A great way to enjoy these two sublime early albums from Pink Floyd – in a cool 70s Hipnosis package, to boot! LP, Vinyl record album

A brilliant bit of psychedelia – still as fresh today as it was many decades back – and the crowning achievement of Pink Floyd during the early Syd Barrett years! The album's got all the best elements of the group firmly in place – the penchant for long-jamming tracks that still manage to always maintain a sharp edge – mixed with some of the wittier, more playful lyrics that Barrett brought to the group – all wrapped up with a sense of depth and darkness that goes way beyond most of their contemporaries. The record's a masterpiece through and through – from its first guitar-heavy jam on "Astronomy Domine", through the strutting, vamping madness of "Bike" – all up and down other gems that include "Lucifer Sam", "The Gnome", "Take Up Thy Stethoscope & Walk", "Interstellar Overdrive", "Chapter 24", and "The Scarecrow". LP, Vinyl record album

A brilliant bit of psychedelia – still as fresh today as it was many decades back – and the crowning achievement of Pink Floyd during the early Syd Barrett years! The album's got all the best elements of the group firmly in place – the penchant for long-jamming tracks that still manage to always maintain a sharp edge – mixed with some of the wittier, more playful lyrics that Barrett brought to the group – all wrapped up with a sense of depth and darkness that goes way beyond most of their contemporaries. The record's a masterpiece through and through – from its first guitar-heavy jam on "Astronomy Domine", through the strutting, vamping madness of "Bike" – all up and down other gems that include "Lucifer Sam", "The Gnome", "Take Up Thy Stethoscope & Walk", "Interstellar Overdrive", "Chapter 24", and "The Scarecrow". LP, Vinyl record album

A brilliant bit of psychedelia – still as fresh today as it was many decades back – and the crowning achievement of Pink Floyd during the early Syd Barrett years! The album's got all the best elements of the group firmly in place – the penchant for long-jamming tracks that still manage to always maintain a sharp edge – mixed with some of the wittier, more playful lyrics that Barrett brought to the group – all wrapped up with a sense of depth and darkness that goes way beyond most of their contemporaries. The record's a masterpiece through and through – from its first guitar-heavy jam on "Astronomy Domine", through the strutting, vamping madness of "Bike" – all up and down other gems that include "Lucifer Sam", "The Gnome", "Take Up Thy Stethoscope & Walk", "Interstellar Overdrive", "Chapter 24", and "The Scarecrow". LP, Vinyl record album

Beautiful early work from British singer Vashti Bunyan – an important figure in the acid folk scene at the end of the 60s, heard here on some really wonderful work from a few years before! Some of the tracks have a really trippy style, and others are a bit more like conventional Brit girl pop of the time – but given a very weird twist overall, with a sound that's quite hard to describe! Vashti's vocals have these really dark qualities overall – and even when the backings are fuller (which often they are not), there's a sad, earthy feel to her singing. But equally great is her guitar work – heard with more prominence on most of the album's previously-unissued tracks from mid 60s tapes. Bunyan plays with these warm harmonics that kind of nestle and bristle underneath her vocals – pushing the tunes up with a sense of brightness in contrast to the voice – almost in a Nick Drake sort of way (and trust us, we don't throw around comparisons to his music easily!) The package is a wonderful look at these almost-lost years of Vashti's career – and it features both sides of her Decca and Columbia singles, an unreleased Immediate single, and a lot more tracks pulled from rare tapes from 1964, 1966, and 1967! Set features 25 tracks that include "Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind", "Train Song", "Love Song", "Winter Is Blue", "Leave Me", "How Do I Know", "Go Before Dawn", "Girl's Song In Winter", "Don't Believe", "17 Pink Sugar Elephants", "Someday", and "I Know". (Rock, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

"Now you can experience transcendental consciousness without spending 10 years in a Tibetan monastery" – or so the liner notes proclaim – a pretty great description of what's bound to happen after making your way through this very trippy album from the early 70s! The set's essentially a set of long electric guitar solos – played by Wilburn Burchette on his self-created "impro guitar" – recorded with lots and lots of echo, and maybe a bit of distortion too – so that the long, cyclic lines ring out beautifully – with every bit of the hypnotic feel you might expect! The whole thing's almost like an electric version of some of John Fahey's longform solo work – and titles include "Dawn Of Awakening", "Regeneration", "Transformation", "Introversion", and "Piercing The Psychic Heart". LP, Vinyl record album

