Forty-five years into the band's career, the seemingly straightforward numerical system Chicago follow to title their albums has gotten confusing. Their 2014 offering Now: Chicago XXXVI is clearly their 36th record but it is only their 23rd studio album and, to muddle matters more, it is their first collection of brand-new original material since Chicago XXX in 2006 (the 2008 release of Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus doesn't really count, as that was initially scheduled for release in 1994, which would've made it Chicago XXII or so). Hence, the decision to put "Now" in front of Chicago XXXVI instead of behind: it emphasizes that this record showcases the band in the present, not the past. That Chicago's Now sounds tethered to the Chicago of the early '80s is neither here nor there…

Produced by wunderkind producer Mark Wirtz (Tomorrow, the mythical Teenage Opera, and guy who decided not to produce Syd Barrett era Floyd), and co-written by Kris Ife who called on his old bandmates from The Quiet Five for these studio creations. Most of these pieces of psychedelic bubble gum were packed as The Matchmakers, some chipper chiclets were initially issued under monikers such as Astronaut Alan & The Planets (“Fickle Lizzie Anne,” “Cellophane Mary Jane”), and The Guards (“Fantastic Fair”). This final pack of bubble blowers were finally issued together in 1970 by Vogue Schallplatten in Germany and a few other territories shortly after.

A great early session from a vastly underrated guitarist - the great Sal Salvador, a heck of a single note player with a really wonderful sound. The session's a small group one, and features Salvador on both guitar and a bit of vibes - working with players that include Eddie Costa, Jimmy Campbell, and Jimmy Gannon. The tunes are nothing fancy, but do have a slightly off-kilter feel that we really appreciate - with just the right touches of modern to keep things from being in that sleepier camp of 50s guitar jazz.

For the 20th anniversary, Arjen Lucassen remixed the audio to 21st century standards. He made it clear that it's a 'remix', not a 'remaster', saying "Remastering takes 2 hours, this remix took me 2 months!".
Into the Electric Castle is an epic prog rock opera from Dutch guitarist Arjen Lucassen. The sci-fi story centers around eight strangers brought together into a dimension of no space and no time. The characters in the story are played by varying lead singers, including former Marillion frontman Fish. The supporting cast is a who's who of proggers, which translates into superb musicianship. The story is standard sci-fi fare, but winds up being quite effective with the accompanying score. The massive coordination of such a large project is admirable, but to pull it off with such impressive results is stunning…

Inspired by electronic classics like Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, Christopher von Deylen (Schiller) creates visionary sounds in a genre of its own kind, that are way ahead of their time.
On his Colors album, the visionary sound artist turns his attention to the piano for the first time and explores musical worlds that move easily between melodic piano miniatures and electronic sound panoramas.
The "Schiller-sound" blends past and present in an amazing way. Impressively emotional electronic music, enthusiastically celebrated by fans and the press around the world as "global pop". "Music that moves you really deep inside", is what Mike Oldfield said about Von Deylen's compositions.

The various bands led by harmonica player and singer George "Mojo" Buford hark back to the classic Chicago blues sounds of the early '60s. Among harmonica players, Buford has the distinction of being the only musician to have played with various bands led by the late Muddy Waters in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s. (Waters died in April 1981.) Buford left Mississippi for Memphis in his teens and honed his chops around Memphis before heading to Chicago in 1952. He began playing with Waters in Chicago in the late '50s, but by 1962 Buford relocated to Minneapolis, where he recorded several obscure albums for the Vernon and Folk-Art labels. He rejoined Waters' band in 1967 for a full year and then toured with him again in the early '70s, after harmonica player Jerry Portnoy left to form the Legendary Blues Band…

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the long overdue release of the re-mastered edition of the classic 1976 album 'Softs' by the celebrated Jazz and Rock group Soft Machine. The album was the band s second for EMI s Harvest label and featured a line-up of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Karl Jenkins (Oboe, Piano, Soprano Sax), John Marshall (Drums), Roy Babbington (Bass) and new member John Etheridge (Guitar), along with Saxophonist Alan Wakeman. An accessible collection featuring John Etheridge s considerable guitar playing talents and would also be the final album to feature founder member Mike Ratledge. Unavailable on CD for nearly 15 years, this reissue has been re-mastered from the original tapes and fully restores the original artwork.

For this studio set, Anita O'Day performs with the Lou Levy trio and guests Ernie Watts on reeds, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa and either Laurindo Almeida or Joe Diorio on guitar. She mostly sticks to fresher material, some of it of more recent vintage than usual. High points include "Lost in the Stars," "You're My Everything," "Them There Eyes," "Limehouse Blues" and several bossa nova pieces. This LP, although not essential, is worth picking up.

