Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a re-mastered and expanded deluxe two-disc edition of the classic 1993 album by Barclay James Harvest, "Caught In The Light". The album was the band’s last album to be issued by Polydor Records in the UK and was a highlight of their later work.
Featuring excellent material such as ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’, ‘A Matter of Time’, ‘Knoydart’, ‘Back to Earth’ and ‘Ballad of Denshaw Mill’, this re-mastered edition also includes the full version of ‘Forever Yesterday’ (only released on the cassette edition of the album) and a bonus track of the rare German promotional edit of ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’.
Significantly, this expanded Deluxe edition features a bonus CD of unreleased live material recorded at the band’s 25th Anniversary concert at the Town & Country Club, London on 16th February 1992…
As many music lovers might know the first album Silent Machine by Twelve Foot Ninja was an excellent record, which especially impressed with its eclecticism. Having mixed metal, funk, bossa nova and other music genres into a seemingly awkward but actually impressive cocktail, the Australians managed to set for themselves a high standard against which all their subsequent albums will be measured in one way or another. After a long wait and multiple concerts around the world in support of Silent Machine in August 2016 Twelve Foot Ninja released their next LP – Outlier…
Keith Jarrett's numerous volumes of improvised solo piano recordings are all treasure troves of spontaneous music making. Documented since the 1970s, they reveal the opening of his music as it readily embraces classical and sacred music influences, filters out what is unnecessary in his technique, and encounters the depth and breadth of the jazz tradition and his own unique abilities as a composer. The four discs in A Multitude of Angels were recorded in as many Italian cities during the last week of October 1996 - some 20 months after the concert captured on La Scala. These were his last concerts before being sidelined for two years from chronic fatigue syndrome. Jarrett is musician, producer, and engineer here…
If Kate Bush had stumbled onto the stage at London's Apollo Hammersmith theater on August 26, 2014, sang "Knees Up, Mother Brown" for 15 minutes, and then wandered off, most folks in attendance would have still felt they'd witnessed something remarkable. After all, it was the first time the gifted and reclusive artist had performed on-stage since 1979, and the fact she was greeting her audience at all seemed just short of impossible. Given the craft and ambition of Bush's body of recorded work, it came as no surprise that she had something quite grand in mind for her audience when she made her unexpected return to public performance with a run of 22 shows that stretched from August to October 2014. Bush's elaborate show included costume changes, actors, dancers, puppets, magicians, film projections, and a loose narrative that turned the concert into a three-act stage production.
Lapis Lapis Lazuli formed out of the incestuous Canterbury scene in 2008 and craft their sound at their spiritual home, The Bungalow - a place where musos regularly gather for jam parties and improvise long into the night.
Their two debut albums ‘Reality Is’ and ‘Extended Play’ were recorded in 2012 by the band themselves - both jam packed with 10 and 20 minute tracks totalling over 2 hours.
With influences ranging from Progressive Rock, Math Rock, Funk, Jazz, Balkan, Psychedelia and Alien Visitation their 3rd project ‘Alien/Abra Cadaver’ is a tour-de force of the band’s past and future musical paradigms crystallized into orchestral proportions that takes them a step forward into new unchartered lands…
The multi-instrumentalist members of Norwegian quartet Panzerpappa play an appealing blend of Canterbury-esque prog and Rock in Opposition-flavored avant-prog.
Panzerpappa is one of the finest RIO/Avant bands out there currently, these guys have strong influences from bands like Univers Zero and Samla Mammas Manna, and together with the band's amazing musicianship there's no doubt that these guys are something to really check out. The music can best be described as modern Symphonic RIO with very eclectic instrumentation. This stuff is extremely complex, very progressive and avoids the "repeating ourselves" trap (something that many other bands have failed) with elegance; It's very fresh sounding and original with other words, and the melodies are excellent.
The Wonder of You is a compilation album by American singer Elvis Presley. It was released on October 21, 2016 by RCA Records and Legacy Recordings. The album features archival vocal recordings of Elvis accompanied by new orchestral arrangements by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded at the Abbey Road Studios. It also features a duet with German singer Helene Fischer. Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla Presley has said of The Wonder of You: "Elvis always loved the great, operatic vocalists. We often talked about his interest in recording material that allowed him to perform in that space. It's exciting to hear him on these recordings, performing with the world-class Royal Philharmonic Orchestra via the magic of Abbey Road Studios. He would have loved these performances and I'm very happy that we were able to make this dream come true for Elvis and his fans."
As Yanni's first album of original material in five years - he revisited the past on 2014's Inspirato and recast Mexicanísimo as My Passion for Mexico in 2012 - Sensuous Chill doesn't feel rushed, nor does it feel lazy. At nearly 70 minutes, it does feel a little bit long but Yanni doesn't keep the 17 tracks treading water. Occasionally, he trades in placid surfaces, letting a slight Middle Eastern flair drift into view, but he often ratchets up the R&B beats while threading in spectral soul vocals straight out of Pink Floyd, letting things glide into a full song and then slide away back to a realm that can only be identified by the title's claim. If the production and aesthetic of the record feel slightly out of date - it feels like it could've been cut in the '90s - there's also a charm to its traditionalism: Yanni knows what he does well and he does it proudly here.
After more lineup changes, Wolfmother emerges with its fourth proper album. Guitarist, frontman, and songwriter Andrew Stockdale remains the only founding member. On Victorious, he plays all guitars and basses, with hired studio drummers Josh Freese and Joey Waronker, and Ian Peres on keyboards. This is a messy collection that attempts to expand on the scope of the swaggering, bluesy hard rock of the band's first two albums. It was recorded in Hollywood with producer Brendan O'Brien, whose signature drum-heavy sound seems to saturate these proceedings with phase-shifted sonic effects.
Having released two albums in a nine month period between October 1981 and July 1982, “Three of a Perfect Pair” is the final part of the recorded trilogy begun with “Discipline” and “Beat”. Originally released in April 1984, from the pointillist minimalism of the title track through to the urgent rush of ‘Sleepless’ and the album’s closer ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic III’ - the only reference to the 1970s incarnations of the band – Crimson’s distinctive mixture of rock, electronica, funk and pure pop songs, ensured the group’s status as one of the most interesting and innovative bands of the decade.