In 1972, Lou Reed was a minor cult hero to a handful of rock critics and left-of-center music fans who championed his former band, the Velvet Underground, but he was unknown to the mainstream music audience. By 1986, Reed was a rock & roll icon, widely hailed as a master songwriter and one of the founding fathers of punk, glam, noise rock, and any number of other vital rock subgenres; he even scored a few hits along the way. If you want to know what happened during those 14 years to make such a difference, the answer can be found in The RCA & Arista Album Collection, a 17-disc box set that brings together nearly all of Reed's recorded work from this period…

John Paul Jones stayed quiet for years after the disbandment of Led Zeppelin, performing the occasional arranging, soundtrack, or production gig, or collaborating with such avant garde musicians as Diamanda Galas. Throughout it all, he never released a full-fledged solo album – until the fall of 1999, when he unleashed Zooma. Anyone that was following who Jones worked with in the '90s – including Galas, the Butthole Surfers, and R.E.M. – shouldn't be entirely surprised by the depth, range, and gleeful strangeness on Zooma, but those expecting something like Led Zeppelin IV will be disappointed.

Asia Piano Avantgarde Japan, Vol. 1, is the first installment in what promises to be a cycle of discs from MD&G focusing on Asian experimental music for piano played by the ubiquitous Steffen Schleiermacher. It focuses mostly on pieces composed before 1975, although a couple of these works date from the 1990s. The music, by Toshi Ichiyanagi, Toshio Hosokawa, Kazuo Fukushima, Jo Kondo, and Joji Yuasa, mainly demonstrates the enormous influence that the 1950s-era chance compositions of John Cage, with their long pauses and short bursts of sound, had on Japanese composers of the late twentieth century.

Steffen Schleiermacher, a global player in the field of contemporary music, once again presents astonishing new finds, now from his latest journey. His new album, Calligraphy, focuses on Japanese avant-garde music between 1960 and 2012. Toshio Hosokawa, Toru Takemitsu, Joji Yuasa, Keijiri Satoh, and Seiichi Inagaki represent a broad spectrum of Japanese compositional artistry. No matter how different these works may be, the increasing interest in the thousands of years of musical tradition in their country more than justifies their presentation together.

Almost every one of Peter Gabriel’s best-laid plans winds up going awry, and so it was with Scratch My Back, his 2010 collection of orchestral covers of some of his favorite songs. He had hoped to have the artists he covered return the favor by interpreting his songs but that project never got off the ground, so he pursued New Blood, an album where he turned that orchestra upon his own songs. New Blood is in every way a companion piece to Scratch My Back; it’s cut from the same aesthetic cloth, it's austere and cerebral without being chilly, it finds emotion within intellect.

The futurists noisily proclaimed their message in Italy prior to the outbreak of World War I. Manifesto followed on manifesto, every form of violence, including war, was glorified, and anarchism, misogyny, and the destruction of everything representing tradition was preached. A few composers were also among their ranks, but Steffen Schleiermacher's latest discovery demonstrates that their works sometimes contrasted greatly with the literary pamphlets issued by this group. Steffan Schleiermacher continues his extraordinary recordings for MDG with this new CD.

At this point in music history, it's become a given that the Velvet Underground were one of the most important and innovative rock bands of their era, and that the four albums they released during their lifespan rank with the most challenging and satisfying work in the rock canon…

Although one of the world's best-kept secrets at the time, this was John Lennon's declaration of independence from the Beatles, the document of a concert appearance at Toronto's Rock and Roll Revival festival about a month after the conclusion of the Abbey Road sessions. Thrown together literally on the wing (they rehearsed only on the flight from England), the ad-hoc band consisting of Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, and Alan White on drums hit the stage to the surprise and delight of the thousands who packed Varsity Stadium…

Professor Sakamoto gives a lesson on what is practically a different style of music with each track on Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia, beginning with a sure-fire hit: the extroverted, quintessentially Japanese synth workout "Field Work" (with Thomas Dolby). From there, Sakamoto hits riff-ready crossover jazz-fusion ("Etude"), electronic minimalism ("M.A.Y. in the Backyard"), and Oriental dub ("Paradise Lost"). There is a return to sampladelic Eastern synth-pop with "Steppin' Into Asia," but for the most part Sakamoto displays his impressive stylistic range on this solo album.

Famed for her hard-rocking, dance-inducing new-wave sound, ferocious vocals, cult-film acting and scandalous talk-show appearances, Nina saw her name spread westward from her native East Berlin as the '70s gave way to the '80s. Here's her 1979 debut LP Nina Hagen Band, 1982 English-language debut Nunsexmonkrock and relentlessly grooving 1983 LP Fearless. What it is (unmistakably featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers) joins New York New York; My Sensation; Superboy; Der Spinner; Antiworld; Smack Jack; UFO; Dr. Art; her German-language version of White Punks on Dope, and more!

Espiral is instrumental avant-prog/experimental-fusion four-piece band from Santiago de Chile. It was formed in 2016 by experienced musicians with various background: Miguel Angel Rodriguez (keyboards), Jose Luis Cayul (guitar), Ignacio Larrain (bass, saxophone), and Cristian "Joven Billy" Hidalgo (drums). In January 2017, the band presented 4-track self-titled demo EP, which was followed in July by the debut full-length album "Love From Melmac". The band tends to perform thoroughly composed and arranged, complex, tight, variable, and dark instrumental music bringing together elements of avant-garde, progressive rock, jazz-fusion, and space-rock.

The world of pop music was hardly ready for The Velvet Underground's first album when it appeared in the spring of 1967, but while The Velvet Underground and Nico sounded like an open challenge to conventional notions of what rock music could sound like (or what it could discuss), 1968's White Light/White Heat was a no-holds-barred frontal assault on cultural and aesthetic propriety…

With its varying short-lived phases, King Crimson is well suited to the box set treatment, and overall, Frame by Frame: The Essential King Crimson doesn't disappoint. At four discs, it's perhaps a little hefty to serve as a comprehensive introduction for newcomers, even though it could work very well in that context; in the end, the box is more of a close-to-definitive package for fans who fall somewhere in between the realms of casual and devoted. The first three discs do an excellent job of summarizing King Crimson's extremely distinct prime-period lineups: the first disc concentrates on the often jazzy symphonic rock of 1969-1971 (including almost the entirety of In the Court of the Crimson King), the second covers the heavy, experimental soundscapes of 1973-1974, and the third features the off-kilter, new wave-influenced prog pop of 1981-1984. The fourth disc is a career-spanning sampler of live Crimson, and although the varying sound quality and musical styles make it a less cohesive listen than the other discs, it does give an excellent idea of the various lineups' extraordinary performing range.