Thirty Classic Progressive Rock Albums That You Have To Hear ( Part 2 of 3 )

Affinity - Affinity ( 1970 )
One of the earliest and very best progressive jazz rock releases with very strong vocals from Linda Hoyle, and lots of Hammond organ. I Am And So Are You is punchy and direct and should have been a hit single, while the following Night Flight stretches out a bit more with a great guitar riff during the outro. Their cover of All Along the Watchtower could perhaps do with some judicious editing but otherwise this is prog jazz gold of the highest caliber. BUY IT HERE



Babe Ruth - First Base ( 1972 )
Excellent progressive hard rock with superb guitars by Alan Shacklock and another strong female vocalist in Jenny Haan. Amazingly assured for a debut, they never bettered this. Most well known for The Mexican, based on Morricone's For a Few Dollars More, there's also much more to enjoy here in the form of The Runaways' steadily building crescendos, Black Dog's straight out rock and their immaculate take on Zappa's King Kong. BUY IT HERE



Gravy Train - Staircase To The Day ( 1974 )
Patchy but interesting final album from this UK outfit who started out on Vertigo, before moving to the dawn label. Opener Starlight, Starbright has a great riff and an anthemic glam inspired chorus,  Never Wanted You is a nice slice of Deep Purple- lite hard rock, and the intro from the excellent title track absolutely has to be the inspiration for Metallica's Call of Cthulu. Navigate your way around the Dad-rock tracks and you've got a fine album of prog boogie fusion. BUY IT HERE



Roy Harper - Stormcock ( 1971 )
Folk and Prog often make uneasy bedfellows, but you wouldn't know it from this, Harper's masterpiece. Basically a prog rock album played on acoustic instruments these are long, complex, multifaceted pieces with virtuoso guitar playing from Harper and guest Jimmy Page, exquisite orchestral accompaniment by David Bedford and some of Harper's very best songs sung with unwavering conviction. Everyone should own a copy of this. BUY IT HERE



Manfred Mann Chapter Three Volume One ( 1969 )
Absolutely stonking progressive jazz from this most unlikely of sources. Some fairly dark prog rock tunes with a swampy voodoo vibe and mindblowing sax solos that verge on free-jazz at times. At the other end of the spectrum, One Way Glass is a stomping upbeat brass driven rocker that gives Chicago a run for their money. Click here for a more in depth review. BUY IT HERE



Caravan - If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You ( 1970 )
One thing I love about Caravan, and the Canterbury Scene in general is their wacky sense of humor and pop smarts. There's a perception that progressive musos are all humorless boffins, who approach their music with scientific precision, and little in the way of joy. One listen to the bouncy title track on here should help dispel those misconceptions, and there's a lot of fun to be had all over this record. The follow up, In The Land of Grey And Pink is generally more highly regarded, but this is a much more enjoyable record and catches them at the cusp between their earlier psych identity and the progressive monster they were to become. BUY IT HERE



Comus - First Utterance ( 1971 )
An astonishingly creepy progressive folk masterpiece that the world was just not ready for in 1971. Dark stuff with subject matter that touches on madness, pagan sacrifice and more, this is a totally unsettling, but compelling listening experience which defies comparison ( but I'll try anyway ). Musically they sound a little like A Beard of Stars era Tyrannosaurus Rex, only with Bolan's woodland elves replaced with a keen interest in demonology. Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt is a big enough fan to have named one of their albums ( My Arms, Your Hearse ) after one of their lyrics. BUY IT HERE



Still Life - Still Life ( 1971 )
This one's got a bit of a poor reputation, but is pretty great if approached with the right expectations.  A Hammond organ led 3 piece, these guys come across like a less complicated and much darker version of the more highly rated Vertigo outfit Cressida. Simplistic, hard rocking prog with mysterious occult lyrics, which would probably appeal more to a hard rock audience than a prog one, which may explain it's reputation. Aside from some wonderful Hammond work, there's also some great flute and the choruses on tracks like standouts October Witches and Love Song No. 6 are as good as anything from the Uriah Heep songbook. BUY IT HERE




Ragnarok - Ragnarok ( 1975 )
Great debut from New Zealand's best prog outfit. The only album they released with stunning female vocalist Lea Maalfrid, this is an intriguing mixture of Eloy style space rock with obvious Pink Floyd influences, with some hooky choruses, notably the glammish Caviar Queen, while opener Fenris features the sort of vocal gymnastics that bands like Nightwish aim for. The follow up album Nooks, is also rather good and heavy on mellotron for those that like that sort of thing.





