As far as krautrock super-groups go, it's hard to beat Harmonia's composition, a trio formed by members of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster. With two albums released between 1973 and 1976, though, their legacy has been somewhat sparse. This live recording, from a show in Griessem in March of 1974, is thus a rather special thing. The sound quality is actually rather stunning, with a perfect balance between the band’s chugging electronic percussion, hypnotic guitar, and droning keyboards. The photo on the back cover illustrates perfectly what to expect, with Michael Rother, guitar in hand, standing between Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius.
Starting from the motorik pulse of "Schaumburg," it's all good trance-inducing stuff, as the trio takes its time proving that it's all about the journey…

After a scission of the avant-garde group "Kluster" due to the departure of Conrad Schnitzler, the two musicians Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius go to work in duet as "Cluster". The band's first years were clearly orientated to Krautrock and to experimental electronic music. Consequently, the production of the band started with massive, radical improvisations, constructed around electric organ works, electronic collages, guitar sound manipulations, feed back. The result is rather similar to Kluster's underground, conceptual music, very chaotic with lot of distortion and reverb. With its repetitive, hypnotic guitar patterns and embryonic electronic collages, the second album "II" can be seen as a classic in 70's German electronic underground. This high quality experimental electronic music will progressively lead the band to something far from the krautrock scene and extreme music…

National Health (1978) [Reissue 2009]. Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a new re-mastered edition of the classic 1978 debut album by National Health. Evolving from Canterbury stylists Hatfield & the North, National Health featured the talents of Dave Stewart on keyboards, Pip Pyle on drums and Phil Miller on guitar along with guests such as Jimmy Hastings. At various times the group also included such luminaries as Bill Bruford, Mont Campbell and Alan Gowen. Released by Affinity Records in February 1978, the album is a classic of the ‘Canterbury’ style and is sure to be a much sought after release by all aficionados of the genre.
Of Queues And Cures (1978) [Reissue 2009]. Of Queues and Cures is one of the last and finest examples of the instrumental Canterbury sound on record during the 1970s…

A double-helping of Chuck Berry brilliance from his early years on Chess Records - music that always has way way more to offer than you might think! Sure, some of Chuck's hits are very familiar - and sure, the man could later be a bit of a parody of himself - but there's no denying the power of this early material, and the revolutionary way Chuck had of playing guitar - rooted in blues, paving the way to rock, and also opening the door to lots more funky soul in years to come! The guitar work alone is worth the price of admission, but the songs and vocals are wonderful too - and the CD features 26 titles.
Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none was more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He was its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, and one of its greatest performers…

Chapter Three: Viva Emiliano Zapata is the third of the four excellent "chapters" in saxophonist and composer Gato Barbieri's four-part "Latin America" series for Impulse, and released in 1974 with the core of a band he would use for his live outing on Chapter Four: Alive in New York. Produced by Ed Michel, this is a large group that included bassist Ron Carter, drummer Grady Tate, percussionists Ray Mantilla, the ubiquitous - and brilliant - Portinho, Ray Armando, and Luis Mangual, guitarists George Davis and Paul Metzke, and a large horn section. The session was arranged and conducted by the legendary Chico O'Farrill. There are six tunes on the set, divided between four Barbieri originals, and two covers including the legendary "Milonga Triste," and "What a Difference a Day Makes"…

Chuck Berry's debut LP is fairly strong musically, as well as having a really cool cover (a still shot of Berry, guitar slung in front of him, from the movie Rock, Rock, Rock!). After School Session was just the second long-player ever issued by Chess - only the soundtrack to the movie Rock, Rock, Rock! preceded it. This May 1957 release made Berry something of a late-bloomer among rock & roll's foundation performers - he'd had his first recording session two years earlier, in May of 1955, and by the spring of 1957, Bill Haley already had a handful of LPs to his credit, Elvis Presley was gaining on him, and Clyde McPhatter's version of the Drifters was represented on album, with numerous others soon to join their ranks. Berry had actually enjoyed only two major pop (i.e. rock as opposed to R&B) chart hits at the time: "Maybellene" in the summer of 1955, and "Roll Over Beethoven," which had just made the Top 30 in the summer of 1956…

Dizzy Gillespie (along with altoist Leo Wright, pianist Lalo Schfrin, bassist Bob Cunningham, and drummer Chuck Lampkin) were in peak form for this live performance. Their versions of "Kush," "Salt Peanuts," and "The Mooche" are all excellent, but it is "A Night in Tunisia," with its absolutely stunning trumpet break (which lasts half a chorus), that is most memorable.

