately was that, well, these performances are pretty great. One expects nothing less than absolutely shredding performances from these guys, of course, but USA delivers in spades. "Larks' Tongues Part 2" and "21st Century Schizoid Man" are especially intense, and the improv "Asbury Park" pretty much left me speechless with delight. Furthermore, "Exiles" here, particularly Wetton's performance on bass, has become my favorite rendition of that song, surpassing the version from disc 3 of The Great Deceiver.
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.front_back.jpg) style: hard
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans) size: 379 mb
issue: 2004
Cosmic Dreams:
As far as I am aware there were no other German bands like Kin Ping Meh who chose their name in the Chinese language! In 1970, this quintet assembled in Mannheim. They played live extensively during their early years, performing a rough hard rock modelled on British bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Spooky Tooth. Soon Kin Ping Meh were discovered by Polydor's talent scouts. Joachim Schafer left the hand just before the recording of their first album. He was promptly replaced by Willie Wagner, who joined the band in the Windrose Studio. Indeed Wagner wrote the stand-out track of this album, the opening 11 minute track "Fairy-Tales", a haunting heavy rock song with long, "progressive" guitar and organ solo parts. Even if you do not find this style attractive, you'll sense the great enthusiasm of the band. There were also some mellow, folky songs on the album, like "Too Many People", recorded live and boasting an irresistible chorus. Kin Ping Meh was produced by the experienced rock veterans Achim Reichel and Frank Dostal. The engineer was none other than Konrad Plank. The album is highly recommended for fans of groups like Epitaph, Zarathustra, Frame, etc. It's now quite rare (selling for more than 300 DEM) as the first and only vinyl edition was only pressed at around 5,000 copies.
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 style: prog
country: uk
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
size: 305 mb
issue: Eclipse Records Eccd4 (1999)
Tapestry of Delights:
Dave Black later played for the Spiders From Mars; David Whitaker was ex-Ginhouse and Tom Knowles was later with Johnny Cougar between 1978 - 79.
01 - The Acrobat 6:43
02 - Wind Cloud 4:39
03 - I Believe In You 4:08
04 - Last Request 4:47
05 - In The War 7:28
06 - Take It Away 4:08
07 - End Of The Affair 4:48
08 - August Carol 7:16
DAVE BLACK gtr, vcls
JOHN COOK gtr, synthesizer
TOM KNOWLES vcls
FENWICK MOIR bs
DAVE WHITAKER drms, perc
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 style: folk
country: sweden
audio: lossless (flac, cue , log, scans)
time: 46'27" size: 329 mb
Information:
Lacking the lasting fame and the cult status of their contemporaries Trдd, Grдs & Stenar, the mainly instrumental group Kebnekaise was just as important in creating Swedish folk-rock. In the Swedish progressive movement they stood somewhere in the middle, between the politically and the musically progressive branches, where the first mainly played message-based music and the second had more in common with international progressive rock scene. The band did not take a clear political stand, but being less experimental than Trдd, Grдs & Stenar and staying further away from fusion than Samla Mammas Manna, they reached a wide audience. At the end of the '70s, Kebnekaise started to play symphonic rock, and quickly lost much of their popularity. The driving force in Kebnekaise was guitarist Kenny Hеkansson. In the '60s, he and drummer Pelle Ekman played together in T-Bones and in a band that later changed its name to Baby Grand Mother. In 1969, Hеkansson, Ekman, and bassist Bengt Linnarsson were recruited as the new backing for Hammond player Mecki Mark, becoming his Mecki Mark Men. In 1971, after a chaotic U.S. tour together with Sly and the Family Stone, Mark left and guitarist Rolf Scherrer was recruited. The new band took the name Kebnekaise after the highest mountain in Sweden, and started out as a mainly instrumental rock band in the tradition of Hendrix and Cream, releasing the debut album Resa Mot Okдnt Mеl in 1971. For the second album they recruited six new musicians: guitarists Glenngеrd and Bцckler, percussionist Hassan, harmonica player Lindstrцm, and drummer Netzler. Soon bassist Gцran Lagerberg, who had played with Tages in the '60s, also joined the group. If the first album had been influenced by blues-rock, the harmonies had indeed lacked some blues. On the second, self-titled album, Kebnekaise followed this less-bluesy path into folk-rock, but very Scandinavian folk-rock: melodic and sentimental, mostly played in minor keys. And though Kebnekaise tried out a number of different styles, this was the style that would make them famous.
In between long tours, the group released their third album, Kebnekaise III, showing more jazz influences than earlier albums but also more African influences, introduced by percussionist Bah, an immigrant from Guinea-Bissau. The entire fourth album was dedicated to African music, but at its release, half of the group had left, leaving Kebnekaise as a five-man band. The following years this disintegration continued, both crew-wise and musically. Elefanten was released in 1977, but despite the title pointing toward Africa, the album was mainly a jazz-rock affair, with clear fusion tendencies. And the folk music, both African and Swedish, was almost gone. After this, Hеkansson left the band to start a solo career, and with him most of the creativity seemed to have left as well. Together with drummer Pelle Holm and keyboard player Per Lejring, the remaining three members released Vi Drar Vidare in 1978, a symphonic rock album that failed to make much impact. The members started to look for other jobs and some time around that year, Kebnekaise ceased to exist. Glenngеrd released a few solo albums and worked as a session musician, with ABBA, for example. Bah formed the band the Happy Boys, also including Netzler, but soon moved to Finland. — Lars Lovйn / AMG
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 style: rock
country: germany
audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
time: 40'17" size: 236 mb
unknown:
Originally founded in 1971, artists like Santana, Van Morrison, Traffic, Yes, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and of course the Beatles inspired Karthago. The outcome was a unique mixture of Rock, Funk-Rock, Blues and Latin music. The huge success the band enjoyed back then had to do with the very energetic live performances in combination with the professionalism delivered on stage as well as in the studio by all participants.
Joey Albrecht's masterful guitar playing abilities, and his charismatic, bluesy voice combined with Ingo Bischof's creative and innovative keyboard play, the power Tommy Goldschmidt delivered on his percussion instruments and the great input by all other band members made crowds cheer. The press and fellow musicians were fascinated as well. A quote by Kraan member Helmut Hattler: "Every single Karthago member created a brilliance level of his own".
Within a short time period, Karthago developed into one of the most famous Rock acts in Germany, filling concert halls all over the country as well as in neighbouring countries. Even in France, the "Extra" magazine voted the first Karthago record "album of the month". The French label in charge released two singles of hits featured on that album. Karthago also gigged in Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
In 1972, Karthago was part of the Germersheimer Festival, where they shared the stage with bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Family and Santana. AFN aired that festival live. A year later, the group stunned an audience of far more than 100,000 at the "German Rock Super Concert" in Frankfurt.
The readers of music magazines like "Pop", "Musikexpress" and "Sounds" placed Karthago on their favourites lists in polls all the time. This also applied to the band members Joey Albrecht, Ingo Bischof and Tommy Goldschmidt. British magazines such as "Sounds London" and "New Musical Express" accurately called Karthago "the best German Rock band of the 1970s". In 1975, Karthago split up. In 1976, they met one more time for a last tour.
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 style: Psych
country: uk
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans, size: 274 mb), mp3: (320k, scans, 128 mb)
time: 51'40"
Tapestry of Delights:
Based in West London, this interesting psychedelic group started life in 1964 as The Side Kicks and later changed their name to The Key. Apparently, their drummer made an acetate of recordings from this era. By 1967, they had changed their name again to Kaleidoscope and signed to Fontana.
Their first 45, Flight From Ashiya, was an amalgam of pop and psychedelia, it told the story of the pilot of a crashing aeroplane. It picked up quite a lot of airplay but failed to chart. Some collectors seek out the Dutch release, which came with a different picture sleeve. After a further, equally good 45 (A Dream For Julie), sadly also flopped, the group were afforded the opportunity to record an album. The result, Tangerine Dream was a varied collection of psychedelic pop with whimsical lyrics often delivered in that breathless style that characterised the UK genre. It featured both sides of their debut 45 and the flip of their second (Please Excuse My Face). The opening track was fittingly called Kaleidoscope. Other highlights were Dive Into Yesterday, a typical slice of whimsical pop psychedelia; (Further Reflections) In The Room Of Percussion, which had some great vocals and out of tune strings; A Lesson Perhaps, with its spoken lyrics; and The Sky Children, a fairytale dream, which was very much a preview of some of the material on their second album. Tangerine Dream came in a superb psychedelic sleeve.
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 style: folk psych
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac)
size: 354 mb
issue: 2001 GoDs
Cosmic Dreams:
If you love deranged acid folk-rock, look no further! Kalacakra certainly made one of the weirdest excursions into disjointed Eastern psychedelia on Crawling To Lhasa. This is what Incredible String Band would have sounded alike if Mike Heron and Robin Williamson suddenly became ten times more insane! Kalacakra were also a duo. Their album is recommended if you got a strong sense of humour and wish to know more about such topics as Die Schwarze Pest and all the persons named Jaceline! Naturally, this album was a private pressing...
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 style: heavy
country: australia
audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
size: 461 mb
Dreams, Fantasies & Nightmares:
A progressive hard rock combo based in Sydney and active between 1970-74. Their album is renown for the stunning guitar playing of Wilson (ex-Mecca) and Gaze (ex-Taman Shud) and the strength of the songwriting. The stand-out and longest track is Parade Of Fools. It opens with some pulsating wah wah guitar from Wilson and the band then branch out into a lengthy but wholly effective jam which underscores Wilson and Gaze as one of the great pairings of Aussie rock in this era. Their 45 was taken from the album. Gaze returned to Taman Shud soon after the album was recorded. The band went on to become one of the finest acts of the era, but they never recorded again. It also made the Top 30.
Maxey replaced Daisley in 1971. Free can also be heard on Group Therapy, which was a sampler for albums released by Festival on their new Infinity label in 1971.
After their demise Wilson joined Chariot, Davidson went on to session work and Daisley moved to England and became bassist with outfits like Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, the Gary Moore Band, Widowmaker and Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard Of Ozz.
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 style: psych
country: germany
audio: lossless (ape, cue, covers)
size: 249 mb
unknown author:
6th album, from 1975 ("The Song of Soloman"). The first of two for United Artists, which were always very difficult to find later on. This takes the sound and line-up of
the previous album, adds sitar and tabla and creates even more of a cosmic-power universe of transcending sound. "The music is also more earthy, ethnic and
really full of emotion: the use of electronic effects (drones, echoey
atmospherics), the addition of sitar and tabla on a couple of tracks really swell the sound out to new proportions." -- Audion. [deleted, last
copies]
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 style: psychcountry: germanyaudio: mp3 (256vbr) size: 52mb unknoun source: 4th album, from 1973 ("Songs of Praise"). Following a period when Fricke and Veit became involved with a reformed Gila (recording Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee), they returned as Popol Vuh for this album, adding the additional psychedelicized guitar of Daniel Fichelscher (who would become a key central figure throughout the history of the group) and oboe, konga, tamboura accompaniment. Florian takes over on vocals for once, and within the context of softly flowing/lightly trancing rock this is masterful work. [deleted, last copies]
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 style: Progcountry: ukaudio: lossless (ape) size: 215mb Tapestry of Delights: A pretty clumsy progressive boogie rock outfit judging by their album. The playing is competent enough but the compositions are well below par with Beauty Queen, Road To Glory and the Free-like Down And Out the best of a poor pack. Only of interest to hard rock completists. Their best song was a 1972 single, I Really Want It. The See For Miles reissue includes both sides of the 1972 Dawn 45. I Really Want It featured former Cochise member John Gilbert on vocals and some liken his voice to David Coverdale's. [
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style: blues
country: germany
audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, covers)
size: 197 mb
issue: Garden of Delights
Pentagon was the first group on the small Munich label German Blues and Underground, which later on also released the two Siloah records. The first Single was supposed to be followed by an LP, but it never got beyond the acetate stage, a kind of demo pressing. A music cassette, however, was released, the simple cover of which was used for the CD. Although very young at the time, the three musicians already played respectable bluesrock, and this track featuring a flute is pure enjoyment. The tracks of side 2 of the vinyl album were taken from the master tape, the tracks of side 1 were digitally decrackled by Cedar’s NoNoise system. The 28-page colour booklet contains a probably complete discography and history of the German Blues and Underground label. It’s a first-class find, saved from oblivion in the very last minute.
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 style: jazz
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, covers)
size: 86mb
Cosmic Dreams:
One of the German jazz musicians best known internationally is Klaus Doldinger (saxes, flute, keyboards). He was born in Berlin on 12 May 1936. He played in diverse amateur jazz bands from 1952 onwards. In l962 he formed his first Klaus Doldinger Quartet with Ingfried Hoffmalln (piano), Helmut Kalldberger (bass) and Klaus Weiss (drums). Doldinger also made pop, jazz and blues in the sixties under the pseudonym Paul Nero, resulting in several albums: Paul Nero's Blue Sounds had the line-up of Klaus Doldinger (winds), Steffan von Dobrcinsky (winds). Sahib Shilab (bass), Atilla Zoller (guitar), Ingfried Hoilmann (organ), Peter Trunk (bass), Klaus Voorman (bass) and Gibson Kemp (drums). They recorded The Big Beat in 1965. The name was aventually shortened down to Paul Nero Sounds for the subsequent releases Nero's Soul Party (1968) and Nero In South-America (1970). Among the participating musicians were: Siegfried Schwab (pre-Embryo, guitar on both), Lothar Meid (pre-Amon Duul II, bass on both), Olaf Kubler (renowned Amon Duul II producer, sax on both) and Florian Schneider-Esleben (pre-Kraftwerk, flute on the 1970 album). For the first Passport album, Doldinger assembled line-up in the studio to record seven of his compositions. This and the subsequent albums established Klaus Doldinger as one of the leading German performers of conventional jazz rock fusion. On Second Passport (1972) Doldinger had acquired an entirely new line-up. The third Passport formation was ready for concerts and a new album Hand Made in 1973. When Roberts was replaced with Kristian Schultze in 1974, Passport were at last a stable unit for a couple of years. Doldinger's Jubilee Concert (1974) was performed with famous guests like Brian Auger, Pete York and Alexis Korner.
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 style: Garagecountry: usAudio: mp3 (256k) size: 114mb
oe: pretties in old punk garage manner, really our people!
