This section of the department focuses in on a selected range of titles that we feel should be considered as prospective purchases by music fans into the style of music that this department is promoting. We do this by providing you with detailed, accurate and entertaining reviews of the titles concerned, and make all of them readily available via our on-line store. The selection we offer will mix the new with the old – the known with the unknown and will normally be confined to quality releases. However, just to show that we don’t just say everything is good regardless, and to keep the entertainment levels up, we’ll redress the balance and make the odd exception to the rule by dropping the odd turkey into this part of the shop, giving it a good old dressing down and plucking, just to lighten things up a bit!

Please note: When we feel it necessary, we will compare the music to names that you might be more familiar with. This is done just to help point you in the right direction, but usually we differentiate between the music actually sounding like that other artist or band’s work or just being influenced by it.

Some titles will be given extended reviews with much more in-depth & detailed track-by-track information.

This version can be selected by clicking the ‘more product information’ link at bottom right of first review.

‘Featured Titles’ files will remain in the CD Services on-line shop as long as we feel necessary, or for a period that has been agreed with the musicians concerned. Average ‘up’ time will be 4–6 weeks, then the reviews will be archived in a ‘Reference Library’ partition in the same department, and there they will be accessible to anyone caring to browse, until such a time as they are deleted. The ‘Feature’ can be resurrected for the available titles at any time.

‘Barrier Silence’ is a 9 track instrumental album of surprisingly melodic themes that cover a wide range of dynamics and moods. From shoegazing melodies of ringing guitars, through lilting electric piano and cascading electronics, this is almost forty-five minutes of very beautiful stuff!  Can style rampages even crossover to exploratory space themes, which mix soundscaping and gorgeous crisp-toned, melodic electric guitar leads. Haunting piano figures and a distant organ lines provide extra textures, with ambient moods coming from guitars, electric piano and electronics, backed by delicate electronic drum patterns and a whole host more. The music on this album is warm sounding, friendly and really quite beautiful, but it’s equally chunky and solid in the right places, and it’s another excellent example of quality innovative yet accessible music from the ever-consistent Ochre label.

966419
Weight: 150.00 g

Powerful instrumental music heavily influenced by the likes of modern day King Crimson & Can, and what they end up with is a unique brand of prog meets Krautrock that’s riddled with explosive guitar riffs, rhythms and melodies. The whole steel-coated beast lumbers and drives through a set of 8 tracks that range from jazzy to prog in feel and influence, but with these genres at either end, the central factor shines through as a mix of psychedelic heady guitar jamming and full-on, furious Krautrock. It’s the sort of music that offers something new to find with each and every new airing, without becoming tiresome in the process. The end result is sixty-five minutes of music that is absolutely sure to give you a wild ride through some of the most scorching sounds that Circle have created to date.

419847
Weight: 150.00 g

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‘Desert Clouds’ is an instrumental CD that is essentially just one long track divided into four separate movements, and it’s just sensational! We’re talking melodic ‘ambient’, we’re talking relaxed, but not boring, we’re talking riveting, but not intense, and in the main, were talking total enjoyment for a wide range of music fans. This is instrumental music that just slips and slides over you like a warm summer breeze - so gorgeous and yet so substantial, with maximum use being made of musical space, chords and notes almost suspended in the ether as melodies languorously roll through the airwaves. It’s guitar-based, with synths and keyboards bathing the melodic guitar tones in gorgeous textured waves of sound, filling the soundstage with occasional steady percussive rhythms and spacey effects, with the main musical influences lodged in the genres occupied by Pink Floyd and Wavestar. A superb debut album!

804646
Weight: 150.00 g

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7 tracks that moves from Kranky label style drones, and on through ‘Frippertronics’ to distant, restrained echoes of Urban Sax, often all three together, and that's just the first seven minutes of this album!  After that, the whole thing takes off and heads off into a distorted guitar-led version of 3rd album-era Lard Free, as the massive droning landscapes still present in the background, mixes with all the aforementioned styles. As the music flows on, there's even a slight touch of ‘Moondawn’ era Schulze to the violin and sax textures, and twelve minutes go by like twelve seconds – Superb! Together with occasional samples, percussion splashes and echoed drum backups, this musical melting pot, in all its vari-textured, multi-layered, cosmic, richly atmospheric splendour, takes up most of the rest of the album. With tracks spanning anything from three to over seventeen minutes, ‘Crevice 2’ keeps you utterly transfixed to its wondrous multi-instrumental combination of guitars, electronics, bass, natural/treated sax and synth-strings for a total of fifty-three minutes. It’s one magnificent set of tracks that is more of a unique brand of 90's meets 70's meshes of the aforementioned influences than anything else - Quite timeless music, that offers something new to be heard each and every time you play and play it.

