Without Brian Eno, Roxy Music immediately became less experimental, yet it remained adventurous, as Stranded illustrates. Under the direction of Bryan Ferry, Roxy moved toward relatively straightforward territory, adding greater layers of piano and heavy guitars…

As much a creative collective as an indie rock band, Broken Social Scene is a Toronto-based ensemble whose flexible lineup has included some of the best and best-known musicians from the city's left-of-center music community. Emerging in 2001 with Feel Good Lost, the group, whose membership has been as small as two and as large as 15, has created an eclectic body of work that's explored many stylistic avenues, from film music and ambient minimalism to brightly orchestrated Baroque pop, with highlights arriving via the Juno Award-winning You Forgot It in People (2003) and Broken Social Scene (2005), and the chart-topping Hug of Thunder (2017). Artists and acts associated with the group include Feist, Metric, Do Make Say Think, Amy Millan, Stars, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, Jason Collett, K.C. Accidental, and Apostle of Hustle. Collection includes: Feel Good Lost (2001); You Forgot It in People (2002); Bee Hives (2004); Broken Social Scene (2005); Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If… (2007); Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning - Something For All Of Us (2008); Forgiveness Rock Record (2010).

Deluxe Edition 2 CD set features 35 tracks including b-sides and previously unreleased versions. Sonic Youth's second major-label album, produced and mixed by Butch Vig and Andy Wallace (a team that had helped turn Nirvana's NEVERMIND multi-platinum) was not the barefaced bid for mainstream acceptance that surly underground souls grumbled about in the pages of fanzines. While Vig and Wallace give guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, bassist Kim Gordon, and phenomenal drummer Steve Shelley a wide-screen panorama for their bizarrely-tuned assaults, DIRTY is probably Sonic Youth's most uncompromising album since 1985's BAD MOON RISING–particularly in the lyrical department. Dropping the deliberate obscurantism, Philip K. Dick references, and smart-alecky snottiness, Sonic Youth brackets a slew of pointed political attacks ("Youth Against Fascism," "Swimsuit Issue," and the Jesse Helms-bashing "Chapel Hill") with two passionate tributes to the band members' murdered friend, Joe Cole ("100%" and "JC"). That DIRTY is Sonic Youth's most commercial-sounding album makes it that much more subversive.

On Roxy Music's debut, the tensions between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry propelled their music to great, unexpected heights, and for most of the group's second album, For Your Pleasure, the band equals, if not surpasses, those expectations…

With Mundo Civilizado, downtown denizen Arto Lindsay is probably the first person to successfully integrate the sounds of techno and drum'n'bass into an already established pop music style. Others, notably David Bowie, have tried to do something similar, but although Bowie's attempt in particular was more successful than most critics give him credit for, it never sounded as natural and seamless as Lindsay's. That the former king of skronk guitar was able to achieve such a fusion while singing in Portuguese is even more impressive. Highlights include the funky female worship of "Q Samba" and the scattered herky-jerk of "Complicity" (which features the deathless couplet "Complicity, unconscious wit/Borders without borders under eyebrows"). His taste in covers is a bit more suspect – he brings as little to Prince's material as you'd expect, but is surprisingly more adept with Al Green's "Simply Beautiful." Overall, this one's a solid winner, if not quite a classic.

Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music's eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock's boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures…

Pigpile is the 1992 live album by Big Black, recorded in 1982. This was released by Touch And Go.

Racer-X is a 6-song EP by Big Black. This was released by the Homestead label.

Peter Van Huffel’s journey through the combination of jazz and rock, alien to the fusion tradition of the seventies and the collage of the nineties, proceeds with yet another opus from the Gorilla Mask gang, as always inclusive of the mindblowing rhythm section of Roland Fidezius and Rudi Fischerlehner. “Brain Drain” is a mishmash of punk, metal, jazz, free improvisation and written avant-garde music, always in the process of construction and deconstruction, going from persistent, headbanging riffs and grooves to abstract and puzzling situations or vice-versa, without excuses nor preconceptions.

John Ghost is ingenious and exploratory, often described as a symbiosis between the sounds of Steve Reich, John Hollenbeck, Nils Frahm and Jaga Jazzist. Created around the Ghent guitarist and composer Jo De Geest, the Belgian sextet draw on influences from jazz, rock and post-classical music, where minimalism, electronics and a cinematic atmosphere characterize their instrumental music.

Unless you frequent Los Angeles clubs like The Baked Potato and La Ve Lee, chances are you haven't heard of keyboardist David Garfield. But you've heard him. Appearing on over a hundred albums, Garfield has worked with artists like trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and guitarist Larry Carlton. He's a co-founder of Los Lobotomys and Karizma, two fusion-based jam bands that have included drummers like Vinnie Colaiuta and Simon Phillips, as well as guitarists Steve Lukather and the perennially-underrated Michael Landau. No recording dates are listed on The State of Things, but Garfield's clearly been working on it for years, given that a third of the tracks feature Carlos Vega—a versatile drummer who appeared on literally hundreds of albums before passing away tragically in 1998. This fusion-centric effort features many of LA's best session players, but in many ways it's as much Landau's disc as it is Garfield's. He pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix on a version of "If Six Was Nine that—as blasphemous as this may sound—might actually be an improvement on the original. While his tone says rock, his lines say jazz as he demonstrates complete facility navigating changes on the swinging version of Miles Davis' "Milestones and a more delicate mainstream take on John Coltrane's "Naima. He exhibits his more textural side on "Me and kicks things into extreme high gear on the greasy funk of "Five Storks and the more overtly rocking "Black Cadillac.

So the festival season is over, the tent is packed away for another year and wellies are stored for a rainy day… Why not re-live your summer with Indie Anthems – The Ultimate Collection … 100 Hits of Indie classics past and present.
This 5CD set offers 100 hits of pure Indie greatness. Featuring over 50 top 20 hits including over 10 No.1s, there is something for everyone. This is the Ultimate Collection of Indie Anthems.

Richard Stephen Sinclair is an English progressive rock bassist, guitarist, and vocalist who has been a member of several bands of the Canterbury scene (Caravan, Camel, Hatfield and the North, Camel…). Caravan of Dreams were a British progressive rock band from the Canterbury scene. On their first album, Caravan of Dreams (1992), the band consisted of Richard Sinclair (guitar, vocals, bass on studio tracks), Dave Sinclair (keyboards), Jimmy Hastings (flute, saxophone), Andy Ward (drums), Rick Biddulph (live bass), Michael Heupel (flute) and Alan Clarke (harmonica).

Program Music I is the 2007 disc by Japanese artist Kashiwa Daisuke. This was released on the Noble label.