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style: country
country: us
audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
size : 350 mb
01 - You Made It Right 3:45
02 - Look Away 3:30
03 - Jackie Blue 4:07
04 - Kansas You Fooler 2:36
05 - It Couldn't Be Better 4:13
06 - E.E. Lawson 3:35
07 - Walkin' Down The Road 3:24
08 - What's Happened Along In My Life 3:31
09 - It Probably Always Will 3:13
10 - Lowlands 3:45
11 - Tidal Wave 4:09
12 - It'll Shine When It Shines 3:36
Buddy Brayfield - piano, electric piano ,organ, oboe
Steve Cash - harp, vocals
Randle Chowning - guitars, mandolin, harp
John Dillon - guitars, mandolin, harp, vocals
Michael Granda - bass
Larry Lee - drums, accoustic guitar, synthesizer, vocals
also:
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style: Country
country: us
audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
time: 38'46" size: 326 mb
01. Country Girl 3:17
02. Spaceship Orion 3:12
03. If You Wanna Get To Heaven 3:05
04. Chicken Train 3:39
05. Colorado Song 5:08
06. Standin' On The Rock 3:55
07. Road To Glory 4:55
08. Black Sky 3:10
09. Within Without 4:26
10. Beauty In The River 3:59
Buddy Brayfield - keyboards, oboe
Steve Cash - harp, persission. vocals
Randle Chowning - lead guitar, vocals
John Dillon - guitar, fiddle, mandolin, mouthbow,vocals
Michael "Supe" Granda - bass, vocals
Larry Lee - drums, percussion, accoustic guitar, vocals
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 style: country
county: us
audio: mp3 (192k)
size: 51mb
1. Fly Away Home
2. You Know Like I Know
3. Breakaway (From Those Chains)
4. The Red Plum
5. Mountain Range
6. Watermill
7. Noah
8. It's How You Think
9. Arroyo
10. Homemade Wine
* Buddy Brayfield - piano, electric piano ,organ, oboe
* Steve Cash - harp, vocals
* Rune Walle - guitars, mandolin, sitar
* John Dillon - guitars, mandolin, harp, vocals
* Mike Granda - bass
* Larry Lee - drums, accoustic guitar, synthesizer, vocals
Producer: David Anderle
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 style: psych
country: denmark
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 56'36" size: 351 mb
Psychedelic Shark :
The first thing to say is that this is one of the greatest albums in the history of music. It should be required listening for everybody who likes rock. This album deserves to be much better known. It is a very psychedelic album, in fact it is one of the best psychedelic albums ever made. The combination of power, aggression and beauty is still quite stunning after more than thirty years.
Before buying the album I had never heard anything by the Outsiders but was attracted by their legendary cult status and my growing interest in Dutch psychedelic and progressive music of the sixties and seventies. There are many great bands from the Netherlands who are far too little known internationally.
The Outsiders had a short career and this 1968 album was their last. You can almost understand why this was the band's last album. There is a peaking of power and feeling here, which would be next to impossible to repeat. Every track is a masterpiece.
I bought the album a few weeks ago at Fame in Amsterdam and have been listening to it continuously ever since. If you like psychedelia I would be very surprised if you did not like this album. This is not flower power psychedelia and nor is there anything whimsical about this music, that is very hard edged. It is difficult to compare to other bands but the Pretty Things would possibly be the most similar music or the era.
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 style: pop folkcountry: germanyaudio: mp3 (128k) size: 36mb Cosmic Dreams: Ougenweide was one the most significant German folk-rock bands of the seventies. Their music was quite different from the 'progressive folk' music created by the early Broselmaschine and Holderlin. Ougenweide's speciality was shorter tracks in off almost medieval folk tradition with German lyrics. The result was a German answer to British groups like Fairport Convention, Gryphon and Steeleye Span. Like these groups, Ougenweide (from Hamburg) succeeded in achieving a distinct style of their own. Their records confirm that they were obviously great instrumentalists. Through the years the nucleus of the Wulff brothers, von Henko and Isenbart remained intact. Minne Graw was their female vocalist from the third album onwards. A large part of their repertoire consisted of traditional German folk songs. The early albums are their most acoustic ones, the later works also utilised synthesisers.
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 style: psych, prog
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, covers)
time: 36'23" size: 304 mb
Crack in the Cosmic Egg:
Formed in 1973 by Pit Hensel and Claus Kniemeyer in Frankfurt. With one foot set firmly in the early-1970's Octopus drew on new technology to present a very polished brand of heavy progressive rock. Apparently they financed the recording of their debut themselves, hawked it around as a demo before Sky took it up for release a year later.
With a female lead vocalist they often come across a bit like Curved Air (but without the classical edge) on both THE BOAT OF THOUGHTS and AN OCEAN OF ROCKS, with good chunky rhythmic structures, plenty of instrumentals and nice synthesized arrangements. Shamefully their third, RUBBER ANGEL, saw them betray their public, presenting a funky styled pop-rock with no redeeming merits. The fourth I've never heard, and don't think I want to!
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Style: prog
Country: holland
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
Size: 247 mb
Side one
1. "Hocus Pocus" Thijs van Leer, Jan Akkerman 6:42
2. "Le Clochard" Akkerman 2:01
3. "Janis" Akkerman 3:09
4. "Moving Waves" van Leer, Inayat Khan 2:42
5. "Focus II" van Leer 4:00
Side two
6. "Eruption" 22:35
"Orfeus" (van Leer)
"Answer" (van Leer)
"Orfeus" (van Leer)
"Answer" (van Leer)
"Pupilla" (van Leer)
"Tommy" (Tom Barlage)
"Pupilla" (van Leer)
"Answer" (van Leer)
"The Bridge" (Akkerman)
"Euridice" (van Leer, Eelko Nobel)
"Dayglow" (van Leer)
"Endless Road" (Pierre van der Linden)
"Answer" (van Leer)
"Orfeus" (van Leer)
"Euridice" (van Leer, Nobel)"
Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, piano, mellotron, harmonium, flutes, vocals
Jan Akkerman – guitars, bass guitar
Cyril Havermans – bass guitar, vocals on "Pupilla"
Pierre van der Linden – drums, percussion
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 Style: neo garageCountry: usAudio: mp3 (320k) Size: 70mb
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 Style: progCountry: germany Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, booklet scans) Size: 588 mb Cosmic Dreams: When it comes to outrageous German sleeve designs, it's impossible not to mention the first Eulenspygel album. It presents a half-burned chicken lying in a frying pan. This really disgusting design (by Wolfgang M. Schmidt) upset so many people that the cover was withdrawn. If you have wondered why Eulenspygel named their first album 2, it was because they also counted the album issued under their previous name Royal Servants! Their first album was recorded at Studio Maschen, Hamburg, July 1971, and produced by Wolfgang Schmidt and Peter Springer. It offered a typical German progressive blend, drawing equally from heavy rock, folk, jazz and classical. The six tracks were cleverly arranged, with rich instrumentation and sudden shifts of tempo. All lyrics, containing anti-war messages and other critical political views on different aspects of society, were in German. Inside the fold-out cover there was a Black Sabbath like shot of the band at a graveyard, burying a chicken! Since the burnt chicken sleeve had caused controversy, Ausschuss (1972) was issued in a plain corrugated paper sleeve! It was recorded at the Apple Studios, London, in April 1972 with the same production team. Musically this was quite similar in style to their first album, but in my ears not as good as this. Mellotron and moog were used as well as organ and piano. The magnum opus was the 22 minute "Abfall", which went through innumerable changes in mood and melody. For some reason, the band then disappeared from the scene.
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 Style: rock
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
time: 46'20" Size: 352 mb
01. Set Your Spirit Free 3:36
02. Strangers 5:12
03. We Can Get Together 7:48
04. Summer Sky 3:48
05. On The Road 5:01
06. Return To Reality 7:38
07. Spread Your Wings 5:07
08. Return To Reality (Live Version) 8:10
Cliff Jackson (guitars, vocals)
Heinz Glass (guitar, vocals)
Michael Karch (keyboards, vocals)
Fritz Randow (drums)
Harvey Janssen (bass)
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Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 39'21" Size: 239mb
Gibraltar:
Genius Of Original Force, with its madrigal-like vocal arrangements, twanging clavinets and tooting recorders, is inevitably compared to Gentle Giant. But Epidermis have a unique sense of German angst which sets them immediately apart. Except for the last song, "Feelings," all the music is in minor keys, with bleak, depressive lyrics abounding. Not for the suicide-prone, but otherwise a very good album. -- Mike Ohman
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 Style: jazz
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
Size: 355 mb
Issue: 1999
Cosmic dreams:
Still active today, the Munich band Embryo has been one of the most important and inventive bands of the German jazz-rock school. Their formation in 1969 revolved around a nucleus of Christian Burchard, Edgar Hoffmann and Lothar Meid (bass). It seems to be a continental phenomenon to have drum playing band leaders, just think of Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru) and Christian Vander (Magma). Embryo's founder Christian Burchard had started his musical career by playing organ in several local rhythm and blues bands. In 1964 he switched to vibraphone and jazz when he founded the Contemporary Trio with Edgar Hoffmann (I don't know the third member). Three years later they attempted to expand the boundaries of free Jazz with Chris Karrer, Peter Leopold, Dieter Serfas and Jimmy Jackson. These musicians soon rose to fame in Amon Duul II. Christian Burchard was a guest on their first album Phallus Dei (1969). In 1967 he also played with future Between members Peter-Michael Hamel (keyboards) and Roberto Detree (guitar) at the Song Parnass in Munich. Unfortunately no recordings are known of this exciting combination. Burchard and Hoffmann also joined the Mal Waldron Quartet in 1967 and stayed for two years. Mal Waldron is an internationally well-known black American piano player who has worked with jazz legends such as Billie Holiday and John Coltrane. They also performed live with Mal Waldron, and got to know proficient jazz soloists such as Steve Lacy, Stu Martin, Don Menza, Natan Davis and Lucky Thompson.
Lothar Meid also had a jazz background. He brought to Embryo two of the musicians he had played with in a sixties jazz and soul quintet: Jimi Jackson and Wolfgang Paap. Also Dieter Serfas, Ingo Schmidt and John Kelly were early members of Embryo. Kelly came to Germany touring with a Scottish hard rock band and had played blues with Alvin Lee before he formed Ten Years After. Early live tracks are included as bonus tracks on the CD issue of Opal. In Autumn 1969 the first personnel changes took place in Embryo. In fact I don't know of any other German group with such a complex family tree as them! This may be due to the prototype jazz musician's fear of being locked up in the group format as in rock music. Lothar Meid left to join Doldinger's Motherhood. His replacement was Ralph Fischer, previously part of a folk trio that also included Peter-Michael Hamel. Before the recording of Opal in April 1970, the group had been reduced to a quartet of Hoffmann, Burchard (now playing drums besides vibraphone), Fischer and Kelly. Bettsy Allech (vocals), Roberto Detree (motocello, later a member of Between) and Holger Trultzch (bongos, later a member of Popol Vuh) contributed to the album as guests. Opal was a highly inventive fusion of rock, jazz, blues, soul and psychedelia, the first of five forthcoming classic albums. Guitar riffing as used on the track "You Don't Know What's Happening" was never to be heard from Embryo again after Kelly quit in June 1970. However, the soloist who really was given time to excel was Edgar Hoffmann, helping to define a unique German fusion sound also explored by Xhol and Out Of Focus. Hoffmann's electric violin and sax graced tracks like "Revolution", "Call" (a Mal Waldron composition) and "People From Outer Space". The original copies of Opal had a cover cut-in with a balloon attached, the legendary gimmick of the first Ohr albums. Copies with the balloon still intact are now of course extremely rare and usually sold for more then 250 DEM.
The disbanding Xhol supplied Embryo with Hansi Fischer upon their demise at the end of 1970. Also Roman Bunka joined Embryo (replacing Ralph Fischer). At this time he was only 19 years old. He was to quit and rejoin Embryo several times, but nevertheless was one of their most important members. Embryo's Rache (1971) without a guitarist. On this album they were also aided by friends: Jimi Jackson, Hermann Breuers (electric piano, organ) and Franz Bontgen (vocals). The album was recorded at the Dierks studio. Embryo's long lasting passion for refined rhythms began to shine through on this album, noticeably on the opening track "Tausendtussler" .
If Hoffmann was the instrumental backbone of Opal, it was Fisher's flute and Jackson's keyboards (particularly on Jackson's own contribution "Revenge") that dominated this time. This was really an album of fantastic instrumental duels more jazzy in direction than Opal, with only occasional vocals. Bunka and Fischer soon went their own ways. Burchard and Hoffmann re-recorded the Waldron composition "Call" in a great 18 minute version close to conventional jazz with Jackson, Waldron and Jorg Evers (bass) late in 1971. This wasn't exactly what their record company United Artists wanted, and they turned down both this recording and the subsequent Rocksession recordings from February to March 1972. The latter was at last released on Brain at the end of 1973. Burchard and Hoffmann was joined by Dave King on some of the recordings when Evers quit for Amon Duul II and later Achtzehn Karat Gold. A guitarist (he also played more exotic string instruments) firmly rooted in jazz, Siegfried Schwab, also joined Embryo. He came from Wolfgang Dauner's Et Cetera, and brought important ethnic influences Into the band.
The Rocksession album started with a short "rock" song ("A Place To Go"), but the other three tracks were extended jazz instrumentals of a high quality. Also a fourth jazz instrumental, "Dreaming Girls", was recorded during these sessions. This appeared on Embryo's other Brain album Steig Aus (1973), along with the already recorded "Call".
Again reduced to a quartet Embryo at last managed to please United Artists with Father, Son & Holy Ghost (1972), recorded in March 1972 at Studio 70, Munich. The absence of keyboards made this album sound remarkably different from Rocksession. Schwab's stringed instruments were the highlight this time. Also the album had a more accessible style, at times almost relaxing. As usual the group disintegrated some months after the recordings. When Embryo appeared live in Munich during the Olympic games in September 1972, Burchard had assembled Roman Bunka (apparently talked into rejoining) and Dieter Miekautsch (fresh from Missing Link, now being a member of Embryo and Missus Beastley simultaneously). Burchard, Bunka and Jimi Jackson recorded the last track for Steig Aus: "Radio Marrakesh/Orient Express", a brilliant 10 minute two-part piece starting with some exotic, ethnic bouzouki and vibraphone interplay, and ending in an energetic jazz-rock fusion, driven by organ, electric piano and guitar. Burchard's steady rhythm was the engine of the Orient Express while Jackson's mellotron blew the whistle. Jackson still played with Embryo live from time to time, but most importantly he now introduced Burchard to another black American jazz musician: Charlie Mariano. In December 1972 they recorded We Keep On (1974), which was a good album though it couldn't match any of their previous ones. The tracks were extracts from long jam sessions in the studio. The album found some recognition in the USA, partly due to the Mariano involvement and partly due to international distribution. Miekautsch quit the group in July 1973 to join Missus Beastley.
Surfin' (1975) was a very mixed affair - one of their weakest albums ever. They were now heading into a lighter, funky jazz-rock direction, partially forced on them by their record company. The album was recorded in the Summer of 1974, partly with the new bassist Uwe Mullrich, previously a guitarist with Lokomotive Kreuzberg and an old friend of Roman Bunka. The ethnic styled sections were best, particularly the only extended track called "Dance Of Some Broken Glasses", a gentle and atmospheric track with Mariano on flute, Bunka on saz (a stringed instrument from Turkey) and Burchard on violin appearing one by one.
