Featuring guest horn section from Earth, Wind, & Fire! LP, Vinyl record album

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... 12-inch, Vinyl record

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Recorded live on tour in London and Los Angeles. CD

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An album we come back to more and more over the years – a bit more subtle than some of the other Gabriel-era Genesis records, but in a really great way! You'll not get any overly-heavy concepts here, yet the album still retains all the instrumental complexity the group was getting so great at – nicely subtle at times, a bit more expanded at others – and with a balance of bigger songs and more personal moments that hints at the direction the group would take after Peter Gabriel. Instrumentation is superb, especially the keyboards – and titles include "Aisle Of Plenty", "Firth Of Fifth", "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight", "I Know What I Like", "Battle Of Epping Forest", "The Cinema Show", and "More Fool Me" – the last of which was a key early vocal moment for Phil Collins. LP, Vinyl record album

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Life after Peter Gabriel – with Phil Collins doing a surprisingly great job on vocals – free from all the tripe of later years! The group are still very much in the mode of their early prog years, but balance things out with a few catchier tunes – a mode that's a bit like the Selling England By The Pound album, sans Gabriel. Collins is learning how to express himself soulfully, but not in a commercial way – and the few off moments are more than balanced with some wonderfully tight instrumental work – on tracks that include "Dance On A Volcano", "Robbery Assault & Battery", "Ripples", "Trick Of The Tail", and "Mad Man Moon". LP, Vinyl record album

Titles include "Blood On The Rooftops", "Wot Gorilla", "Afterglow", "In That Quiet Earth", "Your Own Special Way", "All In A Mouse's Night", and "Eleventh Earl Of Mar". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic classic from Genesis – a record that really has the early version of the group at their height – able to spin out longform instrumental passages that would go onto shape a generation of proggers who tried to copy their sound – amidst lyrical moments that really have Peter Gabriel hitting his imaginative stride! The set's worth it alone for the amazing side-length "Supper's Ready" – a track so trippy, it's completely different than the Phil Collins-led era of Genesis – and the record features so many other great moments – like the commentary on urban housing that is "Get Em Out By Friday", the soaring keyboard-driven "Watcher Of The Skies", and the majestic "Can Utility & The Coastliners". All that and one of the strangest covers of all time too! CD

Titles include "Illegal Alien", "Taking It All Too Hard", "It's Gonna Get Better", "Home By The Sea", "That's All", and "Mama". LP, Vinyl record album

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

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An early masterpiece from Genesis – the kind of visionary record that really set them apart from the rest of their generation – an incredible building-up in sound from their previous two albums, and proof that Peter Gabriel's talents were finally getting focused in the right direction! Keyboards cascade heavily – hitting Yes-like proportions, but with more structure, too – as time changes abound, scene changes match the energy of theme-changes – and the whole album falls into place beautifully, but with plenty of surprises along the way. Every song is a compelling little story – from the leadoff "Musical Box", to the spooky "Return Of The Giant Hogweed", and the playful "Harold The Barrel" – with sweeter moments that include "For Absent Friends" and "Harlequin" – just hinting at the crossover ballad style the group would embrace later, but without any of the cloying commerciality at all. LP, Vinyl record album

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A landmark album from the mighty Bob Dylan – a 2LP set of studio work, which was quite rare at the time – and a set that has Dylan stretching out all his creative powers in newly different directions! The album had a long genesis in the studio – some early work with The Band, then Dylan breaking off with Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson to head down to Nashville – where they interacted with key country session musicians to make this masterful blend of music – work that's not country at all, but which is also moving past Dylan's folk roots too – with a blend of music that still as mindblowing today as it was back in the mid 60s! This is definitely one of those double-length sets that makes fantastic use of all the extra space – overflowing with gems that include "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35", "Visions Of Johanna", "Pledging My Time", "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", "Leopard-Skin Pill Box Hat", and "Just Like A Woman". LP, Vinyl record album

Ever-adventurous composer, arranger and coronet player Rob Mazurek teams up with similarly creative wanderer Emmett Kelly (Cairo Gang, Josh Abrams Natural Information Society and more)! Alien Flower Sutra finds the duo and their guest players crafting a pretty awesome mix of interstellar psych-jazz-folk with vocals and guitar – with lots of fuzzier, jazzier instrumental passages. Very cool stuff on International Anthem, which has quickly become one of Chicago's best indie labels for free thinking creative output! Mazurek handles the electronic treatments, synths and coronet, with Kelly's lyrics, voice and guitars, and accompanied by Guilherme Granado, Carlos Issam Thomas Rohrer and Brittany Mazurek. Includes "Back To The Ocean, Back To The Sea", "Android Love Cry", "Blackout", "Bright Nights Havoc", "I Untied My Wrists", "Of Time Wasted", "Remember Nothing", "Embryo Genesis", "We Are One" and "Overture Towards The Beginning Of The End Of Time". (Jazz, Rock) CD

