Search results for ""Author Scott Meze""

Of all the British bands that blasted to fame in rock's golden age, Nektar remain the most mysterious and least documented. Because they chose to base themselves in West Germany, until now commentators in their native land have tended to overlook them. They're all but excluded from prog's official narrative even though Remember The Future is a classic of the genre and one of very few European art rock albums to conquer the US. This book reveals Nektar as much more than just a hit LP, celebrating a catalogue rich in works of equal stature which, uniquely for the time, poured so effortlessly from the players. Whether you know only the clutch of 1970s albums that are Nektar at the pinnacle, or you've followed their progress under leaders Roye Albrighton and now Derek Moore, here's everything you need to complete your understanding of an agile, continuously intriguing band as distinctive as their covers, as dazzling as their light show, and as warm as their fans. It documents how Germany was both boon and bane for the band, how America tore them apart and pulled them back together, and how from Journey To The Centre Of The Eye to The Other Side Nektar have a vision and a connection that brings them much closer to our small scared lives than any other band of their stature.

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Few artists have had as great an impact with their debut single as Procol Harum. Mesmerising and perplexing in equal measure, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' remains the perfect distillation of the possibilities of psychedelia in that brief period when British pop seemed to promise a summer of love that would last forever.

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Soft Machine are perceived as cold and forbidding. At their peak in the 1970s, they purposefully raised the hackles of pop journalists, the musical establishment, and even their own fans. Their music was designed to exclude all but the most devoted. Their line-up constantly churned, divesting themselves of every player that tried to make a human connection. Instead of the community of live performance, they favoured an abusive blast of ferocious noise that never ceased from the first note to the point you were driven out of the venue in shock. That all this was true only for a short period of their career and is certainly not the case for more recent incarnations is irrelevant if potential listeners are turned away before they've even dared to hear a note of their music. Do so, and an entirely different band emerges: one that is sly, spry, tuneful, trippy, and surprisingly welcoming, merging a glorious melange of prog rock, jazz fusion, and much more and capable of shifting on a unison beat from soul ballad to freeform skronk, from fuzz-driven pounding to aching minimalism. This book guides you through the maze of the band's works, revealing why every album is worthy of re-evaluation, why they're so influential, and why you should rush to assimilate as many of them as you can. It covers the live and studio material released by the parent group, all related projects with a 'Soft' in their name, and the essential extracurricular activities of every member from 1960 to the present day.

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