Missus Beastley's music had also suffered from artistic compromises on their 1974 album. As a consequence, along with Embryo, Ton Steine Scherben, Sparifankal and Checkpoint Charlie they founded April, a company dedicated to independent music and offering artistic freedom. At the beginning of 1975, Dieter Miekautsch returned to Embryo. Later the band also got a female vocalist in Maria Archer.
Embryo's first two April albums didn't seem to benefit much from this freedom, as Bad Heads And Bad Cats (1976) featured very standard and unimaginative funky jazz-rock. Live (1976), recorded during a tour of Austria, February 1976) was only marginally better. Hoffmann was now enlisted as a 'guest'! Embryo were also featured on the live festival samplers Umsonst & Draussen Vlotho Winterberg of 1975 with the track "Sidetrack", 1976 with "The Bad Times Are Gone". Some members were exchanged with Missus Beastley in the last half of 1976.
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Style: heavy prog
Country: finland
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 48'08 Size: 255 mb
Scented Gardens of Mind:
"Elonkorjuu" is the Finnish word for "harvest time", in case you wondered. This young group from Pori was among the most promising new groups of their era but sadly only left us with one album of excellent heavy rock influenced by Jethro Tull, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Songs such as "Praise To Our Basement" indicates they were a garage band, but were far more subtle than that, often playing sentimental pieces with dynamic developments and good use of the Hammond organ and flute to counterbalance the guitars.
Wiki
01. Unfeeling 3:26
02. Swords 4:05
03. Captain 3:45
04. Praise To Our Basement 4:47
05. Future 3:57
06. Hey Hunter 3:44
07. The Ocean Song 3:20
08. Old Man's Dream 4:47
09. Me And My Friend 4:04
10. A Little Rocket Song 4:06
11. Where's The Rising Sun (Bonus Track) 8:06
- Heikki Lajunen – vocals
- Jukka Syrenius – guitar, vocals
- Veli-Pekka Pessi – bass guitar
- Eero Rantasila – drums
- Ilkka Poijärvi – organ, flute
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 Style: rockCountry: usAudio: mp3 (320k vinyl rip bad quality) Size: 76mb Fuzz Acid & Flowers: Originating from New York, Elephant Memory was formed in 1967 by Bronstein and Frank, who were both playing the strip joint circuit. They soon became known for their outrageous performances, with light shows, destruction of sculptures and weird outfits. After recruiting a young Israelian singer, Michal Shapiro they were signed to the Wes Farrell Organization, a powerful management and production company. Their first album was released in February 1969 and has a flashing sleeve, the group members being pictured nude, covered with paints, in front of an elephant. An interesting record, mixing psyche, dreamy ballads, jazz and hard rock, two of the songs, Old Man Willow and Jungle Gym At The Zoo appeared on the soundtrack to 'Midnight Cowboy'. With the success of this film, Buddah released Songs From Midnight Cowboy, which was basically a reissue of the first album with new versions of Everybody's Talkin' and Theme From Midnight Cowboy. Michal Shapiro, Richard Sussman and Chester Ayers then left with Richard Sussman joining Grootna. A new line-up was put together and the next album, produced by Ted Cooper, Take It To The Street was totally different their debut. Elephant's Memory were now playing a very effective hard-rock, obviously inspired by the Detroit groups of the era. Tracks like Power, Piece Now, Damn and Mongoose are powerful and Mongoose became a hit. Incidentally Rick Frank is credited as "Reek Havoc" on the sleeve. Following this album, the line-up changed again and the band backed John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Some Time In New York City and Approximately Infinite Universe. Their fourth album was naturally issued on Apple and has a good reputation. In 1973, they backed Chuck Berry on his Bio album and finally released a deceptive final record in 1974, produced at the Rockfield Studios in Wales by Steve Smith. Stan Bronstein launched a jazz-rock career, Rick Frank formed various local bands but died in the '90s. Adam Ippolito went on to play with soul and funk groups and Wayne Tex Gabriel joined Mitch Ryder. (Vernon Joynson/Stephane Rebeschini)
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 Style: jazzCountry: HollandAudio: mp3 (256k) Size: 71mb
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 Style: jazz
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (ape)
Size: 245mb
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 Style: jazzCountry: germanyAudio: lossless (ape) Size: 260mb COSMIC DREAMS: Eiliff were one of the so-called "progressive jazz rock bands" of the early seventies. Their two albums were recorded in Hamburg, produced by Rainer Goltermann. Their music is hard to describe accurately: a complex blend of many different styles, comparisons could be made with Colosseum, King Crimson, Nucleus and Miles Davis. With regard to German bands, perhaps a comparison with Xhol, Cornucopia or Thirsty Moon is appropriate. Eiliff also occasionally added ethnic touches, characterised by sitars and percussion. Their first album had the standard (for such bands) 20 minute suite, along with three mid-length tracks. Some sections were good, others sound a bit dated nowadays, particularly the jazz improvisations. In general, the album was a bit too diverse to make pleasant listening, incorporating as many different styles as it did. Eiliff recorded it in the Star Studios with Konrad Plank engineering. Their second and last album Girlrls! (1972) was closer to progressive rock otherwise it was quite similar to the first. It was recorded at the other famous recording studio of Hamburg: Windrose studios - with F. Bischoff engineering. Today Eiliff's albums are in the collector's mid-price rank of 60 to 80 DEM, probably justied by their musical content. After Eiliff's demise, Nejadepour played for a short while in Guru Guru at the time of Dance Of The Flames (1974).
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 Style: canterbury
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans, size: 352 mb), mp3 (320k, scans, 150 mb)
length: 1:03'24"
from ProgWeed :
The Rotters Club is definitely one of the definitive "Canterbury" albums, a sub-genre of progressive rock that was decidedly jazzier, more instrumentally based and featured a more humorous, less-pretentious take on everything. The serious musical chops and tongue-in-cheek attitude fenced off many of these groups from the kind of criticism that more theatrical contemporaries like Yes and Genesis were being pummelled with. Hatfield & the North were on the forefront of this movement, carrying some already distinguished musicians from the likes of Caravan, Matching Mole and Egg. Rotters Club was their second album and is a monster of jazz infected progressive rock, made up of great extended jams and phenomenal musicianship from all parties.
"Share It" opens up with Richard Sinclair's whimsical vocals, already familiar to all Caravan fans, and is a very nice track. However, it is the last time we see vocals for awhile, as Hatfield and the North places much less emphasis on lyrics and such than Sinclair's former band. Instead, songs like "The Yes No Interlude" and "Underdub" are just replete with exciting playing, great organ from Dave Stewart as well as exquisite guitar work from Phil Miller. "Mumps" is a huge epic track that features some more vocals here and there but for the most part is another explosive instrumental. Basically this album is probably the next step the average prog fan should take into exploring Canterbury after Caravan's best albums.
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Style: psych
Country: us
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
time: 57'16+31'23" Size: 492 mb
Issue: 2CD 1996
Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
From Atlanta, this is a totally demented album which should appeal to fans of weird psychedelic groups. The Hampton Grease Band somehow managed to sign a contract with Columbia and released <
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 Style: Krautrock, Ambient
Country: germany
Audio: mp3 (192k vinyl rip)
Size: 104mb
COSMIC DREAMS:
Peter-Michael Hamel (piano, organ, electronics) was born in Munich in 1947. From 1965-1970 he studied composition under Fritz Buchtger and Gunther Bialas in his home city. During this period he played free jazz, South American folk music and experimental electronics. In 1970 he founded Between with the Argentinean Roberto Detree and the American Robert Eliscu. In 1972 he guested on Agitation Free's first album, adding his peculiar hammond organ style. His interest in Eastern music and meditation resulted in several travels to Asia. His first four albums are also very influenced by such elements. Hamel (1972) was a double album, setting standards for all the albums to come: long, meditative and floating tracks in a minimalist tradition. Some tracks were performed live without overdubs. It had fantastic, colourful, sleeve artwork. Both this and Voice Of Silence were released on the legendary swirl Vertigo label. Hamel performed vocals in a special Indian vocal technique (named khyal) on Voice Of Silence and Buddhist Meditation East-West (1975)
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Style: prog
Country: denmark
Audio: lossless (ape)
time: 41'01" Size: 254mb
Issue: Walhalla 90325 (2004)
Scented Gardens of Mind^
They were one of the Danish groups who showed the strongest affection for the San Franciscan rock scene, most notably Country Joe & The Fish and Big Brother & The Holding Company (although also influenced by Vanilla Fudge and The Beatles). Hair played long, dynamic songs with an overwhelming fuzztone guitar, semi-classical organ and good vocals. The album concluded with a long version of Take Another Piece Of My Heart". A couple of the shorter tracks are quite good, but the album fails to convince as a whole.
01. Coming through 4:40
02. Supermouth 3:47
03. Dream song 10:28
04. Everything's under control 4:30
05. Pleasant street 6:24
06. Piece (of my heart) 11:12
Benny Dyhr - guitars, vocals
Paddy Gythfeldt - keyboards, guitar, vocals
Allan Sшrensen - bass, vocals
Peter Rolnжs - drums
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Style: prog
Country: us
Audio: lossles (ape, cue, log, scans)
Size: 219 mb
Formed in 1964, this quintet began as a Minneapolis-based pop band called The UNDERBEATS. They eventually relocated to Los Angeles and, changing their name to GYPSY, began pursuing a heavier, more complex sound, blending SANTANA-like guitar and organ riffs with vocals and arrangements reminiscent of early CHICAGO. They released two excellent albums on a small label in the early 70’s then switched to RCA who (it is said) pushed the band in a more commercial direction. Consequently, they lost their progressive edge and the subsequent two releases are no more than a collection of average, mid-70’s radio-friendly pop.
Their eponymous first album (70) was a double LP made up of jazz, prog rock and pop elements, featuring fantastic harmonies with vocalist/keyboardist James Walsh in the lead. The more polished "In the Garden”, released a year later, is in the same vein with Walsh really cooking at the keyboards. With the release of "Antithesis” (72) and "Unlock the Gates” (73), however, the band took a downslide into bubble-gum pop. Sole member of the original line-up, Walsh gathered some musicians in 1996 and tried to revive the GYPSY sound with an album called "20 Years Ago Today”; an average-to-good album mostly made up of new compositions plus a couple of nicely reworked classics.
Fans of SANTANA, CHICAGO, PABLO CRUISE, SPIRIT or SUGAR LOAF should definitely check out the first two albums.
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 Style: heavy country
Country: us
Audio: lossless (wavpack 879k)
Size: 420mb
Issue: Fantasy 2008 40th Anniversary Edition EU
01 - Pagan Baby 6:24
02 - Sailor's Lament 3:46
03 - Chameleon 3:17
04 - Have You Ever Seen The Rain? 2:40
05 - (I Wish I Could) Hideaway 3:43
06 - Born To Move 5:41
07 - Hey Tonight 2:43
08 - It's Just A Thought 3:51
09 - Molina 2:43
10 - Rude Awakening #2 6:22
11 - 45 Revolutions Per Minute (Part 1) (Bonus Track) 3:18
12 - 45 Revolutions Per Minute (Part 2) (Bonus Track) 7:20
13 - Hey Tonight (Live Bonus Track) 2:30
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genre: heavy
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans, 269 mb)
time: 37'51" misc.: rec. '70
COSMIC DREAMS:
One of the earliest and most legendary of German groups was Guru Guru, led by the outstanding, colourful Mani Neumeier, who was born on 31 December 1940 in Munich. Up to 1967 Neumeier and Uli Trepte were members of the free jazz combo Irene Schweitzer Trio. The Guru Guru Groove came to life in 1968 with Neumeier, Trepte and Hans Sachs, debuting at the 'Holy Hill Festival', Heidelberg, in August. On 29 September they performed at the Internationale Song Tage in Essen. This must have been something completely outrageous: Neumeier and Trepte performing improvised free jazz against which Sachs read texts. In the Spring of 1969 Sachs left and the name was shortened to Guru Guru. Several guitarists joined and quit (the longest lasting was Jim Kennedy) before Ax Genrich became a permanent member in April 1970. He had previously played with the Berlin group Agitation Free. In June this trio recorded UFO with Julius Schittenhelm. This utterly tripped out album featured notorious titles such as "Stone In" and "Der LSD Marsch", hinting at some possible sources of their inspiration. The music was thunderous, heavy psychedelic space rock, often bordering on pure mayhem. As in the case of early Ash Ra Tempel, this was a power trio dedicated to endless, improvised space excursions, like a continuation of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" or Hendrix' "ESP" As you'll guess, this was pretty powerful stuff that could had been a soundtrack celebrating the arrival of UFOs!
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 Style: neo prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
time: 55'28" Size: 389mb
Issue: Remaster Expanded
01 - Come On People 6:36
02 - Merry-Go-Round 6:14
03 - A.C.Y.M 6:57
04 - Du schaffst das nicht 8:35
05 - Coke-Train 4:44
06 - May Day 7:52
07 - Du schaffst das nicht (live) 9:56
08 - Merry-Go-Round (live)
Eroc (drums, voice)
Lupo (guitars, choir)
Mist (keyboards, choir)
Popo (bass)
Wildschwein (vocals, guitars)
Toni Moff Mollo (vocals)
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Style: rock, blues
Country: uk
Audio: mp3 (320k vinyl rip)
Size: 86mb
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 Style: heavy prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 43'59" Size: 302 mb
Issue: 1997 Repertoire
COSMIC DREAMS :
A group that gradually have acquired legendary status over the last twenty years, at least among the dedicated progressive connoisseurs. The group formed as a quartet in the late sixties. They were brave enough to write German lyrics for their early material, as found on their debut on the Cornet label in 1970. This album is a prime example of vintage progressive music in that it still had a lot of beat influence (it sounds as it was recorded in 1969). Even if produced by Konrad Plank (present on all three albums), the sound is a bit thin and weary. Nevertheless, it is a charming historical document of the development in German rock, containing eight short tracks and the 8 minute "Trauma", all characterised by heavy psych guitar work and layered with sound effects. Trauma (1971) was actually a re-recording of the same material, now with English lyrics and more progressive arrangements. A fifth member had been added: Peter Otten. The title track had grown to 13 minutes long and been completely changed into a heavy psychedelic space rock experience! Buy both and compare, you'll hear the tremendous development. The album is recommendable on the musical strength of the title track alone. The rest of the material was still quite average. If Trauma at least in part was a great album, I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was (1972), drew from its best moments, resulting in a full blown heavy guitar freak out verging on space rock. It contained six tracks of a distinctly German character. Sadly it is one of the rarest Brain albums, never re-issued after the initial release in 1972, resulting in a purchase price of 150 to 200 DEM in mint condition nowadays. The two first albums fetch equally large amounts.
