National Health

This is Annie Barbazza’s first solo album. She was a young drummer in love with progressive rock when Greg Lake discovered her talent as a singer and wanted her on stage with him for the concert which would later become the posthumous “Live in Piacenza”. Again Lake produced “Moonchild”, the duo with pianist Max Repetti for Manticore Records where she sang many songs formerly sang by Lake with ELP and King Crimson. If these were the beginnings of Annie’s career, now she is a rising star of the international Avant / Prog scene. Her friendship with John Greaves (Henry Cow, National Health …) leads her to collaborate permanently live with the Welsh musician and to collaborate on his latest albums (“Piacenza” for Dark Companion and “Life Size” for Manticore). Another one of her stable collaborations is the one with legendary writer-singer-songwriter Paul Roland with whom Annie regularly performs live as a bassist and singer and in the studio also as a drummer.

French TV is a Louisville, Kentucky based progressive rock band that has been in existence since 1983. Over the years, members have come and gone, but founder, bassist and main composer Mike Sary continues to drag the band into the next millennium. The band deftly nod to prog-masters like National Health, Soft Machine, Zappa, Brudford, Brand X, Happy the Man, and Samla Mammas Manna, among others. The history of French TV is complex, filled with lineup changes, missed opportunities, delays, and disillusions. And yet, a growing body of work testifies to one man's sagacity and stubbornness. Blending elements of progressive rock, fusion, cartoon music, and Rock in Opposition (RIO), the music of his group has been described as being "simultaneously hilarious and highly challenging, making it one of the most original American prog rock outfits."

A quartet from Athens-Georgia, this group managed two albums in the late 90's, but haven't been heard since. Actually, the usual prog quartet (with the bassist also doubling on sax) had started as a quintet as they also aligned a cellist, but by the debut album's release, he was gone. Their music is a rather quiet English jazz-rock, not far from Canterbury groups like Hatfield and National Health, but retaining its own spirit as well. Voted by many specialized mags, "The Uncertainty Principle" was in a lot of "top 10 of 97" lists, while the following "Memoirs" is actually a retrospective which contains the band's 1996 cassette tape debut in its entirety, along with three additional tracks.

East coast band with strong Canterbury school besides Muffins or Happy The Man and RIO influences. However delivers a very experimental music rich in wind instruments, acoustic guitars and many vintage keyboards. They use their musical abilities to build upon the Gentle Giant and Canterbury foundation to create a music that can only be described as one of the better American efforts from the late '70s into the '80s.
"Sudden Dusk" (1981) has the feel if not the actual sound of the English Canterbury school married with a detectable American folk influence, producing rock/chamber compositions of unusual beauty and dimension…

Mosaic's career was brief and is now largely forgotten, but the only album the French quartet recorded in 1978 remains a puzzling chunk of jazz-rock, of interest to those into the British and French varieties of '70s left-field progressive music. One hears the influence of the more complex groups from the Canterbury Scene (Hatfield and the North, National Health, post-Wyatt Soft Machine), but Canterbury jazz-rock this is not. There is too much fancy, too much madness in the music, bringing it closer in spirit and style to early Henry Cow or France's own Etron Fou Leloublan (without turning that mad) – Quebec's Sloche also comes to mind.

This double album consists in the reprint of the long OOP studio album from 2011, named "1000 Autunni", plus a second live album, recorded on 06/01/2013 at the AltrOck/Fading festival in Milano, Casa di Alex. Featuring also an unreleased tune, these live versions differ quite a lot from studio versions.
Paolo "Ske" Botta is in the band Yugen and also appeared on French TV's "This Is What We Do". If you are even remotely interested in sophisticated and complex eclectic prog then you can not go wrong with this. Everything about this just evokes musical ecstasy like few others can. What we have here is an amalgamation of many influences seamlessly fused together to create some strange yet beautiful sonic bliss…

When Opeth released Heritage in 2011 - the wonderfully indulgent, somewhat unfocused exercise in prog rock aesthetics - some longstanding fans were offended because the band had abandoned death metal. Truthfully, they had been exploring prog in fits and starts since 2005's Ghost Reveries. Pale Communion completes the transition, proving that Heritage was not only a next step, but a new beginning altogether. Vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt has obviously been listening to loads of prog in the interim - ELP's debut, Deep Purple's In Rock, early King Crimson and Eloy, National Health, U.K., Bill Bruford's early solo work, Pär Lindh, and even jazz fusion. Produced by the singer and mixed by Steven Wilson, Pale Communion states its ambitions outright…

Mad Fellaz II is generously seasoned with the complex flavours of Canterbury styled prog and at times is lightly spiced with the drive and aggression of rock. Above all else, it is an album that displays the freedom of spirit that the inclusion of jazz influences can provide. Mad Fellaz II is an album that combines the best elements of Canterbury styled prog with the warming reassuring predictability and challenging unpredictability that an infusion of jazz and rock influences can offer. Stylistically, the album ranges from National Health-like instrumental passages to very occasional forays to a fuller quasi big band sound as beloved by bands such as Ian Carr's Nucleus. Nods to Santana, Gilgamesh and King Crimson also peep through in the band's lengthy compositions. The combination of so many contrasting styles creates music that is spaciously vibrant, always distinctive and often unique.