Twenty years ago, what is probably still the best collection of music by Piero Umiliani, “Musicaelettronica”, was released on Easy Tempo (in our opinion, the finest Italian soundtrack label ever). The album, curated by Rocco Pandiani, focussed on the astonishing creative mastery with which Umiliani played around in his Sound Work Shop studio, where he had all kinds of analogue machines to experiment with.

First album from the best Italian jazz-rock band (formed in Rome in 71), and the first of a few masterpieces in a row, all of them being distinctive from one another, something that’s not always evident in the JR/F style. Perigeo has their sound somewhere between Mwandishi, MD’s BB, Soft Machine, Nucleus and Iceberg. I have rarely seen such a bizarre/ugly artwork illustrating so well the music on the disc: if you can easily picture your head/brains after listen of this album through the headphone, chances are that it wouldn’t look too far away from this, maybe with added smoke coming out of the ears.

Chimo was a Canadian rock band of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It grew out of the Georgian People in 1969. The band recorded an album for Revolver Records.
Well crafted album that combines eclectively psych, classical and jazz influences and contains some very good to excellent tracks: Silken Silver Melody draws from The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows and Jefferson Airplane's vocal style; Hour Glass and Ect Blues (slow but not bluesy at all) have good organ work and guitar leads; Sheba with the unusual but very catchy melody line and excellent guitar solos over organ's texture is the albums' highlight; Procession Of Mabs has harmony vocals, effervescent guitar and classical piano breaks…

This album marked a continued maturing of both PFM's style and their presence in the Anglophone market. It benefits from Premoli's high-speed Hammond organ and synth runs on such all-out prog assaults as the conclusion of "From Under," as well as Mussida's gentle acoustic guitar lines on slower numbers like "Harlequin."…

All eight original T. Rex studio albums, plus two bonus CD of non-album tracks, in card wallets in a box, with a 16 page booklet. Recorded between 1970 and 1977, Marc Bolan’s best-known favourites are included, including “Get It On”, “Metal Guru”, “Telegram Sam”, “Children Of The Revolution” and “20th Century Boy” are included…

Most folks point to Badfinger as the greatest power pop band of all time. But, with four accomplished songwriters in Tom Evans, Mike Gibbins, Pete Ham, and Joey Molland, and the creative assistance and imprimatur of The Beatles, Badfinger should have been bigger stars than they were. Their four albums for The Beatles’ Apple label get most of the attention, and understandably so, with hits like “Come and Get It,” “No Matter What,” “Day by Day,” and “Baby Blue.”

Rock Bottom, recorded with a star-studded cast of Canterbury musicians, has been deservedly acclaimed as one of the finest art rock albums. Several forces surrounding Wyatt's life helped shape its outcome. First, it was recorded after the former Soft Machine drummer and singer fell out of a five-story window and broke his spine. Legend had it that the album was a chronicle of his stay in the hospital…

Gravy Train were a progressive rock group from Lancashire, England, formed by vocalist and guitarist Norman Barratt in 1969. Also featuring J.D. Hughes (keyboards, vocals, wind), Les Williams (bass, vocals) and Barry Davenport (drums), the band would record four studio albums. The first two were released on the Vertigo label, the latter two by Dawn Records. In 1973, Gravy Train moved from Vertigo to Dawn Records, the progressive offshoot of Don Kirshner’s PYE Records label. This produced Second Birth — eight tracks, two of which ("Strength of a Dream" and "Tolpuddle Episode") were released as a single. Again it failed to set the charts alight.

Electric Light Orchestra's more modest follow-up to Eldorado is a very solid album, if not as bold or unified. It was also their first recorded at Musicland in Munich, which became Jeff Lynne's preferred venue for cutting records. At the time, he was also generating songs at a breakneck pace and had perfected the majestic, quasi-Beatles-type style (sort of high-wattage Magical Mystery Tour) introduced two albums earlier. The sound is stripped down a bit on Face the Music, Louis Clark's orchestral contributions generally more subdued than on Eldorado, even when they compete with the band, as on "Strange Magic." The soulful "Evil Woman" was one of the most respectable chart hits of its era, and one of the best songs that Lynne ever wrote (reportedly in 30 minutes), while "Strange Magic" showed off his writing in a more ethereal vein.

Encore - Tangerine Dream Live, 1977 is one of the better concert albums from Tangerine Dream. As with most of their live releases, this disc features all new material. Each of the long-form (over 16 minutes) pieces has its own set of movements. In effect, it is like listening to four electronic symphonies. This is also one of the strongest TD lineups. The set features Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann on synthesizers, effects and other electronic devices. (It is Baumann's last recording with the band.) The music ranges from dirge-like drones to piano solos to crashing experimental textures. There are echoes of progressive and avant-garde rock. The set is uniquely Tangerine Dream, however, with similarities to Genesis, Pink Floyd and other art rock practitioners of that era.

A good but not great set from the 1975 Montreux Jazz Festival, this set of four extended standards is nonetheless impressive for its complete rejection of all innovations in jazz after around 1955, even those that Dizzy Gillespie had himself spearheaded. This is a straight-up bop jam session. The tunes are standards almost to the point of being clichés - "Lover, Come Back to Me," "I'll Remember April," "What's New?," and the obligatory run-through of Charlie Parker's signature tune, "Cherokee" - but Gillespie and his all-star group do an impressive job of finding new avenues of exploration. The 17-minute take on "Lover Come Back to Me" is particularly impressive, with meaty solos from both Gillespie and tenor Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. The ballad "What's New?" is primarily a showcase for Milt Jackson's vibes and Tommy Flanagan's piano, though Johnny Griffin also serves up a lovely tenor solo.

This 1970 club date in a Munich club by Art Farmer wasn't released until 1998, but it is by no means a collection of outtakes; it was in the possession of the club owner as his own private treasure. The flügelhornist (though he is inexplicably credited playing trumpet on the CD) is joined by his pianist of choice while in Europe, Fritz Pauer, along with bassist Peter Marshall and drummer Erich Bachtragl. Both Farmer and Pauer deliver consistently outstanding solos throughout the set, and what's unusual is that all of the tracks are originals by the leader. "Concord" and "Concourse" are both up-tempo cookers, while Marshall's fine solo introduces the bluesy "Overnight." While the piano is slightly buried in the mix, this otherwise excellent recording is very much a worthwhile investment for fans of hard bop.

1st Live Recordings is a two-volume album series released by Pickwick Records in 1979 containing live performances by The Beatles. Adrian Barber, the stage manager at the Star Club, on the instructions by King Size Taylor, the leader of The Dominoes, another group from Liverpool, recorded this on a Grundig home tape recorder at 3​3⁄4 ips in December 1962, probably during three performances at Hamburg's Star Club on 25, 28 or 29 and 30 December…