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Style: prog
Country: italy
Audio: lossless (ape 879k)
time: 41'30" Size: 236 mb
Issue: 1997 Cinevox (soundtrack)
Goblin have become the masters of Moog-rock (and more importantly, Italian Symphonic Prog) with the soundtrack for SUSPIRIA. Dario Argento collaborated with the soundtrack to this film (he advised the use of the buzuki). Unlike what other people have been saying, the main theme (also called "SUSPIRIA") does not have a resemblance to "TUBULAR BELLS" ("PROFONDO ROSSO", on the other hand, does). Claudio Simonetti's chants and shouts during the main theme ("La-la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la-la" and "WITCH!!!! WITCH!!!!") are very much infamous AND famous. Only two themes, "BLACK FOREST" and "BLIND CONCERT", don't make it into the movie, although I don't see a reason why not. (It might be because Argento and Simonetti decided to not include those two in the movie, but we'll never know.) All the others ("SUSPIRIA", "WITCH", "OPENING TO THE SIGHS" (in the credits only), "SIGHS", "MARKOS" (which came from Phillip Glass' "MUSIC IN SIMILAR MOTION") and "DEATH VALSER") made it into the film unscathed (well, in snippets, but they made it into the final product). The soundtrack I have is the one that is in the SUSPIRIA 3-disc set (2 DVDs (The film and the Documentary) and 1 CD [the soundtrack with three added tracks]). A must-have for any GOBLIN fan (LIKE ME!) or any Prog-Rock fan. 5 STARS! - ProgArchives.com
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 Style: psych
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 49'12" Size: 296 mb
Crack In the Cosmic Egg:
Nothing to do with the 1960's beat band The German Oaks, these were one of the more obscure Düsseldorf bands, who used to jam and experiment in old disused air-raid shelters and bunkers. German Oak existed on the underground scene for several years, and remained unknown.
Typical of the Düsseldorf industrial sound, but also with that manic percussive air of early Amon Düül, they were highly experimental, ignoring standard musical conventions, going for the jugular with an aggressive hard-rock and blues music. Their sole LP, which was issued privately in a very small edition and without proper covers, was recorded in an old army bunker and has an eerie mysterious presence, sounding almost like a Faust rehearsal session on occasions.
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 Style: psych
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 357
misc.: 1990
Read Headheritage
01 - Swastika Rising 5:13
02 - The Third Reich 10:21
03 - Shadows Of War 6:00
04 - Air Alert 1:55
05 - Down In The Bunker 17:57
06 - Raid Over Duesseldorf 15:42
07 - 1945 - Out Of The Ashes 2:14
Wolfgang Franz Czaika / lead & rhythm guitar
Ullrich Kallweit / drums, percussion
Harry Kallweit / bbass, voice
Manfred Uhr / organ/fuzz-organ, voice
Norbert Luckas / guitars & noises
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 Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: mp3 (256k)
Size: 66mb
Crack in the Cosmic Egg:
Actually Waniyetula renamed, this Galaxy played an inventive, yet heavily lyrical, progressive rock with a fresh direct approach. The album NATURE'S CLEAR WELL documented Richard Kersten as lead singer, who had a Jon Anderson cum John Wetton type voice. The Galaxy sound was notably inspired by the likes of Nektar, Omega, Message, etc., and the production bore the unmistakable mark of Dieter Dierks. Without Kersten, the rest of the band went back to playing as Waniyetula.
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Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 40'54" Size: 337 mb
Issue: Garden of Delights
Gäa from the German state of Saarland have become quite known in collectors’ circles thanks to their LP "Auf der Bahn zum Uranus” from 1974. In early 1975 they recorded three tracks for a, however, unfinished second album. They are simply brilliant and show how mature and inventive the band was at that time. The tracks have been rediscovered only recently and form the heart and major part of the CD, which also contains four minor bonus tracks from the 80s. Although these tracks are no longer progressive in the strict sense, they have been added for the sake of completeness and because there was time left. The cover artwork is again by Eduard Bell and shows the Alruna, a legendary earth spirit from Germanic mythology and a rough counterpart to Gäa, the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth.
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 Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 264 mb
Issue: Orange 2007
Gäa , named after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth, was a band from the German state of Saarland, founded in 1973 and completely devoted to German progressive rock. The founding members Helmut Heisel (*02/26/1953 in Wadern) on guitar, Peter "Bello" Beil (*05/20/1954 in Pьttlingen) on bass and Stefan Dцrr (*11/04/1952 in Pьttlingen) on drums knew each other from school and from the Phantoms, a band, however, which had little originality and was mainly playing cover versions. Singer of the Phantoms was, by the way, Uwe Peter, who was later to join Mr. Grabstein, a band whose only recorded track Smog" is included in the compilation "Psychedelic gems 3" (Psychedelic Gems PGCD 03).
To come back to Gäa : Further musicians who were won for the band were Gьnther Lackes (*07/06/1 949 in Pьttlingen) on keybords who had already enjoyed a thorough education on this instrument when he was a child and who came from the beat band Non Plus Ultra, Werner Frey (*02/28/1951 in Magdeburg), who had a predilection for folk music, on guitar and as singer, as weil as Werner Jungmann (*11/22/1952 in Vцlklingen) on congas.
Helmut Heisel left the band after only a short time, a decision which annoys him today, and so they went on playing with five members, confining themselves to songs of their own composition with German lyrics. On one of their first (of altogether eighty) gigs, they attracted the notice of Alfred Kersten whose Kerston label was already quite successful at that time and who invited them to his studio in the viilage of Forst near Stuttgart for recording sessions. In the summer of 1973 the band set out for that place, with tents in their luggage for lack of money. On arrival, however, they were told to come back the next day, for in the studio were standing the Flippers, in high-necked suits in the stifling heat. Yet on the following day, there was again another band they had to let go ahead because Fred Kersten's initial enthusiasm for Gдa had seemingiy waned a bit. He could not send them back, though. And so he did the recordings in great haste and in a pretty uninspired mood. The band was, accordingly, dissatisfied with the result. Nevertheless in 1974, the songs came out on the LP "Auf der Bahn zum Uranus" (i.e. On the track to Uranus) (Kerston 65014) in a mini edition.
The cover artwork was done by Bello's brother Eduard and shows Gäa , or Gaia, the goddess of the Earth who gives birth to all life. By the way, it is not true that part of the records ended up on the garbage dump. In 1992 the meanwhile much sought-after LP was re-released on CD on the label Ohrwaschl. Since in the Saarland the unconventional band was only accepted with hesitation, they were mainly playing gigs in the Eifel area, in the Hunsrьck and in Rhineland-Palatinate. However, they were not tobe discouraged and in 1975 they eventually won the Saar-Rocky award. Werner Jungmann left the band, Helmut Heisel rejoined it and took on the second guitar and then, after Bello had gone to Mr. Grabstein, the bass. In the meantime, they had written three new songs, namely "Heilende Sonne" (i.e. Healing sun), "Morgendдmmerung" (Dawn) and the outstanding "Autobahn" (Freeway). To have a good basis for their second LP, they recorded them in Michael Leistenschneider's Leico studio in the town of Schmelz in early 1975, this time under better conditions than with Kerston. Yet before the LP could be completed, Gдa split up in 1978. Werner Frey followed BelIo to Grabstein who renamed themselves Elaine at the end of 1978. Gьnther Lackes signed up with the Blackbirds where he is still playing cover versions of weIl-known songs today. Helmut Heisel played in lots ofdifferent bands before, in 1991 he and Stefan Dцrrjoined Saartana, who am working on their own CD these days. Werner Jungmann and BeIIo are no longer working as musicians. Nowadays, Werner Frey works as a teacher, Gьnther Lackes is employed in a bank, Helmut Heisel runs a pub, Stefan Dцrr works as a haulier, Werner Jungmann as an orderly and BeIIo as a civil servant. They are all still friends.
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style: hard, kraut
country: germany
audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
size: 224 mb
COSMIC DREAMS:
This band was from Berlin and regularly appeared at the Zodiac club between 1968 and 1970. Probably their music was more psychedelic in those early days than revealed later on vinyl. The Brain album, recorded at the Dierks studio in July 1973 with Frank Oeser producing, had a nice fold-out cover but sadly wasn't particularly impressive musically. Standard rock songs with a slight heavy blues touch and the key changes and guitar solos you have all heard before. Very American sounding music with the tendency to get trapped in boogie-mode. I would compare it to the Gash album, a contemporary green Brain release.. The album of 'forgotten tapes' was compiled from rehearsal recordings on a TEAC four track tape machine in 1974. For this reason, the sound quality isn't very professional. There were plans for a second album, which never saw the light of day. The music, as revealed on a limited private release in 1981, was more heavier but didn't hint at anything outrageous. Brain apparently lost interest in Curly Curve. Strange to note that Herkenberg was a member of the 1967 Tangerine Dream line-up!
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Style: heavy country
Country: us
Audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scsns)
Size: 471mb
Issue: Fantasy 2008 40th Anniversary Edition
Tracklisting:
1 - Born On The Bayou 5:17
02 - Bootleg 3:04
03 - Graveyard Train 8:38
04 - Good Golly Miss Molly 2:44
05 - Penthouse Pauper 3:40
06 - Proud Mary 3:09
07 - Keep On Chooglin 7:43
Bonus:
08 - Bootleg (Alternate Take) (Bonus Track) 5:48
09 - Born On The Bayou (Live. Bonus Track) 4:48
10 - Proud Mary (Live. Bonus Track) 2:51
11 - Crazy Otto (Live Bonus Track) 8:49
Wr. & arr. & pr. by John Fogerty
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 Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
Size: 358mb
Issue: Long Hair Music LHC00004 (2001)
Crack inthe Cosmic Egg:
From just outside Baden-Baden, Coupla Prog were typical of the type of organ-fronted bluesy rock band you'll have found in almost every European city at the time. Little in the way of imagination, they adapted themes from others and added copious amounts of classical music. Despite all this, and that they never made any impact on a wider front (no record contracts, nothing, remaining totally unknown) Coupla Prog were rather privileged with no less than four SWF radio sessions in 3 year history.
The recent CD releases documenting those radio sessions are as follows: SPRITE, which documents sessions from February 1970 and April 1971 and shows their roots in British blues-rock and Vanilla Fudge, largely relying on the keyboard player to hold it all together. Not bad, it's all let down somewhat by a rather embarrassingly off-key vocalist. My favourites here are the classical numbers towards the end. EDMUNDO LOPEZ, a big conceptual suite involving the life of a reluctant soldier, all performed live in the studio with no possibility of correcting errors or adding overdubs, they were brave. Very often I'm reminded of Procol Harum, during their progressive phase, with a little Jane, Epsilon, and such like.
DEATH IS A GREAT GAMBLER compiles later sessions, after Rolf Peters had died, with a new guitarist and drummer. This finds them in a much more keyboard fronted classical rock mood.
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 Style: beat
Country: us
Audio: mp3 (320k)
Size: 134mb
Issue: Ace Records
Year: 2003 (recorded 1966)
Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
This San Jose high school/student band reached the U.S. Top Ten with the title track of their only album, now a collector's item. Their album also made No 122 in the U.S. Album Charts, and the group toured the U.S. performing with the Hollies, Beach Boys, Rascals, Byrds, Dave Clark Five, Sony and Cher, The Doors, Them, and Peter and Gordon to name but a few.
Psychotic Reaction is also included on the Nuggets compilation, We Have Come For Your Children, Highs Of The Sixties, Nuggets, Vol. 1, Wild Thing, Tough Rock and Best Of Psychedelic Rock (CD). Their album was full of driving rock songs, of which Double Decker Bus was the next best. A German Line compilation Dynamite lncidents 1983 contains some of their non-LP 45's. One side plays at 33 r.p.m. and the other at 45 r.p.m. Also Edsel have released a 13-track compilation, Psychotic Reaction (Edsel ED 225) 1987. Other compilation appearances have been You Must Believe Me on Eva's Sound Of The Sixties and Teeny Bopper, Teeny Bopper on Sound Of The Sixties: San Francisco: Part 1.
Psychotic Reaction has become something of a classic. It was well covered at the time by the like of Fire Escape, Leathercoated Minds, Positively 13 O'Clock and Underground. (Vernon Joynson/Stephane Rebeschini)
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 Style: instrumental surf
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans) & mp3 (mqvbr)
Size: 477 or 85 mb
"Lanky Bones" 2:11 "Telstar" 2:52 "Quick Waddle" 2:36 "A Taste Of Honey" 2:47 "Kami-Kaze" 2:24 "Pipeline" 3:02 "Scratch" 2:33 "The Work Song" 2:22 "The Wedge" 2:10 "Surf-ari" 1:49 "Rebel Rouser" 2:07 "Collison Course" 2:41 "Memphis" 2:35 "Camel Back" 2:52 "Penetration" 2:25 "Sidewalk Surfer" 2:26 "Tequilla" 1:54 "Small Fry" 2:22 "Raunchy" 2:39 "Cruel Sea" 2:23 "Lonely Bull" 2:54 "Mr. Moto" 2:02 "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." 1:44 "Out Of Limits" 2:12 "Wipe Out" 2:26 "Roller Derby" 2:25 "Happy Guitars" 1:41 "Walk, Don't Run" 2:35 "Kicks" 2:32 "K-39" 2:13
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Style: prog
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (wv 805k)
Size: 468mb
Issue: 2001 Decca Remaster
01 - Introduction By Alan Black / Memory Lain, Hugh / Headloss 11:00
02 - The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again 6:36
03 - Hoedown 3:54
04 - Introduction 6:50
05 - The Love In Your Eye 12:50
06 - Mirror For The Day 4:29
07 - Virgin On The Ridiculous 7:58
08 - For Richard 14:18
09 - A Hunting We Shall Go 10:23
David Sinclair (keyboards) Geoffrey Richardson (viola) John G Perry (bass) Pye Hastings (guitar, vocals) Richard Coughlan (drums)
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 Style: prog folk
Country: italy
Audio: mp3 (320k)
Size: 89mb
ItalianProg:
A sort of supergroup formed by Pasquale Minieri and Giorgio Vivaldi with help from Carlo Siliotto, all of them being past members of Canzoniere del Lazio, an interesting folk group born near Rome in the early70's that released five albums between 1973 and 1978.
The Carnascialia project, including such famous names as Mauro Pagani and Demetrio Stratos among others, just lasted for an LP and a few concerts, but the LP is a very good example of progressive italian folk music, much in the same style as Mauro Pagani's debut album.
The six tracks it contains vary between traditional inspired folk-rock numbers (Canzone numero 1), vocal exercises in Area-style (Fiocchi di neve e bruscolini, with the distinctive voice of Demetrio Stratos) and are generally much influenced by an interesting mediterranean folk feeling, being an early example of "world music" from Italy.
The group also appeared in 1979's tribute concert for Demetrio Stratos, with a remake of a song from the first album of Mauro Pagani.
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 Style: hard
Country: austalia
Audio: mp3 (256k)
Size: 68mb
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 Style: hard
Country: us
Audio: mp3 (256k)
Size: 69mb
Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
A hard rock outfit whose 1st album contained some hints of psychedelia. It was recorded in New York.
