CDBaby.com is a real treasure trove to find great contemporary music and while searching one day recently I discovered Cuban born American musician Mike Porcel and his latest album, Echoes. Echoes is a musical expression of a life journey and…
View More Mike Porcel – Echoes
For a few years now, Esoteric has been widening its furrows, letting in much more than what the average fan might consider “progressive rock”. I sometimes worry that they are straying too far from their original grounds, but the results…
View More Michael McGear – Woman
Three years after the heady sounds of IV, Danish metronomically precise, but altogether human instrumentalists Papir return with V, unsurprisingly their fifth studio album. The titular minimalism continues into the track titles, which are simply numbers, continuing a tradition from…
View More Papir – V
Ouch! Make sure you have your headphones turned down, as the blastoff at the beginning of Departure, the first track on Austrian artist Gandalf’s 1980 debut album Journey to an Imaginary Land, is somewhat deafening. But it’s an ideal starting…
View More Gandalf – Journey to an Imaginary Land / To Another Horizon / Magic Theatre
Whenever I would listen to Sid Smith’s Podcasts from the Yellow Room, I would imagine that a spider was creeping underneath my arm and giving me goose bumps, not just from discovering reissues, but also artists and bands both old…
View More Anouar Brahem – Blue Maqams
Drought On Mars hail from Bridgnorth, Shropshire in the U.K. and is another excellent new band which I found on CDBaby.com. The key to this band is the melancholic, but beautiful vocals of Vicky Kempner, whose voice is mature beyond…
View More Drought On Mars – Autumn Leaves
Peter Jones has been making quite a name for himself in prog circles in the last few years, largely on the back of his hugely impressive live shows, both solo and in conjunction with Red Bazar, who he also joined…
View More Tiger Moth Tales – The Depths of Winter
In a year where there seem to be more concept albums than ever and backed by a couple of alleged psychological observations this is, in Sigmund Freud sotto voce, “Very Interesting”. The premise is thus: “It traces the life of…
View More Circu5 – Circu5
Back in 2014 an album arrived for review from Finnish composer, arranger and keyboard player Juha Kujanpää, and, as with many things unexpected, it turned out to be a rather pleasant surprise. This agreeable trend carries on with Niin Kauas…
View More Juha Kujanpää – Niin Kauas Kuin Siivet Kantaa | To Where My Wings Will Take Me
PFM had a career bunk up when Greg Lake introduced them to ELP’s Manticore label and Pete Sinfield’s poetic English lyrics in the late ’70s. Returning to Italy, the group’s output has been mainly Italian based until this new album,…
View More PFM – Emotional Tattoos