Aranysas From 2009 08

Morphelia are a Neo-Prog band out of Germany who have released two albums thus far. This is their second recording from 2009, a double concept album with a cool looking album cover as well. The music has a strong IQ / Pendragon flavour including the vocalist who is really good and has that Nicholls/Barrett tone down pat. This particular album certainly has received it's fair share of praise in the Neo-Prog camp.

Blues has always been a music of comebacks, and Chick Willis is making strong, resurgent moves with this independently released album containing many of his original songs. Into his 53rd year playing music professionally, the guitarist and vocalist stays true to urban blues while making a contemporary pathway doused with soul and a little bit of a dirty-minded attitude. The music is horn-driven, fun for listening or dancing, and has all of the savvy and street smarts any veteran of this music should have. It seems his voice has not diminished one iota, while his songs suggest he's still enjoying life to the fullest. Of the six tracks written by Willis, the rocking shuffle "Houdini Blues" refers to "freakin'" things, but is more on track with a partner who tends to disappear, much to his chagrin…

When asked who the most talented young musicians in Germany are, the answer echoes back from the rural town of Hückeswagen near Cologne. Surrounded by hills and forest live two brothers who play "with a magical tone" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) that is "of the finest quality" (JazzPodium). Their 2006 homage to Chet Baker, Remember Chet, was celebrated as a "stunning debut" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). In faraway Sweden, Nils Landgren heard about these young musicians' abilities through the jazz grapevine, and decided he wanted to produce the two shooting stars inviting the brothers to that famous sound kitchen in which Landgren has cooked up his own highly successful albums, the Nilento Studio in Gothenburg…

Blues has always been a music of comebacks, and Chick Willis is making strong, resurgent moves with this independently released album containing many of his original songs. Into his 53rd year playing music professionally, the guitarist and vocalist stays true to urban blues while making a contemporary pathway doused with soul and a little bit of a dirty-minded attitude. The music is horn-driven, fun for listening or dancing, and has all of the savvy and street smarts any veteran of this music should have. It seems his voice has not diminished one iota, while his songs suggest he's still enjoying life to the fullest. Of the six tracks written by Willis, the rocking shuffle "Houdini Blues" refers to "freakin'" things, but is more on track with a partner who tends to disappear, much to his chagrin…

German musician Frank Dorittke, aka F.D. Project, is originally a guitarist from the Dinslaken-based band Imagine. He got interested in electronic music around 1991, and became influenced by the music of Tangerine Dream. The versatile and accessible music of F.D. Project is not that simply to depict as it’s influences range from Tangerine Dream to Mike Oldfield, at other occasions keenly blending elements from the Berlin School and guitar riffs. At times it can be melodic and up-tempo, then switching to captivating atmospheric textures and soundscapes.

Best-known for his 1970 hit "Spirit in the Sky," singer/songwriter Norman Greenbaum was born November 20, 1942, in Malden, MA. He began his musical career while a student at Boston University, playing area coffeehouses before relocating to the West Coast during the mid-'60s and forming a kind of psychedelic jug band dubbed Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band…

A few disarming moments on “Octahedron” unfold slowly, with pockets of space and calm. Don’t be lured into trusting them. This album, the fifth studio release by the Mars Volta, employs stillness as a setup for all manner of disruption: sharply pealing riffs, phantasmagorical metaphors, convoluted song structures. In many ways it’s a typical effort from the guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and the vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala, who make up the Mars Volta’s cunning and ever-agitated core. But that’s not to discredit the more measured side of “Octahedron,” a harbor for some of this psychedelic prog-rock band’s most alluring melodies and among its most coherent recordings…