Scented Gardens Of The Mind by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen - this superb book provides a comprehensive guide to progressive rock and related music genres in more than 20 European countries. It perfectly complements the 'Cosmic Dreams At Play', which was a guide to German progressive and electronic rock. Most entries contain personnel details and discographies and a description of the music. Containing 552 pages, the book is profusely illustrated with a colour section in the centre. There is currently no similar English language encyclopaedic guide to the music of all these countries. Explore. Get. Thursday, July 09, 2009
Scented Gardens Of The Mind
Scented Gardens Of The Mind by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen - this superb book provides a comprehensive guide to progressive rock and related music genres in more than 20 European countries. It perfectly complements the 'Cosmic Dreams At Play', which was a guide to German progressive and electronic rock. Most entries contain personnel details and discographies and a description of the music. Containing 552 pages, the book is profusely illustrated with a colour section in the centre. There is currently no similar English language encyclopaedic guide to the music of all these countries. Explore. Get. 
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3 comments:
Thanks for sharing.
Few years ago I borrowed this book from a library but I must say I was rather disappointed. Being quite an expert on Czechoslovak records, I must forewarn you that at least the Czechoslovak section is rather poorly researched, with many misspelt names, factual errors, speculative judgments and incomplete discographies.
As a consequence, I don't really expect the other sections to be significantly more accurate.
Regards from Funky Czech-In (where you can read about many of the Czechoslovak artists mentioned in this book… ;)
I purchase this some years ago in original form. If not eccellent it's a good book for the knowledge of rock european scene of the seventies. The bugs are some imprecision on personnel and discography, judgments without knowing the vinyl in question, and the exclusion of russian scene. Easily comprehensible for the year (2000) in which it come out.
I think there's a lot of nit-picking regarding this book. When this was first printed there was nothing else to compare. As a long, long time rock/psych listener I found this to be an absolute goldmine and, to this day, refer to it, especially for the Italian and Scandinavian chapters. Of course the details of some entries are sparse, especially a few eastern Euro bands, but the fact they are even mentioned I believe is something. In a way, it adds a bit more mystique to those acts, leaving the reader to possibly research more (as indeed, it seems, a lot have done). You don't have to be spoonfed everything.
Not entirely perfect, but then no book like this will be. Still an extremely useful resource.
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