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A massive collection of work from Beggars Opera – Vertigo Records giants who work here with a heck of a lot of great work on organ! The set features a fair bit of music from each of the group's four albums – Act One, Waters Of Change, Pathfinder, and Get Your Dog Off Me – plus some single tracks too – all wrapped together as a 2CD set that really shows a great progression in the group's style – from tripped-out and jamming, to tighter and more song-based – yet always with a soaring sort of energy in the end. The keyboards alone have a strength to rival Rick Wakeman's best work for Yes – and titles include "Passacaglia", "Memory", "Raymond's Road", "Festival", "Impromptu", "Fox", "The Witch", "Pathfinder", "Sarabande", "Think", "Time Machine", "Lament", and "Working Man".

Fantastic lost material from Jackie McLean! The set was recorded right before his "new thing" era – in the same period as the amazing Fickle Sonance album. And like that one, this features Jackie edging out towards modernist ideas, yet still swinging hard and fierce, with a firey boppish sensibility. The writing is great – and the players include Herbie Hancock on piano, Donald Byrd on trumpet, Butch Warren on bass, and a young Tony Williams on drums – making his recording debut on the album! The whole thing's tinged with dark and fragile emotion – and a heated sense of urgency that makes it one of McLean's best albums of the 60s – even though it was recorded then, and not issued by Blue Note until many years later! Titles include "Marney", "Dusty Foot", "Vertigo", and "Cheers" – plus one more track, "Formidable", from a 1959 session with Donald Byrd and Walter Davis.

A real sleeper of an electronic disco number – pulsating sequencer driven club tracks from Dan Hartman! Bubbling synths and a pounding 4 on the floor beat add up to a great late 70s disco number, a slightly more obscure single by him, but a great one nonetheless!

Fantastic lost material from Jackie McLean! The set was recorded right before his "new thing" era – in the same period as the amazing Fickle Sonance album. And like that one, this features Jackie edging out towards modernist ideas, yet still swinging hard and fierce, with a firey boppish sensibility. The writing is great – and the players include Herbie Hancock on piano, Donald Byrd on trumpet, Butch Warren on bass, and a young Tony Williams on drums – making his recording debut on the album! The whole thing's tinged with dark and fragile emotion – and a heated sense of urgency that makes it one of McLean's best albums of the 60s – even though it was recorded then, and not issued by Blue Note until many years later! Titles include "Marney", "Dusty Foot", "Vertigo", and "Cheers" – plus one more track, "Formidable", from a 1959 session with Donald Byrd and Walter Davis.

Quite an unusual little album from Graham Bond – quite spiritual, almost supernatural at times – very much what you'd expect from the cover and title! The record's light years away from Bond's British beat group work of a few years before – and has a quality that almost mixes headier rock influences with the spiritualism of the post-Coltrane generation – as the record almost goes farther in a direction that was somewhat initiated by Albert Ayler's more rock-like leanings at the end of his life. Many numbers have chorus vocals rising up behind Bond's lead – and while his own work on alto sax is somewhat displaced by strong use of guitar on many tracks, there's still a fair bit of jazzy elements going on in the mix – particularly on side two, which features Graham laying down some strong lines on the Hammond. Titles include "Aquarius Mantra", "Praise City Of Light", "12 GatesTo The City", "Invocation To The Light", "The Qabalistic Cross", "The Pentagram Ritual", "The Holy Words", "The Judgement", and "The Magician". CD also features bonus tracks – "12 Gates To The City (single b-side)", and "Water Water (single a-side)".

A really nice set from Ian Matthews – who cut his teeth a few years earlier with Fairport Convention – and gets a little help here from fellow Fairporters Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson. Ian's warmth in the vocal department really glows here – and the sound overall brings in some sweet country rock and west coast folk rock as well as any Brit effort we can think of. Very good stuff! Tracks include "Desert Inn", "Hearts", "Never Ending", "Reno Nevada", "Hinge I", "Hinge II", "Southern Wind", Morgan The Pirate", "If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes" and more.

One of the 2 terrific records ex-Fairport Convention singer-songwriter Ian Matthews cut for the Vertigo label in the early 70s – built around Matthews wonderful vocals and acoustic guitars, but with a tighter rhythmic backdrop the the typical post folk trope! The key here is warmth – particularly in Ian's vocals, which carries over on some great little tunes! Tracks include "Tigers Will Survive", "Midnight On The Water", "Right Before My Eye", "Hope You Know ", "Please Be My Friend ", "House Of Unamerican Blues Activity Dream", and "The Only Dancer". Also includes the bonus track "Devil In Disguise".