"Now you can experience transcendental consciousness without spending 10 years in a Tibetan monastery" – or so the liner notes proclaim – a pretty great description of what's bound to happen after making your way through this very trippy album from the early 70s! The set's essentially a set of long electric guitar solos – played by Wilburn Burchette on his self-created "impro guitar" – recorded with lots and lots of echo, and maybe a bit of distortion too – so that the long, cyclic lines ring out beautifully – with every bit of the hypnotic feel you might expect! The whole thing's almost like an electric version of some of John Fahey's longform solo work – and titles include "Dawn Of Awakening", "Regeneration", "Transformation", "Introversion", and "Piercing The Psychic Heart". LP, Vinyl record album

Extremely haunting early work from Nico – a set that really has her stepping forward on the path to solo greatness! The album's only Nico's second solo album – after the legendary Chelsea Girls for Verve – but it's got a spark, stark, totally-drained quality that's immediately gripping. John Cale handled production, and he's working here with Nico in a junkie haze of violin, harmonium, and other jagged instrumentation – all set to perfectly balance against the flatness and lack of emotion in the vocals, in a way that still sends chills up our spine every time we hear it! The whole thing's great – and titles include "Julius Caesar", "Evening Of Light", "Lawns Of Dawn", "Ari's Song", "Facing The Wind", and "Frozen Warnings". LP, Vinyl record album

Wow, this is SO not the Tortoise that first set the underground aflame in the early 90s – the group has evolved and opened up in ways we never would have expected. With It's All Around You it's emerged with an airy, open, stargazing set of tracks that resemble the languid atmosphere of Tangerine Dream as much as they do early post rock! Gone, for the most part from early Tortoise is that strong, rubbery electric bass groove and tightly thudding live drum sound. It's All Around You retains the bright vibes and sputtering electronics of the TNT album, and the out front, almost rock & roll guitar lines of the Standards album – and adds an ever present, ambient synthesizer bubble of sound to surround the thing. It's all so catchy, too, and almost sunny. If Tortoise hasn't really broken any new ground this time, it's only because they're the ones who broke it in the first place. Tracks include "It's All Around You", The Lithium Shifts", "Crest", "Stretch", "Dot/Eyes", "By Dawn", "Five Too Many" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

The legendary debut of Dwight Yoakam – a honky tonk classic delivered with inimitable swagger! It's not only one of the finest country albums of its decade, we'd honestly rank Guitars Cadillacs Etc Etc up there with best country albums ever. Really! The mid 80s isn't one of the best remembered eras in country music – even hardscrabble heroes like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson were fumbling around for the right balance of traditionalism and modernism at the dawn of the CD era – so there's no overstating what a huge breath of fresh air Yoakam was at time. He pays heartfelt homage to roots rock and honky tonk tradition, but he honed his craft in the LA club scene of the early 80s, giving his way with a classic sound an edge like no others at the time. A masterpiece. Titles include "South Of Cincinnati", "Bury Me", "Guitars Cadillacs", his killer version of Cash's "Ring Of Fire", "I'll Be Gone", "Miner's Prayer" and more. (Folk/Country, Rock) LP, Vinyl record album

Extremely haunting early work from Nico – a set that really has her stepping forward on the path to solo greatness! The album's only Nico's second solo album – after the legendary Chelsea Girls for Verve – but it's got a spark, stark, totally-drained quality that's immediately gripping. John Cale handled production, and he's working here with Nico in a junkie haze of violin, harmonium, and other jagged instrumentation – all set to perfectly balance against the flatness and lack of emotion in the vocals, in a way that still sends chills up our spine every time we hear it! The whole thing's great – and titles include "Julius Caesar", "Evening Of Light", "Lawns Of Dawn", "Ari's Song", "Facing The Wind", and "Frozen Warnings". LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible fantasy of California pop – recorded too late in the 60s to really strike big, but with a perfect approach to mid-decade Beach Boys at their best! Mark Eric's clearly borrowing plenty of pages from Brian Wilson's bag for this set (and maybe Brian Hyland too) – and the original tunes have the beautiful quality of Wilson's best writing in the pre-Pet Sounds years – dealing with deeper themes, but in a very careful and sometimes guarded way that makes the tunes that much more heartfelt. The arrangements are Wilson-inspired too – but have a more mature style than the lyrics – handled by Vic Briggs with a quality that's similar to the brilliant Surf Symphony album of the same year – almost a dreamy remembrance of the sweeter side of California earlier in the decade, but undercut with some of the bluer, more adult modes of the time. Backings feature swirling strings, ringing vibes, and some groovy guitar – and Mark's vocals are often recorded in a way that harmonizes them against the lead – a one-man vocal group, with echoes of The Four Freshmen at times. Titles include "California Home", "Move With The Dawn", "Laura's Changing", "Lynn's Baby", "Just Passing By", "Sad Is The Way That I Feel", and "Take Me With You". LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe not the most politically correct of the entries in the Greasy Mike series of weird and wild 45s – as the collection brings together material that offers a postwar take on the East – in a weird mish-mash of rocking styles blended with imagined ideas of Pacific-rimmed culture! The territory is surprisingly playful, if you can put aside any sort of winge factor – and the "exotic" approach makes for lots of unusual guitar lines, offbeat arrangements, and even some cool reed solos too! The set features 16 titles in all – and tunes include "Husband Wife Lung Slices" by The Fugu Five, "Saki Rock" by The Windsors, "Hong Kong" by Jackie Lee, "Hot Sake" by Copper Penny, "Far East Rock" by The Manhattans, "Along The Ginza" by Yo Yo Hashi, "Tokyo Stomp" by Chuck Fayne, "Saki" by Earl Craig, and "Chop Suey" by The Dawnbreakers. LP, Vinyl record album

