The Island 1980

This is a very special boxed set by the short-lived but excellent Japanese band Shingetsu, compiling just about everything the band ever did in the studio along with material by the various solo and offshoot projects that came into being after the band dissolved. The result is something I would consider essential to all fans of the golden age of '70s progressive rock. Influenced by classic King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, and particularly Genesis, Shingetsu did not appear on the scene until the late '70s but brought with them that pure, symphonic, cinematic sound shared by those other bands earlier in the decade, completely untainted by punk and the other commercial music which had now started to plague progressive music here in the west…

Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, there stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of the past half-century. Two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Nash burst on to the scene during the British Invasion with The Hollies before he formed the legendary supergroup Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1968 with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. As Nash prepares to launch a European tour in July, Rhino looks back at some of his best-known recordings from the past 50 years in a new anthology featuring more than a dozen unreleased demos and mixes.