Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Still Moving
Ponderosa Music
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

JUSTIN ADAMS, guitarist with Robert Plant’s Sensational Spaceshifters, (with four Plant albums under his belt) – who also produced and played on critically acclaimed albums by the desert blues outfit Tinariwen and Gambian griot Juldeh Camara – teams up with Italian violinist and percussionist Durante, to produce a raw and stripped-back set.

Coupling Adams’s love of African and Arabic music, delta blues and old time country music and Durante’s interpretations of traditional Italian folks songs such as Damme Nu Riccu and Amara Terra Down, they have produced a brilliant set – cut live with no overdubs.

Adams and Durante wrote all the tracks with the exception of the Carter Family’s old time country number Little Moses.
An album’s worth of pulsating and hypnotic rhythms. Standouts include Dark Road Down, Djinn Pulse and the title track. Mesmeric stuff.
 
Banquet – Underground Sounds Of 1969
Esoteric Records
⭑⭑⭑⭑

A three-CD box of “underground music” – album-based rock influenced by US west coast psychedelia, blues, jazz and folk championed by the likes of John Peel on his BBC Top Gear radio show and in publications like Oz, International Times, Rolling Stone and Melody Maker.

It was the year that Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After and Jethro Tull broke through and other bands including Procol Harum, Moody Blues, Taste, Fairport Convention, Colosseum built a solid following on the college and university circuit.

Others included here such as East Of Eden, Blodwyn Pig, Piblocto, Mighty Baby, early Genesis, and Mick Farren’s Deviants were lower down the bill but filled the line-ups at all-nighters and festivals.
The year 1969 was when rock music became a serious album based proposition. Detailed booklet, photos, rare tracks. Ah nostalgia!

Beyond The Pale Horizon – The British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1972
Grapefruit
⭑⭑⭑⭑

Three years on from 1969, by 1972 album bands like Family, Argent, Moody Blues, Mott The Hoople, Free, The Strawbs, Status Quo, ELO and Hawkwind (all present here) had chart hits and even appeared on Top of The Pops.

There were many others who didn’t frequent the singles charts but had dedicated album based followings including Yes, Caravan, Kevin Coyne, Van Der Graf Generator, Fairport Convention and Uriah Heep (all in the roll call here).

At the back of the queue were outfits like Hobbit, Atlantis, Jake and Nimbo (nope I hadn’t heard of them either) who didn’t do much beyond local gigs or make privately pressed LP – but are still worth a punt.

With four hours playing time, chart hits, B sides, album tracks, alternate takes and a 40-page booklet make it totally unmissable.