An incredible fantasy of California pop – recorded too late in the 60s to really strike big, but with a perfect approach to mid-decade Beach Boys at their best! Mark Eric's clearly borrowing plenty of pages from Brian Wilson's bag for this set (and maybe Brian Hyland too) – and the original tunes have the beautiful quality of Wilson's best writing in the pre-Pet Sounds years – dealing with deeper themes, but in a very careful and sometimes guarded way that makes the tunes that much more heartfelt. The arrangements are Wilson-inspired too – but have a more mature style than the lyrics – handled by Vic Briggs with a quality that's similar to the brilliant Surf Symphony album of the same year – almost a dreamy remembrance of the sweeter side of California earlier in the decade, but undercut with some of the bluer, more adult modes of the time. Backings feature swirling strings, ringing vibes, and some groovy guitar – and Mark's vocals are often recorded in a way that harmonizes them against the lead – a one-man vocal group, with echoes of The Four Freshmen at times. Titles include "California Home", "Move With The Dawn", "Laura's Changing", "Lynn's Baby", "Just Passing By", "Sad Is The Way That I Feel", and "Take Me With You". LP, Vinyl record album

The second and best album by Morphine – rightly remembered as a much needed antidote to the grunge and mainstream alternative rock that was taking over pop culture at the time – and an enduring, ageless classic that would stand out in any era! Morphine's previous album was nearly as great, but Cure For Pain is nearly perfect. Mark Sandman's 2-string slide bass sound is indeed perfectly paired with his own vocals, the sax and drums doing the rest of the work instrumentally – there was only a couple years in which they'd really surprise us sonically with this setup, but what an amazing couple of years – and albums! Includes "Dawna", "Buena", "I'm Free Now", "All Wrong", "Candy", In Spite Of Me", "Thursday", "Cure For Pain", "Sheila", "Let's Take A Trip Together". LP, Vinyl record album

Tthe lost 1975 release from Kilburn & The High Road – Ian Dury's fantastic, and at the time, completely anomalous group of pub rock outcasts! The Kilburn sound is tough to describe even now – traces of Phil Spector's rock & soul, ragged 50s jazz, and drunken pub rock make up the sounds that back up Ian's wickedly dry sing-speak monologues – this clearly influenced people from Elvis Costello to Madness to who knows how many others. Ian went on to have more notoriety on the seminal Stiff Records, but this record originally released on Dawn sounds nearly as great to our ears. Oh, but to have a time machine and be able to go back and see this group in action – must've been amazing! LP, Vinyl record album

The mindblowing full length debut of Joni Mitchell – and a record that instantly set a whole new tone for singer/songwriter material in the late 60s! Joni had years of folk experience before this set, but the record is something else entirely – dark at times, deeply personal, and inflected with an understanding of jazz phrasing that haunts some of the guitar work, and maybe a bit of the vocals – yet all in a way that's very different than much of Mitchell's later work too. The record is definitely one of those landmarks in this moment of an artist who emerges fully formed, with a sound that's all their own – resonating with a strength that's as powerful now as it was way back then! Titles include "I Had A King", "Sistowbell Lane", "The Dawntreader", "Cactus Tree", "Song To A Seagull", "The Pirate Of Penance", "Nathan La Franeer", and "Night In The City". LP, Vinyl record album

Great work from a really overlooked group – one who have the skills of a prog act, but some of the sensitivity of a more folksy combo – which maybe is why they were such a perfect fit for the unusual sound of the Dawn label in the UK! These guys clearly have chops – the keyboard and guitar solos certainly testify to that – but they also space things out with some gentler, more personal moments – and here are also maybe a bit more hook-heavy than in the past, with a sense of almost crossing over with a few key cuts on the set. One of the catchiest numbers here is the great "Janet Planet", which has really cool production from Ian McDonald, who brings out all the best elements in the tune – and other titles include "Gormenghast", "Misty Morning Way", "Sheba's Song", "Mystery Might", and "Why". LP, Vinyl record album