The story began in 1975 with singer and guitar player David Radford releasing a first single that was not commercially successful. So David hired a new line-up in 1976 with Maurice Memmott and Steve Wyse. The band had the reputation to do some impressive live shows for the visuals and the audio in 1977-1979. They released a first album "Just like Mater Bates" and a second one in 1981 "Victims". In 1984, Gizmo reformed with Martin Reed on guitar. They played some shows with Ozric Tentacles, released an EP, suffers many line-up changes and finally split-up in 1992 after the release of their third album "They're Peeling Onions in the Cellar". In 1995, David was contacted to do a Van der Graaf Generator tribute…

Lutz Rahn was born on October 11th 1951 in Hamburg, Germany. He played in the jazzrock band Capricorn before joining the known German progrock band Novalis in 1971 until 1985 when Novalis disbanded. Between 1973 (LP Banished Bridge) and 1983 (Sternentaucher) Lutz Rahn made 10 album with Novalis. In 1978 Lutz Rahn delivered a solo album entitled Solo Trip featuring 8 pleasant, light-weighted symphonic/electronic/pop songs. Solo Trip is a pleasant effort that evokes JM Jarre and features wonderful, varied work on keyboards, from sparkling Fender Rhodes piano and soaring string-ensemble to majestic Mellotron and fine synthesizer flights.

Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition. Formed in Bristol in 1969, Stackridge were one of the most unique British bands of the era. Their initial line-up featured Andy Davis (guitar, keyboards, vocals), James Warren (guitar, vocals), James "Crun" Walter (bass), Michael "Mutter" Slater (flute, vocals), Michael Evans (violin) and Billy Bent (drums). Stackridge underwent a series of line-up changes and signed to Elton John's newly established Rocket Records label, releasing the album Extravaganza in 1975. The following year, they recorded their final album of the 1970s, the conceptual Mr Mick. The original version of the album featured a story and narration and was rejected by Rocket Records and the band were forced to prepare a different version of the record for release in 1976. This Esoteric Recordings edition has been expanded to include the original version of the album as originally planned by the band.

Martial "Mimi" Lorenzini, one of France's most famous guitarists for his contribution to Canterbury band Triangle, got together with female singer/keyboard player Ann Ballester, bass player Josquin Turenne des Prés and drummer Jean-François Bouchet D'Angely to form Edition Spéciale in 1975. Their style of groovy, accessible jazz-rock is highly comparable to that of Return To Forever and Brand X. Their first album "Allée des Tilleuls" received mixed reviews, in part due to Ann's vocals that spoiled the effect of the excellent musicianship. Featuring virtuoso drummer and newcomer Alain Gouillard, the subsequent "Aliquante" and "Horizon Digital" were a definite improvement. Gouillard's drumming is so tight he could probably rival Bill Bruford. Both albums are rhythmic concepts based on very complex tempo cuts, where the guitar and violin interplay will remind the listener of Mahavishnu. Two excellent albums of world-class French fusion.

Bridging prog’s lost years between the behemoths of old and new astral wanderers such as Porcupine Tree and IQ, Gizmo were deeply out of step with the times. Distilling the prog template of old into shorter, palatable songs, however, Gizmo fashioned a record that was in fact way ahead of it’s time. There are clearly New Wave touches to the likes of Those Lying Eyes and Long Gone Song, but the influence of the Canterbury scene generally, and Gentle Giant specifically, make this an album fans of both periods should savour. That the band clearly understood the limits of endless noodling is most discernable on Come The Day, on which Maurice Memmott’s able fiddle lends a welcome folkiness. Of course, Gizmo weren’t successful at the time, but this is testament that, come the tail-end of the 70s, prog was still bubbling healthily underground…

East of Eden's second album had to be one of the least commercial albums ever to enter the British Top 30, as well as one of the most stylistically diverse. The term "progressive rock" fit as well as any, yet much of it was rather along the lines of early jazz-rock fusion, with lengthy hard-to-hum instrumental passages. But there was a lot of Eastern influence as well, especially on those pieces that highlighted Dave Arbus' violin and flute. Some of the absurdist humor along the lines of Frank Zappa and the Soft Machine makes itself known too, though East of Eden were more serious than Zappa and less whimsical than the Softs. Indeed, it's a rather sober affair that sometimes approaches gloominess, and like the late '60s/early '70s Soft Machine, it's more oriented toward virtuosic instrumental sections than vocals and lyrics…

Atom Heart Mother, for all its glories, was an acquired taste, and Pink Floyd wisely decided to trim back its orchestral excesses for its follow-up, Meddle. Opening with a deliberately surging "One of These Days," Meddle spends most of its time with sonic textures and elongated compositions, most notably on its epic closer, "Echoes." If there aren't pop songs in the classic sense (even on the level of the group's contributions to Ummagumma), there is a uniform tone, ranging from the pastoral "A Pillow of Winds" to "Fearless," with its insistent refrain hinting at latter-day Floyd. Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and Meddle is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of Dark Side of the Moon and the entire Roger Waters era.

Maquina! were one of the very first pioneers of progressive music in Spain, their 1970 album Why? is considered a classic by many (in the Proto-Prog sub-genre). After Why? the band broke up due to discrepancies in the musical direction and because some members had to leave for the then-compulsory military service. Keyboardist Enric Herrera rescued the project but took a rather different direction, focusing on blues-jazz-rock with a distinctive presence of horns (trumpet and sax). He recruited the trio from the band Crac (Carles Benavent on bass, Emili Baleriola on guitars and Salvador Font on drums) and two German musicians who had established in Barcelona Peter Rohr on sax and Hubert Grilleberger on trumpet. Herrera's idea was to record a double LP in the studio but he could not find the required funding so eventually they settled for recording live in concert, with rather limited resources, which was cheaper…