Paradigms is an honest attempt to expand musical horizons, capturing the essence of the unique prog vibe by focusing on the genre's most important aspect: variety. Featured musicians on the album include drummer Craig Blundell (Frost*/Steven Wilson), bassist Kristoffer Gildenlöw (ex-Pain of Salvation), guests Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater), Alex Argento on keyboards, and the lovely jazz vocalist Houry Dora Apartian. Project by: guitarist and founder Shant Hagopian…
The band's second album, released a few scant months after their debut, found Darryl Way and co. still edging away from the Curved Air ideal, without doing anything to truly alienate that band's loyal followers. Indeed, there were moments throughout Wolf's career when they sounded more like the original Air than that band's current incarnation ever could. Of course it's the mad violin that best confirms the similarities, but one can only dream of how dramatic this band could have been had they only reached a wider audience. Listening to Saturation Point is like walking a tightrope, a taut, nerve-bending ride that takes you from the eccentric peaks of "The Ache" and "Two Sisters" (combined, one of the greatest album overtures of the year), to the boleric attack of "Toy Symphony," a cut that raises the specters of Caravan and ELP, even as it shakes off comparisons with anything else…
It was worth the wait for Colombian-American songstress Kali Uchis’s first full-length. A romantic collage of artists and sounds she’s encountered along the way—Tyler, The Creator and Bootsy Collins on “After the Storm”, and Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn on the surfy “In My Dreams”—the album draws on Latin pop (“Nuestro Planeta”), hypnotic R&B (“Just a Stranger”), and high-flying psych-rock (“Tomorrow,” with production from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker). It’s a sign of Uchis’ artistic vision that she pulled so many creative minds into a single body of work that sounds so distinctly her own.
Between 1995 and 1997, Edsel released eight full-length CDs of Marc Bolan's previously unreleased demos, alternate takes, unused and abandoned songs and unfinished recordings. These CDs were deleted in 2001. Since then, copies of the rare original individual releases have changed hands for foolish amounts of money and sellers on Ebay have offered to pirate the entire set! Edsel is now proud to announce the re-issue of all 8 CDs in a limited edition bound book set, with extensive brand new annotation by Mojo writer Mark Paytress, author of the acknowledged definitive Bolan biography “Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Sperstar”.
On their debut album Canis Lupus, Darryl Way's Wolf included both instrumentals and vocal numbers, with bassist Dek Messecar taking on the latter duties. The album garnered critical acclaim, and in its wake the quartet embarked on a successful British tour. On-stage, however, Messecar found it difficult to combine vocals with his intricate bass playing, thus the band's sophomore set, Saturation Point, was comprised almost exclusively of instrumentals. It was a grand album, but also failed to chart, and Way became convinced that the lack of frontman was holding them back from success. Former If vocalist John Hodkinson was recruited to amend this flaw, and the new-look Wolf began work on Night Music, their third and final album…