The Alan Parsons Project - Tales of Mystery & Imagination ( 1976 )
There are people out there rolling their eyes at me for including this, but this is smooth, radio friendly progressive rock at it's best. Based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, there's a bit of everything here from the prog-pop of (The System Of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather, to the demented ( but still immaculately smooth ) Arthur Brown voiced Tell-Tale Heart, to the orchestral suite of The Fall of the House of Usher, which sounds like it comes straight from one of the Corman Poe films. A guilty pleasure. BUY IT HERE. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.







Part One is Here

Part Three is Here

Lost Track By The Doors - She Smells So Nice - Listen to it here.

A previously unknown Doors track recorded during the L.A Woman sessions has surfaced.

Producer Bruce Botnick recently discovered "She Smells So Nice" while reviewing the album's session tapes for the latest reissue of L.A. Woman.

It'll appear on the bonus disc of that album released later on this month.

A loose, but energetic blues jam which could have ended up as an album track with a bit of development.

Jimmy Campbell - Beginner's Guide

An excellent Mersey songwriter with a diverse output. Unfortunately through a combination of bad luck and self sabotage he never got the attention he deserved, although a string of reissues over the last decade has helped to highlight his talents.

The 23rd Turnoff - The Dream of Michaelangelo
An excellent collection of quality merseybeat and psychedelia. Contains all of the Kirkby's singles, The 23rd Turnoff's sole single and a fascinating collection of demos and acetates. Beatles comparisons are apt with the Kirkby's material sounding a lot like pre-Help! Beatles, and the 23rd Turnoff acetates having a definite Revolver sound. Auditions for George Martin and Joe Meek led nowhere unfortunately so only one single was released by the 23rd Turnoff. Michael Angelo / Leave Me Here are both masterpieces, with Michael Angelo being the most beautiful piece of U.K psychedelia I've heard, while Leave Me Here was apparently written in ten minutes on the way to the session to record it. Peerless stuff. Start Here. ( 9/10 )

Jimmy Campbell - Son of Anastasia
Dropping the psychedelia, Campbell's first solo album was recorded for Fontana in the folk rock style of the time, and is reminiscent of the early Deram and Decca recordings of Cat Stevens, David Bowie and Marianne Faithful, although the recordings are generally much more sparse here. Mostly acoustic guitar and vocal with the occasional unfortunate kazoo accompaniment, the best songs here are tracks that he'd already demoed with the 23rd Turnoff. Another Vincent Van Goph is one of his best songs, while the stripped back acoustic reading of Michael Angelo is a triumph. Generally very nice stuff. ( 6/10 )

Jimmy Campbell - Half Baked
An early signing to the fledgling Vertigo label, who obviously had high hopes for this album and with good reason as it's bit of a gem - definitely his best solo album. Vertigo were confident enough to press it up in such huge quantities that you can still find unplayed copies showing up in deletion bins. The title track found it's way onto their Vertigo Annual sampler, but unfortunately the punters weren't convinced. Featuring some much more rocking arrangements this seemed like a sure bet. Very good. ( 7/10 )

Rockin' Horse - Yes It Is
After another commercial failure with Half Baked, Campbell put together this excellent mersey power pop band. The Beatles influence again shows it's face, but it's the more primal rock n roll of Lennon's contributions to the Get Back sessions that are evoked here. Campbell again proves that he excels in a group format - this is a better album than any of his solo albums in my opinion, and another that should have been a hit, but sold poorly and is now highly collectable. They released one other album without Jimmy a few years later.
( 8/10 )

Jimmy Campbell - The Jimmy Campbell Album
Campbell's last album unfortunately gives a pretty good indication of his mindset at the time. A fairly drab selection of downbeat songs, recorded in one day, reluctantly and with little enthusiasm as a contractual obligation, this is really an album for big fans only. Producer Michael Snow and the Rockin Horse rhythm section do their best to salvage things, but this is ultimately a pretty depressing listen. ( 3/10 )

Thirty Classic Progressive Rock Albums That You Have To Hear ( Part 1 of 3 )

