Originally released 1969 on MPS Records Germany - which became world famous for Dave Pike´s Noisy Silence Gentle Noise released in the same era. This is a true jewel for all progressive music enthusiasts.Ahead of its time the album is an eclectic mixture of beat, psychedelia and little hints of jazz rock. The album is compared with the similarly styled debut of Burnin' Red Ivanhoe. 14 Minutes title song 'Maxwells Street' sounds like a continuation of the Rolling Stones' 'Their Satanic Majesty's Requests'. Lars Bisgaard and Bent Hesselmann later played with Rainbow Band. Comes with bonus tracks, digitally remastered from the original tapes and with informative booklet.

This debut Genesis album, which has appeared under license to various labels in addition to Decca and London in different configurations, is largely of historical interest. The group was still in its formative stages, the members barely past their 18th birthdays and still working out what they wanted to sound like. Mostly they sound like the Bee Gees trying to be the Moody Blues (picture something similar to the sound of the former group's Odessa album). "The Silent Sun" and "Where the Sour Turns to Sweet" are pleasant enough, but scarcely indicate the true potential of the group or its members. A pleasant enough piece of pop-psychedelia/art rock, but not a critically important release, except to the truly dedicated.

The Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Alf Emil Eik recorded and released this album on the Harvest-label in 1979. Eik produced the album himself and played all the instruments, including bass, drums, guitar, bells, moog, Mellotron and string-synths. Musically this is symphonic progressive rock with a jazzy edge. The songs vary from lush, beautiful and Mellotron-drenched tracks like "Crying" (great use and combination of the string and choir-sounds of the Mellotron) and "Heart" to energetic, jazzy instrumental journeys like "Joy" and "The Present Age". "Breath of Eternity" is also quite jazzy, but in a much more laid-back style and creates some pleasant and dreamy atmospheres. "To You" and "Care" are nice vocal-tracks with obvious Yes-influences in the arrangements, and there are also some nice interludes like "Morning Glory" and the majestic "March of Earth" here.

In the early 1970s Barclay James Harvest pioneered the fusion of rock and classical music, touring with their own symphony orchestra. On the 23rd September 2023, a stunning and unique concert took place which saw the first performance by any incarnation of Barclay James Harvest with a symphony orchestra to take place in UK since 1973. Joining JLBJH for this memorable concert was The Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Benjamin Ellin.

Guitar wizard Robert Fripp joins forces with some of the finest six-string pickers around, offering up a truly intricate variety of music on Show of Hands. With 17 guitarists contributing to 19 tracks, the likes of Trey Gunn, Paul Richards, and Curt Golden (just to name a few) decorate the album with elaborate string arrangements that range from avant-garde to classical in nature. Anyone who is a guitar enthusiast will be astonished at how tight Fripp comes across with his unique style. From time to time, vocalist Patricia Leavitt displays her beautiful falsetto voice a cappella for a fresh change of pace. The music is shaped, bent, and twisted with guitar atop guitar to culminate thick layers of movements, suites, and passages…

Jan Dukes De Grey are a forgotten relic of progressive music. Their brilliant free-from album "Mice And Rats In The Loft" was the pinnacle of their musical expression, a semi-improvised journey into madness. Jan Dukes De Grey are unique in every way - from the diverse instrumentation handled by only 3 musicians, the way they utilise strange chords, key changes and varying tempos, to the very personal style of vocal expression.

The history of the Long hair label starts with the release of recordings of more or less unknown bands from the late sixties/ early seventies, who run a band competition in former German radio station SWR (South West Broadcast) and received with the recordings a wider public. A few of them like My Solid Ground, Kraan, became famous and recorded a lot of albums on well known German Krautrock labels. Others like Coupla Prog, Puppenhaus, Papa Zoot or JudДs Gallery played and recorded their music at the radio studio but received no official record deal and most of the band members started a career in an other profession. STAGG, four guys from Frankfurt, all students are one of the very best who recorded at the SWF.

British progressive rock band, early 1970s. Glencoe was one of those bands people tend to overlook, which is a pity since they have a surplus of significant music to offer. Having recorded two albums under the Forever More nameplate, in 1971 the four principals (drummer Stuart Francis, bassist Alan Gorrie, and guitarists Onnie McIntyre and Mick Strode, decided to reinvent themselves as Glencoe. Before the band could record anything Gorrie and McIntyre bailed, reappearing in The Average White Band. Francis and Strode quickly recruited keyboard player Graham Maitland and bassist Norman Watt-Roy. The quartet hit the road touring the English club and college circuit, but in early 1972 Strode quit. He was replaced by guitarist John Turnbull, whose resume included time with The Chosen Few, ARC, and Skip Biffery.

Esperanto were an European progressive rock outfit of somewhat unusual origin. Belgian violinist Raymond Vincent, pianist and musicologist Bruno Libert, and a pair of Italo-Belgian brothers, bassist Gino Malisan and his brother drummer, Tony Malisan. The core of the band was Belgian but it was on a trip to England that the original Belgian unit found the remaining members that would give Esperanto their unique sound.
After experiencing success in his native Australia with the Twilights and later Axiom, Glenn Shorrock decided to travel to England in a bid for international success. He was struggling and finding little or no success in England. The Belgians got in touch with producer David Mackay who knew of Glenn Shorrock and bada-bing Esperanto had a lead vocalist…

Donald Smith Airey is an English musician who has been the keyboardist in the rock band Deep Purple since 2002, after the retirement of Jon Lord. He has had a long and productive career, playing with such acts as Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Whitesnake, Saxon, Wishbone Ash, Colosseum II, Ten, Sinner, Michael Schenker, Rainbow, Empire, Brian May, Divlje jagode and Living Loud. He has also worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Reading the full name of this release - Jakszyk, Fripp And Collins With Levin And Harrison - A Scarcity Of Miracles - A King Crimson ProjeKct - leads to one central and almost unbelievable thought: this must be a new King Crimson album after all these years (the last album was released in 2003). But it is just like Robert Fripp, King Crimson’s mastermind and guitarist, wrote in the album’s liner notes: listening to A Scarcity Of Miracles is “like meeting a close member of the (King Crimson) family for the first time”. The music on this album is consistently mellow, sophisticated prog, similar, but smoother than the soft tunes from the Belew era, perhaps closer in tone to the Sylvian/Fripp albums.

There are numerous "best of Jethro Tull" albums on the market, and too many of them feature virtually the same songs that have been endlessly played on the radio for the last thirty years. Jethro Tull are a group that are so much more multi-faceted and unique than many of those "hits" would suggest. Kudos then, to those who assembled this collection, which delves deeper into Tull's enormous catalogue of compositions and comes up with a greater, more accurate perspective of the band's history.