Jewish garage band featuring melodic guitar folk instros and reverb rockers, some fuzz.
Mirror was formed in 1972 by four high school kids, Johan Saanen (bass guitar), Paula Mennen (vocals and keyboards), Kees Walravens (guitar) and Peter Fransen (drums) in the south of the Netherlands. In 1973 they were joined by Philip de Goey (sax, woodwinds and oboe). In 1976 Mirror records it's first and only album, Daybreak. The music is influenced by Pink Floyd, Yes, Trace and Focus. After the release of the album they toured increasingly in Holland. But rather soon the were having disagreements about the business side of the band. This led to the departure of Johan. Then there was an argument about who had written the music and this finally meant the end of Mirror in late 1976.
Lethe's album starts off rather inconspicuously with a classically oriented oboe, acoustic guitar and piano piece. But, just as Mirror before them, the band launches into a sophisticated, but highly melodic progressive rock form. And while Side 1 is good, side 2 is an absolute clinic on how to combine complexity and yet still maintain a strong melodic backbone. This is the album that Camel never made after "Moonmadness". Astounding album really. Taken from here
Little is known about this band from Emilia, which released no less than two albums and a couple of singles with this name, and others in later years as Bulldog. Both albums don't contain any information on the band and is likely that the record companies wanted to promote them as a foreign band as it was common practice then, to give the groups a wider audience. The only foreign member was in fact English bassist Taylor, who had come to Italy with the beat band The Casuals during the 60's, the others were from Bologna and Modena.
The second, Ping Pong, came two years later on Spark label, and contained a mix of commercial songs and more original tracks, this time entirely sung in Italian and with the strong presence of new vocalist Giorgio Bertolani.
An English group, arrived from Liverpool to Italy in the mid 60's, the Motowns featured Lally Stott (vocals, replaced by Mick Brill), Doug Meakin (guitar), Mike Logan (keyboards), Robbie Scott (bass) and Tony Crowley (drums, later Dave Summer).
Obscure 1970s hippie folk with titles like "Medicine Fire" and "Angels In Embryo". Sulamyth also worked with Huckle. Acid Archives
One of the most obscure albums from the vast Krautrock scene, Air’s sole album from 1973 has just recently surfaced to the collector’s market. It’s easy to see why. Translating more or less to “Partially Shit… …but in Stereo”, and featuring a plain white cover with “Air” in gothic lettering, one gets the impression this was made for fun and distributed to friends and club patrons. Musically it could be categorized as instrumental rock, not that distant from what one would find on a sound library album. That is, generic incidental music used for television and films. Maybe not 100% accurate, as these cuts do seem to be self-contained composed pieces, but similarities do exist, especially considering how simple the songs are. Organ is the featured instrument, and the tones are ancient, more akin to 1965 than 1973. It’s even older sounding than the organ used by Erlkoenig, if that’s possible. The organist doubles on flute, but the playing is more 18th century classical than Osanna. The electric guitar is primarily used only for rhythm and is lacking any kind of rock tone effects. And, of course, there is a drum solo to suffer through. The easy comparison would be the Roland Kovac New Set (another German sound library group), but misses their strong jazz background and creativity, and thus is far less interesting. In conclusion, Air is not a bad album at all, and does make for a nice curiosity. Tom Hayes Taken from here
Signed to the small New York Tonsil label, the band's 1970 debut "Their First Album" teamed them with producer Teo Macero. Musically the comparison with BS&T simply couldn't be missed. Backed by a BS&T-styled horn section (Richard Grando, David Gross and Enrico Raja), singer Bobby Osborne's growl came off as little more than a David Clayton-Thomas wannabe. With Olivia responsible for the majority of the material (Gross contributing two selections), tracks such as 'If You Just Think of Me', 'Light the Road' and 'Just Like That' weren't bad (particularly if you liked early BS&T).
Found at great CAPA NOSTRA SYNDICATE check it for more synth, cold wave & post punk rarities!
Hotzenplotz from Stuttgart (partly from the suburb leinfelden) was a radical leftwing agit-prop band in the tradition of floh de cologne.
Produced by Appletree Theatre's John Boylan, Bear featured the talents of keyboardist Eric Kaz, singer Steve Soles and guitarist Artie Traum (backed on their album by Autosalvage bassist Skip Boone and drummer Darius Davenport). In spite of the cheesy cover and title (thank Mr. John's Palace of Fashion for the cover photo), 1968's "Greetings Children of Paradise" was actually pretty good. With all three prime members writing (Soles penning most of his material with brother Michael), the ten tracks were varied, including competent stabs at country-rock ("The Hungry Dogs of New Mexico"), fairly conventional pop ("Don't You Ever Want To Think About Them?"), rock, psych and even jazz ("What Difference?"). Soles had a nice voice (occasionally recalling Squeeze's Chris Difford - we're not kidding, check out "It's Getting Very Cold Outside"). (Actually, on reflection, the set's quirky charms actually compare nicely with Squeeze.) Sure, it won't change your life, but it's an album we keep in the occasional play pile. A commercial non-entity, the band quickly called it quits, with Kaz reappearing in a series of bands, including The Blues Magoos, American Flyer, Mud Acres (with Traum) and with a solo career (see separate entries). All three members also became in-demand sessions players. Taken from here
Progressive jazz rock from Barcelona with hints of ethnic moves and a great deal of percussion. Great guitar works too.
