In light of the 1990s post-rock scene and the often clear links back to Krautrock of all stripes, Ash Ra Tempel's monster debut album stands as being both astonishingly prescient and just flat out good, a logical extension of the space-jam-freakout ethos into rarified realms. Featuring the original trio of Hartmut Enke, Manuel Gottsching and Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel consists of only two side-long tracks, both of which are gripping examples of technical ability mixed with rock power. If more progressive music was like it, there wouldn't be as many continuing complaints about that genre as a whole. "Amboss" contains the more upfront explosions of sound, though it mixes in restraint as much as crunch. Starting with Manuel Gottsching's extended guitar notes and Klaus Schulze's cymbals, it begins with a slow, ominous build that is equally haunting, as mysterious as the cryptic artwork of temples and figures found on the inside…

Piet Blank and Jaspa Jones - the producers known worldwide. For two they have let out already many albums and tens magnificent singles, reliably having fixed in world history of dancing music. Their hits more than once appeared at tops of charts, and each new album stably got to number 50 of the best to Germany. The first release which has left in 2003 of an album "Relax: Edition One" to a descent has occupied 22 place in charts of Germany, and a chill-miss the version of track Pet Shop Boys "Love Comes Quickly" from this album became the present hit.

The story of Wishbone Ash is a long and winding one, covering some four and a bit decades. Currently there are two versions of The Ash treading the boards, what with the band's original bassist/singer Martin Turner also going out under the WA banner since 2004. Elegant Stealth however is album number 23 from the version of the band who can rightly trace their history back to 1970, being led by the band's only constant - guitarist and vocalist Andy Powell. Yes, that does make him the only long term member of this band, however guitarist Muddy Maninnen, bassist Bob Skeat and drummer Joseph Crabtree along with Powell have produced in Elegant Stealth, an album not only worthy of the Wishbone Ash heritage, but of their future as well.

There was a generation or two of trumpeters who picked up ideas from the meteoric musical trajectory of Miles Davis and developed them after Miles himself had moved on. Palle Mikkelborg and Enrico Rava are good examples, but the Swiss-born Frenchman Érik Truffaz is one of the most consistently creative. He just can’t help sounding beautiful and lyrical, whatever the setting. A good example here is his work on the slightly grungy sound of vocalist Anna Aaron’s song Blue Movie, which has a delightful, whimsical trumpet solo with Harmon mute that could have sprung out of any Davis recording from the 50s or 60s. As on many recent Truffaz discs, regular partners join the trumpeter: namely Marcello Giuliani on bass and drummer Marc Erbetta. They understand perfectly his desire to connect to the worlds of hip hop and dance music, and leave him free to weave his Miles-ean patterns with plenty of space…

Robert Wyatt has been quoted as declaring that this record was "a conscious attempt to make un-misusable music," i.e., music that couldn't be appropriated by the right or broadcast on Voice of America. VOA doesn't broadcast uncommercial music such as this in any case, but Wyatt did succeed in stating some of his political concerns - imperialism, the carnage in East Timor, the flaws of rigid political ideology – in an understated manner. He went back to writing his own material for this album, after having focused on eclectic "covers" in the early '80s, with fair success. It's perhaps an even moodier outing than usual for Wyatt, his melancholia amplified by the foggy, spooky keyboards.

Carey Bell is an effective and surprisingly versatile singer but it is his powerful harmonica that really stands out. One of the last of the major Chicago blues harpists, Bell (an alumnus of the Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon bands) had led his own groups for most of the previous 30 years when he came out with this disc. His longtime guitarist Steve Jacobs offers some concise and stinging comments but the leader is virtually the whole show on his CD, which finds him leading a tight six-piece group. Nothing too unusual occurs but the music definitely has plenty of spirit.

In 1961, Dave Brubeck put together a remarkable musical show. Using the talents of Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars, Carmen McRae, the innovative bop vocal group Lambert, Hendricks And Ross, and his own rhythm section, Brubeck and his wife, lyricist Iola, wrote a largely upbeat play full of anti-racism songs and tunes that celebrated human understanding. Although it had only one live performance (at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival), The Real Ambassadors was recorded for posterity and now, with its reissue on CD, the original 15 selections have been augmented by five more. It is important to listen to this music without prior expectations because Paul Desmond is nowhere to be found, Louis Armstrong does not play that much trumpet here, and Lambert, Hendricks And Ross essentially function as background singers. However Satch and Carmen McRae make for a very potent team, and there are many touching and surprising moments.