735295
Weight: 150.00 g

Ladeez and gentlemen - in the blue corner… From Sweden, on synths, samplers and 5-string electric bass guitar, the thunderous, the awesome power of... Peter Frohmader! In the red corner… From France, on Roland electric guitars, and burning a napalm-infused path to infinity, legendary Heldon guitarist… Richard Pinhas! It’s a 7 round fight to the finish contest from 1999, with each round lasting anything between six to sixteen minutes and it promises to be the duel of the decade. Click the further information link for the full report on this duel of the dinosaurs…

983025
Weight: 150.00 g

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The are three good reasons to buy this triple disc boxed set: Firstly: It’s a ‘live’ triple CD recorded on their 30^th anniversary concerts in Paris in 2000 – Secondly: The sound quality is perfect – absolutely perfect! – And Thirdly: It is a lavishly packaged solid Black box with the Magma name and logo embossed on the front in gold - Inside, the set comes complete with each of the 3 CD’s housed in their own fold-out card digi-paks, plus a thick booklet of photos and – get this – a complete lyric booklet in Kobaian, allowing all of you who speak the lingo to follow all the proceedings and join in the fun! This band have remained unique for thirty years, and on the strength of the music recorded here, they may just hang around for another three decades. Either way, this is one musical landmark that all of you Magma converts out there in Kobaian land must own and enjoy for years to come.

515278
Weight: 350.00 g

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DVD of the band’s 30^th anniversary concerts in Paris in 2000, and it is absolutely riveting stuff! Any Magma fan could not be anything else but transfixed by the 163 minute running time of this DVD, and you will wonder and be amazed by the passion and energy shown by Magma’s founder member Christian Vander as the rest of his unique band.

719109
Weight: 150.00 g

Absolute corking 10-track album that has Robert Fripp & King Crimson written all over it! The guitar work and structures really give the main influences away, but there’s also elements of Tortoise and Can in there too. The electric guitar work is the centrepiece, as leads and rhythms, riffs and soundscapes swarm and storm over a tight rhythm section. Brilliant use of vibraphone gives an extra melodic texture to the sound, and it works a treat as it counterpoints the fury and restraint of the electric guitars. The album is one sizzling mix of instrumentals and songs that move from reflective to positively on fire, and there’s a real feel running through the entire forty-minute set. When vocals are used they are deliberately hushed and buried in the mix in many parts. It is more contemporary and Krautrock-y than any prog connotation that the main comparison might lead you to believe, but the music does have its roots firmly entrenched in the work of some great musicians, and to reiterate slightly, King Crimson/Can fans should drool with delight when they hear this tasty little gem.

353123
Weight: 150.00 g

Likened to bands such as Low, Codeine and Slint, this 13-track album is largely made up of laid-back, shoegazing, partly song-based, moody, indie-fied, post-rock. Slow, lazy compositions unfold, with sleepy vocals, with the electric guitars almost as chilled-out, while equally gentle electric bass and drums, weave the most fragile yet solid web beneath the crystalline guitar leads, melodies and layers on top and all around the so-slowly travelling tracks. It’s almost an insomniac’s dream album were it not for the fact that it’s so engaging, with tracks that change in a kind of slow-motion fluid, enthralling without boredom setting in manner. If you just want something long and languid, there’s seventy-three minutes of it here, and it sure beats sipping on a tequila sunrise, although why not do that, too. Now where did I put that bottle…?

202345
Weight: 150.00 g

The title of the group gives it away a bit to those who remember the heady innovative musical days of the 1970’s Krautrock scene and the one main label at the forefront of it all - This seventy-five minute album manages to outdo everything that the retro-ists and Ohr copyists have thrown our way ever since. The CD runs for seventy-three minutes and is all-instrumental. Each and every one of the 12 tracks has the same feel, mood and spirit of the days of the Ohr genre, and it’s fair to say that it is a genuine, bona-fide classic of its kind, yet it’s one that will have a far wider appeal than just the Kraut and contemporary audiences among you – SUPERB!

