Back catalogue: Progressive Rock

Review: We aren't sure who Inner Space Quartet are be we are sure you will like them. This is the second new music from them this month and it follows a busy 2022 in which they put out three head-turning 7"s on different labels. They seem to be settling for Funk Night as their home this year but soundwise are harder to pin down - there is Thai funk, space rock, jazz, psyched-out guitars and much more all contained with these two expansive and immersive sounds. 'Paranoia Party' is the really 60s-tinged narcotic opener then 'Delay' brings more rock guitar sounds as if from some secret and tripped-out Stones concert in the desert back in the day.

Review: 7 Up is three things; a ubiquitous energy drink brand, an infamous TV show charting the upbringing and development of various children from the ages of seven upwards, and the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel - their only collaborative piece with notorious psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary. Supposedly, the sprawling psych-Moog album was named after a bottle of 7 Up that had been spiked with LSD was given to the band's lyricist Brian Barritt. This new version contains the original manuscript of the album's concept by Leary, as well as photos from the recording session in Bern.

Review: Ash Ra Tempel are one of the undisputed totems of krautrock, and from their considerable legacy, Join Inn is one of their most important records. The line-up of the band in 1973 included Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching, who went on to become legends in their own right, but it was on pieces like the extended 'Freak'n'roll' and 'Jenseits' that they cemented their reputation as instrumental trailblazers, shattering the conventions of rock music and creating a new musical mode that still carries weight today. Getting the celebration in early, Gottsching's own Mg Art label are toasting 50 years since this landmark album came out with a shiny new reissue - much needed given the scant repressing Join Inn has had up until now.

Review: Ian Carr and the Nucleus crew were real favourites of US hip hop master Madlib. He valued their dark, brooding, menacing beats and spooky soundtracks and this album is a perfect example of that adsorbing broodiness. It came on Vertigo in 1973 and was in part funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain. It started off life as a live show and then with an expanded cast become an album recording with help from vocalist Norma Winstone. Be With have remastered the whole record from original tapes and the sleeve has also been restored to its full original glory.

Review: The ominous clangs and thuds grow louder and louder, louder and louder, atmosphere of increasing tension turning into borderline panic as timbre's brooding menace threatens to erupt into snarling aggression. Suffice to say, like a good chunk of Diabel, 'Wedding Dance Macabre' is disinterested in niceties and would likely run anyone through who is looking for background music. The fact this is one of Andrzej Korzy?ski's scores for one of Andrzej ?u?awski's movies only makes that feat more phenomenal, given the role soundtracks often play in cinema.

Of course, it's not all so foreboding and intimidating. Tracks like 'Through the Door - Theodor' are in fact downright playful, tune comprising high pitched 'boing' noises, like springs recoiling in harmony, while 'Your Father Is Dead Young Lord' is a masterclass in emotionally captivating piano. Nevertheless, the point remains - these were never meant to accompany a visual piece, but instead play leading parts in the narrative of Diabel.

Review: Larry Manteca's Zombie Mandingo album arrived back in 2013 and in the danced plus has only ever been available digitally. Now it makes its debut on wax and remains a bold listen that was devised as a soundtrack to a non-existent exploitation film. It fuses funk, jazz, and Afrobeat influences with plenty of niche cinematic references such as the zombies in Lucio Fulci's horrors and Umberto Lenzi's cannibalistic adventures. The resulting mash up is beguiling to say the least with horror-tinged exotica next to Fela Kuti rhythms and elements of Italian Library music and colourful psychedelia. A boundary pushing work to say the least.

Review: Be With are busy reissuing a number of Nucleus albums and Alleycat sure is one of their best. It is packed with stone cold rhythms as well as having a red hot sleeve. The band put it out in 197 and it was their last for the Vertigo label, all meticulously produced by Jon Hiseman. It's as good as any of their work with its funk fusions of prog, jazz and rock all ageing brilliantly well. There are big riff-laden tunes, cop-funk chases and more lush and laidback pieces that will have you deep in the groove. It has all been remastered from original tapes so sounds as good as ever.

Review: Headed up by the revered trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr, Nucleus have penned many a seminal album and Elastic Rock certainly is one of them. It was a real milestone for the jazz-rock fusion scene and marked a stunning debut in 1970 that has been hard to find ever since. Saxophonist Brian Smith, guitarist Chris Spedding - who wouold later go on to produce the Sex Pistols' first recordings - drummer John Marshall, bassist Jeff Clyne and sax, oboe and pianist Karl Jenkins all brought energy and invention in equal measure on this one with cuts like the title track offer lovely electric blues, '1916' featuring heavy drums and melancholic horns and 'Striation' being more serene. Be With have remastered this reissue from the original tapes.

Review: First released on Vertigo in 1975, the growling basslines and irresistible rolling grooves of Nucleus emerge in full force for Snakehips Etcetera - an infectiously energetic record that sounds as though it has barely aged a day. Opening onto the unctuous grooves of 'Rat's Bag', where a jubilant trumpet solo takes centre stage, this track instantly takes us into the heart of Nucleus' entirely distinctive terrain. On the B-side, the title track emerges at a slower pace and with synthesised elements moving to the fore - this is a release that perfectly demonstrates how electronics and instrumentation can be combined to reach new heights. With original copies of this release proving virtually impossible to score, we're thankful Be With have gifted the world with a much-needed re-release.

Review: Osibisa's magnificent The Lost 70s Live Shows resurrects the pulsating energy of the Afrobeat and highlife fusion that defined the band's vibrant sound. Released as a testament to their dynamic live performances in the 1970s, the album captures the group's fierce genre-defying spirit with infectious rhythms, hypnotic percussion, and spirited horns. It is with these that the group create an immersive experience that transcends time with multicultural influences abounding throughout. Osibisa's lost live shows showcase their ability to ignite stages with an infectious blend of African, Caribbean, and jazz elements so do not sleep on this reissue.

Review: .You don't need to hear much on The YumYum Tree to understand how apt the story behind Ozric Tentacles is. A troupe which formed from an impromptu six-hour jam session which took place around a campfire during the 1983 Stonehenge free festival, the band name itself came about when an audience member asked guitarist and keyboardist Ed Wynne what the group - which included his brother Roly, Nick 'Tig' Van Gelder (later of Jamiroquai note) and Joie Hinton - were called. Originally dropping from the cosmos in 2009, The YumYum Tree is archetypal stuff from the outfit in question. Complex guitar solos taking us into the stratosphere, uptempo, highly commanding, cacophonic arrangements, star-gazing, mood-setting, deeply textured space rock, and moments of pure new age bliss. A journey to musical unknowns, captained by progressive rock visionaries.

Review: Prolific Pink Floyd record producer and engineer James Guthrie once again has his 2018 remix album for the band's 'Animals' reissued, this time on limited LP wax. A five-piece meditation on Floyd's penchant for animalism, Guthrie's reinterpretation yanks the Orwellian structure and themes of the original album and hurls them back into an electronic prog rock prayer, with many of the new versions impressively breaching 10 minutes. In true Floyd fashion, this is window-closed, record-sleeves-on-the-floor, bong-hitting stuff, but with an extra Guthriean darkness lended to it. Clock the pig oinks littering the mix too.