"Preludio, tema, variazioni, canzona", also known as "Milano Calibro 9", is Osanna's second studio album and was released in 1972 on the Fonit Cetra label. It marks the collaboration between the band and Argentine-Italian film composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov (who had previously worked with the New Trolls) and was conceived as the score for the film "Milano Calibro 9". Director Fernando Di Leo was very impressed by the album "Concerto Grosso per i New Trolls" and asked Luis Bacalov to compose the soundtrack for his film "Milano Calibro 9" in the same style. Osanna were chosen to perform the score interacting with an orchestra and, according to an interview with Lino Vairetti, they recorded the music while watching the film on a screen in a theatre and for them this was really a new exciting experience…

Like its predecessor in 1994's Recurring Dreams of the Urban Myth, Wireless draws from the urban environment in assembling dense, disorganized soundscapes of subtle beauty. Unfolding slowly over the course of an hour, Wireless, as its name suggests, utilizes radio waves in combination with treated electronics, with results closer in feel to electro-acoustic experimentalists such as Carl Stone and Morton Subotnick than the warm, often more active ambient the Fax label is known for.

Most of you probably already know that Freedom was formed with two former Procol Harum members, guitarist Ray Royer and drummer Bobby Harrison.
Freedom were a legendary British psychedelic hard-rock band. This is their fourth album, originally released for the collectable Vertigo label in 1971. Powerful hard-rock / bluesy sound with loud wah /distorted guitars, long tracks, wasted vocal. Recommended to fans of Clear Blue Sky, Budgie, Jodo.
Although the roots of "Through The Years" are in hard rock, it has many blues influences in most of the songs (especially at guitar solos). Furthermore, folk and pop music in not strange to Freedom, since apart from acoustic guitars, they use very "catchy" vocal harmonies in their songs…

A very humble beginning for this excellent progressive band. Only a couple years removed from high school, they were strictly a metal band at this point, and "Damnation" is the only song that has remained in their catalog from this session. Early recordings such as this one are the reason their name conjures up the image of a metal band. This re-release contains a 1984 demo version of "Last Call," a live rendition of "Kiss of Death," and rehearsal recordings of "The Calling" and Iron Maiden's "Flight of Icarus."

A collection of previously unreleased materials by the Kenny Drew Trio, originally recorded for Japanese labels Baystate and Alpha beween 1978 and 1992, now released to commemmorate the 20th anniversary of his passing. A rich trove of superb piano trio performances!
American pianist Kenny Drew (1928-1993) moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1964. Although he may have somewhat faded from the radar of American jazz fans, he had a fantastic career in Denmark and was beloved by European and Japanese jazz fans. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Drew's popularity in Japan grew to incredible heights when he began recording for Japanese labels such as Baystate and Alpha under a partnership with Japanese producer Makoto Kimata.
To commemmorate the 20th anniversary of Drew's passing, a very special series was launched in Japan in 2013…

Shadowfax. Nice name for a progressive rock band. Named after Gandalf's a horse in Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings. They are often classified as new age, but their first album really wasn't, it was rather quite like a more rocking version of Oregon and had a mixture of hard and soft songs. And really their latter albums weren't completely although they lost some of their harder edge and devoted themselves to more mellow fair. Their first album, "Watercourse Way", was recorded in 1975 and released in 1976 on the ABC/Passport label. This album may not have been well know among progressive music fans, but with its spectacular cover art and well crafted music, it was a treasured item in the collections of those that knew them at the time.

Piet Blank and Jaspa Jones - the producers known worldwide. For two they have let out already many albums and tens magnificent singles, reliably having fixed in world history of dancing music. Their hits more than once appeared at tops of charts, and each new album stably got to number 50 of the best to Germany. The first release which has left in 2003 of an album "Relax: Edition One" to a descent has occupied 22 place in charts of Germany, and a chill-miss the version of track Pet Shop Boys "Love Comes Quickly" from this album became the present hit.

The second reunion album (and the sixth and final overall by the original lineup) sees WA return to conventional songs after 1987’s Nouveau Calls’ all instrumentals approach. It does not see them return to their classic style - like Nouveau Calls, HTH is a modern album, full of 80s adult contemporary sounds. However, it is much better than Nouveau Calls, like an update on Front Page News with its focus on light pop rock. HTH sports some great toe tappers such as Keeper Of The Light, with its Andy Powell guitar riff, shimmering production and hook-filled Martin Turner vocal. Witness To Wonder may be the softest of soft rock but gets away with it thanks to drummer Steve Upton’s atmospheric percussion and a gorgeous blend of chiming guitars and relaxing synths. There is an instrumental here in In The Case and it does sound like it could’ve been on Nouveau Calls but good work from Martin and Powell make it more charismatic…