'The Man in the Iron Mask' is the exciting and ambitious new album from The Samurai of Prog. It was composed by Oliviero Lacagnina (of "Latte e Miele"), written in the "symphonic progressive rock" style - the musical genre he has been exploring and expanding since the 1970s. This CD will certainly satisfy lovers of classical and symphonic progressive rock; new music weaving in quotations and callbacks to great composers of the past, interpreted by keyboards and powerful electric guitars along with Steve Unruh's violin, Kimmo Pörsti's drums and Marco Bernard's Shuker bass. The album's theme is the life of, and events surrounding, the "Secret Twin of the Sun King". It visits key moments from the story (inspired by the texts of Alexandre Dumas and Voltaire).
Acid Mothers Temple & Melting Paraiso U.F.O has always held a deep dedication and devotion towards improvised music. From psychedelic freakouts to Stockhausen-inspired noise, from minimalism to 70’s prog rock; to go from Black Sabbath all the way to Terry Riley, Acid Mothers Temple is your best gateway drug. Now with a history of over two decades, and a discography of over one hundred releases, here is one killer of an album more for you! Recorded at Lodge Studio in September 2017 and continued at Acid Mothers Temple in October 2021, Demi-Demoniac Daemoog is a monolith made out of wild and bubbly synthesizers topped with totally "out there" kind of fuzz freakism.
Canadian brass rock band Lighthouse were formed in Toronto 1969. Unusually, the band leader Ronn "Skip" Prokop was a drummer, he has played previously with artists such as Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana and Al Kooper before forming his first band The Paupers. Of these, the Kooper connection is probably the most significant, as the music of Lighthouse is based around a solid brass section and big arrangements, similar to those of Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago.
Prokop's ambitions were made clear from the outset when the first line up of Lighthouse had no less than 11 members. The were quickly picked up by RCA Victor, who release the bands self titled debut in 1969. Further albums followed quickly, but the punningly titled "Peacing it all together", their third release, would see the end of their relationship with RCA…
Whatever changes have occurred in the galaxy of Acid Mothers Temple, the group has remained perpetually active. So in 2005, when various departures and line-up changes finally prompted group leader Kawabata Makoto to put the project Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. on indefinite hiatus, the last thing to expect from him was prolonged silence. And true to form, Makoto quickly reloaded his supporting cast and unleashed his new "hellchild," the Cosmic Inferno, and continued to build upon what is already one of the most unruly catalogs in existence…
Anything can happen, as Hexvessel’s music conveys awe towards the power of nature, but at the same time none of us is really in sync with its rhythm, neither understands fully the shadows behind trees and murmurs in grass. Hexvessel is one of those bands that seem to be from 1972 rather than 2012. However, it’s not just banal nostalgia. All the 11 songs making up the 56-minute album move in familiar paths – prog rock, psychedelia, folk. In spite of it all, Hexvessel seems to say that we CANNOT remember everything linearly, our world is full of flukes and to go back and start over on a clean slate is not possible.