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Pressing News: British Music As It Happened 1962-1972 (Book)
Hardcover Edition, large format. A treasure trove of rare information and imagery, Pressing News is the latest book by Richard Morton Jack, author of Nick Drake: The Life, Labyrinth, Psychedelia, Galactic Ramble and Endless Trip. A huge number of new records came out in the UK every week in the 1960s and 70s, many of them accompanied by press releases. These offered important and fascinating information but were almost all discarded, meaning that very few have survived. The product of decades of…
Patriots
*2025 stock* Franco Battiato's 1980 album Patriots, his first for the major multinational company EMI, found him moving to more of a synth-based pop/rock sound, the better to create stirring anthems like the opening track, "Up Patriots to Arms." The 40th anniversary edition of the album adds four bonus tracks, including English- and Spanish-language versions of that song. Later Battiato albums would enjoy widespread commercial success, but Patriots set the stage for that mass popularity.
Prodigal Son
VHF debut and second widely-available LP by Liam, part of a new generation of underground “American primitive” guitar players serving the traditions and smashing them up simultaneously. Prodigal Son is a portrait of an artist on the road, changing fast, recording things as they spring from the fountain. The sound here is raw – grass and dirt instead of pre-fab; homemade/handmade instead of high-tech, etc.
There’s a visceral quality and immediacy of culture that’s being lost every day in modern…
Make Way For Mother Mallard
Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company was the first all-synthesizer band to ever deliver live concerts. They were founded in the late sixties by David Borden, and they were the first to do so. They even predated giants such as Tangerine Dream with their live performances. Make Way For Mother Mallard: 50 Years Of Music is a double disk collection of wholly new music that was published to commemorate the band's fiftieth anniversary. The first disc of the compilation included previously unh…
The Serpent Power
The Serpent Power were amongst the many bands that emerged during those heady days of 1967 but, unlike many of their contemporaries who went on to build solid careers, their arrival was only to be a brief spell in the sun as this delightful album was to prove their sole release as a full band. There is no doubt that it stands proudly alongside other better known works of that time.
Ιn 1966, San Francisco-based poet David Meltzer and his wife Tina, who was a singer, recruited local musicians Clar…
Softs
New remastered vinyl release of the classic 1976 album by Soft Machine. Cut at Abbey Road Studios. The album was the band’s second for EMI’s Harvest label and featured a line-up of Karl Jenkins (Piano, Electric Piano, Synthesisers), John Marshall (Drums), Roy Babbington (Bass) and new members John Etheridge (Guitar) and Alan Wakeman (Tenor & Soprano saxophones). An accessible collection that followed the band’s first album for Harvest, ‘Bundles’. ‘Softs’ featured John Etheridge’s considerable gu…
Bananamour
New remastered vinyl release of the classic 1973 album by Kevin Ayers. Features Robert Wyatt, Steve Hillage and Mike Ratledge. Remastered from the original master tapes cut at Abbey Road Studios. A founder member of Soft Machine, Kevin embarked on a solo career in 1969, signing to EMI’s Harvest label, for whom he would record a series of wonderful and stylistically eclectic albums. ‘Bananamour’ was Kevin’s final album for Harvest during his first tenure with the label and the sessions were under…
Music For William Eggleston's Stranded In Canton
Spiritualized’s J Spaceman and John Coxon have announced Music for William Eggleston’s Stranded in Canton, an instrumental score of Eggleston’s 1970s art film, out October 18th via Fat Possum. In 2015, Spaceman, Coxon, and friends performed a new original score live at a special film screening at the Barbican Gallery in London. The recording sat on a shelf for 10 years, and will finally be unveiled through this release. Stranded in Canton is a black-and-white film portrait of Memphis in 1974, sh…
Dolce Acqua
Delirium formed in 1970 in Genoa from the ashes of the beat group I Sagittari and released the following year their first 45 rpm “Canto di Osanna,” which immediately attracted the attentions of critics and public alike. In 1971 they debuted with “Dolce Acqua,” an album with wonderful atmospheres that already from an iconographic point of view is exceptionally presented, with a three-panel gatefold cover and a visionary painting among the most memorable of the Italian progressive rock scene. Musi…
Astrolabio
New reissue in jewelcase cd format. The origins of the Genoese band Garybaldi date back to 1965, the year in which guitarist Pier Niccolò "Bambi" Fossati, together with Maurizio Cassinelli (drums), Angelo Traverso (bass) and Marco Zoccheddu (guitar), founded the Gleemen, authors of a self-titled LP released in 1970: an excellent album, still linked to certain 1960s sounds, but in which Bambi Fossati's Hendrixian style began to make itself heard. In 1971 the band changed its name to Garybaldi and…
Garage Beat In Florence
For the first time on double vinyl - and 20 years after its first release on cd – here we have the compilation 'Garage Beat in Florence', basically a snapshot of Florence 1966 ‘beat phenomena’. All the tracks were recorded at 'Studio Due' for the NET label and originally enclosed with the magazine 'Nuova Enigmistica Tascabile'. Plus – as bonus tracks – a nice selection from the Ginco Records label, including previously unreleased acetate !