Amazing sounds from British pianist Keith Tippett – a startling crossroads of musical scenes that beautifully brings together the best jazz, rock, and jazz rock impulses on the UK scene at the time – still with a freshness and clarity that the work would never reach a few years later! The sound here is brilliant – often a bit funky at the bottom, and definitely stretching out to freer jazz ideas on the solos, yet always managing a sense of soul and swing that really gives the record a rock solid core – so that even loopy lines seem to land back on the ground, and set the group on fire with a whole new energy. In addition to Tippett's work on electric and acoustic piano, the set also features Elton Dean on alto and saxello, Marc Charig on cornet, Nick Evans on trombone, and Robert Wyatt on drums – on titles that include "Gridal Suite", "Five After Dawn", "This Is What Happens", "Thoughts To Geoff", and "Black Horse".

One of the coolest rock concept albums ever – and arguably the crowning moment for Aphrodite's Child – an incredibly hip Greek group from the early 70s – featuring a young Demis Roussos on vocals, and Vangelis Papathanassiou on organ, piano, vibes, flute, and a lot of other instrumentation! Vangelis composed the whole set – as an extended piece based on the Apocalypse of St John – and the album was recorded in Paris, away from their native Greece – in a time of political unrest and cultural upheaval that's clearly referenced in the music! There's a really wide array of textures and moods on the set – from sinister to soft, freaky to peaceful, all laid out beautifully with a sense of poetry and power that few other groups could match! Irene Pappas performs a recitation, and also gives some sexy sounds on the classic "Infinity" – and other tunes include "The System", "Babylon", "Loud Loud Loud", "The Four Horsemen", "The Seventh Seal", "Aegian Sea", "The Marching Beast", "Capture Of The Beast", "Altamont", "Seven Trumpets", and "Hic Et Nunc".

A groundbreaking record from Kraftwerk – a set that unified the 70s worlds of analogue electronics and prog rock – yet somehow managed to set the scene for a whole new sound to come! The album's a treasure all the way through – slow-building, and with beautiful bubbling moments that have these surprisingly simple hooks – heard to best effect in the album's classic title cut "Autobahn" – but echoed nicely through the album's other longer tracks too – "Kometenmelodie 1 &2", "Mitternacht", and "Morgenspaziergang".

Early jazz rock from Bob Downes Open Music – composed and arranged by Downes and not a far cry stylistically as the Electric City LP that came out just a bit earlier – a mix of charged, drum heavy movements and airier flute led tapestries! The mood shifting dynamic makes the record pretty exciting, as does the stellar musicianship and imaginative compositions that fearlessly resist categorization. Downes plays different flutes plus sax, bels and tam tam, with Dennis Smith and John Stevens on drums, Harry Miller on bass and Chris Spedding on guitar. Titles include "Dream Journey: "A Score For Blind Sight By The Ballet Rambert", "Integration", "Contact", "Ghosts In Space", "Sesert Haze" and "Electric City".

A sweet mid 70s set that has the band really tightening up – going for a heavy funk approach that has all instruments grooving on the rhythm, and which features less of the over the top jamming that showed up on some of the earlier sets. Ian Carr's trumpet and synth work really electrify the tunes – and the album's also got loads of sweet keyboards from Geoff Castle!

A really nice set from Ian Matthews – who cut his teeth a few years earlier with Fairport Convention – and gets a little help here from fellow Fairporters Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson. Ian's warmth in the vocal department really glows here – and the sound overall brings in some sweet country rock and west coast folk rock as well as any Brit effort we can think of. Very good stuff! Tracks include "Desert Inn", "Hearts", "Never Ending", "Reno Nevada", "Hinge I", "Hinge II", "Southern Wind", Morgan The Pirate", "If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes" and more.