Gnidrolog - Lady Lake ( 1972 )
These guys are a little more unusual and definitely not everyone's cup of tea. Their debut In Spite of Harry's Toenail is a pretty eclectic mix of avant-garde prog rock which is very entertaining but not for the faint-hearted. For this, their second they added woodwinds ( flute, oboe, recorders, sax and more ) cleaned up the production and toned down the wackiness a little.   The title track is reason enough to buy this one - an epic with an impeccable arrangement. Fans of Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator should investigate immediately. BUY IT HERE



East of Eden - Mercator Projected ( 1969 )
A real product of it's time this one, that could have just as easily fit onto one of the psychedelic lists. Groundbreaking proto prog with catchy riffs and excellent use of wind instruments including a very beatnik flute solo in the excellent Isadora. Waterways combines tribal drumming, eastern guitar and sax scales and underwater vocals to create a bit of an epic. Oh yes, and the violin player from Baba O'Riley is in the band. Interested yet? BUY IT HERE



King Crimson - In The Wake of Poseidon ( 1970 )
Generally ignored in favor of their classic debut In The Court of the Crimson King, this is actually a very fine follow up which, while not covering much in the way of new ground, still has plenty to offer. Pictures of a City rocks and will give fans of 21st Century Schizoid Man plenty to smile about. Cat Food is as close as this line-up got to radio friendly, and The Devil's Triangle ( based on Holst's Mars ) is a dark and moody mellotron tour de force. BUY IT HERE




Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds ( 1972 )
Another maligned album by an otherwise respected artist, I've never been able to work out why people don't seem to click with this album. If anything it's a little darker and more adventurous than their previous works, with some krautrock motorik rhythms and drone experiments that they never really revisited. With a lot of instrumental pieces, there's plenty of room for some lovely David Gilmour guitar work, and Wot's Uh The Deal is one of his nicest acoustic tracks with a stunning slide solo. Definitely an album that's due for reappraisal. BUY IT HERE



Far East Family Band - Nipponjin ( 1975 )
Very entertaining space-rock release, heavily influenced by Pink Floyd ( especially the guitar work ) and Hawkwind. Long tracks with wonderful keyboard and mellotron work ( by a pre-new age Kitaro ), lots of sitar, massive lyrical  guitar solos and general all round epicness, with tracks that build to massive crescendos. Marvelous stuff. BUY IT HERE




Room - Pre-Flight ( 1970 )
Love this one. Somehow the budget for this unknown outfit's album ( apparently the rarest U.K release on the Deram label ) stretched to a full orchestra, which they use to amazing effect on the mindbogglingly good Cemetery Junction, a fantastically gloomy doom-prog suite, which may well be my favorite prog track of all time. The title track is also successfully ambitious. Elsewhere there are moments that bring to mind the jazz rock of Affinity, and the guitarist has a trill that would do Tony Iommi proud. Great. BUY IT HERE



Woody Kern - The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk ( 1968 )
Where's the love for this entertaining piece of proto-prog? Generally given a bum wrap, this is actually a pretty great album. Very early prog, but with more of a grounding in blues and psychedelia as was normal at the time. There's a lively cover of Spirit's Uncle John, but the stand-outs are their own Xoanan Bay and Gramophone Man, both prog-psych gems, and the moody, woodwind driven Tell You I'm Gone.



Gracious ( 1970 )
A rather excellent and varied debut, from this most English of prog bands, on the treasured Vertigo swirl label. Intricate arrangements, with complex, classically influenced keyboard work, some nice guitar and excellent pop harmonies. Opener, Introduction suggests Black Sabbath covering the Beatles, while Heaven and The Dream feature copious amounts of mellotron. This one takes a few listens but stick with it, there's lots of gold to be found if you keep digging. BUY IT HERE



Spring ( 1971 )
Produced by Elton John producer Gus Dudgeon, and featuring future Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers, this album has an interesting pedigree, but never sold in big numbers and is now one of the most valuable releases on RCA's Neon label. A mellotron lovers dream there's also some tasteful, clean guitar work and a very pastoral, English sound. Grail and Golden Fleece are the stand outs. Less complex than most prog of the era, it's generally chilled sound makes it a perfect Sunday afternoon prog album.



