Esoteric King

Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a newly remastered deluxe 5CD boxed set anthology by legendary guitarist, composer and instrumentalist ANTHONY PHILLIPS. Anthony was a founding member of Genesis alongside Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks with whom he recorded the albums From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass. After leaving the group in 1970, Anthony studied orchestration and harmony externally at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After passing his LGSM exams, he taught music at Reeds School and Peper Harrow whilst continuing to compose and record in his home studio.

This is a three classic albums CD box set with the original artworked 'mini LP' CD wallets in deluxe packaging. It contains the albums Illuminations (1974), Oneness: Silver Dreams - Golden Reality (1979) and The Swing Of Delight (1980).

Aside from Roger Dean's iconic cover illustrations, Greenslade weren't like most prog brands of the 1970s. Keyboardist Dave Greenslade and bassist Tony Reeves formed the quartet in 1972 after leaving jazz-rock outfit Colosseum. Eschewing guitars, they hired Samurai's Dave Lawson as a second keyboardist, and former Manfred Mann drummer Andrew McCulloch (he also played on King Crimson's Lizard) . The band's approach utilized typical knotty, stop-and-start cadences, and key and tempo changes, but those are only a few elements in their complex soundscape. The rest of Greenslade's sound reflected a penchant for catchy melodies derived from pop, jazz, classical, and folk. Keyboardist Lawson spent years backing singers including Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee. Greenslade, Reeves, and McCulloch came up in the British blues and jump R&B bands of the early 1960s. The remastered albums in this box mark their four studio outings: 1973's Greenslade and Bedside Manners Are Extra, 1974's Spyglass Guest, and 1975's Time & Tide.

"This collection of ballads contains some of the best known English folk lyrics. It is nowhere near as comprehensive as other books, such as the massive Child ballad collection. However, the illustrations are gorgeous, and the selection is excellent…

The Pyramid Texts, written on the walls of the entrance corridors, antechambers, and funerary chambers of the royal pyramids of the late Fifth and entire Sixth Dynasties, are filled with mythic statements and allusions, without using prose or poetic narrative. They functioned as a holistic group, each distinct from the other, yet each working within the group to create a situation paralleling the mythic, celestial world of the afterlife. By this means, the king (and later, queen) were caused to enter and assume their rightful place in the afterlife as deities. The language of the texts provides evidence for the process by which this takes place: aligning the royal with the deities by means of family terms, and using various literary methods of inserting the king into the world of the myth. The placement of the texts has proved to be of interest because, while certain spells of protection or offering were placed around entrances or around the stone sarcophagus, the majority of the spells show by their content that no specific placement was intended..