Classic Rock 218 Items

Soul Jazz Records Deutsche Elektronische Music Volume 2 is now available as two separate double LPs for the first time in over 10 years! Soul Jazz Records' 'Deutsche Elektronische Musik 2' is their second voyage into the world of Krautrock and German electronic music from the 1970s and early 1980s. Features a stunning line-up of seminal German groups, including Can, Faust, Popul Vuh, Neu!, Cluster, Amon Düül II, La Düsseldorf, as well as a host of lesser known and more obscure groups and artists such as Agitation Free, Bröselmaschine, Niagara and many more.

Ellesmere, a symphonic-prog music project founded and led by Italian multi-instrumentalist Roberto Vitelli, author of all the music and lyrics, surprisingly comes back just one year after their second album "Ellesmere II / From sea and beyond" with an amazing work in terms of freshness, energy, impact and meticulous attention towards its sound and arrangements.

First of all, "Wyrd" deserves admiration starting from the cover artwork made by Rodney Matthews, an iconic illustrator at least equal to the legendary Roger Dean. Musically, it evolves on the same path of "Ellesmere II", so the main references are classic prog outfits Yes, King Crimson, Kansas, plus a good amount of jazz-rock, present in every song; but there are also references to contemporary progressive rock and to artists such as Transatlantic, Flower Kings and Spock's Beard. "Wyrd" is therefore a third epic and even more enthralling chapter than the previous one, almost completely instrumental and captivating from the first minute to the very last one.

As per tradition, "Wyrd" also involves a series of prog-related prestigious guests: Mattias Olsson (Änglagård, White Willow / drums), Tomas Bodin (The Flower Kings / keyboards), David Cross (King Crimson / violin), John Hackett (brother of the famous Steve Hackett and a constant presence in his solo records / flute), David Jackson (Van Der Graaf Generator, Osanna / saxophone), Tony Pagliuca (Le Orme / keyboards), Luciano Regoli (Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno / voice), Fabio Liberatori (Loy & Altomare, Lucio Dalla, Ron / keyboards), Fabio Bonuglia (keyboards) and Giorgio Pizzala (vocals).

In a path of musical and stylistic evolution that started from the acoustic and pastoral prog of "Les Châteaux De La Loire" (2015), we hope that "Wyrd" does not represent point of arrival, but another passage towards new unexplored lands!

Following recent super-deluxe editions and multi-format releases of classic Who albums – ‘My Generation’, ‘Tommy’ and ‘Quadrophenia’, and the success of ‘Live at Fillmore’, we follow with The Who Sell Out – this set shaping up to be the most superlative of all…!! Released in December 1967 – the album reflected a remarkable year in popular culture. As well as being forever immortalised as the moment when the counterculture and the ‘Love Generation’ went global, 1967 produced tremendous musical upheavals as “pop” metamorphosed to “rock”.

Originally planned by Pete Townshend and the band’s managers, as a loose concept album including jingles and commercials linking the songs styled as a Radio London broadcast – born out of necessity as the band’s managers wanted a new album and there weren’t enough songs.

The original plan was to sell advertising space on the album – Jaguar cars, Coca-Cola etc. The jingles pay tribute to the pirate radio stations and expose the myths of ‘pop-culture’ and mock consumer society – way ahead of their time…

The homage to pop-art is evident in both the advertising jingles and the iconic sleeve design – created by David King (art director at the Sunday Times) and Roger Law (who invented Spitting Image) producing four giant images for each band member – Odorono deodorant, Medac spot cream, Charles Atlas and Heinz baked beans (Roger apparently caught pneumonia from sitting in the cold beans for too long).

Photography by renowned portrait photographer David Montgomery (rare out-takes included)

The album is a bold depiction of the period in which it was made – the tail-end of the ‘swinging-60s’ meets pop-art mixed with psychedelia and straight-ahead pop craft. It’s glorious blend of classic powerful Who instrumentation, melodic harmonies, satirical lyrical imagery crystallised for what was only the group’s third album – the ambition and scope is unrivalled by the Who, or any others from that period.

