Alex+harvey

Cartoon is a Brazilian quartet whose style resembles that of Os Mutantes - an experimental psychedelic band at the center of Brazil's rock-tinged 'tropicalia' movement in the late 60's. Cartoon's sound is a combination of rock, classical and Brazilian music that features exotic instruments alongside the traditional rock staple of bass, guitar, keyboards and drums. With their humour and impromptu musical happenings, their live shows are reputed to be real attention getters - befitting the band's name. Their second album, "Bigorna" (subtitled 'The Real History of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table') is a concept album, a spoof on the legend of King Arthur - nothing remotely similar to Rick Wakeman's solemn "Myths and Legends". Very irreverently, the band plays fast and furious, showing flashes of Zappa, Alex Harvey, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Splitz Enz all mixed together…

The French label Barclay Records, with which singer/songwriter Jacques Brel was associated for most of the 1960s and '70s, released a compilation of recordings of his songs in March 2004 that differs significantly from this U.S. edition. The French version of Next Brel has 15 tracks to the American 12, but that doesn't mean simply that three tracks have been deleted. In fact, there are six tracks on the French album not found on the American one: "If We Only Have Love," by Dionne Warwick; "Amsterdam," by Anne Watts; "If You Go Away," by Emiliana Torrini; "Next," by Gavin Friday & the Man Seezer; "The Desperate Ones," by Nina Simone; and "Seasons in the Sun," by Terry Jacks (a number one hit in the U.S.).

The follow-up to 1975's Use Your Imagination, It's Better Than Working caught Mud continuing to pursue the twin directions laid out by their most recent hits – one eye on a distinctly Showaddywaddy-shaped brand of rock & roll revivalism, and the other firmly grasping the soft rock softball that had served former stablemates Smokey so well. Neither was it an altogether desultory decision – "Night on the Tiles" handed the band one more in the long sequence of hit singles that had sustained them since 1973, while a taste of Mud's eye for the unusual was delivered by an unlikely cover of Alex Harvey's "Vambo Rools." "Beating Round the Bush" and the amusingly titled "Blagging Boogie Blues," too, captured more than a soupçon of the quartet's early endearing goofiness, rendering It's Better Than Working a stronger album than might have been expected – even if it still can't hold a candle to a decent, career-length hits collection.

Greatest Ever! Prog Rock beings together some of the very finest progressive rock from the giants of the genre. Incorporating both the classic and the contemporary, this 3CD set boasts bona fide prog masterpieces from Yes, Hawkwind and Rick Wakeman, avant-garde wonders from Aphrodite s Child and The Moody Blues, plus modern tracks from Marillion, Galahad and Twelfth Night to create a brilliantly atmospheric and surprisingly accessible collection for the die-hard fan and the recent convert alike.