Great work from Eternity's Children – a really unique soft psych group, one with roots in the south, but a sound that was later polished by LA sunshine! The tracks on the set have a wonderfully dreamy quality to them – a style that takes bits of fuzzy guitar, Hammond organ, and some slight folk and harmony touches – and fuses them together with a tight sense of conception that holds the sound together even through a few personnel shifts over the years. Some of the cuts here were issued as singles – and appeared on the group's Rev-Ola singles set – but a few others appear to be previously unissued as well, and all titles are pretty darn groovy! CD features 17 tracks in all – including "Woman's Blues", "Time & Place", "Cigarette", "Taste Of Honey", "Rumours", "Girl's Song", "Living Is Easy", "Somebody's Watching You", "Didn't We", "Just One Smile", "Laughing Girl", "Hard Hard Year", and "Down The Aisle". CD

A fantastic CD collection – one that brings together all five volumes of Stereolab's Switched On albums in one set – a huge collection of unusual material and rare singles! On the original Switched On record, moog, fuzz, and farfisa have never sounded so great together – and although these guys drank deep of the well of 60s pop magic before making this modern-day classic – they also come off sounding pretty darn original on their own! When this gem of a record first hit the world, it was as if all of us were hearing music from the cosmos for years, but could never find a way to make it part of our everyday lives. Then along come Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier, and crew – and completely change the world for the better! An album that no home should be without – with titles that include "Contact", "Super-Electric", "Doubt", "Brittle", "Au Grand Jour", "The Way Will Be Opening", and "Changer". Refried Ectoplasm is the second in the holy trinity of "switched on" albums from Stereolab – a set that collects together all the unusual recordings and other side bits the group were doing in the early years of their career – standing strong as a testament to their non-stop efforts to forever push the boundaries of electric fuzzy pop! The vocals Laetitia Sadier are completely sublime – almost a bridge between the darker modes of the previous pop generation and all the new ideas of the world to come – when the rest of rock music would finally catch up to these guys, and realize that the best path to the future is through the past! Titles include "Farfisa", "John Cage Bubblegum", "Tempter", "Exploding Head Movie", "French Disko", "Harmonium", "Revox", "Mountain", and "Sadistic". By the time of Aluminum Tunes (Switched On Vol 3) – it had only been a few years since the previous Switched On set, but Stereolab had already created so much musical magic, they needed a double-length record to keep the whole thing intact! The sound here is somehow getting even more dreamy and wonderful – definitely showing their work with the mighty Sean O'Hagan, and also really opening up into all the many musical ideas that Tim Gane was picking up from his never-ending search for unusual records! The 60s swirl through time and space, and make the future sound even better than we could have imagined it – while the Channel is drained, and England and France become one in a genius marriage of pure pop modes. Titles include "The Extension Trip", "How To Play Your Internal Organs Overnight", "Space Moment", "Iron Man", "The Long Hair Of Death", "One Note Samba/Surfboard", "Percolations", "1000 Miles An Hour", "Klang Tone", and a great take on the theme to "Get Carter". Switched On 4 is full of fantastic sounds from Stereolab – an assortment of rare singles and other unusual recordings that were mostly issued on their own Duophonic label, and which are far more obscure than their bigger label albums during the same period! Even though Stereolab gave the world some undeniable classics in the late 90s and early 00s, they were also working endlessly, and seemed to record more than they could ever fit on a full length set – which resulted in all the cool singles, limited releases, and other material included here – not dusty tapes pulled from the archives, but beautiful work that often returns the group to all the space age charms of their first few records! The package is huge – 25 tracks in all, of varying length – and titles include "Barok Plastik", "Calimero", "Fried Monkey Eggs (voc)", "Solar Throw Away", "Variation One", "Monkey Jelly", "Explosante Fixe", "Jump Drive Shut Out", "The Super-It", "L'Exotisme Interieur", "Pandora's Box Of Worms", "Retrograde Mirror Form", "Nomus E Phusis", "I Feel The Air Of Another Planet", "Outer Bongolia", and "Intervals". Includes tracks from Duophonic 45s, Underground Is Coming EP, Moog, First Of The Microbe Hunters, and work from compilations, unreleased tracks, and even a collaboration with Brigitte Fontaine! Switched On 5 is maybe the coolest entry so far in this really wonderful series – a set that's overflowing with rare and unusual work from Stereolab – most of it done at a time when the group were riding high on a major label, but still managed to issued a huge amount of music on their own, and work in a variety of collaborative settings too! One of our favorite is their work with Nurse With Wound, and tracks from that partnership begin this set – which then moves into rare singles, work with artists, compilation contributions, and plenty more – all with the usual Stereolab charm, but often with a nicely different vibe too! Titles include "Simple Headphone Mind", "Symbolic Logic Of Now", "Magne Music", "Forensic Itch", "Spool Of Collusion", "Robot Riot", "Trippin With The Birds", "Cybele's Reverie (live)", "Nth Degrees, "Refractions In The Plastic Pulse (Autechre Feebate mix)", and "Plastic Mile (original version)". CD

An album that maybe marked the close of one chapter of The Kinks, and the start of another – music that still holds on to some of the best elements of their late 60s Village Green era, but which also moves the group into some of the headier territory of their Muswell Hill/RCA years too! Ray Davies has never sounded more earnest – still able to pull off wit when needed, but also more down to earth – and because of the massive title hit, the set was also one that put the group in front of the ears or more folks than had been hearing them in previous years. Titles include, of course, the mega-hit "Lola" – plus "This Time Tomorrow", "Apeman", "Strangers", "The Contenders", "Long Way From Home", "Rats", and "Top Of The Pops". CD