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 Style: hardContry: australiaAudio: mp3 (256k) Size: 72mb
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 Style: hardCountry: swedenAudio: mp3 (160k) Size: 45mb from Veneno do Rock blog: Alas, don't know much about this one. Stoney blues from Sweden, original copies are pricey. Rateyourmusic.com user Prehistoric Hammer says: "Great kind of sloppy drunken Swedish blues rock. I can picture these guys playing at some small bar up north in Sweden..probably getting tanked between sets. The production is goddamn awful but who cares? Not I. The basic bluesy riffs and bad accent might deter me in any other situation but somehow this is really addicting and has a special charm about it." And the late, great Freak Emporium described it thusly: "As the name suggests, this is a highly charged set of heavy progressive blues rock in a Cream/Blue Cheer style with great guitar work." Enjoy.
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 Style: hardCountry: ukAudio: lossless (flac) Size: 276mb Tapestry of Delights: Most notable for including Eddie Clarke who was later in Motorhead. Clarke, Perry and Hogarth had previously been in Curtis Knight and Zeus. Clarke and Hogarth's next venture was a band called Continuous Performance, who had no waxings. By the time of their album Eddie Clarke had been replaced by Mike Todman. (Vernon Joynson/Vladimir Zhigulin)
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 Style: hard progCountry: germanyAudio: lossless (ape) Size: 460mb Issue: 2005 Reperoire Cosmic Dreams: When it comes to German progressive hard rock based on the Deep Purple formula, none were better than Birth Control! They were formed in 1968. The band name was a reaction against the Pope's declaration that contraceptives were sinful. They played mainly instrumental jazz rock cover versions of Brian Auger, Graham Bond, etc, in those early days. For some live engagements they were expanded with a guitarist, a vocalist and a trumpeter. Their first single "October" coupled with "Freedom" was released on Amadeo in 1969. Line-up (B) recorded an album for Metronome, released in a round cover, imitating a box of contraceptive pills. This came in the first in a series of, what were for many people, thought-provoking covers. The music was still grounded in jazz-rock (particularly the material composed by Sobotta), but the new members brought with them rock influences (particularly evident on the material composed by Bruno Frenzel). The album also had a cover version of Doors' "Light My Fire". It was a work of average quality, lacking a bit in experience and musical craftsmanship. It also suffered from a thin production. Their next album Operation was indeed a great improvement. The cover had a drawing of a baby eating ant monster, watched by an excited Pope. Inside the fold-out cover another drawing revealed the group members being part of a baby eating machine. An outrageous cover for sure! Musically, they had now found their own, heavy guitar and organ based sound, in many ways similar to British hands like Spooky Tooth and Deep Purple. The best cut was the opening track "Stop Little Lady". All tracks were this time composed by Frenzel. This must have been one of the best selling Ohr albums! Ohr also released Believe In The Pill in 1972, a sampler featuring six tracks from their first two albums and three rarer tracks, previously only available on Ohr singles: "Hope" (1970 A-side OS 57.003), "What's Your Name" (1972 A-side OS 57.007) and "Believe In The Pill" (1972 B-side OS 57.007). The cover showed a foetus lying in a dustbin, again causing much controversy! The steady sales resulted in a contract with the major company CBS. Hoodoo Man was released in January 1973 and contained 6 tracks that refined their sound even more. This was a brilliant album with very confident guitar and organ riffs and interplay. Noske's voice had improved (he was one of the best German male vocalists) and he also drummed better than ever. The key tracks this time were the classic 10 minute "Gamma Ray" (a live favourite), "Buy!" (7:10) and "Get Down To Your Fate" (7:56). The cover art wasn't as outrageous as the usual Birth Control standard: just a drawing of a very big, fat woman repressing a little wind-up man! At this time the band had the ambition to break through internationally. They therefore felt a re-organisation of the band was necessary. Founder member Koschmidder left before a long German tour and was replaced by Peter Foller. The quintet of Noske, Frenzel, Steffens, Held and Foller recorded Rebirth (1974), failed to keep pace with the ambition. Steffens left again to form his own hard rock trio. The other four undertook another German tour that resulted in a double live album, comprising five tracks in all with much instrumental work. This was appealing for the convinced fans, but not for the masses. On the rover the group was pictured sitting in car armed with machine guns, shooting at a baby carriage. Plastic People (1975) was a concept album attempting to create a more varied sound beyond the standard heavy progressive formula. The guests Jochen von Grumbkow (cello), Christoph Noppeney (viola) and Friedemann Leinert (flute), all from Holderlin, appeared on the track "My Mind". Plastic People was their best album since Hoodoo Man. Regrettably the group were not able to develop this style in any proper way. Backdoor Possibilities (1976) was a partly failed attempt to include more jazz and classical elements into their hard rock. Birth Control were now recording for Brain, since CBS had lost faith in them. In 1983 founder member Bruno Frenzel died after a long illness. |
 Style: heavy prog
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 274 mb
Tapestry of Delights:
A progressive rock outfit from Newcastle, who formed in 1970. Wilson-Slesser had previously played with the Les Humphries Singers and Ken Mountain was ex-Yellow. After their Little Girl flexi, Gibbons left to join Halfbreed and was replaced by Ian Murray (ex-Music, Goblin).
After their album, which was produced by Roger Chapman of Family, Barton and Fisher left, being replaced by Arthur Ramm (ex-Les Humphries Singers) and Barry Black (ex-John Miles Set). Then Ian Murray departed, to be replaced by Jimmy Wiley (ex-Icarus).
After the band split, Wilson-Slesser went on to Back Street Crawler, Wiley and Barton ended up in Captain Whizzo (1976) and Black rejoined John Miles.
(Jim McMaster/Vernon Joynson / Mike Warth)
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 Style: hard prog
Country: italy
Audio: mp3 (320k)
Size: 128mb
ProgArchive:
IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA (Medusa’s Kiss) is a contemporary Italian group. The members Diego Petrini, Federico Caprai and Simone Cecchini founded it in 2002. The group consists of Simone Cecchini (vocals, acoustic guitar, saxophone), Simone Brozzetti (electric guitar), Federico Caprai (bass), Diego Petrini (drums, organ, piano), Eva Morelli (flute, piccolo) and Daniele Rinchi (violin). The music is very much in the seventies Italian tradition. Of the seventies Italian scene there is similarities to groups such as PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI but even more to the hard rocking groups like OSANNA and DE DE LIND.
The self-tiled debut album was released in 2004. It is an own production but the Black Widow label started to distribute it later. The music in this debut album can be considered art-rock. The keyboards are used sparingly but the sound is still refined due to the successful use of flute, saxophone and accordion. There is a renaissance/baroque tinge in some of the songs and this creates some personality to the group’s overall sound. This is a good and promising debut album and showing that they have some originality as well.
IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA is an interesting new group that should appeal to fans of the more hard-edged Italian progressive.
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 Style: progCountry: usAudio: mp3 (160vbr) Gibraltar: Very Genesis influenced Floridian band who put out a coveted album in the late seventies. This is album is extremely in the Genesis style (like Marillion) yet avoids the commerciality that this band eventually dived headfirst into.) Syn-Phonic also released two bootleg quality live albums from their heyday which show them in a rather muddy light. Imagine an incredible dynamo of progressive energy in the mold of Nursery Cryme period Genesis, but with some slight punky undertones thrown in as well. Add to this the affected vocals of singer Doroccas, and you have a sound that, while not unlike a high energy version of early Marillion, pre-dated that band by five years. They only released one self-titled studio album around 1978, featuring four long cuts. Hopefully someday that fine album will be reissued on compact disc. A few years ago, two limited issue LPs of their live show were released, (Night Over Never and Better Conditions For The Dead) which included all of the songs from the original album, plus several other tracks not included on the studio LP. While the quality of the recording is no better than an average bootleg, the performance on both of these live albums is incredible. Babylon, in some ways, is better than Nursery Cryme-era Genesis, although certainly not nearly as innovative, given that their album was recorded in '77. Detectable influences include peak-period Genesis, Gentle Giant, a bit of Zeppelin, even. The vocalist has a very high voice, Plant-like in tone, but phrased more like early Gabriel (if you can imagine that). There's some vague resemblance to Rush, but much more progressive and less metallic. I wish they'd been better recorded; the home-grown qualities of the studio album detract from its appeal, though it's certainly better than the "bootleg quality" ascribed to those live albums. If some really exceptional remastering (or remixing!) is done for the CD reissue, this could be a major winner!
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Style: prog
Country: us
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 31'04" Size: 204mb
Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
Formed in North Portland, Oregon during the summer of 1966. They won the KLSN Radio Portland Teen Fair Battle Of The Bands on 9th June 1968 and received a 1954 custom purple Cadillac Hearse as a prize! By now they were a top local attraction and the same year they signed to the American Record Company and recorded a demo which received a lot of local airplay. They went on to record an album for the B&V label in 1970 but split up before it was released. Consequently it received little airplay and flopped. The band all went on to college or further education. Today the album is exceedingly rare and even the limited edition reissue on Rockadelic, which has been restricted to just 350 copies, seems destined to become the same before long. Musically, it consists of keyboard-dominated progressive rock and pretty uninspired progressive rock at that on side one. The second side is much better, with some exhilarating keyboard playing on Self-Made God the highlight.
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 Style: beat
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (ape 763k)
Size: 314mb
Tapestry of Delights:
Badfinger, who were the most successful non-Beatles related band signed to the Apple label, began life as The Iveys in Swansea in the mid-sixties. The name change came in 1969 and around the same time the band were invited to contribute three tracks to the soundtrack of a movie based on a novel, 'The Magic Christian', written by Terry Southern. The three tracks, Come And Get It, Rock Of All Ages and Carry On Till Tomorrow, were all contained on their first album as well. The first of them was a highly commercial song, written by Paul McCartney and after its release, in December 1969, it rocketed up the Charts peaking at No 4 in the UK and No 7 in the US. Around the same time Ron Griffiths left the band and was replaced by Joey Molland who'd previously played with The Masterminds, The Merseys and Gary Walker and The Rain. It was Griffiths who had played on most of these tracks when they were originally recorded, but Joey Molland, who looked a little like Paul McCartney who helped promote them. The finest track on the album was Maybe Tomorrow, but several of Pete Ham's other whimsical tunes like Crimson Ship and Dear Angie, which was written by Ron Griffiths, were fine examples of sixties pop. However, in the progressive era of the early seventies the album sounded rather dated and didn't sell too well, only charting in the US, where it peaked at No 54.
Their follow-up 45, the self-composed No Matter What, was much heavier and made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. The follow-up album, No Dice, again sold better in the States. It contained some good rockers like Better Days and Love Me Do (not The Beatles song) and a Ham/Evans ballad, Without You, that would later top the UK Charts when covered by Harry Nillson.
Their next album was scheduled to be produced by George Harrison but he became understandably preoccupied with the 'Concert for Bangladesh' and Badfinger appeared, as back-up musicians at Madison Square Garden. Apple also rejected many of the initial compositions for the album, which was eventually produced by Todd Rundgren and contained several slickly produced soft rock songs. Again Straight Up sold better abroad than here, peaking at No 31 in the US. One of the Harrison productions, Day After Day, was released as a single (he actually played on the guitar intro) and it made the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic. In the States to capitalise on this another track, Baby Blue, was taken from the album and made the US Top 20, but for some unknown reason no follow-up issue was put out here.
It would be fair to say that Apple didn't do the band too many favours over the years - Badfinger set out to produce the next album themselves but Apple rejected it and whilst it was put on hold (much of it was being remixed) the band's business manager negotiated them a new contract with Warner Brothers. They got to work on a new album, releasing Love Is Easy as a 45. It was more rock 'n' roll orientated. Probably a little out of pace with the current fad and released almost two years after their previous 45 when any momentum they'd previously enjoyed was lost, it missed out. Before the Warners album could be put out Apple released the Ass album. One of its tracks, Apple Of My Eye, was released as a 45 but flopped only making No. 102 in the US. The album was less immediate in its appeal than their previous efforts and it made little impact. It did, however, result in Warner Brothers delaying the release of their album, which in the end was simply entitled Badfinger. It included that earlier Love Is Easy 45 but no new 45 was released to help promote it and in fact the album was hastily put together and sounded like it.
Most people regard Wish You Were Here as their finest album, but by the time of its release any popular base of support they had was eroded. It contained some excellent Pete Ham compositions like Know One Knows, Dennis and Just A Chance, as well as strong numbers like Some Other Time and In The Meantime. Some of the arrangements were complex and Chris Thomas, who Warner had assigned to produce the album, had done a far better job than on the previous effort. Despite the release of no 45 to help promote it, it sold well in the US, climbing to No. 60 when Warner Brothers withdrew it from sale. An investigation was launched to establish why advance monies had gone missing, the band were cleared of any culpability, but the progress of the album, which was only released briefly here where it is their rarest album, was halted as a result and thoroughly frustrated Joey Molland left the group at the end of 1974. The remaining members recorded an album entitled Head First during the early months of 1975, but it was shelved in April of that year when Pete Ham committed suicide. Pete was really the band's major talent and after his death the band split up.
Joey Molland, who in the interim had had spells with Blue Goose and Natural Gas, reformed the band with a new line-up in 1978 and they re-recorded Come And Get It for the Hits Reunion (Era BU 5904) compilation. They used the funds from this to record demos for Elektra. This led to a recording contract and a further album and 45 in 1979. Incidentally, the new recording of Come And Get It was later included on The Legendary Sixties (Arcade ADEH 453) compilation. However, the band later fell apart after a problematic American tour in 1983 and in November of that year Tom Evans, who returned to England to find himself in severe financial difficulties, committed suicide too. The remaining members have occasionally embarked on Sixties revival tours but in reality Badfinger was now dead too - the band had never really fulfilled its early promise.
The recent CD reissue of Straight Up includes five tracks from the original version of the album which was rejected by Apple (Money, Flying, Suitcase, Name Of The Game and Perfection) along with an US 45 version of Baby Blue. These six tracks appear on a separate 12" single which accompanies the vinyl reissue.
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 Style: neo psych
Country: us
Audio: mp3 (192k)
Size: 148mb
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Style: prog
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
tme: 38'35" Size: 275mb
Issue: Akarma
Tapestry of Delights:
This privately-pressed early seventies collectable now changes hands for substantive sums. The band were Scottish and the album consists of five extended tracks of superb heavy organs and guitar work. Originally issued in a plain white sleeve, unsold copies were according to 'Record Collector' acquired by a German dealer a few years back who designed a new sleeve to enhance the album's appeal. Recommended.