Black Widow - Sacrifice ( 1970 )
With a stage show that culminated in a mock human sacrifice you'd expect this to sound a lot heavier than it does. Once you've come to terms with the fact that you haven't discovered a new Black Sabbath, there's a lot to enjoy here. Musically this is more along the lines of Jethro Tull, with added hammond organ. The lyrics are entertaining occult hokum, politely English and seemingly inspired by the works of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer Horror, and they even managed a minor hit with Come To The Sabbat, probably the only hit single of the seventies to name check Satan? BUY IT HERE



Part Two Is Here

Part Three Is Here

Ten Great Underground 70s Hard Rock Albums.

Stumped for something to listen to now that you've worn out your Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath LPs?

Check out this selection of lost gems from the seventies.

Flower Travellin' Band - Satori ( 1971 )
Their first album draws a lot of attention due to it's eye-catching, naked, Easy Rider referencing cover, but is made up primarily of covers. This, their second album is where it's at. This could well be the heaviest album to come out of Japan in the seventies. Superb doom-laden stoner rock with awesome fuzzy guitar riffs and screechy Robert Plant style vocals. Often compared to Black Sabbath. Some nice psychedelic moments later on too. BUY IT HERE



Leaf Hound - Growers of Mushroom ( 1971 )
Formed from the ashes of hard blues rock outfit Black Cat Bones, this retains the blues side and adds a whole lot more rock. Coming across as a much more roughly hewn Led Zeppelin on the excellent lead off track Freelance Fiend and Stray, they also show a pop sensibility on the quirky title track. Fans of Led Zep, Free and Stray will find much to enjoy here. BUY IT HERE



Captain Beyond ( 1972 )
Featuring members of the Deep Purple Mark 1 and Iron Butterfly, Captain Beyond manage to best both of them with their great debut. Hard rock with some progressive elements, this features lots of excellent guitar work, complex time signature changes and outstanding drumming from Bobby Caldwell. Mesmerization Eclipse in particular deserves to be worshipped in the same hushed tones as Smoke on the Water. BUY IT HERE



Blackwater Park - Dirt Box ( 1972 )
Most well known for inspiring an Opeth album title, this German band's only album is well worth tracking down for it's own merits. It's hard to believe these guys are German - there's not a trace of Krautrock, it sounds more typical of early seventies U.K hard rock. Lots of very solid rock on standouts Rock Song, Mental Block and Roundabout, but they also show a surprising degree of subtlety on an inspired reinterpretation of the Beatle's For No One.




Ginhouse ( 1971 ) 
A personal favorite, Ginhouse's only album was recorded on the cheap and sounds it, but is still an excellent slice of  pastoral English hard rock, inspired by Jethro Tull and possibly an inspiration on Wolf People with whom they share a very English, obviously folk rock inspired hard rock sound. Includes an interesting jazzy cover of the Beatle's And I Love Her, and some pretty atmospheric originals, especially opening track The Tyne God.




Warhorse ( 1970 )
With Deep Purple Mk 1's Nick Simper on bass here, it's no surprise that this has moments that sound like Purple. What is surprising is how heavy a lot of this sounds. If you can imagine the first Black Sabbath album, with added hammond organ, or classic Uriah Heep slowed down to stoner rock pace you've got a pretty good idea of what this sounds like. Woman of the Devil, in particular is an occult doom rock classic. BUY IT HERE




Pentagram - First Daze Here ( Released 2002, Recorded Early To Mid Seventies )
One of the originators of Doom Metal, these guys never managed to release an album until reforming in the mid eighties, but the fine folk at Relapse Records have managed to scrounge up enough singles and studio outtakes to put this amazing collection of recordings from the early to mid seventies together. As important as Black Sabbath and a major influence on so many. BUY IT HERE



Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come ( 1970 )
Whoa, this is some heavy, heavy stuff. Like Blue Cheer stepped up a gear, this is all pounding drums ( by a singing drummer - would have loved to see him trying to play this stuff live! ), massive screechy guitar riffs and vocal histrionics that would do David Lee Roth proud. I imagine Van Halen would have sounded a lot like this early on, practicing in their garages while they were learning their instruments. There's little in the way of sophistication but It's all done with such punkish abandon and enthusiasm that you'd have to have a heart of stone to not enjoy it.