Within the bold concept, were a batch of fabulous and diverse songs – I Can See for Miles (a Top Ten hit) is a Who classic, Rael, a Townshend ‘mini-opera’ with musical motifs that reappeared in Tommy and the psychedelic blast of Armenia City in the Sky and Relax are among the very best material of the 1960s.

One of the most extraordinary albums of any era – it’s The Who’s last ‘pop’ album. Two years later came Tommy – a double concept album about a deaf, dumb and blind kid…

“We were hoping to get free Jaguars. We got fifty tins of free Baked Beans”

Pete Townshend

Neil Young finally releases his 1975 album "Homegrown" which was shelved back then due to him feeling uncomfortable with it being to personal.

A master of the mixing board, from the late '60s until the '90s Bernard Estardy was the wizard of French musical recordings. As head of CBE studios, he shaped everything from Gérard Manset's concept albums to Claude François' hit singles, Françoise Hardy's delicate tear-jerkers and Michel Sardou's soul-stirrers. This "giant" had his hand in the whole range of mainstream French music by making his studio a veritable playground for experimentation. His legendary album 'La Formule Du Baron,' released in 1969, and the eight LPs of production music he made between 1974 and 1978 for Tele Music are vivid proof.

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2017!

Hitchhiker includes solo, acoustic songs recorded in 1976 at the Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, California.

The official re-release of the scarce DJ classic. Ralf Nowy produced this unique mix of Krautrock, Space Disco and proto Techno vibes in Berlin in 1980. The collaboration featuring also famous German star producer Jack White and Tom M?ller aswell Vicky Brown from UK as singer who worked together also with bands as for example Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, Cerrone and Bryan Ferry.

Nirvana's third LP is a masterpiece of late UK sixties popsike turning into symphonic pop, but not having received proper promotion despite being equally good as, if not better than their previous releases, it also marked the end of the collaborations between Patrick Campbel-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos back in 1969.

Nirvana presented it to Island boss Chris Blackwell under the title of Black Flower. Blackwell, however, decided to turn it down for release, but gave the masters to Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos so they could find a new label to release the album. That was to happen in the USA through Metromedia Records in 1969. At that time, the label's owner went through a scandal due to the payola days, which left Nirvana's third offering without any promotion - as a result of that, very few copies were pressed. There was also a UK release on PYE and it was even released by Metromedia in Japan. However, for years it remained as "the lost" Nirvana release, with the added fact that none of the released editions launched the album under its original title of Black Flower but under the rather cryptic Dedicated To Markos II (read why in the liner notes!).

Musically, this is Nirvana at their best. The tune that should have been the title track, Black Flower, is an incredible piece of symphonic psychedelia and probably the best produced Nirvana track ever. Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos were backed for the occasion by Spooky Tooth, who played on many tracks of the album, and big orchestral arrangements mesmerize the listener in one of the duo's darkest offerings. This song aside, the rest of the album was deemed as sounding too much like a French soundtrack by Island, which may do at some points –without that being a bad thing,– but there is a lot more to it, since Nirvana have not lost that popsike edge that characterised their sound in their two previous outings.

This is also a record that was widely acclaimed in the hip hop scene. And samplers of it have been used by several artists, most notably DJ Shadow used Love Suite in his 1996 debut album Endtroducing.

The Wah Wah edition has been remastered from the original tapes by Roger Prades @ Prades Mastering and comes with a bonus 7" EP and a four page colour insert with liner notes by Malcom Dome, plus a sheet with the lyrics of the songs. First ever official vinyl reissue since 1970 in a limited edition of 500 copies only!

Fuzz guitars, organ, celestial vocal harmonies, a single effort and then…eternity (or obscurity if you look at the other side of the coin). In 1968 leader Richard Atkins - Richard Manning his artistic partner & co-writer, hence the name - was building toward success, his musical adventures and philosophy not that far from the likes of The Byrds or the more eccentric Simon & Garfunkel. He’d won a contract with Mercury Records, and recorded with the Wrecking Crew members, a group of Los Angeles session musicians famous for their work with the Beach Boys, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and hundreds more. But stage fright triggered a disastrous make-or-break performance in a small Hollywood nightclub, and everything abruptly fell apart. Atkins gave up music in the prime, and for 50 years he refused even to listen to a radio, so painful were his memories of a career he was convinced could have been. Featuring top-notch backing from musicians such as Drake Levin (Paul Revere & the Raiders), Larry Knechtel (Bread), Mark Tulin (the Electric Prunes) and Rusty Young (Poco), the album - nonetheless - it's bound to appeal to all fans of high-quality early '70s US pop-rock. In 2017 the short history of this unlucky but brilliant combo was featured in a short animated movie of 10 minutes !

