The Shark shares his 2 cents on why he rather use Apple music over other Streaming Services

With Understanding Comes Appreciation The last album I reviewed on this corner was Tanz der Lemminge by Amon Düül II , a very complex, challenging, elaborated, and definitely, an acquired-taste piece of music. This time, I'm going to review the opposite side of prog-rock music; a refined, sophisticated and delicate masterpiece, which works as an emotional transporter, bathed with plenty of sonic textures rather than experimentations. Any prog collection and beyond would not b

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Through the trials and tribulations that life has to offer, a vast wealth of inspiration and karmic balance surge; it was the case for the members of Amon Düül II, who were collecting the honey of triumph while having a series of setbacks. One of the most terrifying events was at the Keks Club in Cologne, Germany in 1971, when a fire not only destroyed all of their musical gear, but snuffed out four youths in attendance, and then soon the

With Understanding Comes Appreciation This was the watershed album in Frank Zappa’s career in late 1973. The avant-garde, experimental rock, fusion & doo-wop musical elements he used to flavor his previous 16 albums (yes, 16 already at this point) do not predominate here, however, Zappa's music does not lose its complexity neither its virtuosic musicianship, and as a bonus (for some that may not be), his humour is even more present than previous releases. In fact, after his j

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Gargantua & Pantagruel come to life! The entire classic era oeuvre of the British progressive rock titans Gentle Giant, founded by the three Schulman brothers in 1970, is indeed the perfect musical embodiment of the cheerful Rabelaisian spirit, colorful and picturesque as a fancy miniature from a manuscript, brought to life by the moving nature of the sound. Founded on the wreck of an unsuccessful and now totally forgotten soul-influenced

With Understanding Comes Appreciation First off, look at this ridiculous unit: -John McLaughlin / electric guitar (One of fusion's most virtuosic guitar soloists. He placed his blazing speed in the service of a searching spiritual passion that has kept his music evolving and open to new influences) -Herbie Hancock / electric piano (He will always be one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz, just as his employer/mentor Miles Davis was when he was alive) -Chick

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Sounds and impacts only like itself, like no-one before or after. An attempt to achieve in 80 minutes a mystery trip from light to darkness and return. Three months recording with sessions often lasting up to 16 hours a day. Telepathic improvisation leading to instant compositions. Shamanic avant-funk trance. Unrestrained ecstasy and weirdness. Beauty and violation of any sense of beauty. Fear danger chaos mystery magic lost and found. Ja

With understanding comes appreciation First things first since no many people are familiarized with the Dots. The Legendary Pink Dots are an influential, staggeringly prolific group led by enigmatic frontman Edward Ka-Spel. Emerging from the early-'80s post-punk underground and sometimes categorized as industrial due to associations with bands like Skinny Puppy, the group's music is nearly impossible to pin down, drawing from Krautrock, ambient, folk, synth pop, and numerous

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Okay: You're all alone on the desert island with your ten essential prog albums. The solar-powered stereo overheats, the hut bursts into flames, and you've only got time to grab three discs before it's just you, the ashes, and "Wilson." Is this one of the three to escape the inferno? Hugh betcha! Absolutely masterful from start to finish; all meat and no filler. Prog doesn't get any better than this genre-defining recording! Marvelous, ma

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Unless you were a youngster in 1981, you have zero idea what it was like to buy this vinyl and be...

With Understanding Comes Appreciation While it is focused on rarefied, intellectualized, long-form composition in an era when abstraction and complexity really meant something in the rock milieu, these diverse pieces have a direct emotional power, linger and replay themselves in the mind long after their most recent hearing. This is a sophisticated and beautifully crafted recording. This is probably one of the most, if not the most, accessible and digestible Rock-in-Oppositio

With Understanding Comes Appreciation The first time I listened to Tom Waits, which was randomly from a radio station btw, I thought that I had missed a song or an album made by one of my fav artists of all-time; the peerless, a blues belter straight out of the school of Howlin' Wolf, a cat who breathed and bathed in the free jazz of Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, a painter and sculptor by nature, a rock and roll titan as leader and frontman; the one and only Captain Beefhe

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Some of the words that arguably describe better this gem might be elegant, sophisticated, intimate, melancholic, spiritual, playful, desert, warm, and mysterious, which also sports majestically chamber jazz, avant-garde classical music, klezmer and modern composition. For a man who's arguably got 90% of his reputation (at this point, in 1996) through making noisy, abrasive, inaccessible, and chaotic music, this masterpiece is quite the op

With Understanding Comes Appreciation “Fast and bulbous! That's right, The Mascara Snake, fast and bulbous! Also, a tin teardrop! Bulbous also tapered? That's right” —Pena, Track 15. I wanted to start with this quote, because it is a classic dialog among fans, which shows a sort of camaraderie and a “sense of belonging” when you start exchanging this apparently “nonsense," specially with another unknown fan. Knowing the latter, somehow says that you are “special” and “belong”

With Understanding Comes Appreciation Tony Williams' Emergency is flavored with post-bop and jazz-instrument elements, which pushed into new territory, creating dense, adventurous and unpredictable soundscapes; Miles Davis’ Silent Way is the signature of his electric era; nuanced with trumpet jazz and avant-garde, dig deep into the heart of the ethereal groove —dark, smoky, and ashen; while Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats is the album which fully fuses compositional sophistication of