OUA's 6th album collides a studio session of bass driven rhythms with a marathon free improvisation session - combined, sculpted and arranged into an ever morphing tapestry of new sounds from leftfield progressive music. Fans of Soft Machine, Magma, Pink Floyd, Henry Cow, Sun Ra will enjoy this too.

The second album by Manfred Mann's Earth Band to be released in 1972, Glorified Magnified is as solid a heavy rock album as you're likely to find from that era, and it still holds up three decades later, mostly because these guys are smarter than the music they're playing and don't mind indulging their taste as well as their dexterity. They can romp and stomp through "Meat" or "I'm Gonna Have You All," complete with a slashing guitar solo by Mick Rogers on the latter, or throw in a synthesizer interlude by Mann on "One Way Glass" that's so quietly and carefully executed as to be worthy of a classical piece – and not skip a beat doing it.

Formed at the end of the 60's, Gomorrha raised from the German progressive rock scene thanks to the help of the producer and sound engineer Conny Plank. The band original line up includes Helmut Pohl (drums) and Eberhard Krietsch (ogan, bass) with Ad Oschel and Ali Claudi at the guitars. They released their first album in 1970. They distinguish with a dense heavy psych rock experience punctuated by organ dominated sequences. In 1972 they release what will be considered as their summit "I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was"; An adventurous album featuring catchy instrumental jams, krautrock's original psych / spacey mood, pastoral flute parts and heavy guitar riffs. The concept of this release is focused on the apocalypse theme and the book of revelation. They suddenly split up in 1973 after the publication of two memorable documents of German independent rock.

In 1968 the composer Antonio Bartoccetti founded the group Jacula, with a view to transform into music a series of theological-philosophical and esoteric observations. Jacula released the albums "In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum", "Tardo Pede in Magiam Versus". The project would end in 1972, then evolve into Antonius Rex and more album would follow under that name.
"In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum" is the debut album by Jacula. Self-released by the band in 1969 on their Gnome label, the album was released by Black Widow Records in 2001 in a highly edited version (according to guitarist and bandleader Bartoccetti) featuring Pro Tools, distorted guitars and samplers. Mysterious worlds, evocative church organ, innovative guitar, involving voices and lyrics, creative piano and synth, rhythms with tympanis.

Roger Waters is Pink Floyd's grand conceptualist, the driving force behind such albums as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. In the wake of Syd Barrett's departure, Waters emerged as a formidable songwriter, but it's this stretch of '70s albums – each one nearly symphonic in its reach – that established him as a distinctive, idiosyncratic voice within rock and, following his departure from Floyd in 1985, he continued to create new works in this vein (notably, 1992's Amused to Death) and capitalized on the enduring popularity of his old band by staging live revivals of Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall in their entireties.

Not even trying to sound any different from the Classic Symphonic Rock bands of early 70's, Isopoda's aim was obviously to re-capture the old prog spirit and deliver it to late-70's in a familiar way. The general style is soft and mellow folkish Symphonic Rock with an alternation between acoustic material featuring flutes, piano and acoustic guitars and more intense musicianship with keys on the front and a variety of demanding interplays. All these material is supported by the consistent vocals of Dirk De Schepper, which comes like a cross between Peter Gabriel and Greg Lake. Mainly long tracks (over 7 minutes) with plenty of space for the unfolding arrangements. Refined melodies, deep atmospheres, variety in instrumentation guarantee a professional result.

Although progressive rock's popularity peaked in the '70s, it continued to enjoy a cult following in the 21st century - and one of the noteworthy prog rock bands that came out of Europe in the 2000s was Sweden's Beardfish.
Sleeping in Traffic: Part One (2007) is Beardfish's third album, but the Swedish outfit's first for a major progressive rock record label, namely InsideOut. Even though the album went by rather unnoticed, prog rock fans should take note of it. Beardfish do not break new ground, but their take on the genre has a lot of balls and feeling. Blending an occasional Gentle Giant influence with a strong Genesis background and a deep-running blues basis, the group is particularly successful in the melody department, without devolving into ersatz melodic hard rock. In other words, these Swedes strike a very fine balance between prog complexity and sincere feeling…

This is another truly gem from the SWF broadcast vaults recorded in 1972. Minus Two, founded in early 1971 in Mannheim (hometown of Nine Days Wonder) by organ player Günter Kühlwein and drummer Walter Helbig (also played with Nine Days Wonder and Aera) played a powerful progressive music sound sometimes with a certain sense of drama, melted classical influences with blues-rock and slightly jazzy hints. Early "Hardin & York playing" comes to mind, but Minus Two always showed their own imagination of progressive rock. All titles are self-penned and prove the musicians high level abilities playing their instruments and there are only organ and drums. Believe us, you dont miss any other instruments! This is a very complete sound by perfect trained musicians…

In the beginning of the seventies, the Austrian band Eela Craig performed pure progressive rock what their self-titled debut skillfully demonstrates. The five follow-up albums saw a change into a different direction and became a bit shallow. The first two bonus tracks are excerpts from "Dimensionen zwischen Pop und Klassik" ("Dimensions between pop and classical music"). It was written by Dr. Alfred Peschek and performed by Eela Craig with orchestra in 1972 and broadcasted by the ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk, Austrian radio) but never officially released on CD. The full colored booklet contains, as usual in this series, a comprehensive band history as well as a discography and numerous pictures from Eela Craig’s beginnings.

Down And Out In Paris And London is not only a very fine studio work, but also probably their most inspired since the terrific A Place In The Queue. There were some radical line up changes that made a bit aware of it too. After all Andy Tillson dropped all the swedish connections now, at least the phisical ones. Gone are the members or ex members of the Flower Kings replaced by an all english line up. Now with Paul Burguess (Camel, Jetrho Tull, 10cc) on drums and Jonathan Barrett (from Tillson´s other project Parallel Or 90 Degrees) on bass and without a lead guitarrist (a good thing, since their last guitar player did not fit well at all). But stylistic speaking, their sound remains as close to TFK as ever.
So, in the end Down And Out In Paris And London is different in many ways, and yet it sounds quite familiar…

After the release of there one and only album on the famous Vertigo label in 1972, Odin were invited by German radio SWF to produce 4 titles for a radio show in February 1973. A 12-minutes version of 'Live is only' and a 11-minutes version of the Zappa composition 'King Kong' are fine examples for Odin's terrific musicianship. 'Oh no' and the Terstall composition 'Turnpike lane' make the radio recording session complete. In addition to the radio recordings there is a bonustrack from a concert in autumn 1971 titled 'Make up your mind' which is an impressive example of the bands early works. All titles are digitally remastered. The booklet contains a comprehensive band history with a lot of rare photos.

Several years after the original art rock supergroup Colosseum disbanded, drummer Jon Hiseman formed Colosseum II, a more jazz fusion-oriented outfit featuring guitarist Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy) and keyboardist Don Airey. Their eclectic debut, Strange New Flesh, shows some impressive chops from all involved, with an emphasis on Moore's soulful guitar leads. Vocalist Mike Starr, while not an immensely engaging singer, does a nice job keeping up with Hiseman and bass player Neil Murray. Highlights include the technically showy but blissfully irreverent ode to Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moog," a nice version of Joni Mitchell's "Down to You," and the funky "Gemini and Leo."

In 1968 the composer Antonio Bartoccetti founded the group Jacula, with a view to transform into music a series of theological-philosophical and esoteric observations.
From the inner search to the magic worlds. Classic versus progressive contaminations. First ecological document, church organ, harpsichord, bass, mini-moog, violins, flutes, celebrating voices.