Edgar Wilmar Froese is a German artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream. Aqua is his first solo album, predates Tangerine Dream's breakthrough album, 1974's Phaedra. Recorded using revolutionary binaural sound techniques, Aqua sweetens Froese's uncompromising experimentation with the crowd-pleasing sleight of "head music." Over four extended passages, electronics burble, shimmer, surge, swoop and speaker-pan in hazily melodic and nebulous shapes. Aqua is the consummate headphone album, a crafty, cosmic stereophonic delight guaranteed to captivate all open minds.

Produced by George Martin, The Man in the Bowler Hat continues Stackridge's brand of satiric rock marbled with elements of folk and to some extent, even country. The lyrics are just as witty as in their first two releases, and the poetry glistens with a jovial Englishness that became the band's most identifiable trademark. With Martin's help, though, the album became one of their better releases, as the music rises to the top before the words do, sounding fresher, livelier, and noticeably sharper than both their debut and 1972's Friendliness. Stackridge's best song, "Dangerous Bacon," was released as a single, and it's in this song as well as "The Galloping Gaucho" and "The Indifferent Hedgehog" in which their sound comes alive…

Yes had fallen out of critical favor with Tales from Topographic Oceans, a two-record set of four songs that reviewers found indulgent. But they had not fallen out of the Top Ten, and so they had little incentive to curb their musical ambitiousness. Relayer, released 11 months after Tales, was a single-disc, three-song album, its music organized into suites that alternated abrasive, rhythmically dense instrumental sections featuring solos for the various instruments with delicate vocal and choral sections featuring poetic lyrics devoted to spiritual imagery…

"Wrap Around Joy" is the 6th album by American singer and songwriter Carole King, released in 1974. The album peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in late 1974 and spun off successful singles with "Jazzman", reaching #2 on the Pop chart and earning Carole King a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female in the 17th Grammy Awards (the award went to Olivia Newton-John for "I Honestly Love You"). Another song from the album, "Nightingale", reached #9 on the Pop chart and #6 on the Adult contemporary chart. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA.

Please Send Me Someone to Love features 11 tracks by vocalist Bill Henderson recorded during his short tenure with Vee Jay Records in the early '60s. Most of these compositions are standards, including "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," "I Go for That," "Skylark," and "Never Will I Marry," along with a soulful rendition of Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love."

This budget-priced two-for-one collection presents a pair of mid-1970s albums by Floridian singer-songwriter Lobo (born Roland Kent Lavoie): JUST A SINGER (’74) and A COWBOY AFRAID OF HORSES (’75). Highlights of the set include the breezy light-rock tunes “Rings” and “Don’t Tell Me Goodnight,” songs that embody Lobo’s sunny, laid-back sound.

A sort of supergroup, as most of their members came from well-known bands, Samadhi were formed after the split of Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno by singer Regoli and guitarist Civitenga, along with keyboard player Sabatini (from Free Love and Kaleidon), Aldo Bellanova from Teoremi on bass and drummer Ruggero Stefani (L'Uovo di Colombo), and two other members. Despite the impressive pedigree of the musicians the album is nice, mixing good prog influences with some jazz and even pop, the best of the seven tracks being the closing "L'ultima Spiaggia" with religious text. The beautiful lyrics were written by poet Enrico Lazzareschi.

Reteaming with the Band, Bob Dylan winds up with an album that recalls New Morning more than The Basement Tapes, since Planet Waves is given to a relaxed intimate tone – all the more appropriate for a collection of modest songs about domestic life…

The group's first album for Polydor is several steps above their EMI work. Most of the psychedelic-era influences are softened here and broadened, and transmuted into something heavier and more serious, even as the Beatlesque harmonies remain intact…

With productions and songs from Freddie Perren and Fonce Mizell, Hell Up in Harlem is the scathing and soulful soundtrack of the motion picture starring Fred Williamson. This was Edwin Starr's last album for Motown, which probably accounts for the woeful lack of promotion. Two singles were released, "Hell Up in Harlem," the first, should have remained an album cut, as its appeal was limited, despite a solid vocal by Starr. The follow-up, however, "Big Papa," should have been a monster. Written by Freddie Perren, it has the same power, forcefulness, and drive of numbers that Norman Whitfield had produced for Rare Earth and the Temptations. The flips of both singles, "Don't It Feel Good to Be Free" and "Like We Used to Do," are mellower than the push sides. The bone picker, however, is "Easin' In," a great midtempo number with cool backing vocals, and a great reading from Starr; it has chart buster written all over it, yet Motown never released it as a single. Mind boggling, since Starr's final single for Gordy's empire, "Who's Right or Wrong," backed with "Lonely Rainy Days in San Diego," dropped six months after "Big Papa," but doesn't rate with "Easin'."

After springing for three double-LP songbook albums in three years devoted to Cole Porter, Noël Coward, and George Gershwin, Atlantic Records tracked Bobby Short to his lair for a fourth two-disc collection in December 1973, setting up recording equipment in the tiny confines of the Cafe Carlyle where Short had maintained a permanent residency since 1968. There, over two nights, the tapes picked up a typical selection of standards by Porter, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, and other interwar songwriting masters, plus some more recent material, played by Short's piano trio, which also featured Beverly Peer on bass and Richard Sheridan on drums…

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is the second solo album from the English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on 3 May 1974 by A&M Records. The album is a live recording of his second of two concerts on 18 January 1974 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. With its concept based on Jules Verne's science fiction novel of the same name, the album tells the story of Professor Lidenbrok, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans, who follow a passage to the Earth's centre originally discovered by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist. Wakeman performs with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Choir, and a group of hand-picked musicians for his rock band, which later became the English Rock Ensemble.

The session work with other players here isn't quite as good as the material on the first anthology, but An Anthology, Vol. 2 does feature a live cut by Delaney & Bonnie, plus a pair of what were then previously unissued Allman Brothers Band live tracks (among them "Midnight Rider" from the Fillmore East in June 1971)…