Prog Rocks - Legendary UK Progressive Labels From Late 60's to Early 70's

Audience - Audience
(1st Album Progressive Rock UK 1969)

Size: 846 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
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Some Artwork Included

Working on two levels, Prog Rocks! isn't just a compilation of great progressive rock bands, it's also a compilation of great progressive rock labels. Celebrating the prog legacy of Harvest, Charisma, Virgin, Liberty, and Inside Out, this five-disc collection from EMI covers a lot of ground with artists like Deep Purple, Spock's Beard, Hawkwind, and Van der Graaf Generator (and that's barely scratching the surface of what this compilation has to offer). Aside from the sprawling selection, liner notes from Prog Magazine editor Jerry Ewing and Inside Out founder Thomas Waber help to round out a collection for prog fans both old and new.

Faust - Selftitled
(German Experimental Krautrock 1971)

This is a pretty interesting selection of mostly 2nd and 3rd tier Prog Rock bands, and I was really excited at first to see that I was only familiar with about a third of these bands/performers, BUT then I heard them and realized I hadn't missed much and/or they don't really fit my definition of Prog Rock (complex, sometimes grandiose, often instrumental, classical and jazz influenced experimental rock genre). 

A lot of this music is early (more like pre) Prog Rock, with very few instrumental tracks, and it really blurs the line of what Prog Rock is, making me think that the only unifying thread is LSD....(but that unifies almost all the music recorded during this period). Most of the bands here don't fit the "virtuosic" stereotype of prog, and many don't sound all that distinctive/fresh (eg. Panama Limited Jug Band sounding like The Holy Modal Rounders (acid folk), Jack the Lad like Fairport Convention (folk/rock), while others don't sound much different than The Beatles or whatever else was getting radio play at the time), but then again there is the huge variety and range of styles represented here, and that is a cool thing. There are even a few of my favorite more obscure artists covered (Kevin Coyne, Daevid Allen), and certainly a few delightful new discoveries.

Forest - Forest
(Rare 1st Album UK Folkrock 1969)

There are 71 different artists/bands presented here (with almost as many different styles)! And the concept of having a disc per each of the 5 labels represented (Harvest, Charisma, Virgin, Liberty, Inside Out), with each organized chronologically, is a good one, even when they don't always include the top tier prog bands on their label. Some discs are more traditionally prog (#2, 3 and 5), and these are the ones I like the most, but overall this compilation has expanded my notion of Prog Rock past the superstars who aren't covered at all (Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, ELP, Mike Oldfield, Roxy Music, 801, Soft Machine, Caravan etc...), and outside Britain and the 60's/70's (with disc 5 being especially good, covering some of the newer and non-English bands, which interestingly enough all sound influenced by Steve Hackett!).

Overall this box set is worth getting for the Prog Rock fan interested in exploring the roots, edges, nooks and crannies and tangents of the movement/genre, and maybe discovering a few new directions to explore -even if it isn't strictly prog. [Review by "Applewood" August 20, 2013]

Disc 1: Harvest Label
01. Deep Purple - Bird Has Flown
02. Kevin Ayers - The Lady Rachel
03. Panama Limited Jug Band - Round and Round
04. Forest - Searching For Shadows
05. Syd Barrett - Baby Lemonade
06. The Greatest Show On Earth - Angelina
07. Pete Brown & Piblokto! - Got a Letter From a Computer
08. The Electric Light Orchestra - Queen Of The Hours
09. The Move - The Words of Aaron
10. Barclay James Harvest - Galadriel
11. Third Ear Band - Fleance
12. Babe Ruth - The Mexican
13. Edgar Broughton Band - Chilly Morning Mama
14. Spontaneous Combustion - Sabre Dance
15. Be-Bop Deluxe - Sister Seagull
16. Machiavel - Moments
17. Pallas - Cut and Run 

Disc 2: The Famous Charisma Label
01. The Nice - Country Pie
02. Rare Bird - What You Want To Know
03. Audience - Nothing To Do
04. Jackson Heights - Doubting Thomas
05. Lindisfarne - January Song
06. Bell + Arc - High Priest Of Memphis
07. Van Der Graaf Generator - Theme One
08. Keith Emerson (with Chuck Rainey,Mitch Mitchell and Buzzy Feiten) - Freedom Jazz Dance
09. Alan Hull - United States Of Mind
10. Jack The Lad - Why Can't I Be Satisfied
11. String Driven Thing - Heartfeeder
12. Capability Brown - I Am And So Are You
13. Peter Hammill - Red Shift
14. Robert John Godfrey - Mountains
15. Steve Hackett - Hands Of The Priestess (Part I)
16. Brand X - Nuclear Burn

Disc 3: Virgin Label
01. Gong - The Pothead Pixies
02. Faust - Just a Second (Starts Like That!)
03. Hatfield and the North - Fol de Rol
04. Kevin Coyne - Marlene
05. Henry Cow - Teenbeat
06. Egg - Wring Out the Ground (Loosely Now)
07. Comus - To Keep from Crying
08. Slapp Happy - Dawn
09. Gilgamesh - Lady and Friend
10. Clearlight - Jungle Bubbles
11. Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear
12. Daevid Allen - Good Morning
13. Steve Hillage - Electrick Gypsies
14. David Bedford - The Phaecian Games
15. Peter Baumann - M.A.N. Series Two

Disc 4: Liberty Label
01. The Bonzo Dog Band - Mr. Apollo
02. High Tide - Futilist's Lament
03. Idle Race - Come With Me
04. Sugarloaf - Green-Eyed Lady
05. Hawkwind - Master of the Universe
06. Groundhogs - Cherry Red
07. Cochise - Lost Hearts
08. Ernie Graham - So Lonely
09. Clive John - Out of My Tree
10. Brinsley Schwarz - Happy Doing What We're Doing
11. Man - California Silks and Satins
12. Robert Calvert - The Aerospaceage Inferno
13. Flaming Groovies - Skake Some Action
14. Deke Leonard - Hiding In the Darkness

Disc 5: Inside Out Music 
01. Enchant - Nighttime Sky
02. Pain of Salvation - Undertow
03. Spock's Beard - On a Perfect Day
04. Riverside - Conceiving You
05. Beardfish - Sunrise
06. The Flower Kings - Life in Motion
07. Demians - The Perfect Symmetry
08. Steve Hackett - A Place Called Freedom
09. It Bites - The Last Escape
10. Arjen Anthony Lucassen - Lost in the New Real

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