The first album issued by the Grateful Dead on their own label – a setting that might make you think they'd act with less control than when at Warner Brothers, but which actually seems to have them doing the reverse! The whole thing's a great back-to-basics effort – sharp songs, rootsy instrumentation, and this nicely compact presentation of all the best ideas they'd been percolating for the past five years – maybe expanded a bit on the longer "Weather Report Suite" that ends the record, but tight and sing-songy on most of the rest – titles that include "Row Jimmy", "Stella Blue", "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away", "Eyes Of The World", and "Here Comes Sunshine". This 50th Anniversary is loaded with bonus material, too – with demo versions of "Eyes Of The World" and Here Comes Sunshine" – plus a second CD featuring previously unreleased live material recorded at Northwestern University's McGaw Hall, on November 1, 1973 – with their "Weather Report Suite" and more! CD

A surprisingly sunny project from John Carroll Kirby – a set that's jazzier and warmer than most of his previous work – almost in this very cool blend of 70s jazz funk and instrumental AOR! The rhythms have some 80s elements at times, but not in the colder sound of the electro generation – as all the other instrumental parts, especially the keyboards, are tuned up with a nice sort of glow, and really make the album sparkle – not all-out jazz, but with all the organic elements of soulful fusion, yet tilted a bit more towards a contemporary Cali vibe that you'd expect from Stones Throw. Titles include "Hotel Jonny Chingas", "Sun Go Down", "Flying Cat", "Oropendola", "Mates", "The Takedown", and "Vertigo" – plus three bonus dub tracks too! CD

There was plenty of influence from soul bubbling under in the world of rock during the 70s – but given that Rare Earth were one of the first to do such a blend so well, they're clearly ahead of the pack on a record like this! The style's a bit of a shift from their previous efforts with Norman Whitfield, but they still retain that sense of fullness that really makes the group sound so great – a mode that, early on, they could convey through rock instrumentation tilted towards soulful expression – and which here comes across with some well-done fuller arrangements that manage to avoid both the too-familiar modes of the disco and AOR material of the time. Titles include "Maybe The Magic", "Mota Molata", "Dreamer", "Love Do Me Right", "Warm Ride", "Love Music", and "Love Is What You Get". CD

Weird work from the Wicker Man generation – that moment in British music where it often seemed like the spookiest sounds could come from the past – as you'll hear here in a huge batch of music from the acid folk revival years! Instrumentation on these tracks is mostly acoustic, but basslines and guitar parts can sometimes be electric – and both arrangements and production amplify some of the elements of the tunes in ways that really bring out eerie currents, even when the lyrics might seem more innocent! There's lots of music here we'd never heard before, mixed with surprising contributions from bigger names, all wrapped together with the genius ear for song selection that always makes these collections from the Grapefruit label so great. The 3CD set features 60 tracks in all, complete with a big booklet of notes on the artists – a great lineup that features cuts by Magnet, Third Ear Band, Parameter, Carolanne Pegg, Dry Heart, Amber, The Young Tradition, Kevin Coyne, Gallery, Lal Waterson, The Sallyangie, Horden Raikes, Chimera, Comus, JP Sunshine, Oberon, Simon Finn, Jan Dukes De Graye, Shirley Kent, Spriguns Of Tolgus, Sweeny's Men, Green Man, Parke, Archie Fisher, Pentangle, Stone Angel, Celebrated Ratliffe Stout Band, Folkal Point, Mr Fox, Heather Adrian & John, Marc Bolan, and many more. CD

Some of the fiercest work we've ever heard from this legendary Czech fusion outfit – a previously-unreleased live performance from 1980, and one that may well blow away some of their classic studio records from the 70s! The tunes are long, and have a sense of darkness that we're not sure we've heard this strongly before – as keyboardist Martin Kratochvil plays Fender Rhodes and moog to really set the stage for most tunes at the start – then opening the door to bolder work on guitar from Frantisek Francl. There's as much prog going on here as jazz – and the lean quartet setting allows for plenty of longspun work from keys and guitar – on titles that include "Pecet", "Pralesni Pisen", "Trhanec", "Az Se Ucho Utrhne", and "Madona". (Jazz, Rock) CD

Very moody work from Polish keyboardist Wladyslaw Komendarek – an unreleased album from 1990, and one that features a whole host of Korg, Casio, and Yamaha Keyboards – all creating a dark soundscape that's very much in keeping with the image on the cover! This isn't playful robot music, as you might find in the work of Der Plan at the start of the previous decade – and instead, Komendarek crafts a very dystopic sort of record – each track longer than the next, and creating a world where it really seems like the robots have won the war! Titles include "Zadanie", "Inwazja", "Korekta Inteligencji", and "Milosc Robotow". The set also features two bonus tracks added to the record – "Synergia" and "Kepler 1649C". (Sound Library, Rock) CD

A very cool collaborative project – the second offering from Stereolab founder Laetitia Sadier, and the Brazilian group Mombojo – working together in a style that stays true to their previous creative activity, yet which definitely forges something new! Given that Laetitia's always had an ear for updating older French modes and sounds from the glory days of analog electronics, and Mombojo are a more forward-thinking group with a very fresh vibe, the mix here is every bit as compelling on record as it sounds on paper – more instrumental at times than you might expect, and with a spacey sound that really lives up to the music's placement on the Duophonic label too. Titles include "A Time To Blossom", "Trauma Release Makes Free", "What Will You Grow Now", "Making Something", and "Le Train Ne Passera Pas". CD