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A meditative, folk-inflected score rooted in improvisation, ‘Dragon’s return’ echoes the soul of A film long buried behind the Iron Curtain



With Dragon’s Return, Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi and Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten present a new, meditative score to Eduard Grecner’s eponymous 1967 Slovak cult film — a stark, black-and-white parable.



The album captures a unique live performance recorded at the Videodroom Festival during Film Fest Ghent in October 2024, where this new score premiered alongside the film in collaboration with the Slovak Film Institute. What began as a fleeting, improvisational encounter between music and image has since taken on a life of its own — an evocative sound world that retains its power even in the absence of visuals.



The album will be available on vinyl and all digital platforms from September 12 via VIERNULVIER Records. The vinyl edition includes an obi strip, a booklet with film stills, and extensive liner notes on the film.



The label is known for shedding new light on forgotten films through reimagined soundtracks — claire rousay’s acclaimed The Bloody Lady being the most recent example.


“Folklore meets avant-garde in an ancient drama - a ballad about love, hate and finding a way out of loneliness” - Rastislav Steranka (Slovak Film Institute)



Ambarchi and Rasten do not accompany the images so much as speak through them. Their interplay — on guitars, flutes, percussion, and voice — unfolds slowly, without a fixed destination, culminating in subtle, entrancing drones. With few breaks or ruptures, this trippy, folk-inflected continuous composition invites surrender.



Rasten’s 12-string guitar and delicate use of voice create layered textures that shimmer and shift. Ambarchi, known for his electro-acoustic work, here explores a radically softer mode — strumming, bowing and coaxing tones from his instrument as though it were a string section unto itself. He blows into shells, adding breath and texture to the sonic palette, touching on something elemental.


Together, they evoke a sound world that feels both ritualistic and strangely familiar — as if echoing from a forgotten ceremony or dreamed into being after hearing an old folk tale. Rooted in improvisation, the music speaks in tones both intimate and expansive, shaped live in dialogue with the film and with each other, with only minimal overdubs added afterward.

Mit Selenites, Selenites! präsentiert Jimi Tenor das erste Album seiner neuen Band - ein Meilenstein in der Karriere des finnischen Multiinstrumentalisten, der 2025 seinen 60. Geburtstag feierte. Tenor, bekannt für seine genreübergreifenden Visionen, vereint hier Afrobeat, Electronica, Spiritual Jazz und experimentelle Klangwelten zu einem kraftvollen, organischen Sound. Seit den 1990er Jahren prägt Tenor die internationale Musikszene mit Veröffentlichungen auf Labels wie Sähko und Warp Records. Seine Zusammenarbeit mit Künstlern wie Tony Allen, dem UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra und Florence Adooni zeigt seine Offenheit für musikalische Kulturen und seine Fähigkeit, scheinbar Gegensätzliches zu verbinden. Die JIMI TENOR BAND entstand in Helsinki und besteht aus fünf virtuosen Musiker:innen, die ihre Stücke live erprobt und verinnerlicht haben. Die Aufnahmen spiegeln diese Energie wider: Direkt, roh und voller Spielfreude. Die Songs wirken wie Live-Mitschnitte - spontan, intensiv und nahbar. Mit Selenites, Selenites! gelingt Tenor ein Album, das nicht nur musikalisch überzeugt, sondern auch seine Rolle als stilprägender Künstler unterstreicht.

Entdecken Sie eine Auswahl der kultigsten Songs aus Quentin Tarantinos Kultfilmen auf einer atemberaubenden Picture Disc Vinyl. Diese exklusive Zusammenstellung umfasst legendäre Künstler wie Dick Dale, Johnny Cash, The Coasters, The 5.6.7.8"s und viele mehr - und deckt Tarantinos gesamtes filmisches Universum von Pulp Fiction bis Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ab. Ein Sammlerstück voller Surf-Rock, Soul, Rockabilly und Retro-Vibes - genau so, wie Tarantino es liebt.

