News: Aztec working on Steven Maxwell von Braund album

This morning I wandered over to the website of Australia's Aztec Music, and saw that they are "currently working on" Steven Maxwell von Braund's (Cybotron) solo album. Excellent news for those of us who like pioneering Berlin School styled electronics. Here's our review.

News: Black Widow to issue archival Spettri album

Caught this one while surfing. Don't know anything about it, but it could be interesting!

Black Widow (Italy) says:

"SPETTRI is an Italian band that sees the light of day in Florence in 1964. In those years, the “italian beat” is highly on. The original members are: Ugo and Raffaele Ponticiello (brothers, voice and guitar), Giuliano Giunti (bass guitar) and Ubaldo Palanti (drums) but the latter is soon replaced by Mauro Sarti.
They soon release some 45 r.p.m. records during the early Beat. The sound is amazing and their performances are great. The group is the very first one in Florence who decides to use “100 watt GRS” guitar amplifiers, a real revolutionary choice, since that powerful sound was still unknown until then.
In 1968, Mauro Sarti leaves the band. Giorgio Di Ruvo (a former member of The Players, a rhythm and blues group) and Alessio Rogai (keyboards) join the group. In 1970 he leaves in favour of Stefano Melani. Giuseppe Nenci, bass guitar, is part of the group for a short time in 1970. In 1971, the Ponticiello youngest brother, Vincenzo, takes the place of Giuseppe Nenci.
In 1970 their music is changing. The whole music scene is changing too: the Beat is off. On stage, they perform rock band covers (Spirit, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple...). Their rehearsals are very creative original experimental works. They draw inspiration from bands they listened to in that period. Bands like the ones mentioned before and like King Crimson and Colosseum, for example, strongly influenced every single member of the group. That new kind of music is soon labelled “Avant-garde” : the same sound we call “Prog” today.
Their concept album is really special: all their lyrics are written by Ugo Ponticiello. The lyrics deal with a man who tries to find his way by a spiritualist séance. He gives himself up to the metaphysics and the afterlife to pursue a reason to live. All alone, he leaves a real terrible nightmare where he finally finds his way but it’s brutalized by the evils of modern society.
The musical part is a rock suite: electric and bass guitars, drums and an hammond organ. These instruments coexist in a new perfect experimental rock sound. The group includes this composition in their live performances. During their countless live concerts in the most important Italian pop festivals in Tuscany and Latium, they play side by side with the most influential bands of the genre.
This suite is composed in 1970/71, recorded in 1972 and it is an unpublished work because it was never released up to today. Since 1975 on, some new music tendencies and the growing public indifference to refined music have led the group to different music choices and their original project has been held over until...now, 2011."

News: All 3 Placebo albums coming on CD!

P-Vine, a very respected Japanese label, will be reissuing the Placebo albums on mini-LP. Look for a December 21 release. Not sure if there's a European/US release in conjunction, but great news all the same. These albums are classics in the jazz rock / progressive / kosmigroov space.

Wow!

We featured Placebo here.

Placebo, Belgium ***REISSUED***

Placebo - Ball of Eyes. 1971 CBS
Placebo - 1973. 1973 CBS
Placebo - s/t. 1974 Harvest

***All 3 reissued by P-Vine, Dec 2011

Moved to UMR

Priority: 2

8/14/09 (new entry); 10/26/11 (complete)

The Old Man & The Sea, Denmark ***REISSUED***

The Old Man & The Sea. 1972 Sonet

***Reissued by Belle Antique in 2011

Moved to UMR

Priority: 2

2/10/11 (new entry); 10/25/11 (complete)

Toshiaki Yokota and Genshi Kyodotai, Japan ***REISSUED***

Toshiaki Yokota and Genshi Kyodotai. 1971 Toshiba

***Reissued by Think, Oct 2011

Moved to UMR

Priority: 1

12/13/10 (new entry); 10/19/11 (complete)

News: Arcangelo to reissue Ragnarök's "Fjärilar I Magen" in November!

Arcangelo, the CD label for Japan's Disk Union record shop, has announced their intention to reissue Ragnarök's "Fjärilar I Magen" in the mini-LP format on November 9th. Now this is interesting, because in general Arcangelo works in conjunction with other labels that do the initial reissue. But Fjärilar I Magen has never been reissued to date. And I have not seen any other announcement associated with this release (for the record they are also reissuing the first Ragnarok - which was done by Silence many years ago). And that's the other part of this story: Silence usually doesn't license out any of their catalog. Recently there was an exception with the Psykofon label concerning Handgjort. So either Silence is indeed behind this, or the band obtained the rights themselves, or a mystery label is behind it. Time will tell I guess.

Anyway, great news as this album has many fans including me. This gives me hope that maybe one day we will see the first Flasket Brinner album after all!

We featured Ragnarok almost exactly two years ago today.