A stunning disco classic from Dan Hartman – maybe an unlikely talent for the dancefloors, given his image on the cover – but an artist who definitely went onto shape the sound of the clubs at the end of the 70s! The album's got the Hartman groove really hitting hard, and right on the money – a tightly compressed approach to disco that really lays heavily on the hooks – in a style that's similar to where Peter Brown was going at the time, with a similar compressed sensibility that gets past any of the fluff that was drowning others in the disco generation! In fact, it could well be argued that the approach here really helps focus a dancefloor sound towards the modes of the 80s – while still allowing for the fluid soul of the disco years too – a style that's summed up perfectly in the album's extended classic "Vertigo/Relight My Fire", which features famous vocals by Loleatta Holloway! Other titles are all sweet too – and include "Free Ride", "I Love Makin Music", "Just For Fun", "Love Strong", and "Hands Down". CD features some nice bonus tracks too – "Boogie All Summer (single)", "Relight My Fire (single)", "Hands Down (12" version)", "Hands Down (Hands Up)", "Relight My Fire (historical 1979 rmx)", and "Vertigo/Relight My Fire (progressive instrumental rmx)".

One of the rarest Roland Kirk albums – and a great one! The record features Kirk in his prime early years – before he got totally nutty, and when he would still play straight soul jazz/hard bop, but with kind of a mad twist, and with strange instrumentation. Horace Parlan's on piano, and his work on the keys, as always, is a real treat – and it keeps the album grooving along at a nice pace. Most tracks are originals, written with Kirk's unique sense of whimsy and humor – and titles include "Blues For C&T", "Hip Chops", "Gifts & Messages", "Vertigo Ro", and "Where Does The Blame Lie?"

Sweet grooves from this hip Italian combo – a group with a name that reminds us of some of our favorite sound library ensembles from years back, and a musical style to match! Magnetic 4 are heavy on 60s bossa and modal styles – jazzy in the instrumentation, but often set to dancefloor rhythms too – a bit in the mode we first came to love during the early years of the Schema Records label – no surprise, really, given that Magnetic 4 also hail from the same Italian scene! The bossa rhythms are especially nice, and really warm things up – and although there's vocals on a few tracks, the main vibe is instrumental – heavy on Fender Rhodes and other keyboards, plus a bit of vibes as well. Titles include "Sushi Run", "Ocean 99", "The King Of Swing", "Boa Vida", "Vertigo Bossa", "Bebogaloo", "Chilly On The Rocks", and "Afro Sex Sound Machine".

One of our favorite Italian soundtracks of the 70s – a wonderful score written by Piero Piccioni and conducted by Berto Pisano – easily our idea of heaven! The tunes are languid and laidback – moving in a way that's slow, yet often with an undercurrent of funk too – this great stepping bassline that moves underneath these very cool organ parts, and some haunting strings and tinkling piano too – recorded beautifully, and with a bit of light vocals from Nora Orlandi. Titles include "Vertigo", "Spirale D'Amore", "Andante Improvviso", "Guitars", "Turquoise", and "Significa Amore". This excellent version features a huge amount of bonus tracks – 17 more numbers added to the original 11 – with amazing variations on the theme, and other wondeful bits!

Heavy grooves from Suff Daddy – but augmented with lots of great guest work too – the kind of collaborative effort that always seems to stem from his great inspiration in the studio! Core grooves are nicely diverse – and filled with funky stuff that draws heavily from 60s and 70s roots – especially on the keyboards, which seem even more magical this time around – and range from piano to Hammond to moog, and more! Guests include Miles Bonny, Flat Pocket, Hulk Hodn, Phat Kat, Vertual Vertigo, and Fleur Earth – and titles include "Jimmy Smith Interlude", "KC Vodka", "Dexter Wansel Interlude", "Det2bin", "Gimlet, "Elephant", "Bo Break", "Cold Lampin", and "Pattern Select".

Another masterful set from Beanfield – an even better album than their great Human Patterns, if you can believe that – and one with much more of an adventurous soul feel than we've heard from the boys before! The fractured electronics and broken beats feel that the group made sound so melodious in their previous work is still here, but Beanfield takes a huge step here as far as cohesive songwriting goes! Four of the album's 11 tracks feature vocals by Ernesto – the opener "Chosen", "Someone Like You", "Close To You" and "Kiss" and it's those cuts that give the album it's smooth and soulful overall feel. It's not that beats don't bump – they still skip and pulse along on the soul-based tunes, but it's all laid down with an amazing tunefulness that really kind of caught us off guard! Two of the other tracks feature vocals by Bajka, and those have a stronger club groove, but still go down very sweetly. Another great one on Compost! Other tracks include "Mr. Park", "Vertigowheel", "Welcome" featuring vocals by Marzenka (one of the more pounding club tunes in the set), "Cargo" and more.