(41:02; Flame Dream [2025 Edition] ) Track list: 1. Full Moon 5:22 2. Nocturnal Flight 5:33 3. Out in the Dark 9:29 4. Wintertime Nights 4:04 - Strange Meeting: 5. Part One 9:06 6. Kaleidoscope 5:37 7. Part Two 1:51 Line-up: Pit Furrer - drums, percussion, tapes Roland Ruckstuhl - piano, organ, keyboards, sequencer, vocoder Peter Wolf - vocals, flute, saxophones, percussion Urs Hochuli - bass, pedals, vocals with: Dale Hauskins – guitars Prolusion. Swiss band Flame Dream was formed back in 1977, and in the band's initial run as an active band unit they released 6 studio albums prior to disbanding in 1986. A few years back the band reformed, and since then they have released one further album, "Silent Transition", which appeared in 2024. The album "Out in the Dark" dates back to 1981, is the third studio album by the band, and was reissued on CD in 2025. Analysis. While this is an album that was released in the early 1980s, the sound, style, mood and atmosphere e...

(43:46; Neuma Records) Track list: - My Mother in Love: 1. Reading on the Stairs 3:20 2. Dinnertime 2:28 3. My Sister 1:30 4. Spare Parts 2:24 5. Powers 2:22 6. Lament: Invisible 3:24 7. Laughing 1:26 8. Fierce 0:43 9. Reading Before Sleeping 3:49 10. Okay? 4:08 - 11. Circular Argument 3:44 12. When Girls Learn the Alphabet 5:32 13. The Very Air 4:34 14. Why the Dialectic? 4:22 Line-up: Anna Weesner - piano, composer, lyrics, producer Charles Mueller - guitars, bass, engineer, producer Charlotte Mundy - vocals with: Cameron LeCrone - drums Carrie Frey - viola Helen Newby - cello James Austin Smith - oboe Jessica Thompson - violin, viola Laura Cocks - flutes Madison Greenstone - clarinets Marina Kifferstein - violin Oren Fader - guitars Roberta Michel - flute, piccolo Robby Garrison - trumpet Robert Burkhart - cello Sarah Goldfeather - violin  Sian Ricketts - oboe, recorders, cymbals Yuhan Su - vibraphone Prolusion. US project Professor Girlfriend consists of composer, lyricist and ...

(37:38; Iapetus) I have been fortunate enough to have heard a few of Stephen’s collaborations, and here he is again working with one of my favourite musicians, Markus Reuter. Markus of course provides Touch Guitar and soundscapes while Stephen gives us Organ, strings, e-bow guitar and granular synth. There are just two tracks here, but one is nearly 18 minutes in length and the other 20, which allows the listener to become fully immersed in what is going on. The title cut takes as its base, music created by Markus when he and Stephen were working on another album, ‘Rothko Spaces Vol. 4’, and then Stephen took that and added layers of organ and strings while on a solitary retreat in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. The result is something which is massively over the top, hypnotic yet with a dark edge, combining early Kraftwerk with Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd, but with a more direct crescendo from guitar. The sound is huge, and one feels as if it is being listened to inside a dark cav...

(53:44; Heritage) Originally released in 2002, this album was reissued in 2018, although I do not know if it was remastered although there has been a change to the cover. In many ways this feels like a logical follow-on to ‘Life Underground’, although there were two other solo albums between that and this, plus he had been playing and recording with Greenslade (among others) during this period as well. Only one song, “Closer”, has additional musicians with some delicate acoustic guitar from Matt Prior and some delicious fretless bass from Ed Poole. I don’t know why they only appear on this one, but it would have been nice to have heard them more on others as this is the standout track, again very classic Chris De Burgh in nature (sidenote, if you think C De B is just “Lady In Red” then you have a wealth of wonderful material to discover, and for many fans that is one of his very worse songs).   This feels more polished than the other album I have heard, but that it not surpris...

(44:18; Heritage) There was a discussion taking place on ProgArchives recently as to whether John should be included on the site (the inclusion of artists have to be passed by committee, believe it or not), but someone said it was difficult to find any of his albums to be able to make a decision, so I said I would drop John a line and see if I could get a couple as we know each other. The first time I saw John play was back in 1991 when he was part of The Law who played at Milton Keynes Bowl supporting Bryan Adams and ZZ Top, but he was a collaborator with John Wetton for years, played with Greenslade, has been a session keyboard player for many top acts, and of course he is now well-known for the wonderful Lifesigns. But what about his purely solo material? This album is from 2000, and I surmise it contains the demos for a planned album, but looking at his discography that does not appear to have ever been released, so it could possibly contain demos he had recorded for other purposes...

(7xCD + 2xBlu-ray Box Set, Esoteric Recordings [2025 Edition] )  When a band has been prolific as Hawkwind, still touring and releasing albums more than 50 years on from their inception, it is likely there will always be some debate among fans about what is the best studio release. When it comes to the ‘Wind then my personal view will probably always be ‘Quark, Strangeness and Charm’, just because that was the first album of theirs I heard, not long after it was released in 1977, but there is no doubt that 1974’s ‘Hall of the Mountain Grill’ is viewed by many as the classic album to have, and now Esoteric have gone full throttle with this newly released nine-disc limited edition boxed set which contains the original album newly remastered from the original master tapes, along with new mixes from the original 16-track master tapes by Stephen W. Tayler of previously unreleased full concerts at Edmonton, January 1974 and the 1999 Party at Cleveland in March 1974 plus a new mix of the ...