The self-titled debut of IZVIR, their only LP to date, is quite a phenomenon of the Yugoslavian Slovenian 1970s jazz-rock. It is one of the rarest albums to find on the market. If you happen to trace it at some Web music online sellers, it is likely that the price will be extremely high. www.gemm.com for instance, offers this vinyl record for a mere 440 USD, while www.kalemegdan-disk.de used to have it in their 2001 catalogue priced - 400 EUR! Is "Izvir" worth it? - a logical question arises.
The Extreem From The Sky features two tracks from '67, eight from '70 and two from a '98 reform. Members went onto Budgie and Judas Priest, though early on, as displayed by their sole release, the '67 Strike single 'On The Beach'/'Don't Ignore Me' the guys were typically mod-y club soul. Not bad, but nothing to shout about. By '70 both blues-rock (theirs doesn't grab me), folk-rock (they do a decent version of Fairport Convention's 'Meet On The Ledge') and garage-y Cream/Hendrix styled psych (a take of 'Daytripper' kinda works). Oddly enough the rather ragged later-period commercially-tinged demos 'Can't Stop Loving You' and 'Dreaming' are their finest moments, recalling the earlier club soul days via the Love Affair. Jon 'Mojo' Mills
This is a classic 70's album with plenty of atmosphere and a uniqueness that of course has its influences, coming from James Taylor and Paul Simon among others. A seductive voice over simple and straight forward backings. Some brillant guitar work from Jan Ackermann and excellent flute and piano played by Tijs van Leer, two top Dutch musicians. Robin plays acoustic guitar and wrote all of the songs. Check out www.myspace.com/robinlent for more details on this obscure and talented artist. By Lennyroberts
Great 1979 hard rock/psych LP. This Los Angeles four piece group plays a heavy heavy hard rock with pulverizing driving bass and drums and ripping kick ass leads all over! They also do an incredibly good cover of an obscure tune by the Canadian 60´s group The Collectors, "Howard Christmans older", and Azurite makes this song all their own. Great haunting lyrics, acoustic guitars with some heavy searing lead guitar ... quite psychedelic! By Lyrkoss
VERY RARE and sought-after one-off harmony sunshine pop LP by the Pretty People, from 1969 or 1970 on the Crestview label. For fans of lush harmony sunshine pop a la the Free Design, Association or any of the Curt Boettcher produced bands, this is an absolute MUST. 
New volume and the last in the series that has shown the way to hundreds of collectors around the world. This new one has 144 pages, with 59 pages all about UK collectable items. The book has around 1200 pictures of sleeves of highly collectable albums of psychedelia, progressive, folk, beat and garage from the 60's to early 80's.
An Icelandic gem. They play psychedelic progressive rock basically; but you can find some acidly and even pop (pop rock) elements.
BRÂN were a Welsh band who began life as a marginally progressive folk-leaning act and moved steadily toward a more conventional sound as they shifted lineups numerous times during their five-year existence. Mk4 of the group recorded a third studio album in 1978 shortly before they fractured with the departure of founding member John Gwyn. The band was noteworthy for recording solely in Welsh, a characteristic that surely endeared them to their countrymen but undoubtedly limited their commercial potential.
Light and breezy instrumental fusion with piano and various woodwinds (sax, clarinet, flute) mixed up front. Lead by keyboardist Jacques Mignault, and released on his own label, with the help of other local Quebec jazz musicians including Michael Seguin. Very much a product of its day, with strong overtones of same era Weather Report and Spyro Gyra. Well done for the style.
A mysterious early Krautrock band, of whom we know nothing historically. And, despite a most odd name, Electric Mud were quite extraordinary, radical, dark and intensely psychedelic. Strongly Teutonic, with German lyrics, stylistically akin to Eulenspygel, Drosselbart, or early Tomorrow's Gift, with a gloomy atmosphere, lots of organ, heavy guitars and riffing. An obscure classic for fans of psychedelic Krautrock sounds.
This obscure psychedelic album, from Pennsylvania, is a significant collectors' item. It will mainly interest fans of rock a la Badfinger, Beatles or early McCartney.
Alun Davies is one of the most highly respected session guitarists in the United Kingdom. A founding member, along with childhood friend Jon Marks and Nicky Hopkins, of pop-jazz group, Sweet Tuesday, in the late-1960s, Davies made his greatest mark as accompanist for British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens from 1970 until Stevens's conversion to Islam and retirement from music in 1977. Davies subsequently collaborated with ex-Small Faces vocalist, Ronnie Lane, co-writing the opening track, "One Step", and a second tune, "She's Leaving", on Lane's 1979 album, See Me.