Trapeze - Medusa ( 1970 )
With future members of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Whitesnake in their ranks, it's a wonder these guys aren't more well known. Seafull shows that Jimmy Page didn't have a monopoly on heavy English blues, while the title track is a fantastic riff rocker which starts out with quiet acoustic atmospherics. Elsewhere they inject more of a funk and soul influence ( very unusual for this type of music ) and vocalist / bassist Glenn Hughes is in fine form throughout. BUY IT HERE



Patto - Hold Your Fire ( 1971 )
An interesting hard rock troupe with significant jazz tendencies, this is mainly of interest for the absolutely astonishing guitar playing of Ollie Halsall - without doubt one of the great unsung guitar heroes. His dexterous solos on the title track in particular are flashy but never less than tasteful. The rest of the band get to show their chops too, especially on the jazzy Air Raid Shelter, while Magic Door lets them flex their pop muscles. BUY IT HERE

15 More of the Best Psychedelic Albums Of All Time ( 2 )

Here's another 15 great psychedelic albums for all you psych-fiends out there, a mixture of the obvious and the obscure.
The Top 40 Psychedelic Albums of All Time can be found here.
And the 15 More of the Best Psychedelic Albums Of All Time list is here.





The Yardbirds - Roger The Engineer ( 1966 )
Out goes Clapton and in comes Jeff Beck. The Yardbird's earlier white blues sound is still evident but is now heavily tempered with psychedelia. Lost Woman has a bouncy McCartneyesque bassline and would have fit in nicely on Revolver while Turn Into Earth has a moody choral vocal piece which would later be borrowed by the Animals and the Herd among others. The CD version is made even better by the inclusion of the non LP single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago / Psycho Daisies which offers the Yardbirds definitive psychedelic statement. BUY IT

Les Baxter - The Dunwich Horror( 1970 )
The soundtrack for a long forgotten ( and rather good ) H.P Lovecraft film adaptation. Baxter's better known as one of the originators of exotica, but also had a productive career as a film scorer, with this being the weirdest and most appealing by a long shot. The Giallo soundtracks of Ennio Morricone seem to be the main influence, and this in turn seems to pre-empt Goblin's Dario Argento work. Creepy, often cacophonous and always interesting with plenty of psych elements, and a memorable theme that's reprised often in different forms. BUY IT
Hear a track on this cloudcast.

Lazy Smoke - Corridor of Faces ( 1968 )
Originally only available as a private pressing of 500, this is one regional U.S psych rarity that attained it's reputation very early on, with copies changing hands for three figures already by the early seventies. It's a very basic recording and completely derivative of the Beatles sound circa 1967 right down to the lead singer's Lennon affectations. It's also absolutely wonderful, and offers an alternative view of what the Beatles albums of 1967 could have sounded like if they'd toned down the studio trickery and focused more on guitar. ( Don't get me wrong - I love the sound of those Beatles albums, but alternatives are always interesting ). How Did You Die and Under Skies are the highlights, but the whole album is great and satisfyingly filler free. BUY IT
Hear a track on this cloudcast.

Churchill's - Churchill's ( 1968 )
An astonishingly good album and a total surprise from this Israeli band from the original psychedelic era. One of the very best psychedelic albums recorded outside of the U.S and the U.K with very solid songs, influenced by Cream and the Beatles and some heavy, heavy psychedelia. Occasional use of Israeli instrumentation too ( Bazouki I think? ). They changed their name to Jericho Jones and recorded their next album in London, but had dropped the psychedelic angle in favor of stodgy hard rock by this point. Stick to the original and the best. BUY IT


Black Mountain - In The Future ( 2008 )
Black Sabbath meets Jefferson Airplane on this, the trippiest of their albums to date. Lots of stoner rock still, but many tracks are also deeply psychedelic. Wucan in particular is amazing with it's loping Pink Floyd at Pompeii bassline, and walls of vintage analogue synths which bring to mind Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Hawkwind in their prime. Lots of fuzzy fun. BUY IT
Hear a track on this cloudcast.

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Quicksilver Messenger Service ( 1968 )
One of the best known San Francisco bands of the late sixties, and right up there with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. While the following year's live Shady Grove seems to get the most attention, this, their debut studio album seems to be much more focused to me. Their cover of Pride of Man should have been a huge hit and on the longer tracks ( especially The Fool ) the liquid guitar work of John Cippolina is given plenty of room to shine. BUY IT

The Collectors - The Collectors ( 1968 )
One of the most interesting Canadian debuts from the original psychedelic era, this is best known for the side long What Love ( Suite ), which is an expansive and intricately arranged masterpiece. The shorter pieces on side one are more conventionally constructed psych-pop gems with some nice acid guitar, strong harmonies and excellent use of flutes. Check out She (Will-O-The-Wind) for a starter.

