Although the Byrds' Fifth Dimension was wildly uneven, its high points were as innovative as any rock music being recorded in 1966. Immaculate folk-rock was still present in their superb arrangements of the traditional songs "Wild Mountain Thyme" and "John Riley." For the originals, they devised some of the first and best psychedelic rock, often drawing from the influence of Indian raga in the guitar arrangements. "Eight Miles High," with its astral lyrics, pumping bassline, and fractured guitar solo, was a Top 20 hit, and one of the greatest singles of the '60s. The minor hit title track and the country-rock-tinged "Mr. Spaceman" are among their best songs; "I See You" has great 12-string psychedelic guitar solos; and "I Come and Stand at Every Door" is an unusual and moving update of a traditional rock tune, with new lyrics pleading for peace in the nuclear age…

Muddy Waters left Chess only when the label folded upon its sale in the mid-'70s, but by that point he was in need of the kind of career revival that only comes with a new label and new set of collaborators. That's precisely what Muddy received in 1976, when he signed with Blue Sky Records and teamed up with the hotshot blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter, who produced Waters' acclaimed 1977 comeback, Hard Again, and its sequels, 1978's I'm Ready and 1981's King Bee, along with supporting Muddy for the 1979 concert set Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. All four albums are cherry-picked for Raven's 2009 compilation The Johnny Winter Sessions 1976-1981, which also adds a cut from the 2003 deluxe edition of Live and Muddy's duet "Walking Thru the Park" from Winter's 1977 album, Nothin' But the Blues…

Pianist Bud Powell's two recording sessions for Victor during 1956-57 resulted in 22 selections; this CD contains 18 of them. Powell was not in the best of shape during this period and he is erratic in these trio outings with bassist George Duvivier and drummer Art Taylor. Quite frequently a brilliant chorus is followed by one in which Powell gets lost, making the performances very interesting, to say the least.

Great symphonic rock featuring mellotron and flute, excellent keyboard playing and a fine guitar, no weak passages. Three of the six tracks are instrumentals. In his book "Cosmic dreams at play" (Glasgow 1996), the Norwegian Dag Erik Asbjørnsen lists "Point of eruption" among the ten best Krautrock LPs of all time, and quite rightly so. The only drawback is its short playing time. It’s a pity that this is the only work the band from Werne an der Lippe, at the north-eastern edge of the Ruhr Area, has ever released. With 28-page coloured booklet.

The most surprising release of 2003 for every Tangerine Dream fan was most probably The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1. Sanctuary Music, well known for their numerous re-releases of TD material of the Pink and the Blue Years era, had been very successful with a series of bootleg boxes by ELP and approached Tangerine Dream for the same type of thing. Since they wanted old material and were pressing to get these boxes into the pipeline as swiftly as possible, TD could not go into the process of scanning their own archives and restoring old tapes. So they chose to use readily available bootleg sources for the first two planned sets. One of the best and easiest sources was the Tangerine Tree fan project, hence Edgar Froese and Jerome Froese selected ten shows from the first two tree sets, which Jerome Froese then cleaned up and mastered with DQC without any overdubbing…