National Health

Even though Tales From the Lush Attic was IQ's first LP, the band had self-released a cassette in October 1982 entitled Seven Stories Into Eight. Recorded on a domestic four-track machine, this collection of songs shows the band in its formative months, as members were trying to agree on the musical direction they wanted to follow. The cassette was sold at shows and via mail order until 1984, when it was deleted. Each copy was packaged with handmade artwork by singer Peter Nicholls. The album opens with "Capital Letters (In Surgical Spirit Land)," an atypical high-octane fusion number à la Brand X or National Health.

French based multi-instrumentalist and composer Tom Penaguin presents his spectacular self-titled debut album. The album showcases some of the most impressive Canterbury Scene progressive rock sounds since the genre’s inception in the 1970s. Tom (guitarist of Djiin and former keyboardist of Orgöne), began playing guitar at the age of 6 and later learnt how to play drums, piano and organ to a professional standard by the age of 15. Influenced by the likes of Frank Zappa and the Canterbury Scene, Tom set out to build an analog music studio in his house in 2020, where he recorded the entire album using a plethora of vintage studio hardware and equipment. The result is a masterful ode to bands like Egg and National Health. The songs are complex in structure, with Stravinsky-inspired patterns, glorious melodies, whilst allowing room for lengthy improvisations akin to the fusion scene of the early 70s.

Almost stereotypically overreaching early-'70s progressive rock; quasi-operatic vocals, spinning guitar solos, lengthy suite-like tracks on the order of "Stargazers" and "Hollow Stone (incl. Escape of the Space Pilots)." The highlight is Stewart's effervescent organ work during the gentle and meditative passages. An obscure footnote of early-'70s British art rock, Khan featured guitarist Steve Hillage, keyboardist Dave Stewart, and ex-Crazy World of Arthur Brown bassist Nick Greenwood. Their sole album from 1972 was dominated by Hillage's lengthy, ambitious compositions and Stewart's organ, which owed much to the Canterbury Scene of British prog rock. The group didn't offer much to distinguish themselves from the many other British outfits exploring similar territory, and disbanded after one LP. Hillage went on to join Kevin Ayers and Gong before establishing a solo career; Stewart played with Hatfield & the North and National Health.

With a strong Canterbury influence implanted into their sound, Egg's first album has the band looking to establish their niche as a progressive group, with Dave Stewart's sharp, effective keyboard work outlining much of the album's overall feel. Mixing jazz and progressive rock drifts, the tracks on Egg contain rhythms and meters that are never at a standstill, with ongoing instrumental action encompassing nearly every track…

This fun band comes from Louisville (Kentucky) and has existed since 1983. Led by the leadership of bassist Mike Sary, French TV has released albums of music for musicians, deftly nodding to prog-masters like National Health, Soft Machine, Zappa, Brudford, Brand X, Happy The Man, and Samla Mammas Manna, among others. To describe French TV's music is simple and complicated… All the band's other issues contain moving moments; a hybrid of Canterbury, RIO, Fusion, and Insanity, not to mention random little snippets of other styles…

Low Budget doesn't have a narrative like Preservation or Soap Opera, but Ray Davies cleverly designed the album as a sly satire of the recession and oil crisis that gripped America in the late '70s – thereby satisfying his need to be a wry social commentator while giving American audiences a hook to identify with…

Even though they started out on Musea, EGOBAND is another Mellow Records Italian obscurity. What does that mean? It means it's hard to find band information. But there is enough to paint a picture. The first album's lineup consisted of Alessandro Accordino on vocals and keyboards,
Fabio Cioni on drums,
Massimo Fava on guitars, and Alfonso Capasso on bass. However, only Accordino and Capasso would be consistent with the group over its four-album career. This, along with the fact that there were no live efforts, leads to speculation that EGOBAND may have been more of a project than a band (a la Steely Dan). They went through interesting changes over their career. Starting out purely Neo, with heavy AOR tendencies, and ending up almost in Canterbury territory by the time they got to "Earth"…