While Lord of the Rings remains Bo Hansson’s best known, not to mention best selling (sold quite well in Europe and Australia), I really believe that Attic Thoughts (known in Sweden as Mellanväsen), which is his third solo album, to be by far his best album. After the somewhat lacklustre (but still worth having) Magician’s […] Continue reading →

Ireland is well known for artists such as U2, Thin Lizzy, Boomtown Rats, Clannad, Enya, and The Cranberries. One Irish band often ignored is Horslips. They were one of the pioneers of Celtic rock by combining rock with the Celtic music of their homeland, and gave us some rather successful results in the process. They […] Continue reading →

After a couple of Mothers of Invention albums (Freak Out, Absolutely Free), Zappa decided to do a project outside the Mothers, and he decided to do what is perhaps his most ambitious project up until that point. And Lumpy Gravy, released in December 1967 (I’ve also seen varying sources say this album was released in […] Continue reading →

King Crimson might not have the most consistent album output, mainly because the band went through so many different lineup changes (with only guitarist Robert Fripp being the only member through it all) and different phases (fans of one phase of Crimson might not be the fan of another phase of the band). 1969’s In […] Continue reading →

Germany is even a bigger hotbed of prog rock than one might imagine. Sure everyone knows bands like Can, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, Amon Düül II, Faust, Neu, Kraftwerk, and similar bands (bands that might not always be considered prog, but are of interest to prog fans). But the countries was also full of […] Continue reading →

Paul Horn spent the late 1950s to mid 1960s playing conventional jazz. The kind of jazz he played is what you expect in that kind of music way before “smooth jazz” and Kenny G. ever came around and made it crappy. But by the end of 1966, he flew to India to study meditation with […] Continue reading →

Austria isn’t exactly a hotbead of prog rock, but a few bands did come out of that country. One was Paternoster who released a self-entitled album in 1972, and then Eela Craig who released a total of five albums between 1971 and 1980. One Niter is their second album, and it was a long five […] Continue reading →

Back in 1967, there was a California psychedelic band called The Electric Prunes that released an album called Mass in F Minor. They had the idea of recording a Rock Mass, using religious text to the (then contemporary) psychedelic rock sound. The results, might not have been entirely successful, but still an interesting listen. 11 […] Continue reading →

Here’s an interesting topic: albums that use Mellotron, a strange, organ-like keyboard capable creating orchestral-like sounds through a rack of tapes. The Moody Blues is best known for using one. The Beatles used one even before the Moody Blues (“Strawberry Fields Forever” was released in February 1967, while the British release of Days of Future […] Continue reading →

Most psychedelic bands one thinks of (particularly California bands of the 1960s) tend to record music under the influence of a really pleasant LSD trip, or at least it sounds like that. So the music ends up with a lot of “flowers and beads” type of lyrics. Flash forward to 1971, and a band full […] Continue reading →