One of the greatest moments ever from Psychic TV – and a really stunning surprise after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle! Genesis P Orridge and Peter Cristopherson go in a completely different direction here – a mode that still holds onto some of the noise lessons learned in TG, but which also shows this incredible love of both more complicated pop modes from the 60s, and some of the farther reaches of minimalism as well! The album sports these tremendous ballads with eerie vocals by Genesis – including "The Orchids" and "White Nights" – which are both eerie recastings of an older mode of UK pop love songs – and there's other tracks that maybe echo a bit of Meredith Monk, or some of the underground experimentalists on the Lovely Records scene – including bits that have weird phone rings, dog barks, and other great touches. A spare and subtle use of noise and darker sounds wends its way throughout – but never with the heavier handed touches of later years – and titles include "Hymn 23", "The Orchids", "Botanica", "Iron", "Glove", "Always Is Always", "White Nights", "Finale", "Eleusis", "Medmenham", "Ancient Lights", "Proof On", "Eden 1 Eden 2 Eden 3", "Clouds Without Water", "Black Moon", "Silver And Gold", "In The Nursery", and "Circle". LP, Vinyl record album

A real proggish jammer – similar to early Genesis, especially in the keyboard parts! LP, Vinyl record album

The Hawkwind sax man himself, at the head of a live band featuring Helios Creed, Del Dettmar, Genesis P. Orridge, Alan Powell and members of Pressurehed – blasting through 21 classic Hawkwind songs! CD

An east coast psych classic from Ultimate Spinach – a group who recorded for MGM, but who would have been equally at home next to some of the trippy rock groups on Mainstream or Vanguard at the time! Alan Lorber handles production, and he really lets the group's freak flag fly – using that great ear for psychedelic elements that he brought to some of his own groovy records, which gives familiar instrumentation some nicely shaggy edges that really help push the album over the top! There's all sorts of cool things going on here – especially on the longer tracks, of which there are a few – and titles include "Jazz Thing", "Mind Flowers", "Suite Genesis Of Beauty", "Fragmentary March Of Green", and "Fifth Horseman Of The Apocalypse". CD

Bring on the sun if it burns this strongly – as we're more than happy to get extra toasty in the light of such wonderful tracks as these! The set's a stunning look at the massive musical shift on the UK scene in the year of 1967 – a time when psych was certainly making its influence felt, but groups were also opening up in all these other sorts of ways too – really getting past the jaunty rhythms and catchy lyrics of a few years before – and instead somehow managing to make all these amazing things happen in just the space of a short 7" single! Some of the artists here are artists who were making more mainstream music a few years earlier, others are new acts that would soon become superstars, and a few more are genius groups who burst out strongly, then disappeared from view – all brought together in a great 3CD package, with 79 tracks in all, and very detailed notes. Artists include The Herd, Idle Race, Dave Davies, John Williams, Svensk, Universals, Australian Playboys, Tony Rivers, Great Uncle Fred, Artwoods, 23rd Turnoff, Vocal Point, Zombies, Nirvana UK, Lisa & Francesca, The Mirage, Virgin Sleep, Accent, Our Plastic Dream, David Bowie, Living Daylights, John's Children, Episode Six, Orange Bicycle, The Poets, Genesis, Crocheted Doughnut Ring, Piccadilly Line, Scott Henderson, Made In Sheffield, Caleb, and many others! CD

The first solo set from Peter Gabriel – and a record that was quite a surprise upon initial release – kind of a stripped-down variant of the energy that Gabriel brought to his early work with Genesis, presented in a nicely lean way that allowed for all the best focus on his key ideas! The style here is light years away from the last moments Gabriel was with Genesis – although there's still a few nice touches of the Lamb Lies Down generation, too – and the vocals are more pointed, more focused, and arguably more personal too. Instrumentation holds up better than you might expect – especially as there was no move at all to nod to the nascent punk generation – and titles include the hit "Solsbury Hill", plus "Modern Love", "Slowburn", "Humdrum", "Waiting For The Big One", "Down The Dolce Vita", and "Here Comes The Flood". LP, Vinyl record album

