(48:24; Vespero) Over the years there have been a few changes in the core line-up of Vespero, and recently they said goodbye to violinist Vitaly Borodin  who has been a major part of their more recent albums and have now moved to more of a guitar-based quartet with founders Arkady Fedotov (bass, noises, synths) and Ivan Fedotov (drums, percussion, wavedrum) plus long-time guitarist Alexander Kuzovlev (guitars, saz, mandoline) now being joined by Vladimir Ryabinin (acoustic & electric guitars). For this album they have also brought in guest Alexander Koryukovets, a highly acclaimed St. Petersburg-based musician, composer, and virtuoso bayanist (button accordion player). In many ways this album reminds me somewhat of the one I first heard by the band, namely 2017’s ‘Shum-Shir’ in that it is bringing together a great deal of ethnic influences in a very different way that one would expect from a Russian outfit. It does have a lot of eastern European tendencies at times, as if it is...

(112:15; Cuneiform Records) The 16th album from French TV is a little unusual in that the two discs come from very different concepts, and there are slightly different line-ups. For the first, founder member and bassist Mike Sary undertook the approach from the Seventies when bands would “go to the country” to write, rehearse and then record. He took with him regular members guitarist Kasumi Yoneda (also in the Japanese band TEE), long-time drummer Jeff Gard, plus members of the French band Mentat Routage (who also make up French TV's line-up when touring Europe), Nico Fabre (keyboards),  Ludo Fabre (violin ) and Karl Ledus (sax, weirdophone). All the tracks on this set are credited equally to five musicians (Gard is not included) and finds us in the world of Canterbury and RIO, combining together in a series of eight instrumentals. I was somewhat surprised not to see Pat Strawser involved as he has been playing with the band for quite a while now, but it is always possible he coul...

(61:43; Progrock.com's Essentials) Childhood friends Jérémie Arrobas (lead vocals, synthesizers, synth guitars, sound machines) and Thomas Szirmay (sound machines, voice) are back with their fourth album and have again been joined by Hansford Rowe (bass) and Alain Bellaiche (guitars) who are now credited as being members of the band. There are a series of guests, and while I was disappointed to see that Rob Harrison (sax, flute) was not involved this time around, I was certainly pleased to see both Steve Bonino and Laiura Piazzai coming along for the ride. I don’t know if I started thinking this due to the final track on the album, but to me this album sees a shift away from Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream more into music which I normally credit to Gary Numan, although yet again there is no doubt there are also major influences from Gabriel’s solo works, and songs such as “Siren Song” would have been major pop hits in the Eighties in edited versions. Arrobas is a fine electronic pop ...

(50:05; Arnaud Bukwald) Following on from 2024’s excellent ‘Moondragore’ album, Arnaud has stuck with the same line-up but moved in a very different direction again. He provides vocals, guitar, weissenborn, sitar, keyboards and arrangements while the incredible Didier Malherbe (Gong) has again returned on flute plus Cherry (vocals) and Cloudy Myster (drums, tablas) are back as well. What makes this album such a delight is the sheer variety of styles contained within – one could make a case for saying it has Canterbury at its heart, but from there it shifts in so many directions that one never knows what is coming next. There are two lengthy tracks, “Mumble Jumble” (18:06) and “Xanadu” (10:34) while the rest are very much shorter, including some which are only just over 30 seconds long, but even the longer tracks move around so much that one can imagine they were originally many short pieces which were then brought together. Mostly instrumental, the album dabbles with Zappa and Gong (in...