The Science Of Sound

"Big Brother & the Holding Company," is an early recording by Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic blues rock San Francisco-based band during the late 1960's. The record survives largely because of their great, great chick singer, Janis Joplin, of course, who joined them on a Chicago gig. Although Joplin fans will know that she did not, unfortunately, survive the 1970's, as she passed on October 4, 1970 (aged 27), in Los Angeles, California. But in her brief career, despite her troubled life, she left behind a stunning, gutsy repertory of work that has long since floated free of, and outlived, Big Brother. This record, however, was laid down about six months before she (and they) achieved lasting blazing stardom at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival.

Due to the writing of Landmarq's fourth album, Damian Wilson left the band and was replaced by the fabulous Tracy Hitchings. Previously she's been in bands such as Quasar and Strangers On a Train. She's also currently a part of Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman's project called "Jabberwocky". This woman is perhaps the best female vocalist in progressive rock. She's not only doing the vocals on this album, she's also taken part in writing and co-writing the main part of the albums lyrics. On this album you can hear a revitalised Landmarq with a better and much more appropriate vocalist, and a development in the song writing since the previous album "The Vision Pit". Musically Landmarq is reminiscent to keyboard dominated, symphonic neo-prog bands such as IQ, Marillion, Pallas and Pendragon with an 80's sound to it. There's also traces of Camel, Genesis and Pink Floyd influences.

Wubbo Johannes Ockels was a Dutch physicist, astronaut, pilot and professor. On October 30, 1985, he was the first Dutchman in space when he participated in a flight on the space shuttle Challenger, STS-61-A. This experience affected him deeply and when he came back he put a lot of effort into safe ways of preserving the Earth and methods of producing safe energy. Until his death in 2014, he was Professor of Aerospace for Sustainable Science and Technology at the TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Ockels died in 2014 of an aggressive form of kidney cancer. Until his very last day of his life - some say with his last breath - he spoke of our responsibilities: Save the earth, well now!

Progressive rock usually takes its inspiration from litterature, especially when it comes to science-fiction or fantasy. Edgar Allan Poe is usually regarded as the father of these two genres, especially with his famous novels, translated in French by Charles Baudelaire in 1856 under the title "Histoires Extraordinaires". The American author was the perfect subject for this project by the Musea label and the Colossus fanzine. A mountain to climb as well… Here are the artists that rose up to the challenge: Marco La Muscio, Senogul, La Théorie des Cordes, Oracle, N.O.T., Dunwich, Guy Leblanc, Jinetes Negros, Karda Estra, Jukka Kulju, Anima Morte, Blank Manuscript, Areknames, Little Tragedies, Armalite, Chansonoir, Magnetic Sound Machine and Daal. Mission accomplished!

The Flesh Creeping Gonzoid: Speciality Offal & Other Choice Cuts is the sister collection to The Flesh Creeping Gonzoid: Speciality Offal & Other Imaginary Creatures. The box consists of 6 CDs and a DVD of studio out-takes, deleted obscurities, compilation appearances, vinyl and download releases. All discs are over 75 minutes in length and feature a wealth of previously unreleased material.

Docker's Guild is a massive prog metal space opera superproject which will unfold through 5 “seasons” and 9 albums and is masterminded by producer, songwriter, keyboardist and singer Douglas R. Docker. The first album, called “The Mystic Technocracy - Season I: The Age of Ignorance” (2012), saw the participation of acclaimed worldwide musicians such as Gregg Bissonette, Tony Franklin, Guthrie Govan, Jeff Watson, John Payne, Göran Edman, Amanda Somerville, Tony Mills and many others. It collected an impressive amount of awards and reviews, gaining widespread international accolades.

In the mid-1960s, the rigid and colourless British way of life was irrevocably transformed by the emergence of the underground movement, a loose collective of young radicals who introduced new social, sexual and aesthetic perspectives. Operating out of the heart of London, their various activities, from the newspaper the International Times, to the psychedelic club UFO, promoted alternative lifestyles and values and sparked a cultural revolution.

In a neatly symmetrical fashion, Gramavision chose two tracks from each of Scofield's half-dozen albums for the label, sequenced them chronologically, cross-faded or ran many of them together, and ended up with an exciting hourlong summary of his mid-'80s output (would that more best-of albums be assembled with such consistency). After the jagged electric jazz-rock of the first two albums, Electric Outlet and Still Warm, "Make Me" and "The Nag" from Blue Matter inject a funk element into the Scofield bag, which becomes even nastier on "Wabash" (from Loud Jazz) before resolving into the potently jazzier direction of Flat Out ("The Boss's Car" is a gas). Amidst all of the electric bluster and energy, there is a dignified, quietly bluesy Scofield solo take on "Georgia on My Mind" (from Pick Hits Live) at the dead center of the CD…