Mit "Convex" öffnet Conrad Schnitzler ein Fenster in seine experimentelle Klangwelt der 1980er Jahre - und bleibt dabei geheimnisvoll. Die LP kommt nahezu ohne Informationen aus, der Titel dominiert das Cover, die Musik spricht für sich. Schnitzler nutzt hier einen Sample-and-Hold-Generator, um zufällige Tonfolgen zu erzeugen - gesteuerter Zufall als künstlerisches Prinzip. Besonders auffällig ist das langsame Tempo der Stücke, das sich deutlich von seinen sonst dynamischeren Arbeiten abhebt. Obwohl Schnitzler nie Ambient im Sinn hatte, erinnert "Convex" in seiner Unaufgeregtheit und Gleichförmigkeit an die "musique d"ameublement" von Satie oder die Ambient-Ideen von Brian Eno. Doch Schnitzler bleibt eigenständig: Die Musik fordert keine Aufmerksamkeit, sondern lädt zur freien Interpretation ein. Ein Album, das Fragen stellt, ohne Antworten zu geben - und gerade deshalb fasziniert.

"Sunshine and Balance Beams", das neunte Album von Pile, ist eine Sisyphus-Parabel über Arbeit und Leben. Um es zu schreiben, begab sich Sänger Rick Maguire an ,einen dunklen Ort" und rang mit dem Konzept, dass es keine Erleuchtung und kein Ende des Leidens gibt. Maguire erforscht den Workaholismus, den Mythos der Leistungsgesellschaft und die Akzeptanz der Sterblichkeit - und das alles in einer teuflischen Allegorie, in der es darum geht, durch einen schattigen Wald zu stapfen und dem ungewissen Traum einer hellen Lichtung entgegenzugehen. Pile ringt mit existenziellen und sozialen Widersprüchen, indem sie klangliche Zwischenräume heraufbeschwören. Die Musik existiert irgendwo im temporären Gleichgewicht von Licht und Schatten, Chaos und Ordnung. Heiße, regenähnliche Gitarren, sich verschiebende Drums, die gewundene Wege in Klang und Tempo ebnen, unheimliche Synthesizer und wässrige Streicher fügen sich zu einem Panorama aus Laut-Leise-Dynamik zusammen, das der Emotionalität der donnernden Auftritte der Band entspricht. Die Gruppe engagierte eine Streichergruppe (Geigen, Bratsche, Cello), die glühende, durchkomponierte Arrangements spielten, die von der Cellistin Eden Rayz und Pile mitgeschrieben wurden. Sie ließen sich von Kino- und Opernpartituren von Chopin, Bernard Herrmann und Ralph Vaughan Williams inspirieren, was "Sunshine and Balance Beams" einen überlebensgroßen Sound verleiht, der Piles blitzschnelle Umsetzungen einiger ihrer bisher zugänglichsten Songtexte noch verstärkt. Die Aufnahme ist ein deutlicher Sprung im Produktionswert und stellt Maguires Gesang auf neue und aufregende Weise in den Mittelpunkt. Pile reisten nach Pawtucket, RI, um zwei Wochen lang bei Machines with Magnets mit ihrer langjährigen Tontechnikerin Miranda Serra (Kal Marks, Kira McSpice) aufzunehmen. Das Album wurde von Seth Manchester (Lightning Bolt, Mdou Moctar) gemischt und von Matt Colton (Aphex Twin, Swans, Muse) gemastert. "Sunshine and Balance Beams" ist das erste Album von Pile für das Chicagoer Label Sooper Records.

Lillian King's debut album In Your Long Shadow is out October 24th. It is about letting the wind in, Lake Michigan in the winter, and the silence of a long summer evening. And really it's about the grief of losing her dad, Neil King Jr. When her dad died in September 2024, grief permeated every facet of Lillian's life. The loss is felt in everything, but especially when doing the things her dad loved the most -- the simple everyday good things that make life worth living: cooking, walking the longer way to work, swimming in cold water. In the throes of grief it feels impossible to find anything that doesn't just make you sadder, but when Lillian did find those things, she grabbed onto them. Soon it was clear that the best coping mechanisms weren't gin and tonics, but talking to her mom and sister as much as possible, and producing an album. The album arrangement came together in a couple of weeks as Lillian brought bandmates and friends Robert Salazar and Nick DePrey new and old songs to build on. Robert played the drums, while Nick played keys (with a smattering of bass and guitar). The process was collaborative and intimate, and only got better when Jack Henry (producer of albums by Friko and Free Range) joined to record and mix it. Some of the songs on this album are years old, including "Underwater", which Lillian wrote one late night in Montreal a decade ago. However, most came together in the months approaching recording."Dragging Dirt" was written just a week before getting into the studio. Despite the bummer material, the recording process was spontaneous and light hearted. The song "Echo" came together unexpectedly during a break between songs. In the midst of recording In Your Long Shadow, Lillian had concerns about making a "grief album." Her sister Frances, as usual, had the right advice: "Every album from now on is going to be a grief album." In Your Long Shadow is about loss as much as it is about living with it. Take it outside on a walk.