174490
Weight: 150.00 g

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Unlucky for some... Friday 13^th, that is... but not for the punters who buy this, because this is one phenomenal fusion music album that just evokes the whole spirit of what made, and to an extent still makes, French jazz-rock such a force to be reckoned with. From what is/was (never easy to keep up) the core of the current Magma band, this is a 6-track, sixty-three minute album with some of the finest electric bass work outside of a Magma album, and certainly some of the best on any fusion album you care to name. A quartet of keyboards, electric guitar, electric bass and drums, the feel of the opener is pure instrumental Weidorje, with electric piano, red-hot guitar, solid drums and that massive electric bass work, all positively cruising through the opening six-minute composition. With the composer credits almost evenly split between Fender Rhodes/synth man Emmanuel Borghi and bassist Philippe Bussonnet, this is one essential album for all fusion/Magma and associated fans out there.

632702
Weight: 150.00 g

‘Masal’ is a re-issue of a solo album, and it is a masterpiece that is surely an essential purchase for all Magma fans, or indeed, anyone into the finest brand of fusion music around, of which this variation is really quite unique. It avoids any clichés and is one of the top 5 albums ever in its genre. There are quite a number of great musicians contributing to this album playing electric guitar and bass, synthesizers, keyboards, piano, flute, sax and other brass, with Jean-Paul on drums. For the CD release, there’s a change to the track structure of the original LP, in that the original two-part title track is now linked up as one giant forty-minute epic, and it’s now a sensationally powerful, explosive, dynamic, scorching, high-flying and expansive piece. Not only that, there’s an extra thirty minutes of previously unreleased stuff on the CD, making for well over seventy minutes of awesome French fusion.

599169
Weight: 150.00 g

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Make no mistake; this is a fantastic, highly enjoyable album! The fifty-three minutes of music on it is not easy to define or pigeon-hole, but it possesses a musical quality and consistency, the likes of which you will rarely find on any but the exceptional classics of serious music down the years. ‘Flame’ has 9 accessible, enjoyable, complex, immaculately produced, brilliantly played and composed tracks, and as a work of 20th century music, it is utterly timeless and has to be considered one of the truly great pieces of modern contemporary music around right now. Influences come from a wide variety of musical areas and it’s not always easy to define where, but Frank Zappa’s is often hinted at and therefore becomes one name that does immediately come to mind on the first airing. Using a vast array of instruments such as: electric guitars, strings, keyboards, piano, organ, violins, sax, trumpet, flute, tables, bass guitar, drums and other percussive instruments and devices, this is highly individual music that has a towering sense of melody, cohesion and dynamics. You cannot class it as rock, or jazz, or classical or progressive – It’s just a contemporary mix of all of these genres and much more besides.

855956
Weight: 150.00 g

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Enter the strange and mysterious musical world of recent Richard Pinhas music collaborator and synth musician John Livengood, and guitarist Ivan Coaquette, who was best known in the mid-late 70's for his work alongside vocalist Annankha Raghel in the duo Fondation. That duo’s collaborative work has yet to see the light of day on a silver disc, but the ‘Paradoxe’ album by the Livengood/Coaquette pairing has, and the good news is - the original thirty-nine minute album has now been augmented by the addition of a near twelve-minute, previously unreleased track from 1973. So, with a new running time of fifty minutes, the duo embark along an unusual array of 7 musical paths; unafraid to whip up a musical storm at any time along the way, and then play it more soft and celestial round the next corner. With influences coming mainly from the area occupied by the likes of Terry Riley & Steve Reich, and an instrument line-up of synthesizers, guitars and effects pedals/devices this is definitely music geared toward the ears of the more adventurous listener.

429412
Weight: 150.00 g

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7 varied length tracks that make up what is possibly fifty-five minutes of some of the finest psychedelic-meets-Kraut style guitar jamming around, with acres of space for the dual electric guitars to interact in glorious early 70's-meets-90's post-rock fashion. Even the bass and drums are out of the early Ash Ra Tempel/Guru Guru mould, while the guitars shine out from spacey layers through to the same classic excursions of the aforementioned bands. It’s all made even better by the fact that there are two guitars operating instead of just one, and the miles of scorching twin leads don't so much solo as cover the musical high ground, with soaring textures and chiming electric atmospherics. This is a really brilliant album.

632133
Weight: 150.00 g

Influences abound here on their most accessible album to date, from 1970's-era Help label UK fusion through relaxed, jazzy 80's Magma and early darker incarnations of the band themselves. Within the nucleus and heart of this album, several classical composers (that I couldn't name in a million years), Mike Oldfield (honest), gothic symphonic and hints of Art Zoyd (as they used to be) are all things that cross your mind when riveted to this spellbinding combination of keyboards, violin, clarinet, percussion, bassoon, oboe, bass and drums. From melodic through dark to spectacularly angular, this CD features 11 tracks of sheer musical genius, with a unique, almost orchestral/symphonic sound, not overly medieval, yet with an eerie, accessible charm among its rich textures and spiky signatures - a new life beckons.