01 - Three Days After Death pt.1 9:29
02 - Three Days After Death pt.2 7:11
03 - Aunty Mary`s Trashcan 10:41
04 - AfterYour Lumber 5:15
05 - Plastic Man 6:00
Mick Riddel - gtr
Doug Rome - orgn
Bill Anderson - bss
Dick Sneddin - drms
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 Style: jazz
Country: us
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, booklet scans)
Size: 563 mb
cd1:
01 - Spinning Wheel 6:02
02 - I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know 8:54
03 - Lucretia MacEvil 7:08
04 - And When I Die 2:10
05 - One Room Country Shack 6:57
06 - And When I Die (Reprise) 3:07
07 - (I Can Recall) Spain
total: 43'14"
cd2:
01 - Hi-De-Ho 'That Old Sweet Roll' 6:33
02 - Unit Seven 11:07
03 - Life 5:15
04 - Mean Ole World 9:39
05 - Ride Captain Ride 6:59
06 - You've Made Me So Very Happy
total: 45'38"
David Clayton-Thomas – Lead vocals
Bobby Colomby - Drum, Background vocals
Dave Bargeron - Trombone, Tuba, Percussion, Background vocals
Larry Willis – Keyboards, Background vocals
Bill Tillman – Saxophone, Flute, Background vocals
Anthony Klatka - Trumpet, Background vocals
Joe Giorgianni – Trumpet, Background vocals
Steve Kahn - Guitar, Background vocals at Schaeffer Music Festival; City Hall Plaza
George Wadenius – Guitar, Background vocals at the National Arts Centre
Mike Stern - Guitar, Background vocals at Monterey Jazz Festival
Ron McClure – Bass
Don Alias - Percussion, Background vocals
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 Style: rock, new wave
Country: uk
Audio: mp3 (192k)
Size: 53mb
review from Head Heritage:
This record drives me nervous.
An album at once manic, synthetic, herky-jerky Pure-Pop-For-Then-People "Sound-On-Sound” is also one of the most fastidiously obsessed of its kind. A total twelve tracks were constructed in themes that were the sole province of what Mick Farren once derided as ‘the Adolf Hitler Memorial Space Patrol.’ Namely, those Bowie casualties of the late seventies/early eighties that cropped up during the new wave/electro-pop cusp and specifically: those of the John Foxx/Gary Numan ilk whose faux-Teutonic electronics were more carnie parody than Connie Plank as they preened all noir-statuesque behind lines of synthesizer string cheese trying its best to be Kraftwerk, but only as perceived by Bowie on "Heroes” and "Low” when the whole time the whole lame ballyhoo was nothing less than a continual re-take/re-plunder on either Roxy Music and/or Peter Hammill role models, anyway. (File under: "Are ‘friends’ eclectic?”)
Predictably, the product of these preening poseur purveyors who peddled then-popular paranoid/robotic/futurist/alienation/romance fad themes for a mercifully short period just prior to the style revolution of Blitz (whose jumped-up denizens dutifully recycled and codified said themes long enough to relay them onto proponents of Gothic rock) were flatly derivative, openly bored and always cribbed strictly from the same sources (Bowie/Roxy/Kraftwerk) as though the only answer to punk’s 1978 dissolution of substance into style was to hail the latter as some new, skyclad emperor instead of making at least a real attempt to concoct something new out of the lessons of the old.
Bill Nelson’s Red Noise’s sole album "Sound-On-Sound” was an unlikely candidate. But it did kick all of the wannabes’ respective asses back to their redundant Berlin UFA film sets and beat them at their own game but the only problem was -- nobody knew it, or admitted it, at the time. Nelson’s songwriting was in full bloom, openly accepting and incorporating new approaches to upbeat and riff-laden pop as they made contact with a compressed studio sheen build up from a multitude of brief though aggressive electric guitar tracks, layers of bizarre synthetic treatments and a small but determined band that corralled it all into a continuous and seamless vision of a planet with an eccentric but unswerving orbit that toiled intensely, insanely and (somehow) cheerfully for all the depictions of the blindingly harsh neon realities of the modern world: a place where danger and the unknown lurked behind every encounter, modern convenience and household appliance.
Red Noise developed from the premises Nelson first began to establish the previous year on Be-Bop Deluxe’s final album, "Drastic Plastic.” From the strange paranoia of "Superenigmatix (Lethal Appliances For The Home With Everything)” to the revved up "Love In Flames” and the claustrophobic "Possession,” Nelson boiled it down into a pressure cooker of quirk co-joined with the distinctly Class of ‘78 nouveau jerkiness of Devo, XTC and Wire. Only difference is that here alongside guitar lines which buzzsawed through thickly layered songs were nerve-wracking lyrics which Nelson’s electro-treated vocals delivered with unperturbed elegance. Brisk is the pace as track after track chase themselves across Nelson’s impeccably fractured and unflappable songwriting, his exacting guitar parts thrown through Mesa-Boogie amplification and into the already dense arrangements against deftly applied and economically dispensed synthesizer overlays. Following Nelson from Be-Bop Deluxe in Red Noise was keyboardist Andy Clark and saxophonist Ian Nelson while Rick Ford (bass) and Dave Mattacks (drums) back with great flair. As in Be-Bop Deluxe, Nelson handles the vocals, guitar along with additional synthesizer, bass and even drums for most of the album: thumping away as though to drive all his creations with a willfully punk edge.
The album begins with quick and irritating synth clusters sounding and trading off with Nelson’s staccato and nightmare-stiff guitar bursts in the straightjacketed spazzerino of "Don’t Touch Me (I’m Electric).” I’m already slugging a quart of espresso just to calm down. "For Young Moderns” proposes a "Zero Hero Euro Lifestyle” for all, with Andy Clark’s fantastically frantic piano discordances tear apart the coda. Besides being an accurate description of the album’s rhythms, "Stop/Go/Stop” describes a paranoid mind control nightmare offset with nearly comical electronic effects and vocoder in precise, abundant detailing and high-pitched electronic "nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” -- along with Nelson’s own thumping drumming and Rick Ford’s bass that cuts out to restart on cue every time (and that’s pretty often in this song.) "Furniture Music” was the first Red Noise 45 and conveys the paralysis of alienation far clearer than Gary Numan’s "Cars” ever could and besides: the guitar’s far more classy and abrasive. "Radar In My Heart" is the younger cousin of Be-Bop Deluxe’s "Love In Flames” with prominent Vox Continental organ and pummeling drums from Nelson. A quick breath and they’re already hurtling into further Vox Continental-domination with "Stay Young” to finish off side one before I even noticed.
Side two opens with the dazed, mechanical stomp "Out Of Touch” as hit-on-the-head-with-cartoon-anvil-tweety-bird electronics burble around angular guitar bursts and descending runs over looming paranoid lyrics like "Faces in the street/Eyes like mirrors/Eating holes in the back of my head” that are nonetheless delivered jaunty as hell. Compounding the broad daylightmare is the highlight of side two, "A Better Home In The Phantom Zone” where Dave Mattacks taking over on drums for most of the remaining tracks as he drives down in a manner most un-unhalfbrickingly against Nelson’s spiky, aggro guitar lines. Synth lines are released and discharge in the background as accusations fly fast and furious ("I caught you in the kitchen/You were curing something itching/Or so you said”) along with the damning indictment of: "Your relatives are white/And all your children have record players/They listen to Tom Robinson/The Beatles and The Byrds/and Lee-oh Say-UH...!” Nelson’s vocals are barking out harsher and harsher while his downstroking guitar is busting at the seams of the arrangement until a synth signal discharges all the pressure, as though a button marked ‘MANIA’ has been switched off along with the song. The relatively relaxed "Substitute Flesh” scenarios switch from candy-assed glee to strident lust. But with lines like "Sperm armies swarm and conquer” and Nelson yip-yip-yipping his head off, I’m losing it. Help. This record’s a panic.
From here on in it’s one gigantic rush. "The Atom Age” sees Nelson blare out punk guitar rhythms and mash out those overdubbed tom-toms right into the floor. A sax blares red alert as it all jerks uneasily on the barbed wire tightrope of modern life against leaking pressure valve synthesizer lines. It’s all got Nelson in a full-nelson, so he throws down a prime Cocteau quote ("I am the lie that tells the truth”) then lets loose with a camped up "La la la, la, la, la, la, la -- LA, LA!” "Art/Empire/Industry” is where everything starts running at once in breakneck paces with vocoderised vocals, quick drum breaks, razor-sharp guitars, jaunty sax, overall neuroses...you name it. This has the velocity of black and white cartoon music played at twice the speed as though to underline the absolute mania that is the heart of this album and it rounds corners tighter than deadman’s curve and the hillsides of Monaco combined only to end abruptly post-punk as fuck like Wire’s "Options R.” "Revolt Into Style” triumphantly closes the record as though the future Bill Nelson always reached for in Be-Bop Deluxe had finally been grasped and was now reaching for him. Psycho synthesizers bubble and squeak in the middle chorus while Nelson manages to easily fit small though manic guitar runs at every turn until several slo-mo guitar windmilling bring to a quick conclusion this fiercely passionately and tense as hell hyper-panic classic.
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 Style: psych, folk
Country: uk
Audio: musepack (mqvbr)
Size: 89mb
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 Style: progCountry: italyAudio: lossless (ape 699k) Size: 226mb Issue: 1991 Analog ItalianProg site: A band from Genova, Gleemen were formed around 1965 by Pier Nicolò "Bambi" Fossati, guitarist extraordinaire and Hendrix lover, and also included long time members Cassinelli and Traverso along with guitarist Marco Zoccheddu (later with Nuova Idea). Their only album, issued in 1970, is a good rock album, with strong 60's influences and some typical elements of later Garybaldi work: the wild, Hendrix-inspired guitar playing of Bambi, the organ background and a solid rhythm section. Some bluesy tracks are present, like the longest track on the LP Chi sei tu uomo, and the album has a very good average level, though by no means a progressive work. The same line-up changed name to Garybaldi in 1971, the only difference being a slighly more progressive oriented sound, keeping the same style as previous band, and the wild Hendrix-inspired guitar playing of Bambi Fossati above all. They had a very interesting debut with the single Martha Helmuth in 1971, the back cover of it stating "from now on we're not Gleemen, we're Garybaldi" to declare their change of style. Nuda, a year later, is a much more mature album than Gleemen, with the long beautiful suite Moretto da Brescia taking the whole of side two and the four tracks on side one also on a very good level. A very important album, housed in one of the best covers of the era, designed by cartoonist Guido Crepax. The band had an intense live playing, supporting the likes of Uriah Heep, Van der Graaf and even Santana in their italian tours, and theirs was a constant presence at the most important italian pop festivals in the early 70's. Second album, Astrolabio, released on Fonit label, is a lesser work than Nuda, with just two side-long tracks, Sette? (recorded live) and Madre di cose perdute, both tracks also issued on a single in shortened form. The tracks contain long improvised parts that confirms the high level of Fossati's playing but seem less inspired and can't be compared with the first album. Keyboard player Lio Marchi is also present on the album though not a member of the band, that kept playing as a trio until the end of 1973. In 1974 a new incarnation of Garybaldi was formed by Bambi Fossati along with old cohort Maurizio Cassinelli, bassist Roberto Ricci and indian percussionist Ramasandiran Somusundaram as Bambibanda & Melodie. Their only album has the usual leading role for Bambi's guitar, but the use of percussion gives a more latin-inspired feel that sometimes reminds Santana. Percussionist Ramasandiran Somusundaram, previously active as session musician, also released an album and no less than three singles (in a more commercial vein) between 1974 and 1976 on the Magma label. Bambi Fossati kept playing under the name of Bambibanda for some years before reforming the old group in late 80's with a new line up including Marco Mazza (guitar) and Carlo Milan (bass) along with Maurizio Cassinelli, and they released an album, more song-oriented, in 1990, as Bambi Fossati & Garybaldi. A new album has been released in 2000, called La ragione e il torto.
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Style: space rock
Country: uk
Audi: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
time: 1:09'11 Size: 415mb
01. Translation 4:17
02. Equals 1:52
03. An Appointment With The Master 5:15
04. The Settlement Song 11:27
05. Long Time Living 2:18
06. Strangerstill 6:51
07. Come All Ye Faceless 9:07
08. The Slightest Distance 6:09
09. Donna 4:16
10. A Thousand Pages Before 6:35
11. Through The Eyes Of A Child (Bonus Track) 4:01
12. An (other) Appointment With The Master (Bonus Track) 3:42
13. Strange People (Bonus Track) 3:20
- Colin Swinburne / guitar, organ, piano, vocals
- Peter Kimberley / bass, piano (2), vocals
- Brian Smith / drums
- Karel Beer / organ (7)
see also: Bachdenkel - 1977 - Stalingrad
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 Style: psych soulCountry: usAudio: mp3 (256k) Size: 74mb A locally beloved figure on the Chicago soul scene, Baby Huey never achieved quite the same renown outside of his hometown, despite an exciting live act and a record on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label. Born James Ramey in Richmond, IN, in 1944, Baby Huey was literally an enormous stage presence: a glandular problem kept his weight around 350-400 pounds and beyond. He began performing in Chicago clubs in 1963 with his backing band the Babysitters and soon became a popular concert draw. As the '60s wore on, Baby Huey's sound moved from energetic R&B into a more psychedelic brand of soul, with a vocal style that drew comparisons to Otis Redding. He signed with Curtom and recorded a debut album, The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend, that featured several Curtis Mayfield songs (most notably the oft-sampled "Hard Times" and "Mighty Mighty Children"), plus a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." Sadly, Baby Huey didn't live to see it released; his weight and substance-abuse problems were exacting a steep toll on his body, and on October 28, 1970, he suffered a drug-related heart attack in a hotel room in Chicago. The album was released early the next year, and the Babysitters attempted to carry on for a while with a new lead singer, the still-teenaged Chaka Khan (she would, of course, go on to fame as the frontwoman of funk band Rufus shortly thereafter). In the years since, Baby Huey's lone LP has become a sought-after collectible among soul fanatics "James Ramey" aka "Baby Huey", was the singer of the band "Baby Huey & The Babysitters",who released several 45 rpm singles during the 60's. In 1969, curtis mayfield signed "Baby Huey" without his "The Babysitters" on the Curtis's label and produced this record with the help of donny hathaway like arranger. Baby Huey died of a heart attack on October 28, 1970 and the record released after his death in 1970. You could appreciate his great rocky voice on different songs like "Hard Times". Baby Huey recorded amazing versions of Curtis's songs like "Mighty Mighty", "Hard Times", ..., sam cooke's "A Change Is Going to Come" and "the Mamas and Papas"'s "California Dreamin".
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Style: psych
Country: us
Audio: loss (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 218mb
from Lama :
Classy eastcoast psych with the typical neurotic NYC sound a la the 2nd Blues Magoos and Lothar & The Hand People. Many love this and it's certainly one of the best trips for under $100 a hit.
