"In 2005 Chris Funk (the guitarist of The Decemberists) and his family moved into their new home in the historic Mississippi neighborhood in Portland, OR. He would play various instruments on his porch during hot summer night which caught the attention...

“These tracks are from an FM broadcast from the Carousel Ballroom in S.F. in 1968. This is the quartet from the period when the band's first album was released to good acclaim, with Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. The overall sound is good/maybe very good considering the source but lacks a bit of presence and with a slight loss of dynamics. But the recording has plenty of room for each instrument and the vocals, with no intrusive background hiss.”

1 Madison Blues ...

“Having formed in 1967, Peter Green s Fleetwood Mac swiftly established themselves as Britain s pre-eminent blues act, edging out even John Mayall (in whose band Green had previously played). Over the course of 1968 they performed numerous remarkable sessions for broadcast by the BBC on radio and TV, which are gathered here. Spanning classic blues, rock n roll covers, their own brand of musical parody, and classic compositions by Green, the set is a superb cross-section of their work to that point, and...

“An intriguing and impressive new offering from Floating Points. This is less fragile than some of Sam Shepherd's more recent work and charts a further chapter in the twisting growth of his idiosyncratic musical style and sound design. His electronic compositions navigate through a myriad of textures: minimalist backdrops, emotive refrains that approach almost orchestral intensity, skittish rhythms that seem on the verge of losing control, modulating synth work that shifts between serene and piercing...

"I was first drawn to this Swedish collective by their most fortunate choice of the group name Flowers Must Die. However, despite this moniker, Flowers Must Die will not likely make you recall Ash Ra Tempel, and especially not the "Schwingungen" album. Mainly because there isn't some madman screaming "Flowers Must Die - Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!". And there isn't much Krautrock here unless you count a steady rhythm, which recalls an entirely different branch of the genre.
The first two albums came and..

This is the first new FM album in over 25 years!

"Transformation is a very apt title for Canadian Prog veterans FM, for not only has their music transformed numerous times over the years, so has their line-up. Joining bassist/keyboard player Cameron Hawkins this time round is drummer Paul DeLong (Roger Hodgson/Kim Mitchell), violinist/mandolin player Edward Bernard, who has performed with Druckfarben and violinist (yes, there are two violinists here) Aaron Solomon. The recording group being...

Originally released in 2012, this was the first new studio album by the reformed Dutch progressive rock band Focus in 6 years. It features two members from the band's glory days, Hammond organist/flutist/vocalist Thijs van Leer and drummer Pierre van der Linden as well as bassist Bobby Jacobs and guitarist Menno Gootjes.
Ever since their return in the the early 00s, the band has been winning over old and new fans, because (a) they are still really great and (b) they still really sound like Focus!...

“Ex-Tangerine Dream artist Christopher Franke released his second and third solo efforts simultaneously, following the successful Pacific Coast Highway. First, The London Concert, recorded live at London's Royal Apollo Theatre in October 1991. While three tracks are versions of pieces from Pacific Coast Highway, the material is mostly new, starting with "Empire of Light," awith its powerful, hypnotic entrance into Franke's spellbinding world of sonic images, combining dramatic electronic and calming...

Short and pretty great.

“Since 1966, the Free Jazz Meeting (now known as the SWR New Jazz Meeting) has taken place annually in Baden-Baden, Germany.
This disc presents performances that were broadcast over south-western station SWR from the second of these events which took place from December 16 through December 18 in 1967.
The four pieces by different line-ups of major free jazz musicians from several countries.”

1. ANDALUSIAN PROVERB
Jeanne Lee - vocals...

An interesting period piece and yes, they are attempting to fuse jazz and rock. Reasonably quite ok sound for 45 year old, non-professional recordings.

"Featuring the earliest recordings of the young Larry Coryell, this short-lived quintet is widely acclaimed as the first jazz-rock band of all time. Though their landmark 1966 album captures their intense, psychedelic music well, those lucky enough to have seen them in performance maintain that their true power was only communicated live. Taped...

Features such excellent players as Steve Coleman, Cecil McBee, Billy Hart, Jay Hoggard, John Purcell, Bobby McFerring and more!

"This indespendible progressive jazz album is finally available on CD! I'm ordering it today, 'cause it is KILLER! What a shame that when Elektra dumped the Musician label that this and other fine jazz music got locked away for nearly 25 years!"-Dale Summers

"In 1996, at the end of a two year residency, Fred organised an event at L'Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villeurbanne in France involving as many of the students as possible, grouped according to their departments - early music, rock, African drumming, classical etc. Each group was set up in a different room in the school building and during the concert the public was encouraged to wander around creating their own mix, or to sit in the courtyard and listen to the sound drifting out through the open...

This is the soundtrack to the film which followed Fred touring & playing in the late 80's, when he was actively on the road all the time. This functions as a sort of a 'best of' sampler, featuring many aspects of his work, some of which can be found on other albums, but most of which is only available here.
This includes many great players: Tom Cora, Haco, Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Rene Lussier, Bob Ostertag, Lars Hollmer, Eino Haapala, Iva Bittova, Hans Bruniusson, Joey Barron, and many many others..