A weird little record from underground romantic singer Lewis – an artist who's partially in a European tradition that runs from French singers up through the New Romantics generation – but one who's also a definitely individual, with an approach that's all his own! The album's got a slinky, classy sort of feel – one that befits Lewis' white suit on the cover, standing in front of a private jet and Mercedes – but the backings are also oddly dark, almost some ironic commentary on romance, with these moody undercurrents that almost make the whole thing feel like it comes from the Genesis P Orridge side of the universe! Let's put it this way: If you tried to use the record in an act of seduction, you might find yourself driving your partner out of the bedroom in a hurry – but if you're looking for a wonderfully weird, wonderfully oddball record, you've definitely found it. Titles include "We Danced All Night", "Bon Voyage", "As The Boats Go By", "So Be In Love With Me", "It's A New Day", and "Don't Stop It Now". CD

Collects tons of 1966-67 live material, interviews, and other tracks that chart the genesis and gestation of his early pschedelic classic "Freak Out!". Deluxe Edition includes 72 tracks over 4 discs of sprawling Zappa mayhem housed in a cool puffy plastic fold-out box! CD

One of the rarest records to ever feature the work of groundbreaking writer and language experimentalist William S Burroughs – an album that originally came out on the Industrial Music label, home to the early work of Throbbing Gristle! Peter Cristopherson and Genesis P-Orridge worked with Burroughs associate James Grauerholz, and dug through countless ours of tapes, to bring together some of his most experimental recordings – work that really shows just how much the writer's fascination with the properties of magnetic tape had an influence on his writing, and his legendary cutup technique! Some tracks are straight readings – of the more familiar sort that feature Burroughs' incredible voice – but many others have sound experiments on tape, transforming language in a really great way – with contributions from Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville too. Wonderful all the way through – and one of the few recordings to really plumb the depths of the sonic genius of William S Burroughs! (Spoken Word, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

A landmark album from the mighty Bob Dylan – a 2LP set of studio work, which was quite rare at the time – and a set that has Dylan stretching out all his creative powers in newly different directions! The album had a long genesis in the studio – some early work with The Band, then Dylan breaking off with Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson to head down to Nashville – where they interacted with key country session musicians to make this masterful blend of music – work that's not country at all, but which is also moving past Dylan's folk roots too – with a blend of music that still as mindblowing today as it was back in the mid 60s! This is definitely one of those double-length sets that makes fantastic use of all the extra space – overflowing with gems that include "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35", "Visions Of Johanna", "Pledging My Time", "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", "Leopard-Skin Pill Box Hat", and "Just Like A Woman". CD

The record where it all really came together for Fairport Convention – the point at which the already-great group really stepped forward to become something totally unique! By this point all the key elements are firmly in place – sublime vocals from the great Sandy Denny, amazing guitar and songwriting from the young Richard Thompson, and an overall approach to the music that was way more than folk – in the way the elements are layered together carefully, and build in these hypnotic lines that are completely amazing – almost modal in conception, but much more subtle – and the quality that really makes their work so unique. Titles include "Genesis Hall", "Autopsy", "Cajun Woman", "Percy's Song", "Million Dollar Bash", and "Who Knows Where The Time Goes". Includes two bonus tracks – "Dear Landlord" and "The Ballad Of Easy Rider". (Folk/Country, Rock) CD

Ever-adventurous composer, arranger and coronet player Rob Mazurek teams up with similarly creative wanderer Emmett Kelly (Cairo Gang, Josh Abrams Natural Information Society and more)! Alien Flower Sutra finds the duo and their guest players crafting a pretty awesome mix of interstellar psych-jazz-folk with vocals and guitar – with lots of fuzzier, jazzier instrumental passages. Very cool stuff on International Anthem, which has quickly become one of Chicago's best indie labels for free thinking creative output! Mazurek handles the electronic treatments, synths and coronet, with Kelly's lyrics, voice and guitars, and accompanied by Guilherme Granado, Carlos Issam Thomas Rohrer and Brittany Mazurek. Includes "Back To The Ocean, Back To The Sea", "Android Love Cry", "Blackout", "Bright Nights Havoc", "I Untied My Wrists", "Of Time Wasted", "Remember Nothing", "Embryo Genesis", "We Are One" and "Overture Towards The Beginning Of The End Of Time". (Jazz, Rock) CD

Two very cool, very unusual albums from The McCoys! Infinite McCoys is really weird, wonderful work from The McCoys – a group who've definitely drunk deep of the psychedelic brew since the years of their more soulful "Hang On Sloopy" hit! There's a richly expanded set of instrumentation going on here – all arranged by the group, with all sorts of things going on – including organ, ondioline, harpsichord, vibes, tablas, and a whole host of other things – like whip, bottle, machinery, and other things used to create odd sounds throughout the record! The set has a few more direct numbers mixed with some much more experimental ones – and includes some great jazzy use of horns, including alto from Freddy Lipsius and trumpet from Randy Brecker. Titles include "Hell", "Rosa Rodriguez", "Faces", "Resurrection", "Genesis Through A Window", "Melodrama", and "Union City Waltz". On Human Ball, the McCoys really let their hair down and freak flag fly – coming across in all sorts of really great ways that are light years beyond their early material! The set moves effortlessly between material that's groovy, bluesy, and sometimes warmly harmonic – all with the same sense of experimentation the group brought to their great Infinite album, but a bit more compact in terms of arrangements and expression! Titles include "Clergy Lies", "Daybreak", "Only Human", "Human Ball Blues", and "It Really Doesn't Matter". CD