Adrian Younge Presents: Twelve Reasons To Die II inhabits the grimy streets of mid-1970s, NYC. Younge's cinematic, psychedelic soul returns to set the stage for a clash between crime syndicates and the vengeful spirit of Tony Starks (Ghostface Killah). This gripping sequel features special guest appearances from Wu Tang alumni Rza and Raekwon, who personifies the criminal mastermind, Lester Kane. A Wu-Tang saga unfolds in this thrilling sequel to the acclaimed original. Recorded and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs, the preeminent analog studio of Los Angeles, CA.

"I want nothing more than to be a loner," Emily Kempf sings early on Flower of Devotion, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. It's a startling admission coming from a songwriter who, just a year ago on Dehd's critically acclaimed Water, wrote eloquently about the joys and pains _ more than anything, the necessity _ of love, compassion, and companionship. But then, "admission" isn't really the right word here, given the stridency of Kempf's tone. "Loner" is a declaration. The record ups the ante on Dehd's sound & filters in just enough polish to bring out the shining and melancholy undertones in Jason Balla and Emily Kempf's songwriting, even as it captures them at their most strident. Balla's guitar lines at times flirt with ticklish cosmic country, while at others they reflect the dark marble sounds of Broadcast. Kempf, meanwhile, establishes herself as a singer of incredible expressive range, pinching into a high lonesome wail, letting loose a chirping "ooh!," pushing her voice below its breaking point and letting it swing down there. When she and Balla bounce descending counter-melodies off one another over McGrady's one-two thumps, or skitter off over a programmed drum pad, they sound like The B-52s shaking off heartache. What makes Flower of Devotion so impressive is how its creation seems to have strengthened its creators, both as individuals and as a unit, even as they've stared down their own limitations. It's also striking just how much fun they seem to be having in the process. "It's okay to be lighthearted in the face of despair," Kempf says. It's a theme that runs through the album, from the opening back-and-forth build of "Desire" to the click-clacking chorus of "Haha," which finds them deflating their own history. Flower of Devotion was recorded in April and August of 2019 in Chicago. It will be released on Fire Talk Records on July 17th 2020.

Celebrating over a decade of hip-hop excellence, Legacy of Hits delivers 15 career-defining tracks from Rich Homie Quan, one of Atlanta’s most influential voices. From the breakout anthem "Type of Way" to the multi-platinum-certified smash Flex "(Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)", this collection captures Quan’s ability to craft both raw street records and timeless radio staples that shaped the sound of Southern rap.
The set includes fan favorites like “Differences”, "Walk Thru (feat. Problem)”, "They Don’t Know”, "Blah Blah Blah”, “Reloaded" and "15 Shots, giving fans a complete retrospective of his impact. With production from heavyweights such as Yung Carter, Metro Boomin, London on Da Track, Trauma Tone, and Yizzle, the project stands as a true testament to Quan’s consistency, resilience, and influence.
Available in both vinyl and CD formats with exclusive collectible packaging, Legacy of Hits is more than just a greatest hits, it’s a landmark release that celebrates Rich Homie Quan’s journey, artistry, and legacy.

With Atlas(t), French beatmaker ProleteR pushes his craft further, blending hip-hop beats, nu-jazz melodies, and world music samples into a globe-spanning soundscape. From Asian voices to South American rhythms, African grooves to Eastern European tones, each track unfolds like a new stop on the map. A vibrant mix of nostalgia, swing, and wanderlust, Atlas(t) is both a travel diary and a dancefloor invitation. ProleteR transforms global sounds into colorful, modern beats, a record made to spark curiosity and keep the needle spinning.

