Time Stands Still (1982) Péter Gothár, Anikó Iván, István Znamenák, Péter Gálfy, Drama

Time flows and stands still in this contemplative music that sounds old and new and yet neither old nor new, naive art and higher mathematics, a child‘s game, a glass bead game, like first steps and last words – all rolled into one. The compositions that Arvo Pärt has been writing for almost half a century defy any labelling or ideology. In his anachronistic art, the Estonian composer – who emigrated from the Soviet Union with his family in 1980 and found a refuge in (West) Berlin – chose the path of renunciation, reduction, and voluntary poverty. The most famous testimony to this musical conversion is undoubtedly Fratres (“Brothers”), which was written in 1977 but has appeared in all kinds of different instrumentations and versions over the years. In its ascetic austerity and almost liturgical solemnity, Fratres is reminiscent of a communal prayer or a spiritual act.

Security – which was titled Peter Gabriel everywhere outside of the U.S. – continues where the third Gabriel album left off, sharing some of the same dense production and sense of cohesion, yet lightening the atmosphere and expanding the sonic palette somewhat. The gloom that permeates the third album has been alleviated and while this is still decidedly somber and serious music, it has a brighter feel, partially derived from Gabriel's dabbling in African and Latin rhythms…

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist Peter Hammill is a veteran of the rock genre, recording in excess of 40 albums both alone and as a band leader for more than 30 years. A frequent collaborator and friend of Peter Gabriel, Hammill achieved high regard in his native Great Britain and across Europe. Hammill and Gabriel played an important role in the development of progressive rock, leading the art-prog-rock bands Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis respectively and singing in a theatrical, wordy, typically English style…

Originally a limited-edition vinyl bootleg released in the late '70s (now one of THE great Hammill collectibles), this soundboard recording of a February 1978 solo show at All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City was always the best of the pitifully few live documents available from this most spellbinding of performers. Reissued across two CDs, with six bonus tracks recreating the entire concert, it stands as an essential addition to his canon…

After the marvelous Planets album, Eloy continued with this excellent progressive rock album. The omnipresent keyboards are however just a bit less elaborated, futuristic and bombastic than on Planets: they are pretty symphonic and a bit spacy too…

Ein deutsches Album (English: A German Album), released in July 1980, is a German-language version of Peter Gabriel. Gabriel sang German vocals on top of completely new recorded instrumental and backing vocal tracks.[citation needed] The German lyrics are translations from the English. Two years later, Gabriel released Deutsches Album (1982), a significantly altered version of his fourth album Peter Gabriel (1982) (known as Security in the United States and Canada)…