The 2nd chapter, yet a revelation. Released on Philips in 1968, right after their ’67 self titled album this iconic psych-folk masterpiece still detain a refreshing and revelatory approach. The Chicago band, named after American supernatural fiction writer, is on the verge of some weird songwriting experience, as suggested by some explicit titles as Mobius Trip or At The Mountains Of Madness. Celestial electro-acoustic harmonies and spacey keyboards gave way to mystical show, still entertaining nowadays.

Analogue Productions präsentiert eine weitere Uhqr - den Jimi-Hendrix-Klassiker "Are You Experienced". In Zusammenarbeit mit Quality Record Pressings ist diese Wiederveröffentlichung ein echtes Sammlerstück - eine Ultra High Quality Record (Uhqr) Veröffentlichung!

Diese Uhqr-Stereo-Wiederveröffentlichung ist auf 20.000 Exemplare limitiert und hat einen mit Goldfolie einzeln nummerierten Umschlag.

Bei seiner Erstveröffentlichung im Jahr 1967 stellte "Are You Experienced" die Musikwelt auf den Kopf, denn Hendrix zeigte allen, was es bedeutet, "erfahren" zu sein. Hendrix synthetisierte verschiedene Elemente der modernsten Rockmusik von 1967 zu einer Musik, die sowohl futuristisch klang als auch in den besten Traditionen von Rock, Blues, Pop und Soul verwurzelt war. Die meiste Aufmerksamkeit erhielt natürlich seine atemberaubende Gitarrenarbeit, mit der er neue klangliche Territorien in Bezug auf Rückkopplung, Verzerrung und schiere Lautstärke erschloss. Das hätte jedoch nicht viel bedeutet ohne sein hervorragendes Material, ob psychedelische Raserei ("Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Purple Haze"), instrumentale Freak-Out-Jams ("Third Stone from the Sun"), Blues ("Hey Joe") oder zarte, poetische Kompositionen ("The Wind Cries Mary"), die die Bandbreite seines Songwriting-Talents demonstrierten. Nicht zu unterschätzen waren die Beiträge von Schlagzeuger Mitch Mitchell und Bassist Noel Redding, die der Musik einen rhythmischen Puls gaben, der Teile des Rock und des improvisierten Jazz verschmolz.

Was Jimi über die Neuauflage seines Debütalbums in den USA durch Reprise Records dachte, die "The Wind Cries Mary", "Purple Haze" und "Hey Joe" in die ursprüngliche 11-Track-Liste aufnahmen, ist nicht ganz bekannt. Aber Jimi äußerte bei späteren Bühnenauftritten seine Enttäuschung darüber, dass "Red House", seine großartige Original-Blueskomposition, aus dem US-Album gestrichen worden war.

Die US-Version des Titels wurde im August 1967 veröffentlicht. Enthalten sind auch die ersten drei britischen Singles der Gruppe: "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe" und "The Wind Cries Mary".

Diese Uhqr wurde von dem legendären Bernie Grundman von den originalen analogen Masterbändern remastert. Jede Uhqr wird im Presswerk von Acoustic Sounds, Quality Record Pressings (qrp), auf handselektiertem Clarity Vinyl® gepresst, wobei auf jedes einzelne Detail geachtet wird. Diese Platten weisen das gleiche flache Profil auf, das die ursprüngliche Uhqr so begehrenswert gemacht hat. Von der Einlaufrille bis zur Auslaufrille weist das Profil keine Neigung auf, so dass die Abtastnadel des Kunden wirklich senkrecht zu den Rillen von der Kante bis zur Mitte spielen kann. Clarity Vinyl ermöglicht die reinstmögliche Pressung und die visuell beeindruckendste Präsentation. Jede Uhqr wird nach Abschluss der Pressung von Hand geprüft, und nur die wirklich makellosen Exemplare werden auf den Markt gebracht. Jede Uhqr wird in einer Deluxe-Box verpackt und enthält ein Booklet, in dem der gesamte Herstellungsprozess einer Uhqr beschrieben wird, sowie ein handsigniertes Prüfzertifikat. Dies wird ein wahrhaft luxuriöses Sammlerprodukt sein.