Aphasy, a dive into a fascinating sonic universe. A two-sided journey. Designed with a strong artistic vision, the artwork showcases a striking duality between Side A and Side B, offering a contrasting auditory experience. Side A, adorned with a delicate shade of pink, embodies the essence of deep, lyrical, and ethereal tracks. The melodies unfold with mesmerizing lightness, enveloping the listener in an atmosphere of softness and contemplation. Vibrant basslines and subtle rhythms intertwine with evocative sound textures, creating a musical landscape that invites reverie and escape. Flipping the record reveals Side B in all its dark and nostalgic splendor. The back of the sleeve immerses the listener in a more introspective and captivating world. The tracks on this side unveil emotional depth and hypnotic intensity. Darker tones, dissonant harmonies, and entrancing rhythms transport us into an enchanting atmosphere, evoking feelings of melancholy and introspection. This record embodies the very essence of electronic music, with its intricate sound textures, signed by Romain Mégroz.

Sajama Line, an EP crafted by the young producer Zgelt. Through this release, the artist narrates moments from his
journey between Chile and Bolivia, expressed through his music. Like a true travel diary, Zgelt illustrates and recounts his
experiences in these regions, all while staying true to his artistic touch, navigating between Dub Techno and Minimal sounds.
Introspective and danceable tones that will take you beyond the boundaries of electronic music.

This is the third release by Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle, Fantomas, Trio Convulsant, various with John Zorn) and Kevin Rutmanis (Tomahawk, Melvins, Cows, Hepa/Titus) On this outing Trevor joins Lords and Lady Kevin (duo of Kevin Rutmanis and drummer/artist Gina Skwoz) for a full length LP "Last Days at Hot Slit"

Songs are loosely based on assorted gospel, blues and jazz songs, some original, some covers. Included is a re-working of Mingus "Devil Woman". The trio based the pieces on improvisations that were then arranged and used to build free standing songs. A multitude of instruments were exploited by all those involved, to create a sizzling blend of aural delicacies. The album title is from a collection by writer Andrea Dworkin, often sited as the Celine of feminism. Less outre perhaps than their previous recordings, these songs hover somewhere between soundtrack- like excursions, to jazz/ blues mutations to a demented "rock" sounding affair. Something for everybody, or perhaps, nobody! Uniting former and current members of Tomahawk, Last Days At Hot Slit marks a powerful reunion between Rutmanis and Dunn. The record took shape gradually, born from Rutmanis's raw, unconventional bass recordings. "I sent Trevor a phone recording of some hideous bass racket and asked if he wanted to add anything," Rutmanis shares. "What he sent back was something like delicious fresh cherries with ice and banana slices." The pair's combined creativity gave rise to a new, immersive soundscape, while their collaborative piece, Crackpot Whorehead, set the tone for the current formation of Lords and Lady Kevin."

The capstone of Miles Davis’ electric period, Agharta reigns as a funk-rock fireball — a blazing comet streaked energy and elan, a fearless organism feasting on adventure and freedom, a seven-headed Godzilla stomping its way through Osaka, Japan. Recorded on February 1, 1975 at Osaka Festival Hall at the first of a two-show stand, the double album offers an endless abundance of surprises and shifts — as well as a road-proven ensemble whose chemistry and abilities equal that of any of Davis’ celebrated bands. If the true measure of jazz is the capacity to adapt to the moment and challenge perception, Agharta is consummate.

Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM 2LP set of this epic live release presents it in audiophile sound on a domestic pressing for the first time. Offering greater degrees of separation, detail, and richness than the compressed CD editions and more clarity, openness, and presence than older vinyl copies, this version of the 1975 release helps bring the concert stage to your home. Just make sure your turntable and speakers are up to the challenge of Davis and Co.’s explosive performances — and producing the decibels they demand.

