Principal Edwards Magic Theatre is one of those hard-to-classify bands that made the late '60s a musical adventure playground for listeners. What was more, the live music scene and airwaves were broad-minded enough to give bands who dared to be different the chance of exposure. They enjoyed the attention of the late John Peel who broadcast them on his BBC shows and made them the first band to be signed to his Dandelion record label. The Devon Tapes was recorded in the summer of 1974 under the shorter name Principal Edwards. This is the first time these recordings have been made available to the public.

Supertramp came into their own on their third album, 1974's Crime of the Century, as their lineup gelled but, more importantly, so did their sound. The group still betrayed a heavy Pink Floyd influence, particularly in its expansive art rock arrangements graced by saxophones, but Supertramp isn't nearly as spooky as Floyd – they're snarky collegiate elitists, an art rock variation on Steely Dan or perhaps a less difficult 10cc, filled with cutting jokes and allusions, best heard on "Bloody Well Right."…

Mark Farner calls this a bootleg put out by the people at the original label who released music by Terry Knight & the Pack, a company called Lucky Eleven; but bootleg or no, Monumental Funk is an amazing record that Don Brewer and Mark Farner have every right to be very proud of…

Rarely has a greatest-hits collection been as effective as Elton John's first compilation of Greatest Hits. Released at the end of 1974, after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Caribou had effectively established him as a superstar, Greatest Hits is exactly what it says it is – it features every one of his Top Ten singles ("Your Song," "Rocket Man," "Honky Cat," "Crocodile Rock," "Daniel," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," "Bennie and the Jets," "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"), plus the number 12 "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and radio and concert favorite "Border Song." Despite the exclusion of a couple of lesser hits from this era, most notably "Levon" and "Tiny Dancer," Greatest Hits is a nearly flawless collection, offering a perfect introduction to Elton John and providing casual fans with almost all the hits they need.

Originally released in 1974 this album was in a limited pressing of about fifty copies and sold at art shows in Germany - much like other titles that were reissued on CD through the Psi-Fi label - like Cosmic Corridors, Golem, Pyramid, Nazgul and Temple. It recalls the colder side of early Tangerine Dream for the most part, but manages to get a few melodic licks in between the lines and features a masterful command of alien atmosphere. Three lengthy tracks to allow you to be totally taken in - "Lunarscape" proves to be quite trippy, mysterious and out-there, as "Ethereal Jazz" features plenty of bubbling synthesizer and jazzy percussion and "Venus Rising" has a brain-damaging atmospheric vibe.

This album is one of the top in rock/hardrock/southern rock vein. A must have album…

"Okinawa" was the first LP recorded by the Baltimore group OHO. It was a private release in 1974. OHO started in late 1973 in Baltimore on the ashes of the band Little Hans. They played experimental progressive rock influenced by Frank Zappa, as well as British prog bands of the first echelon, such as King Crimson and Yes. "Okinawa" is astonishingly full of weirdness that falls somewhere in Syd Barret-era Floydland: some psychedelia, some art noise, some bizarre theatrics - but all around inventive and well-crafted.
The band name was an acronym of its core members' surnames (O'Sullivan, Heck and O'Connor). After two proper albums, Okinawa and Vitamin Oho, the band disbanded, with Jay Graboski and Mark O'Connor moving on to form the more new-wave influenced Food for Worms…

Natty Dread is Bob Marley's finest album, the ultimate reggae recording of all time. This was Marley's first album without former bandmates Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, and the first released as Bob Marley & the Wailers. The Wailers' rhythm section of bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett and drummer Carlton "Carlie" Barrett remained in place and even contributed to the songwriting, while Marley added a female vocal trio, the I-Threes (which included his wife Rita Marley), and additional instrumentation to flesh out the sound…

What do you get if you take The Nice and replace Keith Emerson for Patrick Moraz? The answer is simple Refugee, an excellent Symphonic Prog band. The previous story is well known, Keith Emerson, the heart and soul of The Nice left the band to form the first Prog supergroup ELP, so in that instant The Nice ceased to exist. They managed to survive until 1973 with to inferior releases "Elegy" and "Autumn from Spring" which mainly consist of older material and reworks of older tracks including a ghost keyboardist who was already playing in another band. But Lee Jackson and Brian Davidson wanted to revive the band, so they searched for another keyboardist who could replace Keith and they found him. The Swiss born virtuoso Patrick Moraz left Mainhorse so they recruited him and the result was incredibly solid…

461 Ocean Boulevard is Eric Clapton's second studio solo album, arriving after his side project of Derek and the Dominos and a long struggle with heroin addiction. Although there are some new reggae influences, the album doesn't sound all that different from the rock, pop, blues, country, and R&B amalgam of Eric Clapton. However, 461 Ocean Boulevard is a tighter, more focused outing that enables Clapton to stretch out instrumentally…

This Danish supergroup was a result of collaboration between Ole Prehn and Hans Lauridsen from Day Of The Phoenix with Nils Henriksen and Ken Gudman from Culpeper's Orchard. "Loners & Lovers" is a beautiful mainstream folk-rock versus rock'n'roll album and is unusually sophisticated. Vibes and strings are used here and there, augmenting the three-part vocal harmonies and various guitars (acoustic, bottleneck or leads treated through a Leslie cabinet and/or other studio effects). Nils Henriksen wrote a great number of the songs. Comparisons could be drawn to The Band, the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young, although the music is played with the perfectionist approach of Steely Dan.

Esoteric Recordings America is pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered and expanded clamshell box edition of the classic album, Turn of the Cards by Renaissance. Released in 1974, the album was an artistic triumph and heralded the band’s commercial breakthrough in the United States.
Featuring highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion), Turn of the Cards was recorded in March 1974 at De Lane Lea studios in Wembley, North London and featured the band incorporating symphonic orchestral arrangements into their material extensively on classic pieces such as ‘Running Hard’, ‘Things I Don’t Understand’ and ‘Mother Russia’…

Forming in 1969, Asleep at the Wheel was one of the first bands (along with Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen) of the long-haired hippie generation to look back to American roots music traditions like Western swing and boogie-woogie, but the world wasn't quite ready when they released their 1973 debut on United Artists. The following year, they switched over to Epic for their self-titled sophomore release, and began to really make a name for themselves…