Focus 2009 7

The expected diversity of these compilations is given again. No matter if it is the Petards, who founded the fundaments for Krautrock already in the late 60's, or Straight Shooter with their early 80's hard-rock, each kind of music is present. Electronic music with Neu!, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Faust and Michael Rother turns to pure psychedelic like Guru Guru, Brainticket or Nine Days Wonder. Prog fans will love Nektar, Anyone's Daughter and Parzival, while rockers will enjoy Murphy Blend, Eloy, Harlis and many others. To say it clear - there is something for everyone!

The expected diversity of these compilations is given again. No matter if it is the Petards, who founded the fundaments for Krautrock already in the late 60's, or Straight Shooter with their early 80's hard-rock, each kind of music is present. Electronic music with Neu!, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Faust and Michael Rother turns to pure psychedelic like Guru Guru, Brainticket or Nine Days Wonder. Prog fans will love Nektar, Anyone's Daughter and Parzival, while rockers will enjoy Murphy Blend, Eloy, Harlis and many others. To say it clear - there is something for everyone!

The expected diversity of these compilations is given again. No matter if it is the Petards, who founded the fundaments for Krautrock already in the late 60's, or Straight Shooter with their early 80's hard-rock, each kind of music is present. Electronic music with Neu!, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Faust and Michael Rother turns to pure psychedelic like Guru Guru, Brainticket or Nine Days Wonder. Prog fans will love Nektar, Anyone's Daughter and Parzival, while rockers will enjoy Murphy Blend, Eloy, Harlis and many others. To say it clear - there is something for everyone!

Kuckuck was responsible for releasing many great albums in Germany in the early 1970s, including those by the wonderful Out Of Focus. Featuring Moran Neumuller (vocals, sax, flute), Remigus Dreschler (guitar), Hennes Hering (keyboards), Stephan Wisheu (bass) and Klaus Spori (drums), this legendary Munich based band were contemporaries of acts such as Amon Duul II and recorded three classic and highly collectable albums for the label. Their music is somewhat similar to early British prog but will gradually evolve to a certain jazz-rock while staying very politically and socially conscious (in the typical German style of those years).

The members of Naples, Italy-based jazz-rock ensemble Slivovitz (named after a Central and Eastern European plum brandy) can cite the exact date of the group’s formation: September 27, 2001, when, according to a Web interview with saxophonist Pietro Santangelo, Slivovitz came together after a spontaneous street jam. The group mixes jazz and rock with a variety of other styles, notably Balkan and Gypsy influences, which Slivovitz began exploring after a 2003 trip to Hungary. The band’s eponymous debut album was recorded in 2004 and released by an Italian imprint; Slivovitz subsequently signed with the New York-based MoonJune label, which released Hubris (mainly new compositions but also including three remastered tracks from the debut) in 2009…

Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987's Sign o' the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now he's navigating the rough waters of online distribution and exclusive contracts with big box retailers in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r…