Teeming with vibrant colors, tones, and pace, Mobile Fidelity’s reissue captures the hear-it-to-believe-it flow, sweep, and moodiness of the music. Though the group honors looseness and freedom with religious verve, the specificity and scale rendered by this remaster allows you to detect methods behind the alleged madness that are often otherwise harder to discern. This insight extends to the understated changes in volume, harmonics, and phrasings. In many ways, you can listen as Davis himself did that early February evening as he helped coordinate the overall direction and decided on whether to blow his wah-wah-wired trumpet or take a turn on the organ.

Tellingly, Agharta would likely never have been made if not for Davis’ ventures overseas and, specifically, to the Land of the Rising Sun. Having for years faced a backlash on his native soil for his choices to experiment and blow past all known borders, Davis was welcomed with open arms in Japan. The concert documented on Agharta — as well as the day’s later show, captured on the equally exciting Pangea — stemmed from a sold-out three-week tour that would ultimately mark Davis’ final public appearances for years, as he soon settled into semi-retirement and nursed the wounds connected to an unprecedented stretch of restless and relentless output.

For all the band-fueled merit of Agharta — and there’s plenty, given the cast of saxophonist Sonny Fortune, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Al Foster, percussionist James Mtume, and guitarists Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey seemingly blasts off to outer space and travels distant galaxies by the time this minimally edited record runs its course — Davis’ own playing often remains overlooked. As critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton observed, it is “often fantastically subtle, creating surges and ebbs in a harmonically static line, allowing him to build huge melismatic variations on a single note.” He attacks like a man on a mission, out to prove naysayers wrong and bent on trailblazing another new path forward. Convention and skeptics be damned.

Noisy and furious, dark and discordant, abstract and off-balance, radical and intense, abrasive and atmospheric, strangely beautiful and hypnotically eccentric: Agharta evades simple description, and refuses to be pinned down in any established category — rock, jazz, punk, ambient, prog, avante-garde, or otherwise. Shot through with trench-deep grooves, screaming riffs, scalding solos, and free-improv leads, its cosmic thrust comes on as the equivalent of an animated pointillist painting comprised of millions of textured dots, dashes, and dabs that hold your attention so raptly you want to revisit the ideas again and again.

Always steps ahead of everyone else, Davis knew what he was doing even when Agharta debuted in Japan before later hitting U.S. markets. Though “Maiysha” and “Theme from Jack Johnson” are identified in the track listing, the record contains a number of uncredited references to other Davis works, including a nod to “So What.” This decision to bypass labels only adds to the art of the reveal — the rare black magic in which Agharta expertly deals.

Supergroups existed before Emerson, Lake & Palmer formed in 1970. And, as we all know well, many came after. But few, if any, matched the English trio’s chemistry and its elevated combination of virtuosity, vision, and verve. Having influenced a multitude of followers, ELP’s prowess was obvious from the start. The band’s self-titled debut stands as a towering statement of creative imagination, execution, and discipline more than five decades after its original release.

Mastered at MoFi’s California studio, housed in a Stoughton jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM LP of Emerson, Lake & Palmer presents the benchmark album in audiophile sound. Clear, dynamic, and balanced, this collectible edition honors the perfectionist approaches that both informed the playing and recording of the record.

Distinguished with black backgrounds, this reissue brings to light the epic scope, tonal depth, and mind-bending degrees of musicianship on display. Aspects — textures, nuances, effects, melodies, tempo changes — that go hand-in-hand with the trio’s compositions and interplay are rendered amid broad soundstages and delivered with pinpoint detail. Whether you’ve owned multiple copies of this touchstone or seeking out your first version, you’ll relish the presence, separation, imaging, and crispness that help make every song come across as if the group has set up shop in your listening space.

Opening the door to the seemingly infinite possibilities of progressive rock while steering clear of excess, Emerson, Lake & Palmer achieved a rare feat in that its complex, cerebral music didn’t prevent it from attaining mainstream success. The gold-certified effort launched the career of a band that would sell tens of millions of records. It also landed a Top 50 single in the form of the ballad “Lucky Man,” whose vocal harmonies, folksy strumming, multi-tracked instrumentation, and breakthrough Moog solo almost feel quaint in the face of the other fare on the album.