The double vinyl contains 28 tracks, pictures, memorabi…
Moonstone
Reverse side print ! Re-issue of the Canadian band's only album released back in 1973 on the small Kot'Ai label. Moonstone came from Winnipeg, Manitoba and were a small cult band active in the early 1970's. They played mainly acoustic folk rock with psychedelic overtones and beautiful harmonies.
The Wind In The Willows
Reissue of the band sole album, originally released in 1968 on Capitol Records. The record is a mixture of light psychedelic pop and folk. The band broke up shortly after failing to achieve commercial success or critical acclaim. The following year Artie Kornfeld, the record engineer of the album, went on to be the music producer of the Woodstock festival in 1969. Debbie Harry went on to join The Stillettos in 1974 and other bands until subsequently achieving success in 1976 fronting the new wav…
Summerhill
*2025 repress* Produced by David Briggs (Neil Young, Alice Cooper) and recoreded at famous Wally Heider Studio 3 in Hollywood, CA during 1969, their self-titled album features ten original compositions, with essential contributions from the four members of the band. Summerhill certainly spotted a late-1960s West Coast vibe, including Hendrix-Rock style ("Bring Me Around"), sunshine pop ("Soft Voice") and even a touch of ‘flower-jazz’ ("What Can I Say").
Topi O Uomini
Sicilians Flea debuted in 1971 under the name Flea on the Honey and an album indebted to the British pop-psych scene. Their ranks include brothers Agostino (drums) and Antonio Marangolo (vocals and keyboards), Carlo Pennisi (guitar, vocals) - all future members of the legendary Goblin! - and Elio Volpini (bass, vocals, saxophone), the latter later merged into L'Uovo di Colombo.
If the debut album can be considered at least partly immature and derivative, however excellently produced and structur…
Intorno Alla Mia Cattiva Educazione
Hailing from Milan, the Alusa Fallax were born in 1969 out of the Adelfi, and released their first single in the same year, followed by a second shortly thereafter.Also in 1969, one of the two Guido in the lineup released a 45 under the name Guido degli Alusa Fallax ("Guardarti negli occhi" for the West Side).
The group stayed together for many years, and their only album was released in 1974 by Fonit; a beautiful album, which went sadly unnoticed, in the best tradition of Italian progressive ro…
Live In Montreux
Hailing from the city of Ancona, Agorà was founded in 1974 and, thanks to a simple demo, managed to capture the attention of the organizers of the legendary Montreux festival (which many will remember for the famous fire that inspired Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water"). Their technical skills enabled the group to arrive prepared on stage at the event, and to perform an outstanding performance immortalized in this historic LP, which also constitutes the first case of an Italian band's recording …
Känguru
"Känguru” is the third album by Guru Guru, released in 1972 on the Brain label. It was produced by Conny Plank and featured the ‘classic’ Guru Guru line-up of Ax Genrich (guitar), Uli Trepte (bass) and Mani Neumeier (drums, vocals). “Känguru” is basically made up of the same ingredients as its two predecessors “Ufo” and “Hinten”, which were released on Rolf Kaiser’s Ohr label in 1970 and 1971. Känguru” is pure Krautrock, the album contains “only” 4 tracks, all between 10 and 15 minutes long. But…
Banished Bridge
In 1971 singer Jürgen Wenzel and bassist Heino Schünzel placed an ad in the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper looking for like-minded people to form a band. Organist Lutz Rahn and drummer Hartwig Biereichel answered the ad. They called themselves Mosaik, started rehearsing and playing smaller gigs. At the suggestion of their friend and guitarist Carlo Karges (later a bandmember of Nena), they changed their name to Novalis. In 1973 the band signed a contract with Brain Records and Jochen Petersen (l…
Body Love
The origins of "Body Love" are quite funny. I received a call from a movie producer named Manfred Menz and I wound up becoming his principal composer for a period of time. Amongst others, I composed the “Barracuda” soundtrack for him [1978, previously unreleased on album]. This led to a friendship which lasts till today. Menz now lives in Malibu, California where I visited him a couple of years ago. Anyway, this guy calls me and asks if I would compose the score to a porn movie. I said I said: “…