Mountain

Dutch band Alquin released four studio albums in the early to mid-'70s, initially playing prog rock influenced by Pink Floyd and Roxy Music. However, by 1975's Nobody Can Wait Forever (the only Alquin album released in the U.S.), the band turned to a more varied style encompassing blues and hard rock. The original group comprised guitarist/vocalist Ferdinand Bakker, vocalist Job Tarenskeen, bassist Hein Mars, drummer Paul Weststrate, and horn player Ronald Ottenhoff; Michel Van Dyke joined the band as lead vocalist in 1975. A live album appeared in 1976, and the best-of Crash! was released a year later. Bakker and Tarenskeen played in the new wave outfit the Meteors in the late '70s and early '80s.

Tchaikovsky’s most overtly nationalistic symphony, his 2nd known as the ‘Little Russian’ uses folk songs from the Ukraine, and is the nearest the composer came to the musical and cultural ideals proposed by ‘The Mighty Handful’. This group of composers – Borodin, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui and Mussorgsky rejected the Western influences on Russian culture, and looked to the music, folklore and history of Mother Russia for inspiration. Mussorgsky, probably the most naturally gifted of this group composed A Night on the Bare Mountain in 1867, and the original version heard here was not published until 1968. It is a striking work, quite shocking in it’s modernity, and a world away from Rimsky’s better known re-composition of the piece.

Sony repackaged and re-released five LPs by Mountain on Windfall – Climbing!, Nantucket Sleighride, Flowers of Evil, Twin Peaks, and Avalanche – as a slipcased box set. It's not a bad way to acquire the albums if you don't already own them, but isn't recommended for the casual fan.