When Gato Barbieri signed to Impulse! Records in 1973 for a series of critically lauded albums, he had already enjoyed a celebrated career as a vanguard musician who had worked with Don Cherry and Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand), recorded for three labels as a leader, and scored and performed the soundtrack to director Bernardo Bertolucci's film Last Tango in Paris. Chapter One: Latin America was a huge step forward musically for the Argentinean-born saxophonist, even as it looked to the music of his heritage. This turned out to be the first of four chapters in his series on Latin America, and for it he teamed not with established jazz musicians, but instead folk and traditional musicians from his native country, and recorded four of the album's five cuts in Buenos Aires - the final track, a multi-tracked solo piece, was recorded in Rio de Janeiro…

Known for performing the original version of "Everything's Alright" (covered by David Bowie on his Pin Ups album), the Mojos were one of the best Liverpool groups of the British Invasion. Besides "Everything's Alright" - a Top Ten raver in the U.K. - they never scored any other hits of note, though a couple squeezed into the Top 30.
There have been a couple of other good Mojos compilations that have gathered most of this Merseybeat group's work, focusing wholly on their mid-'60s Decca output. Since their Decca recordings comprise almost everything they released, there's not room for much more on a Mojos anthology. But Everything's Alright: The Complete Recordings does manage to beat out previous Mojos collections by a nose, for it includes not only all 17 of the tracks they issued on Decca between 1963-1967, but also the one they did for the 1963 This Is Merseybeat, Vol. 2 compilation…

Recorded in Paris during November 1968, Good Feelin' was the album that rekindled public interest in the life and music of Aaron "T-Bone" Walker throughout Europe and even in some portions of the United States of America. The album begins and closes with informal narration spoken by Walker while accompanying himself on the piano. The band behind him on the other ten tracks includes guitarist Slim Pezin, pianist Michel Sardaby and Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango blowing tenor alongside Pierre Holassian on alto, Francis Cournet on baritone, and a trumpeter whose identity remains a mystery. With T-Bone's electric guitar sizzling in its own juice and the horns signifying together over soulful organ grooves and freshly ground basslines, all of this music is rich and powerful. Each track is delicious; a funky instrumental strut entitled "Poontang" is the tastiest of all.

Golden Classics is a perfectly reasonable 17-track collection of the Ohio Express' Buddah singles, featuring the majority of their hits, including "Yummy Yummy Yummy," "Down at Lulu's," "Chewy Chewy," "Sweeter Than Sugar," "Mercy," "Pinch Me (Baby, Convince Me)" and "Sausalito (Is the Place to Go)."
Formed from the ashes of Rare Breed, Mansfield Ohio's the Ohio Express came together in 1967 and enjoyed some of the largest successes of the bubblegum rock craze of the late '60s. The initial line-up included Joey Levine on vocals, Dale Powers on guitar, Doug Grassel on second guitar, Jim Pflayer on keyboards, Dean Krastan on bass and Tim Corwin on drums. Under the aegis of producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz, Ohio Express surfaced repeatedly on the late-'60s pop charts.

The sole Applejacks LP is highlighted by "Tell Me When," and hindered by quaintness and a lack of strong tunes (only one of which was a group original), limiting its worth to British Invasion obsessives for the most part. "No Time," one of several songs co-written by future Honeybus main man Pete Dello, is about the best song, with its moody melody; at their most energetic (as on "See If She Cares") they sound a bit like Gerry & the Pacemakers. The covers of '50s rock classics such as "Kansas City," "What'd I Say," and "Too Much Monkey Business" are dire, and their second single (and most well-known recording), the cover of Lennon-McCartney's "Like Dreamers Do," is not present. However, all of the tracks from the album are available on the Deram CD compilation Tell Me When, which adds both sides of the "Like Dreamers Do" single, the flip side of their third single, and their 1965 cover of Ray Davies' "I Go to Sleep," which wasn't issued by the Kinks at the time.

Best known for their huge international hit single from 1965, ‘Concrete And Clay’, Unit 4 + 2 were a part of the British Beat explosion, with a strong emphasis on vocal harmony. Their guitarist was Russ Ballard, who later enjoyed further fame with Argent and as a solo artist.
The band four hits in total, the others being their debut 45 ‘Green Fields’ (No. 48, 1964), ‘(You’ve) Never Been in Love Like This Before’ (No. 14, 1965) and ‘Baby Never Say Goodbye’ (No. 49, 1966).
Unit 4 + 2 signed to Decca in 1964, enjoying notable success and recording a string of singles, an EP and an album for the label before over a three-year period…