Clearlight Visions (1978) [reissue 2000]

Clearlight fourth album, released in 1978, one year after the disappointing "Les contes du singe fou" shows a more new age direction, as the beautiful cover shows. Like the previous album, it's a half success, actually an unequal album. The opener "Spirale d'amour" features Verdeaux pastoral piano work, nice melody but really too gentle. It may evoke children cartoon music! You can virtually imagine a gentle pink rabbit appearing.We're very far from "Symphony" or "Forever blowing bubbles" acid cosmic spacerock. "Full moon raga" is the long ambitious piece which actually saves the album. It's a very good jazzrock tune which may evoke Mahavisnu at times. Only the drum lakes fineness, but we're already in 1978, so this explains that…

Recorded in the spring of 1978 at Yes bassist Chris Squire's home studio, K-Scope featured three founding members of the Split Enz/Crowded House: Eddie Rayner (keys), Tim Finn (lead vocal) and brother Neil Finn (backing vocal). Manzanera also enlists percussion heavyweight Simon Phillips, good buddies John Wetton and Bill MacCormick (both bassists and vocalists), and saxophonist Mel Collins, among several others. The band strong arms the solid pop/rock structures and approaches the instrumentals with the same verve. The literally "coolest" tune in the set is also Manzanera's personal favorite, the breezy "Gone Flying"…

Chet Baker recorded many albums in Europe during his final decade. This LP matches his trumpet with pianist Phil Markowitz, bassist Jean-Francois Jenny Clark and drummer Jeff Brillinger for a date in Paris. Chet sings on "Oh You Crazy Moon" and stretches out on trumpet during a fresh repertoire that includes "Broken Wing," Wayne Shorter's "Black Eyes," "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and Baker's own "Blue Gilles." Even with his chaotic lifestyle, most of Chet Baker's recordings are worth acquiring and Broken Wing is better than average.

Happy the Man's masterpiece takes their unique style to new levels of achievement, at points reminiscent of a blend between the complexity and occasional medieval embellishments of Gentle Giant and the soothing, melodic beauty of Camel circa The Snow Goose. On each of the album's instrumentals (and on the sole vocal track of the release, Wind Up Doll Day Wind) the band's capacity to evoke an atmosphere and remain accessible and catchy even when presenting their most challenging material constantly impresses.

Alvin Lee got itchy feet after some years mainly working in the studio. He’d quit Ten Years After to take a break from endless touring, but the lure of the road drew him back and the result was the ironically titled Ten Years Later that was a splendid platform for the virtuoso guitarist to get his rocks off, once again.

La Düsseldorf is Klaus Dinger's side project after the scission of Neu! in 1975. In this musical adventure, Dinger is accompanied by Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe who also participated to the recording of the third and last Neu! The self titled album "La Dusseldorf" was released in 1976, venturing from avant-garde for concrete noises, manipulated sounds, pre-punk atmospheres. This album has a total disregard for musical convention, the musicians don't hesitate to mix without restriction a bunch of sounds taken from a great variety of musical styles (with pop accents, motoric "electronic" pulses, krautrock weird instrumentals and punk's eccentricity). After this original and diverse collection of experiments, the band recorded their second "Viva" in 1978…

Spacecraft is a french guitar/synth duo, composed of Ivan Coaquette (from Musica Elettronica Viva, Clearlight, Delired cameleon family) on guitar and John Livengood (from Red Noise) on keyboards and effects. It sounds somewhere between Cluster and Heldon but "Paradoxe" remains unique in its genre, being one of the most acid record ever made. Very psychedelic, experimental and cerebral.

Gary Boyle - The Dancer (1977). Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce a new remastered edition of the first solo album by acclaimed guitarist Gary Boyle, founder of Jazz Rock group Isotope. Released in 1978, "The Dancer" was Boyle’s first solo album and followed the final Isotope album, “Deep End”. The recording sessions saw Boyle joined by such celebrated alumni as Robin Lumley, Rod Argent, Dave MacRae, Morris Pert and Simon Phillips. The resulting album is now regarded as a classic Jazz/Rock album…

Anthony Phillips was one of the original founding members of Genesis featuring Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, and Michael Rutherford. Following "Trespass", Genesis' second album, Phillips left (purportedly due to stage fright) and was replaced by Steve Hackett. Nothing was heard again from Anthony until 1977, when he favored us with his first solo, "The Geese and the Ghost". Much of this recording sounds like a lost Genesis album, understandable since Phil Collins does a lot of the singing, and Michael Rutherford is present on guitar, bass, and keyboards, and also shares composer credits with him on major parts of this album…