01. Auto Salvage 5:52
02. Burglar Song 2:28
03. Rampant Generalities 3:13
04. Medley: a) Our Life As We Lived 3:15
05. Medley: b) Good Morning Blues 3:18
06. Ancestral Wants 3:48
07. A Hundred Days 2:14
08. Land Of Their Dreams 3:07
09. Parahighway 2:31
10. Medley: a) The Great Brain Robbery 2:33
11. Medley: b) Glimpses Of The Next World's World 2:46
Thomas Donaher - l vcl, r gtr
Darius La Noue Davenport - vcl, pno, oboe, krumhorn, reed instruments, guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion
Rick Turner - l gtr, banjo, dulcimer
Skip Boone - bss, gtr, pno
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 Style: progCountry: franceAudio: lossless (ape 770k) Size: 224mb Christian Decamps (vocals, keyboards) Claude Demet (guitar) Francis Decamps (keyboards, vocals) Gerald Renard (bass) Jean Pierre Guichard (drums) Tracklisting: 01 - A Colin-Maillard 8:06 02 - Dans Les Poches Du Berger 5:41 03 - Un Trou Dans La Case 5:30 04 - Virgule 1:59 05 - Reveille-Toi 5:26 06 - Capitaine Coeur De Miel 14:00
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 Style: kraut, ambient/electronic
Country: germany
Audio: mp3 |(256k)
Size: 82mb
HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS
DIETER MOEBIUS
MICHAEL ROTHER
Gibraltar:
Rather boring ambient/electronic band which was basically a cross between Neu! and Cluster. Although I like most progressive genres, the minimalist attitute of bands like this don't attract me whatsoever.
Excellent krautrock from a kraut-supergroup. Cluster and Rother (from Neu!) joined forces to make two classic, influential, and highly enjoyable albums. The music is generally performed with experimental electronics, analogue synths, early drum machines, and Rother's guitar; I largely associate it with Eno (indeed, Cluster and Eno collaborated several times) in that it's quite experimental and yet also highly melodic and well-crafted.
The first album is instrumental, and the songs consist of layers of melodic electronic/synth sequences played over gentle electronic rhythms, with extra rhythm and depth provided by Rother's guitar; the album also contains the track, "Cosmische: - a very blissful piece of spacey loveliness.
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Style: prog
Country: france
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
Size: 218mb
from Progweed :
The third album from Ange is, in my eyes, their definitive hour. Simply put, Au Dela du Delire completely kicks my ass every time I listen to it. The album picks up on the basic feel of Le Cimitiere des Arlequins and ups the anty all around. Au Dela du Delire sees a leap forward on the compositional end, as the band displays less of a willingness to go out on any kind of tangent, or leave any idea underdeveloped. Without a doubt, everything here is more focused and complex, while the main themes and melodies are even more memorable. Mellotron and violin are major points of emphasis as well, with Francis DeCamps lending an orchestral flair that is more infused with the compositions, rather than providing background swells as he did on the previous effort. The production, as on Cimetiere... is rather muddy, but is only a minor drawback, perhaps even adding to the rough-around-the-edges mystique of the album.
This album is chock full of moments of unbelievable, breathtaking intensity. "Longues Nuits d'Isaac" is an utter barn burner, beginning with a earth shattering electric guitar riff from Jean Michel Brezovar and proceeding beneath Christian DeCamps primal roar. "Ballade Pour Une Orgie" is a pleasant, melodic piece with great dueling acoustic guitar melodies. In an album full of highlights, perhaps the finest moment comes at the solo break of "Exode", where Brezovar unleashes a savage guitar lead that gradually builds over the throbbing rhythmic backdrop, as it hits its peak, the mellotrons come soaring in with majestic orchestral swells, as Brezovar's guitar screams beneath. A climax of pure progressive splendor. "Fils de Lumeire" is another extraordinary piece, short but to the point, with an infectious main theme, making its mark with Christian DeCamps' dramatic vocal delivery. And who can forget about the enormous title track? The album closes out with a nine minute piece of pure mellotron worship, gorgeously intense.
Au Dela du Delire is a progressive rock classic. Comparisons to Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator are pretty much moot. Ange are undoubtedly the most influential French symphonic group, and like Genesis, King Crimson or Yes, have gone down as innovators of a particular style by which the pretenders are measured. Other bands sound like Ange, but Ange are an entity unto themselves. Au Dela du Delire is their opus, don't miss it. - Greg Northrup [September 2001]
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 Style: rockabillyCountry: usAudio: mp3 (192k) Size: 52mb Female singers at the forefront of the rockabilly movement can be counted on one hand - Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin are probably the two most famous - but add to that list one red-hot (tressed) lady from Dallas who fronts one of the most-talked-about combos of that genre: Kim Lenz and her Jaguars. Daughter of a rodeo queen, Kim Lenz became interested in rockabilly at an early age, influenced by the aforementioned Jackson and Martin - as well as Barbara Pittman - on the female side, and such honky-tonk standard-bearers as Johnny Carroll, Charlie Feathers, Johnny Horton, and Faron Young. Lenz grew up in Southern California, relocating to Dallas in 1994, and forming the band in 1996. Since then, Kim Lenz and her Jaguars have taken off, becoming a buzz band not only in their native Texas, but all over the world-wide rockabilly circuit. Fans and critics alike rave about the band's live shows, sparked by Kim's energetic stage presence, powerful vocals, and drivin' rhythm guitar. Lenz is backed by one of the most solid bands on the road today. Lead guitarist Tom Umberger generates a pure vintage sound through his rig. Shawn Supra slaps his bass fiddle for all it's worth, and Scotty Tecce takes no prisoners on drums. A four-track E.P., released in 1996, further fueled the excitement and in 1997, Kim Lenz was voted Best Female Vocalist by the Dallas Observer. All of this has led up to the release of the band's self-titled debut album on HighTone Records' HMG label. To create a more authentic sound, the band enlisted the help of producer Wally Hersom, best-known as the bassist in Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, who recorded the album totally live in the studio without any overdubs. Kim's songs also separate this band from the rest of the pack. Their timeless lyrics are steeped in the style and structure of classic rockabilly. Lenz wrote nine of the album's 14 cuts, including "Saturday Jump," a tribute to The Comets (Bill Haley's former band), with whom they shared the bill at last year's Denver Rock n' Rhythm-Billy Weekender. The best of the cover tunes include "The Swing," originally written and performed by 1950's Dallas rockabilly pioneer Johnny Carroll, "Ten Cats Down," originally performed by The Miller Sisters, and "You Made A Hit," which first came out as a single on Sun Records by Ray Smith.
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 Style: neo progCountry: GermanyAudio: mp3 (mqvbr) Size: 74mb Gibraltar: As opposed to East, here's what I consider a quality symphonic band. They aren't on the level of Yes or ELP but if you're looking for bands that fit into that sort of style, Amenophis may please you. The musicianship is tight, proficient and likeable. I'm a bit tired of the symphonic bands that keep popping up, but these guys are quite good. Worth a try.
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 Style: blues, rock
Country: us
Audio: mp3 (256k)
Size: 76mb
In 1969, producer/multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Al Kooper added "talent scout" to his already lengthy resumй on the follow-up to the highly successful Super Session disc, which had been issued the previous year. One major difference between the two, however, is the relatively unknown cast featured on Al Kooper Introduces Shuggie Otis. Both albums again converge with the presentation of top-shelf musicianship and inspired performances. At only 15 years of age, Otis (guitar) is equally potent a performer as the seasoned Kooper (keyboards/guitars). The duo is able to manifest an aggregate of material whose success leans as much on Kooper's experience as it does on Otis' sheer inspired youthful energy. The LP is divided between a side of shorter works (aka "songs") and a few extended instrumentals (aka "blues"). Kooper and Otis steer their house band which includes Stu Woods (bass), Wells Kelly (drums), and Mark Klingman (piano). The tight arrangements aptly reveal Kooper's uncanny ability as a musical conduit. "Bury My Body" -- a variation on "In My Time of Dyin'" -- has been reworked into a gospel rave-up and features Kooper on one of the album's only vocals. Conversely, "Double or Nothing" is a spot-on re-creation of a Booker T. & the MG's track, which not only retains every Memphis-inspired intonation, but also shows off Otis' ability to cop Steve Cropper's guitar solo note for note. The blues instrumental jams are documented live and presented on this album the way that they originally went down at the recording sessions. The descriptively titled "Shuggie's Old Time Slide Boogie" is endowed with a nostalgic piano/bottleneck slide duet and even features the added production value of manufactured surface noise. Both "12:15 Slow Goonbash Blues" and "Shuggie's Shuffle" are certainly no less traditional, allowing both Otis and Kooper the chance to stretch out and interact in real time. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide
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Style: prog
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (ape 763k)
Size: 175mb
Issue: 2003
Gibraltar:
Fronted by vocalist Linda Hoyle, supported by guitarist Mike Jupp, bassist Mo Foster, organist Lynton Naiff and drummer Grant Serpell, Affinity were one of several UK prog/jazz-rock groups signed up by the influential Vertigo Records. But altough the band's seven track debut was well received by the critics it didn't dissuade the group from splitting up soon after its release in 1970. Linda Hoyle continued to record for Vertigo, releasing the LP "Pieces of Me" in 1971, on which she was backed by Chris Spedding and Soft Machine members John Marshall and Karl Jenkins. The LP was a much more varied one than Affinity's, ranging from ballads to hard rock, and it was commercial success. Drummer Grant Serpell went on join Sailor, organist Lynton Naiff gigged with Toe Fat, the band led by ex Rebel Rouser Cliff Bennett. -- Andras Sumegi
Affinity were a jazz-rock band whose sole album is nice but not particularly strong or memorable (my impression at least). The arrangements are dominated by organ and vocalist Linda Hoyle's undeniably strong voice. The highlight is an 11-minute version of "All Along the Watchtower” with plenty of solos. The album is available on Repertoire Records CD, which also includes two single tracks, thus containing the band’s whole recorded output in one package. -- Kai Karmanheimo
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 Style: prog
Country: italy
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 402mb
Issue: Mellow Records 1999
Gibraltar:
Italian Progressive Rock. They have a lot of that "Italian Prog" sound like Le Orme or PFM, but lean more heavily on Metal-style electric guitar than most. You could call them "Progressive Metal", but with emphasis on "Progressive". This is NOT just another Metal band who calls themselves Prog, these guys are very Prog. The music has lots of complex rhythms and fast flurries of notes, sometimes doubled on Guitar and Organ. Not that Keith Emerson distorted Hammond organ sound, but the mellower organ sounds used by a lot of Italian bands. The vocals are in Italian, which I've always liked. The singers become just another instrument, and I don't need to strain to understand the lyrics. -- Fred Trafton
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 Style: sympho prog
Country: germany
Audio: mp3 (320k)
Size: 148mb
Gibraltar:
This band took their name from a Frank Zappa song. An excellent symphonic rock outfit which originally released their obscure LP on the Jupiter label, but it has recently been reissued on CD by Garden Of Delights. Zomby Woof were part of the second wave of German progressive rock along with bands like Epidaurus, Second Movement, Madison Dyke, Minotaurus, Epidermis, Streetmark, etc. And their style is very much related to all these groups. They also sound similar to later period German band Anyone's Daughter. Zomby's main distinction is having 2 vocalists (and the english vocals are pretty decent too) and having the advantage of a good recording studio. Three band members played keyboards, so naturally the album has sumptuous keyboard passages of Grand Piano, Hammond Organ, Moog synthesizer, clavinet and some Mellotron. The bass player has a "busy" and up front technique that is standard for this genre and the album features lots of extended instrumentals which can get fairly bombastic in places and dreamy in others.
This band proposes nothing new, but are a stellar example of Germany's contribution to this style. They are as good as any of their better known countrymen. Lovers of symphonic krautrock, especially of the above mentioned groups or even Grobschnitt and Pell Mell, will probably eat this up. It's one of the better albums from the late 70's German prog scene, and a rediscovered classic.
The CD booklet reveals that an (unreleased) second album was recorded in 1979 with David Hanselmann involved on vocals. Who knows if this album (called No Hero) will ever see the light of day! Many people may not have heard of this band, and even krautrock bibles like "Crack In The Cosmic Egg" and "Cosmic Dreams At Play" are sketchy on details. But all fans of complex, keyboard rich symphonic rock should get a listen to the CD reissue. -- Tharsis
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Style: beat
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (flac 905k)
Size: 364mb
The Zombies EP Collection, from the See for Miles label, contains the British Invasion bands biggest hits from 1964 through 1966 including "Tell Her No," "Time of the Season" and, in both mono and stereo, "She's Not There." While this collection does an effective job chronicling the hits, Big Beat's 2000 release The Singles Collection: A's & B's, 1964-1969 is superior as it goes further into their catalog and contains "Care of Cell 44," "Beechwood Park," "Friends of Mine" and "Maybe After He's Gone" taken from their 1968 masterpiece Odessey and Oracle.
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Style: psych
Country: us
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, covers)
time: 39'18" size" 224mb
wikipedia:
Third studio album by the Mothers of Invention. Released on March 4, 1968 on Verve Records, it was subsequently remixed and re-recorded by Frank Zappa and reissued independently by Rykodisc Records in 1986.
As with the band's previous two albums, We're Only in It for the Money is a concept album, and satirizes left and right-wing politics, particularly the hippie subculture, as well as the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.
We're Only in It for the Money encompasses rock, orchestral and experimental music, with its orchestral segments deriving from the recording sessions for Lumpy Gravy, which was previously issued as a solo instrumental album by Capitol Records and was subsequently reedited by Zappa and released by Verve; the reedited Lumpy Gravy was produced simultaneously with We're Only in It for the Money and is the first part of a conceptual continuity, continued with the reedited Lumpy Gravy and concluded with Zappa's final album, Civilization Phaze III (1994).
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Style: rock, new wave
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (wv, cue, log, scans)
time: 40:00 Size: 253 mb
Issue: MFSL Ultradisc II UDCD 579
Reviewing for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlmann wrote of the album "Utterly unencumbered by the baggage of his long years in the music business, Winwood reinvents himself as a completely contemporary artist on this outstanding album, leading off with his best solo song, "While You See a Chance."" Reviewing for The New York Times, critic Robert Palmer wrote of the album "Winwood's impressive playing and arranging and utterly distinctive vocals make several of his collaborations with Mr. Jennings, especially the brooding Night Train, almost as memorable."
01. "While You See A Chance" 5:13
02. "Arc Of A Diver" 5:29
03. "Second-Hand Woman" 3:41
04. "Slowdown Sundown" 5:27
05. "Spanish Dancer" 6:00
06. "Night Train" 7:50
07. "Dust" 6:19
Steve Winwood – acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, bass, drums, percussion, drum machines, keyboards, synthesizers, organ, lead & backing vocals
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 Style: prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, covers)
Size: 271mb
Issue: Penner 1995
The Crack in te Cosmic Egg:
An obscure international Munich band (relatively unknown until recently), Vita Nova were fronted by guitarist and multi-instrumental Polish born talent Eddy Marron and Hungarian keyboard player Sylvester Levay.
They played a complex fusion of classical rock and fusion styles, and aptly in keeping with their name all the lyrics were in Latin. Hints of Eddy Marron's later work in Dzyan can be felt, along with strong psychedelic touches, hints of Pink Floyd, Egg, Arzachel and the likes of many early Italian bands. Although so obscure, to us it was an instant classic that came out on CD just in time to propel it into our Krautrock Top 100!
