This expanded collection includes a bonus CD which features 10 bonues tracks including rarities, demo versions and previously unreleased live performances from the BBC. Also included is an extensive booklet which features complete original artwork, plus new liner notes.
Even as a serious-minded singer/songwriter, Cat Stevens never stopped being a pop singer at heart, and with Teaser and the Firecat he reconciled his philosophical interests with his pop instincts. Basically, Teaser's songs came in two modes: gentle ballads that usually found Stevens and second guitarist Alun Davies playing delicate lines over sensitive love lyrics, and up-tempo numbers on which the guitarists strummed away and thundering drums played in stop-start rhythms…

In an age where major labels dictate that new releases from bands appear on record store shelves every 18 months or so, rare is the artist given freedom and ability to reflect and stretch out to explore creative evolution and release music as an artist, rather than the prepackaged predictability of an entertainer. Thankfully, Tool has somehow managed to circumvent these rituals, releasing a record every four to five years as they so feel the need. This ability to patiently craft their musical direction has paid off for not only the band, but for listeners, as they've been able to expand their musical vocabulary from album to album with great precision, all the while remaining true to the foundations that built such a loyal, if not cult-like, following. But with this absence comes changes to the popular music landscape, as new bands and sounds (as well as a new generation of heavy metal fans to entertain) replace and stimulate the charts…

After working with two monstrously loud guitar heroes, Leigh Stephens and Randy Holden, Blue Cheer wanted to pursue a more subtle musical direction, and on their fourth album, simply titled Blue Cheer, they followed the path of the first half of 1969's New! Improved! Blue Cheer, featuring guitarist Bruce Stephens and keyboard man Ralph Burns Kellogg, instead of the power trio format they pioneered on their first two albums and the second half of New! Improved! with Holden.

Work Song is a near-classic by cornetist Nat Adderley. Adderley utilizes a cornet-cello-guitar front line with Sam Jones and Wes Montgomery, along with a top-notch rhythm section pianist including Bobby Timmons, Percy Heath, or Keter Betts on bass and drummer Louis Hayes. First up is a fine early performance of his greatest hit, "Work Song." He also helps introduce Cannonball Adderley's "Sack O' Woe." Four songs use a smaller group, with Timmons absent on "My Heart Stood Still," which finds Keter Betts on cello and Jones on bass; "Mean to Me" featuring Nat backed by Montgomery, Betts, and Hayes; and two ballads ("I've Got a Crush on You" and "Violets for Your Furs") interpreted by the Adderley-Montgomery-Jones trio. No matter the setting, Nat Adderley is heard throughout in peak form, playing quite lyrically.

Esoteric Recordings label is proud to announce the release of the very first 4CD collection of every album and single track recorded by the legendary Atomic Rooster between 1970-1974. Sleeping for Years is a clamshell boxed set anthologising all the recordings made by the band on the classic albums Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You, In Hearing of Atomic Rooster, Made In England and Nice n’ Greasy and on such hit singles as Tomorrow Night and Devil’s Answer.
Atomic Rooster was formed by former Crazy World of Arthur Brown members Vincent Crane (Organ, Piano, Keyboards) and Carl Palmer (drums). Their self-titled first album was recorded in 1970 with Nick Graham on bass, vocals & flute, but the band soon splintered when Carl Palmer departed to join ELP…

Klaus Schulze is a founding member of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, two seminal bands in the evolution of synthesizer-based electronic music. Big in Japan is the double CD plus DVD release by Klaus Schulze - drawn from his performances in Tokyo on the 20th and 21st of March 2010. This multi-disc set provides all the "playing in the moment" excitement listeners love in their live albums, yet also delivers the powerful and lasting listening experience one would expect from a musical legend.

The revival of Spanish music of the Baroque period continues moving forward into the Classical era with this premiere recording of sonatas for "violin y bajo" – violin and bass – by Juan de Ledesma. The sonatas were rediscovered only in the late 1980s, and they're very elegantly presented here in a package adorned by a reproduction of a marvelous French fan of the period. There isn't anything of earthshaking importance among the five sonatas on the disc, but they're attractive pieces with some challenges for the violinist, and both players of the instruments and those with collections of Spanish music will find the release of interest. The booklet notes by violinist Blai Justo (in English, French, and German, with Spanish and Catalan additionally available online) point to Corelli's influence, but also note the presence of the galant style of the period, and it is the latter sound, with its atmosphere of charm and its relaxed procession of contrasting two-measure phrases, that predominates. The players do well to avoid a harpsichord accompaniment, using either a combination of cello and guitar or one or the other instrument alone.