960063
Weight: 150.00 g

A Multimedia CD-Rom featuring forty minutes of music and twenty-five minutes of audio/video music from the Euro-rock archives (enhanced with CD-ROM technology) – a complete Audio/Visual experience!  Described as “A History of Music from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe, Japan, South America and all points beyond”, this item was three years in the making and it’s one of the most indispensable multi-media releases in the Euro-rock/synth and beyond fields of music. This is an absolutely amazing item is something special that mere words cannot begin to describe – For fans of this genre of music, it has to be the most enjoyable, unique CDROM’s you’ll come across.

483375
Weight: 150.00 g

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Enchanting instrumental album originally issued in ‘82, and now it’s available on CD for first time, and with a bonus track in the form of half of the follow-up album: ‘Dreams Of Pyramids’. Nearly twenty years on, the original 6 tracks on this recording still sounds every bit as fine as they did way back when. With a core line-up of Wollo himself on acoustic/electric guitars, oboe, keyboards, percussion & vibraphone, this is a truly magical instrumental CD that would have settled perfectly at the home of the German ECM label when it was at its peak. Many passages on ‘Where It All Begins’ will prove to be an absolute delight to fans of ECM musicians such as Terje Rypdal, John Surman and similar. The winding melodies from the instruments and the exotic drums/percussion, are genuinely timeless - the sort of music that will sound perfectly fresh in yet another twenty years time, let alone now. The 7^th track is the bonus one, and this superb piece just adds icing to an already delicious cake - As the unbroken twenty-one minutes of ‘Searching For Hidden Pictures’ sails onward through its three movements, more prominence is given to synthesizers, which largely replace the oboe. Their inclusion only serves to add to the gorgeous multi-textural delights of the album as a whole. The feel and atmosphere of what has gone before is still maintained, but with keyboards and guitars taking the helm as the new co-lead instruments, augmented by wondrous electric bass lines and delicate percussion work. To conclude - If you’ve ever been into the most breathtaking moments of the ECM label or the tastier end of the melodic, atmospheric fusion market, then this is certain to be your sort of album.

926266
Weight: 150.00 g

Right from the opening bars of this 4 track, near forty-seven minute album, you are thinking Magma or Weidorje, because of the bone-crunching drumming, the pounding muscular electric bass work and the Widemann/Gauthier-like synth playing, all of which combine to create a mind-blowing nine minute opener. The band is purely instrumental and consists of: electric guitar, synths/keyboards, electric bass and drums. This is one of the best heavy instrumental albums to come from a band not directly related to Magma or the French fusion scene, in a long, long time. The emphasis is on dynamics, strength, fluidity of playing and solidity of ensemble work, and believe me, you’ll be holding your breath in sheer amazement throughout much of the first hearing. The electric bass work is simply awesome, and anyone into the thirty-year long line of remarkable French bassists would do well to get this CD. The drummer whips up a storm too, plus the synth and guitar players are red hot, while the tracks themselves are pure gargantuan, incredibly well played, produced, composed and arranged. For fans of this type of music, it’s a dream album and one that I’d strongly advise you to get hold of right here and right now – it’s phenomenal!

375183
Weight: 150.00 g

This is the super intense, hypnotic, layered multi-guitar squall of Bardo Pond, but with a more melodic structure at its heart. It is occasionally in the vein of Mellonova, in the way it will start at a whisper and gradually climb to a climax, or vice-versa, dropping back to the more shoegazing landscapes of guitar chords, electronics and rhythm section. Most of the tracks are taken at a lazy pace, preferring to use dynamics within the piece rather than speed or overkill. Every one of the 5 tracks, three of which exceed the ten minute mark, has a warm, human centre that, in the main, generates a feel like being warm inside on a cold, rainy day, as you gaze wistfully out of the window at the world drifting by. The overall sound is thick and expansive, as guitars, bass and more guitars, occasionally embellished by electronics/buried vocals, and drums create panoramic compositions that fill the room with rich and crystal clear sound, sometimes with so many layers that you have to gasp in total awe at the vastness of what you are hearing. All the while there is a kind of mix of hope, melancholy and yearning at the root of each track, with that all-important human heart and hand guiding and shaping the pieces to perfection. You simply can’t fault albums like this – just too darned great for that!

567879
Weight: 150.00 g