After also moving in to jazz, and also becoming a member of Nowy, Sylvester Levay has since become a top soundtrack composer in Hollywood!
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 Style: hard
Country: uk
Audio: mp3 (256k)
Size: 94mb
oe: also "Byronish" voice
Tapestry of Delights:
After this solo effort Verity joined Argent in November 1974 and dissolved his own Bradford-based band.
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Style: fusion, prog
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (ape 816k)
Size: 262mb
COSMIC DREAMS AT PLAY:
Brain signed a considerable number of jazz and fusion influenced 'progressive' rock bands in the early seventies. Among these were Release Music Orchestra, Cornucopia, Kollektiv, Creative Rock, Emergency and Thirsty Moon, a large band from Bremen. Their debut album appeared in 1972, produced by Jochen Petersen (of lkarus and Randy Pie fame) at Studio Maschen. Five tracks ranging from the 21 minute suite "Yellow Sunshine" to the short songs "Love Me" and "Rooms Behind Your Mind". Their music was comparable to the groups listed earlier - an inventive and mostly instrumental jazz-rock fusion, where the solo improvisations were given free reign. Among Thirsty Moon's characteristics were massive use of percussion (congas) and electric piano in dynamic arrangements, ranging from soft, mellow atmospheres to psychedelic outbursts with reversed tapes and phasing effects. The album is so varied that it's hardly describable!
Hans-Werner Ranwig quit before You'll Never Come Back (1973), and was replaced by Siegfried Pisalla. This album was just as varied as their first. One side was completely instrumental. Blitz (1975) broke away from the early style with a more easy-going and up-beat instrumental rock. The group broke up after the disappointing Real Good Time (1976), presumably they too were dissatisfied with the album.
The first two Thirsty Moon albums are recommended, the next two are quite good.
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 Style: progCountry: japanAudio: mp3 (192k) Size: 65mb review from Progweed: Blecch... well for one thing there is NO excuse for looking the way these guys do on the back cover. A straight out of the early 80s look complete with makeup and huge hair and so forth. On the other hand, having spent time in Japan, I know that their "pop culture" is about 5 -10 years behind the U.S., so I guess I can understand. As for the music, this is simply acceptable neo-symphonic with very good musicianship all around, but fairly uninteresting compositions and songs. At first I thought things were going to be alot worse than they actually were, as the opening track begins with the funky slap bass (a style I hate) that pervades the album. When the female vocals come in, they really sound like the kind of Japanese elevator pop I was constantly exposed to while I lived over there. However, over the course of the album, more interesting compositional elements tend to come to the fore, and the keyboardist and guitarist are actually quite good. Unfortunately, the music is extremely vocal oriented, and though the singer does have a *technically* sound voice, I find the phonetics of Japanese vocals difficult to get used to, not to mention the already horrific associations I have with the aesthetic feel of the album. Overall this is pretty overdone and slickly overproduced symphonic that borders on pop and stereotypical neo-progressive, and though it has some good moments, I really can't recommend this at all. - Greg Northrup [February 2001]
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 Style: hardCountry: ukAudio: mp3 (256k) Size: 64mb Tapestry od Delights: These Glasgow-based progressive/heavy rockers were originally known as Mustard. Their first vocalist Andy Mulvey had previously been with The Poets. However, he was soon replaced by David Batchelor and around the same time Gilson Lavis (their original drummer, who later played with Squeeze) was replaced by Richard Monro from Ritchie Blackmore's Mandrake Root. This line-up recorded Piggy Go Getter, which made little impact. In 1970 Hugh McKenna took over Batchelor's vocal role and Ted McKenna (ex-Dream Police) relieved Monro on drums. They recorded a second album and tried to establish themselves on the underground scene but were going nowhere with their brand of tired boogie heavy rock, until they teamed up with Alex Harvey in August 1972 to become The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
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 Style: psych, surf
Country: australia
Audio: lossless (flac 902k)
Size: 291mb
From forcedexposure.com.au:
Although the Sydney-based Tamam Shud (the unusual name is probably a corruption of Taman Shud, borrowed from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) was formed in 1967 by singer/guitarist Lindsay Bjerre, the band only sprang to prominence when their superb debut album, Evolution, was issued by CBS (SBP 233761) in 1969. Having established themselves with Evolution, the band went on to record their opus major for Warner Bros in 1970 in the form of the ambitious Goolutionites And The Real People (WS 20001), a stunning and imaginative work dominated by the prodigious talents of 16-year old guitarist, Tim Gaze. Gaze's precocious guitar work was conspicuously present throughout the album, although it was on 'A Plague' and 'Stand In The Sunlight,' both of which were to appear as 45s, that his playing really shone. Although Gaze left the band immediately after the album's release to join Kahvas Jute, he returned later the same year, and remained in the group until it disbanded in 1972. Goolutionites is widely recognised as one of the finest Australian prog-psych offerings of all time.
From howlspace.com.au
Tamam Shud belong to a rich vein of Australian music which has been spawned and supported by the alternative surf culture along Sydney's coastal north, and also gave rise to Midnight Oil; more recently Grinspoon. The group Tamam Shud grew out of the instrumental surf music scene of the mid- Sixties and became one of Australia's first 'progressive' rock bands.
The early Sixties instrumental sounds inspired by the Ventures and then the Shadows found another, perfect form of expression when it applied itself to the new surf music craze. Sydney's Atlantics led the field in Australia. In 1964 Newcastle instrumental group The Four Strangers distinguished itself in the field with a single, 'The Rip'. Once the Beatles and the Rolling Stones arrived those instrumental groups invariably became the new groups of the era, already equipped to play their music themselves. All they needed was a singer. The Four Strangers found Lindsay Bjerre, and moved into the Rolling Stones/r&b style. Now just called the Strangers, in late 1965 they became the Sunsets, a pop group playing alongside the heroes of the day, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, and Ray Brown and the Whispers.
In late 1967 the group's line-up and musical philosophy changed again. The new adventure in music was 'progressive' rock. This was the post Sgt.Pepper time of Cream, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix. In Australia it found its own expression in the renamed Sunsets, taking as much from their local surroundings as they did from their global influences. Initially Tamam Shud (meaning 'the very end') took to the free-form aspects of progressive rock, stretching loosely structured songs into long rhythmic and melodic workouts. Film maker Paul Witzig saw the band and its music as a perfect complement to the surf movie he was creating. He set the band up in front of a screen and Tamam Shud spent two and a half hours playing and recording as they watched the surf footage. The result was the band's first album, which carried the same name as the movie, 'Evolution'. Witzig paid for the session and took four songs for the soundtrack of his film.
Tamam Shud were now at the spearhead of Australia's progressive rock movement, quickly followed by Tully and Spectrum. The second album was a more traditional and structured affair (comprising actual songs) but just as ambitious in a totally different way. Called 'Goolutionites And The Real People' the album was a concept suite, centred on the polluters of the world, the Goolutionites. The album featured the band's new 16-year old guitarist Lindsay Gaze, who left again just before 'Goolotionites' was released. Within four months he was back, having recorded an album as part of Kahvas Jute.
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 Style: beat
Country: sweden
Audio: mp3 (160k)
Size: 90mb
from home site:
In the early 60s, skiffle was not only a big craze in England, it hit Sweden pretty hard too. In a small town outside of Gothenburg, a 16-year old lad named Tommy Blom had just received a guitar from his parents. One day he met an old school chum, Anders Töpel, who also had a guitar, and who in turn knew a third guitar player, Danne Larsson. These three young boys started playing together, and soon a fourth member was added, Göran Lagerberg. On purpose they chose the "geeky" name Tages (from Danne's middle name) to make fun of all guitar based pop bands with their slick attitude and suits.
Soon, however, the four youths decided to change their style, after having been introduced to the new "Mersey" sound. A drummer, Freddie Skantze, was added, and within a short time a reshuffle of the instruments followed. Lagerberg took up the bass, while Danne and Anders were to play rhythm and lead guitar respectively. This left Tommy as lead singer and tambourine player.
Their first gig was held on 23 December 1963. Their name was becoming locally known and in August 1964, a Swedish newspaper held a contest called "The Beatles of the West Coast". Many different groups applied, but finally Tages were the victors, earning the right to make a record for the new company Platina. This first recording session took place on 20 September 1964. While the studio was pretty basic, Tages did bring two good songs to the sessions, Sleep little girl and Tell me you’re mine, which were released as a single about a month later. One day, not knowing that the single was going to be tested for the Swedish Top Ten, the boys heard themselves on the radio, and just one week later, the single had reached no. 1, replacing none other than the Beatles.
A couple of months later, the next single followed: I should be glad b/w I cry. This was not only a commercial success, but the critics liked it too, and now Tages were accepted by the large crowd. On 31 March 1965, Tages got to open for the Rolling Stones on their performance in Gothenburg. New singles followed, and the first eponymous LP was released in November. At about the same time, Göran and Freddie were allowed to play together with Chuck Berry in Stockholm.
The first single after the LP was a change of direction. Their music had previously been rather similar to that of the Beatles and other beat groups, but just like the Beatles, Tages felt the need for change. So for the next single, So many girls, a new instrument was added, the recorder. A more soft sound was the result, and the single was a great success. Therefore, Tages and their management decided that it was time to break the English market. Very thorough preparations followed, new clothes, new equipment, etc. Unfortunately, what the management had forgotten was that work permits would be necessary for Tages to be allowed to play in Britain. The boys had to turn back to Sweden, beginning work on their second LP, simply to be called "2".
Another setback was the resignation of original drummer, Freddie Skantze. A replacement was soon found in Tommy Tausis, who had been playing with another important Swedish pop group, the Strangers, until their break-up. Tausis is also present on some tracks on the second LP, which was released in July 1966.
Musical experiments became increasingly important to the boys, who were very eclectic in their choice of music, playing many original songs, as well as some carefully chosen covers. The next LP, "Extra Extra", was released towards the end of 1966, and, like its predecessor, consisted of 6 original songs and 6 covers. Covers were taken from many different styles of music: soul, pop, and Motown. On "Extra Extra", there were a number of interesting original songs, showing the band’s willingness to experiment. One song, Extra, featured a theremin, just like Good vibrations by the Beach Boys. Other songs had controversial lyrics, like Secret room. This was also their last release at Platina, since they had signed a contract with the Swedish branch of Parlophone.
Tommy Tausis had never really settled in the group and after the release of the third LP, he resigned. The next drummer in Tages was Lasse Svensson, and the first release he was featured on was a revelation: the single Every raindrop means a lot. Finally, psychedelia had reached Sweden. Nonsensical lyrics were combined with a strange musical arrangement, and hey presto, a new change in direction had been made. Together with their producer, Anders Henriksson, Tages now began producing incredibly clever and interesting music, as can be heard on the two 1967 LPs, "Contrast" and "Studio". Contrast only has four covers (plus one especially written for them by producer Henriksson and Thorstein Bergman). Criticism of society, love songs, psychedelia, everything can be found on this LP.
The next single, She’s having a baby now, relating the story of an unwanted teen pregnancy, was maybe too critical for the public to accept it, and suddenly, the band lost many of its followers, in spite of the great music they made. A final attempt to break into England was made with the single Treat her like a lady, a cover of a Crewe/Knight song. The promo movie was made by Peter Goldmann, more famous for his work with the Beatles, but the song did not become a hit (allegedly because the wrong people were paid).
The England tour was not a total flop, however, since the band was allowed to record a few songs in the legendary studio, Abbey Road. Also, many celebrities, such as Cat Stevens and Roger Daltrey from the Who, really liked Tages music, and the Kinks’ Ray Davies said that Tages’ stage show was wonderful, and that the band really should have a future in Britain. But, unfortunately it was not to be.
Having returned to Sweden, Tages recorded their next and last LP, "Studio". Probably the finest LP ever made in Sweden, it is heavily influenced by Swedish folk music. Rock songs featured unusual instrument, such as accordions and flutes, while the softer songs had even stranger instruments. But never did the band lose touch with their rock background, and the LP stands today as testimony to the talent of this Swedish band, who was never to make it big.
Tages soldiered on for a year or so, releasing three more singles, before Tommy Blom decided to leave the band. The band changed its name to Blond, but it was to no avail, and soon the rest of the boys decided to call it quits. A sad ending to one of the (if not THE) greatest bands outside the UK and the US
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 Style: sympho prog
Country: finland
Audio: lossless (flac 798k)
Size: 234mb
Issue: Love Records LRCD 135 (1997)
Gibraltar:
Finnish prog, mostly on the mellow side, but very enjoyable melodic stuff. Symphonic, if you like; pathetique in a positive sense. Lyrics are in Finnish, but those who don't understand them aren't missing much... Jukka Gustavson from Wigwam guests on and co-produced the second album.
Ekkedien Tanssi was the second album by this Finnish five piece who created a type of mellow, melodic prog not unlike the music of Camel. Indeed, this album is comparable in both style and quality to Camel's Moonmadness or Rain Dances. The instrumentation here includes guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals; a pretty standard lineup and thats exactly how it is used. There is some nice multi-tracked acoustic guitar along with the more aggressive, bluesy electric guitar which serves as the main melodic instrument. The keyboards stay in the background for the most part, serving up organ and string-synth pads along with piano and elctric piano backing. The bass anchors the chord changes, the drummer keeps time, and the vocalist is there, singing in Finnish; nothing spectacular, yet nothing distracting either. So basically there is nothing terribly original, complex, virtuosic, or flashy to be found here, but nevertheless the music is quite good and strong enough so as not to be at all boring, save for one or two rather unengaging tunes. There are nine tracks, all pretty much in the 5-6 minute range, and the mood remains fairly mellow and laid back throughout. There is the occaisonal guitar solo, but for the most part the playing will remind one of Andy Latimer or maybe some Steve Hackett, utilizing melodic leads rather than blistering solos. Fans of mid-period Camel or other melodic prog groups would probably enjoy this very much, while those who seek highly intricate music (like me :-)) might want to take a listen to Tabula Rasa before putting down the money to get this.
I was a little worried when I found out that the only keyboard instrument on the first Tabula Rasa album was an acoustic piano (Actually, there's a taste of string-synth at the very end). Surprise! I actually like it. Nonetheless, don't plunge into this album expecting complex arrangements and wild solos, because you won't find it here. You will find, however, a pretty, melodic type of progressive with prominent piano, flute, and Andy Latimer-esque guitar. A number of the songs ("Gryf" in particular) are a touch rockier, but most are somewhat Nordic folk-orientated, overtaking you with beauty, in particular, the eight-minute "Vuorellaistuja." Vocals are all in Finnish, no great problem for me. I find them quite charming. The flute player left before Ekkedien Tanssi, the second album. Here they added a full-time keyboardist, but the style hadn't changed at all. Actually, not as good as its predecessor. Established fans will want it, though, for the song "Omantunnon Rukous." It may well be the most beautiful thing they ever recorded. The melody is unforgettable. -- Mike Ohman
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