Fully licensed, ltd to 500 copies, 180 gr. The biblical ten commandments are surely the main inspiration behind this concept album originally released on british independent label Young Blood in 1971. The one and only release by Salamander, a short- lived UK four piece , the album is a quintessential prog opera with a heavy effort on Hammond organ and lush orchestral arrangements. Comprised of Alister Benson (Organ, Vocals), Dave Chriss (Bass), John Cook (Drums) and Dave Titley (Lead Vocals, Guitar) the band was often compared to The Moody Blues and Deep Purple Mark I. Even if the 10 tracks are inspired by the holy script, the band was not proven to be Christian rock itself. The album is a sublime pompous pop affair, with a good dose of fuzz guitars and brass section.

It consists of two long jazz pieces characterized by the presence of odd tempos (hence the title), the album featured the writing “Live Alcione”. Actually, the recording of the concert at the Alcione turned out to be of such poor sound quality that the group decided to re-record it in the studio, albeit live.

The poor commercial and critical success of the album was one of the reasons that led to the reunion of the New Trolls.

Jazz influences are heard, much stronger than Atomic System. Moreover, the name of the group on the cover of this album is New Trolls again and the musicians are not named, but the formation is in fact the same as the Atomic system, led by De Scalzi.

This is Epic! Half of the original members of Kyuss: the Lord of Coolness Brant Bjork himself, and the mighty Rex Everything AKA Nick Oliveri former of Queens of The Stoneage are ready to deliver you the album of the year 2022 !!! The Dukes of the Desert are back with an incredible sophomore album: Stöner – Totally … is the perfect mix of Desert Swing, Stoner Rock, Desert Rock, and Low Punk all at once! 8 brand new tracks which will blow your mind, recorded by Yosef Sunborn who followed Brant in the last decade for his solo recordings. Mellow guitars, funky stoner rhythms, blusy atmospheres, tipical Nick’s punky sounds..the album flies away in one single listen and makes you want to play it again immediately. Cover art is Hilarious, as this band wants to be. Nothing too serious, they wanna play and have fun, that’s the recipe the Dukes are bringing us after 30 years of experience !! If the name Stöner seems a little on the nose, well… it is. Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri, founding members of the stoner rock legend Kyuss, are joined again by drummer Ryan Güt (of Bjork’s solo band) and they’ve got dibs on the thick and dusty swinging grooves, returning as Stöner with their sophomore release ”totally…” Stöner’s love for their early inspirations (bands like Blue Oyster Cult, Kiss, Ramones, Blue Cheer, Misfits, Black Flag, The Stooges, Mc5) result in big, groovy, sunbaked riffs that can cruise low and slow but then floor it and run all the red lights. Live, this is a band about the magnetism between the players, the groove, the loose vibe and straight up badass rock and roll… Stöner are masters of their trade. With “totally...” Stöner is in its true form, getting together and having fun. Stöner’s world is a colorful joyride, heavy of rock but not of head. The record cranks with vibes of classic hard rock, heavy blues, desert rock and psych rock jams - things that come organically to this trio. Stöner can’t help but express an abundance of punk rock rawness and passion for real rock and roll swagger. With two records, “Live at Mojave” and “Stoners Rule” (available on Heavy Psych Sounds), the latest release “totally...” sees the band realizing the chemistry of these old friends developing a statement of pure rock and roll fun. Produced, recorded and mixed by Yoseph Sanborn and Stöner. Released by Heavy Psych Sounds Records. Guest appearances on guitar by Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks) and Mario Lalli (Yawning Man). Grab a slice, crank it, and catch the band on tour in ‘22 in the US, Canada, UK and Europe.