For the 20th anniversary, Arjen Lucassen remixed the audio to 21st century standards. He made it clear that it's a 'remix', not a 'remaster', saying "Remastering takes 2 hours, this remix took me 2 months!".
Into the Electric Castle is an epic prog rock opera from Dutch guitarist Arjen Lucassen. The sci-fi story centers around eight strangers brought together into a dimension of no space and no time. The characters in the story are played by varying lead singers, including former Marillion frontman Fish. The supporting cast is a who's who of proggers, which translates into superb musicianship. The story is standard sci-fi fare, but winds up being quite effective with the accompanying score. The massive coordination of such a large project is admirable, but to pull it off with such impressive results is stunning…

Inspired by electronic classics like Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, Christopher von Deylen (Schiller) creates visionary sounds in a genre of its own kind, that are way ahead of their time.
On his Colors album, the visionary sound artist turns his attention to the piano for the first time and explores musical worlds that move easily between melodic piano miniatures and electronic sound panoramas.
The "Schiller-sound" blends past and present in an amazing way. Impressively emotional electronic music, enthusiastically celebrated by fans and the press around the world as "global pop". "Music that moves you really deep inside", is what Mike Oldfield said about Von Deylen's compositions.

The various bands led by harmonica player and singer George "Mojo" Buford hark back to the classic Chicago blues sounds of the early '60s. Among harmonica players, Buford has the distinction of being the only musician to have played with various bands led by the late Muddy Waters in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s. (Waters died in April 1981.) Buford left Mississippi for Memphis in his teens and honed his chops around Memphis before heading to Chicago in 1952. He began playing with Waters in Chicago in the late '50s, but by 1962 Buford relocated to Minneapolis, where he recorded several obscure albums for the Vernon and Folk-Art labels. He rejoined Waters' band in 1967 for a full year and then toured with him again in the early '70s, after harmonica player Jerry Portnoy left to form the Legendary Blues Band…

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the long overdue release of the re-mastered edition of the classic 1976 album 'Softs' by the celebrated Jazz and Rock group Soft Machine. The album was the band s second for EMI s Harvest label and featured a line-up of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Karl Jenkins (Oboe, Piano, Soprano Sax), John Marshall (Drums), Roy Babbington (Bass) and new member John Etheridge (Guitar), along with Saxophonist Alan Wakeman. An accessible collection featuring John Etheridge s considerable guitar playing talents and would also be the final album to feature founder member Mike Ratledge. Unavailable on CD for nearly 15 years, this reissue has been re-mastered from the original tapes and fully restores the original artwork.

For this studio set, Anita O'Day performs with the Lou Levy trio and guests Ernie Watts on reeds, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa and either Laurindo Almeida or Joe Diorio on guitar. She mostly sticks to fresher material, some of it of more recent vintage than usual. High points include "Lost in the Stars," "You're My Everything," "Them There Eyes," "Limehouse Blues" and several bossa nova pieces. This LP, although not essential, is worth picking up.

One of the first hits compilations assembled of Jimi Hendrix's catalog, Smash Hits remains one of the best, since it keeps its focus narrow and never tries to extend its reach. Basically, this album contains the songs everybody knows from Hendrix, drawing heavily from Are You Experienced?, plus adding the non-LP "Red House," "51st Anniversary," and "Highway Chile." Those non-LP selections may still make this worth seeking out, even if they've appeared on subsequent hits collections, but the main strength of Smash Hits is that it contains the best-known big-name songs in one place. Maybe not enough to make the collection essential, but still enough to make it a representative, accurate sampler.

Shadowlands contains just five tracks over 2 CDs, and as we've come to expect from Schulze, look for plenty of mind expanding explorations into space and loads of calming tranquility. The near 57 minute "The Rhodes Violin" offers up soothing, at times fluttering synth washes, brief spoken word vocals, and a myriad of ethnic Middle Eastern instruments. The epic title track opts for more menace, and will remind some of the early Tangerine Dream material, complete with ominous synth & Mellotron sounds plus those Middle Eastern influences. You'll even find some intriguing space rock mixed with programmed dance rhythms on the intriguing "In Between". With well over 2 hours of material on Shadowlands, there's a lot too digest, and unless you are a real fan of electronic/ambient/space rock…