Titles include "Time To Ring Some Changes", "Honky Tonk Blues", "Genesis Hall", "For Shame Of Doing Wrong", "Down Where The Drunkards Roll", and "Never Again". CD

The start of rock and roll was a bit different in the UK than it was over here – still with the requisite inspiration from R&B and other American styles, but also inflected with some elements from the colonial scene, the world of music hall, jazz, and other instrumental styles – in ways that made for a slightly different genesis than you might expect! This well-done 3CD package traces the roots in a really great way – especially on the first CD, which features initial postwar moments of musical inspiration, from artists who include Ray Ellington, Ken Colyer, Alma Cogan, Art Baxter, Marty Wilde & The Wildcats, Tommy Steele, Terry Wayne, Lonnie Donegan, Lita Roza, and even a young Alexis Korner! CD2 has things coming together a bit more with a pop-styled polish – work from Cliff Richard, Vince Taylor, Johnny Kidd, Sally Kelly, and Billy Fury – plus later tracks from a few of the artists on CD1. And CD3 sends it home from the early 60s years right before the British Invasion – lots more from Billy Fury, and other cuts from Screaming Lord Sutch, The Shadows, Outlaws, Tornadoes, Blues Incorporated, and even The Beatles. 72 tracks in all – with notes in English and French! CD

Includes tracks by David Bowie, Genesis, Squeeze, Paul Hardcastle, Roger Waters & The Bleeding Heart Band, and Hugh Cornwell. (Soundtracks, Rock) CD

The record where it all really came together for Fairport Convention – the point at which the already-great group really stepped forward to become something totally unique! By this point all the key elements are firmly in place – sublime vocals from the great Sandy Denny, amazing guitar and songwriting from the young Richard Thompson, and an overall approach to the music that was way more than folk – in the way the elements are layered together carefully, and build in these hypnotic lines that are completely amazing – almost modal in conception, but much more subtle – and the quality that really makes their work so unique. Titles include "Genesis Hall", "Autopsy", "Cajun Woman", "Percy's Song", "Million Dollar Bash", and "Who Knows Where The Time Goes". (Folk/Country, Rock) CD

The record where it all really came together for Fairport Convention – the point at which the already-great group really stepped forward to become something totally unique! By this point all the key elements are firmly in place – sublime vocals from the great Sandy Denny, amazing guitar and songwriting from the young Richard Thompson, and an overall approach to the music that was way more than folk – in the way the elements are layered together carefully, and build in these hypnotic lines that are completely amazing – almost modal in conception, but much more subtle – and the quality that really makes their work so unique. Titles include "Genesis Hall", "Autopsy", "Cajun Woman", "Percy's Song", "Million Dollar Bash", and "Who Knows Where The Time Goes". (Folk/Country, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

A record that's early in the career of Canned Heat, but one that already has the group exploding past their roots – stretching out in a double-length set that takes the combo way past any sort of standard blues rock modes! Some folks love the record for the classic "Going Up The Country" – one of the signature Canned Heat tunes – but there's also some insane jams on here, including the 20 minute "Parthenogenesis", and the amazing "Refried Boogie" – which takes up all of sides three and four, and which is one of the clearest examples of the way that artists of their generation were inspired by blues, but soon opened up into psych and prog modes! Other titles are shorter, and include a version of the classic "One Kind Favor" – plus "Sandy's Blues", "Walking By Myself", "My Mistake", and "Pony Blues". CD

A record that's early in the career of Canned Heat, but one that already has the group exploding past their roots – stretching out in a double-length set that takes the combo way past any sort of standard blues rock modes! Some folks love the record for the classic "Going Up The Country" – one of the signature Canned Heat tunes – but there's also some insane jams on here, including the 20 minute "Parthenogenesis", and the amazing "Refried Boogie" – which takes up all of sides three and four, and which is one of the clearest examples of the way that artists of their generation were inspired by blues, but soon opened up into psych and prog modes! Other titles are shorter, and include a version of the classic "One Kind Favor" – plus "Sandy's Blues", "Walking By Myself", "My Mistake", and "Pony Blues". LP, Vinyl record album