One of the first hits compilations assembled of Jimi Hendrix's catalog, Smash Hits remains one of the best, since it keeps its focus narrow and never tries to extend its reach. Basically, this album contains the songs everybody knows from Hendrix, drawing heavily from Are You Experienced?, plus adding the non-LP "Red House," "51st Anniversary," and "Highway Chile." Those non-LP selections may still make this worth seeking out, even if they've appeared on subsequent hits collections, but the main strength of Smash Hits is that it contains the best-known big-name songs in one place. Maybe not enough to make the collection essential, but still enough to make it a representative, accurate sampler.

Shadowlands contains just five tracks over 2 CDs, and as we've come to expect from Schulze, look for plenty of mind expanding explorations into space and loads of calming tranquility. The near 57 minute "The Rhodes Violin" offers up soothing, at times fluttering synth washes, brief spoken word vocals, and a myriad of ethnic Middle Eastern instruments. The epic title track opts for more menace, and will remind some of the early Tangerine Dream material, complete with ominous synth & Mellotron sounds plus those Middle Eastern influences. You'll even find some intriguing space rock mixed with programmed dance rhythms on the intriguing "In Between". With well over 2 hours of material on Shadowlands, there's a lot too digest, and unless you are a real fan of electronic/ambient/space rock…

This soundtrack to Filip Zylber's film made for Polish television is among composer and trumpeter Tomasz Stanko's greatest achievements; it puts him on a par - when it comes to film music at least - with his former boss, the late Krzysztof Komeda. Stanko composed for a sizable group here, his own quartet plus an additional five musicians and a string quintet. The set begins with the title theme as a leitmotif, with strings covering the backdrop and trumpet and soprano saxophones playing a noirish love theme, and then gives way after a few minutes to a very brief "Love Motive." This second section is merely an atmospheric foreshadowing of the only non-original piece of music in the work, a version of Gounod and Bach's hymn Ave Maria…

Call him a punk-pop icon, but Billy Idol is also a rock journeyman on 2025's introspective yet still swaggeringly fun Dream into It. Produced by Tommy English, the singer's ninth studio album moves deftly between blisteringly hooky pop-punk anthems and more atmospheric midtempo cuts, all of which nicely evoke the genre-crossing dance-rock of Idol's best work. As with all of his albums since his early-2000s renaissance, it also features plenty of sonic riffage from his longtime collaborator, guitarist Steve Stevens. English - who has worked with a stylistically varied mix of artists, including BØRNS, Foster the People, and blink-182 - brings a warmth to the production, kicking up the guitars when needed, but also adding in subtle synth and drum machine textures that smartly evoke an '80s pop atmosphere…

Formed in Portland, Oregon in the mid-seventies, Harlequin Mass was part of a brief and modest wave of bands coming from American Northwest in that decade (Heart, Nu Shooz, Quarterflash, the Wipers). Unlike most of their contemporaries though, Harlequin Mass were largely influenced by progressive bands such as the Moody Blues, Yes, and Genesis. The band has pointed to the release of 'Close to the Edge' as the pivotal moment in the maturation of their sound, and their sound has been compared to a folk-influenced version of Yes and ELP.
Touring mostly in the upper Northwest, the band failed to gain much of a following, but did manage to release a single album, which unfortunately was released in late 1978 just in time to be swept under the carpet in light of the burgeoning punk and new-wave movements of the late seventies…

Featuring some of Schiller’s most restrained, stripped-down production output, the largely dreamlike "Sehnsucht" is formatted like his other studio albums, with vocal and instrumental tracks both part of the makeup. However, several tracks are ambient in the truest sense, consisting strictly of atmospheric wash and no beats. The album features collaboration with several established artists like Xavier Naidoo, Jaël, Kim Sanders, and Klaus Schulze among others.

Issued in 1969, California Bloodlines is regarded by many to be singer/songwriter John Stewart's finest work. That's debatable, but it is a hell of an album. Stewart, who had finally left behind the Kingston Trio to pursue a solo career, solidified it here. Well known as the guy who wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees, Stewart proved to be a credible, sometimes even enigmatic performer in his own right. Nick Venet produced California Bloodlines. He took Stewart to Nash Vegas and enlisted a host of studio cats who existed largely outside of Chet Atkins' countrypolitan mafia: drummer Kenneth A. Buttrey, bassist Norbert Putnam, harmonicat Charlie McCoy, Lloyd Green on pedal steel, and others, including the most sought-after upright pianist in country music history: Hargus "Pig" Robbins. Incidentally, many of these same musicians played on Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline session…