“The long-awaited follow up to their first release on Derek Bailey's Incus label and a kind of prequel, going back to the time when Fred was playing home-made instruments and John was using mouthpieces and duck-calls as much or more than alto sax; this was back in the New York glory days when 100 new ideas popped up somewhere every day, and these performances lie right at the fringe of what most people would accept as "music".
Anyone wanting to get back to one of the roots of what later became known..

"Impossible to find jazz/soul/funk monster by Fusión, issued in Chile in 1975 by ALBA (ALD-041)—a fulsome combination of funk, electric jazz, and soul, with Latin roots. Bassist Enrique Luna had lived and studied art in New York, and knew first-hand...

"A reissue of Serge Gainsbourg's cult score for the 1968 French film Le Pacha. These tracks were composed by Serge Gainsbourg at the height of his '60s cool when he was briefly going out with Brigitte Bardot and the couple was on the verge of recording the infamous first version of "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus" (1969). All the tracks here are arranged by famed arranger Michel Colombier, who had been responsible for some of Gainsbourg's best songs ("Bonnie & Clyde" and "Harley Davidson") and had also...

Jerry Garcia – acoustic guitar, vocals
John Kahn – double bass

“Garcia and Kahn ventured out on the road under the banner of a 'Northwest Acoustic Tour,' which basically reads as another daring adventure into the hills for this most dynamic of duos. The concert for the incarcerated of Oregon s State Penitentiary in 1982 mixed songs from the Dead and Garcia's solo repertoire as well as covers and traditional songs favoured by both players. With both of these noted counter culture figures...

"Former Planet Mu affiliate Christopher Reeves continues his electronic journey as The Gasman, delivering his umpteenth album in 13 years. Aeriform isn't far removed from work by other Mu luminaries such as founder Mike Paradinas' strangely engaging bob-and-weave synth-antipop or a certain Richard James, truth be told.
Essentially though, Reeves mines a far more retro seam than his counterparts - titles like Syntax, Trip and Zports suggest there's an element of geek and a love of the ZX Spectrum, BBC..

You couldn’t grow up in the DC area in the 70s, 80s or 90s and be interested in music and not be aware of, and in awe of, the legend that was guitarist Danny Gatton.
There was nothing like seeing him live, continuously knock it out of the ballpark without even breaking a sweat, but this, his first of two major label releases, is one of his best albums.

“After years of knocking around the Washington, D.C.-area circuit, local guitar legend Danny Gatton finally got to cut his first album for...

Gerard are one of the oldest, still active (well, as of 2011) Japanese progressive / symphonic rock groups. Led by keyboardist Toshio Egawa, who made his name playing with the 80's symphonic rock band Novela, this is Gerard's first release from 1984. It is one of three to feature guitarist/vocalist Yukihiro Fujimura in addition to bass and drums.

This is guitarist Jane’s excellent fusion band, consisting of Adam Holzman (keyboards), Bryan Beller (bass) and Chad Wackerman (drums) with guests including Alex Skolnick (guitar) & Theo Travis (reeds).

“I am normally not a big fan of vocals on fusion records but I am prepared to make an exception for this. Half the album is instrumental and the vocals tend to be fairly brief (and good). The quality of the music is as good as one would expect from the musicians involved. Getter plays some great...

Paul Dunmall, border pipes (track 1, 5), sop saxe (2, 8, 9), tenor comemeuse (3) double bamboo pipe (4), tenor sax (6), soprano comemeuse (7)
Philip Gibbs acoustic & electric guitars

The instrumentation sometimes suggests a folk approach, without being "folky" per se.

"This features the guitar in the most unlikely pairs with cornemeuse, tenor and soprano saxophone, and border pipes. Unlike Paul Dunmalls previous duo with Paul Rogers, Folks is completely open though each...

“The first from Bill for a long time, this is an abstract aural collage recorded between 2003 and 2006, over long distances by mail, that operates somewhere between soundscape and radio art, assembling environmental recordings, bits of broadcasts and other modified found sound into a very personal sound diary or imaginary journey.”-Chris Cutler

"Bill Gilonis (of the great post Henry Cow band, The Work) and Chantale Laplante worked on Zürich-Bamberg intermittently for three years. The CD comprises...

"Although following The 5th Elephant in its musical organisation - around grids of pulses and highly crafted, rich sonorities - this work is more evolved, more focussed and more internally economic. Following a narrative thread this time, the whole is bound into a complex and ramifying exposition of repetition, transformation and evolution, where a return is no return and where perceiver and perceived are lost to time.
Tightly bounded by speech-derived (but massively re-formed) sonic materials, as...

“The origins of The Glass Family start in West Los Angeles. Jim Callon formed a band to play surf music and covers at frat parties to make some money. They went by a few different monikers at that point; the Carpet Baggers and the Soul Survivors amongst them. A few years later when the band members were at Cal State LA for grad school, they changed the band name to The Glass Family. They played all over Los Angeles, gigging at notable venues like The Troubadour, The Topanga Corral and The Whiskey A Go-Go...