Erland & The Carnival ( 2010 )
A totally different take on psychedelic folk, this has a definite sixties garage tinge, and features ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong. Fans of the Coral will definitely like this. Their cover of Jackson C. Frank's My Name is Carnival is inspired, while originals Trouble in Mind, The Derby Ram and Was You Ever See are all top tunes that sound like they come from the same darkly pagan tradition as the Wicker Man, only performed by Little Games era Yardbirds. BUY IT


The High Dials - A New Devotion ( 2003 )
An ambitious double length debut from this excellent Canadian band on the famed neo-psych Rainbow Quartz label. An excellent distillation of the Beatles, the Byrds, the Yardbirds and more circa 1966, this is one of the most authentic sounding retro psych albums I've ever heard. Rishi Dhir is their wildcard - a fantastic McCartney-esque bass player who's also a dab hand on the sitar. His other band Elephant Stone is pretty flash too. The High Dials other albums have a more contemporary sheen - start here. BUY IT
Hear a track on this cloudcast.


David Axelrod - Song of Innocence ( 1968 )
Axelrod's orchestral, big beat, jazz tinged psychedelia has proven very popular with DJs who've sampled his material extensively and brought him to a wider audience than he originally found in the sixties. Epic arrangements, funky drumbreaks and stinging acid guitars are his calling cards and this shows them all at their best. For a more thorough look at his catalogue click here. BUY IT

Cream - Disraeli Gears ( 1967 )
It seems weird now to think of Eric Clapton as a psychedelic visionary, but there's no doubting this as one of the most psychedelic albums released on a major label by a U.K artist in 1967. Strange Brew and Sunshine of Your Love are the big singles and they're just the tip of the iceberg. Tales of Brave Ulysses shows Clapton's wah-wah mastery, SWLABR is a fuzzy guitar gem, and We're Going Wrong is a moodier downbeat number. BUY IT

July - July ( 1968 )
A predecessor to the unusual prog outfit Jade Warrior, July released just the one album but it's a real doozy and one of the better U.K psych obscurities. Lots of trippy effects on this one, especially on the wonderful single My Clown and the heavily comped Dandelion Seeds, which also has a great guitar riff. There's the occasional light hearted lapse into tweeness ( Jolly Mary ), but this is generally a lot grittier than it's U.K contemporaries. Great. BUY IT

A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol. 1 ( 2008 )
This is a great double mix CD put together by the Amorphous Androgynous ( Future Sound of London ). Notorious crate diggers, they've managed to seamlessly combine an amazing selection of psychedelia that ranges from the well known  ( Donovan, Hawkwind ) through jazz ( Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra ) through more obscure recent material. A real eye opener, and a perfect introduction to some stuff you're likely to have never heard before. The Yellow Moon Band cooks. Volumes Two and Three are just as good and even more esoteric, covering everything from Supergrass to James Last.

Susan Christie - Paint A Lady (Released 2006, Recorded Late Sixties)
Christie recorded these demos in the late sixties after her ( awful ) novelty hit I Love Onions. There's some pretty out-there stuff on here, especially the bizarre beatnik drug trip of Yesterday, Where's My Mind? Other tracks are folk rockish, along the lines of Linda Perhacs and Margo Guryan, but with a funky David Axelrod inspired rhythm section and some trippy vocal treatments.  Rainy Day and Paint A Lady are both fabulous. Not too sure about that version of Ghost Riders in the Sky though.
Hear a track on this cloudcast.

Los Shakers - La Conferencia Secreta del Toto's Bar ( 1968 )
Primarily known as Uruguay's answer to the Beatles ( their excellent first two albums are dead ringers for A Hard Day's Night and Rubber Soul respectively  ), they show more of their own personality here with a much more expansive sound seemingly inspired by Pet Sounds as much as it was by Sgt. Peppers. Beautiful arrangements with some excellent horn accompaniments, exotic rhythms and impeccable harmonies. BUY IT


 I'm thinking of looking at progressive rock next..... any suggestions for fantastic obscurities that I may not know of before I start putting that list together? Post in the comments section. Thanks.