Comprised of genre-defying originals and hybrid arrangements of two classical pieces, the album Rolling Stone originally and rightly said is “best heard as a whole” matches outrageous ambition with the otherworldly skills of three musicians who remain among the finest to ever pick up their respective instruments. While Emerson soon drew the lion’s share of headlines for his ability on keys — clavinet, Moog, piano, Hammond organ, and pipe organ included — Greg Lake’s aptitude on guitar and bass, along with well as Carl Palmer’s monster talents behind the kit, created a three-headed hydra that devoured everything in front of it.

That extends to the radical reinterpretation of Bela Bartok’s “The Barbarian” that begins the LP, a performance that in less than four-and-a-half minutes runs the gamut from distorted to churchy to angular and blustery. More classical flourishes, keyboard wizardry, hard-rock heaviness, and gothic signatures emerge throughout “Knife-Edge,” which reimagines music by Leos Janacek and J.S. Bach — and ultimately invites you to explore a cathedral of sound teeming with separate bursts of keys and percussion.

And did someone say “drumming”? Check out Palmer’s monster salvo on “Tank,” a rhythmic showcase that marches out with knee-bent notes and mirror-reflected passages. Or dive into the mythological suite “The Three Fates.” Replete with three parts and Emerson playing the pipe organ at Royal Festival Hall, it shoots off sonic fireworks via sophisticated arpeggios, jazz improvisations, dancing counter-meters, sizzling chords, and a few explosions. Please don’t hold anyone at MoFi responsible if your system cannot handle it; this is heady stuff.

Indeed, everything on Emerson, Lake & Palmer is there for a purpose. Whether you aim to attempt to dissect all of the notes, shifts, and polyrhythmic bluster or just want to absorb this album as one living, breathing organism, this version invites you to do both as many times as you desire.

The song titles on Van Halen's aptly titled Fair Warning don't lie. The likes of "Unchained," "Mean Street," "Push Comes to Shove," "One Foot Out the Door," and more indicate the mood the band channels on its double-platinum 1981 record — the nastiest, darkest, and fiercest album of the group's storied career. For the fourth time in four years, Van Halen throws down the gauntlet to all challengers and emerges victorious.


Sourced from the original analog tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing, and strictly limited to 5,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP set plays with unfettered clarity, dynamics, and immediacy. Benefitting from superb groove definition, an ultra-low noise floor, and dead-quiet surfaces, this vinyl edition captures what went down in the studio with tremendous realism and involving presence.

Taking a more controlled approach in the studio and still completing everything in less than two weeks, Van Halen and producer Ted Templeman relied on studio amplifiers to direct the sound. Further diverging from the live-on-the-floor approach of its earlier albums, the ensemble also employed overdubs to great effect. The result: Dense, stacked architecture that underlines the hard-hitting tenor of the songs — and which comes alive like never before on this reference edition that looks as good as it sounds.

The premium packaging and gorgeous presentation befit the reissue's select status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. Aurally and visually, it is made for listeners who want to immerse themselves in everything involved with the album, including the iconic cover art adopted from William Kurelek's haunting painting, "The Maze."

Isolated frames from Kurelek's childhood-inspired work — including a man bashing his head into a brick wall, a guy pinning down an adversary as he delivers bare-fist blows to his face and others watch with apparent glee, a boy tied down on a conveyer belt and being sent through the equivalent of a meat saw — adorn the front and back covers. The sunnier visual disposition of Van Halen's prior efforts gives way to something sinister and tortured, traits reflective of the music within. The band members, too, are visually depicted not in glamorous shots but in a serious black-and-white portrait in which the quartet is clad in black leather jackets.

Tough, aggressive, stark: Fair Warning comes on like a series of bare-knuckled punches to the solar plexus and boasts lyrical narratives to match. Though not a concept record, the concise album revolves around themes of roughing it on the streets and struggling to survive amid dim prospects. Singer David Lee Roth reportedly penned many of the initial lyrics after traveling to Haiti and observing extreme poverty. The characters and situations populating Fair Warning reflect hardscrabble existence, last-chance desperation, and underlying danger.

Witness the crazies, poor folks, and hunters of “Mean Street”; the former prom queen turned pornographic actress on “Dirty Movies”; the menace and vice of “Sinners Swing!”; the streetwise hustle of “Unchained”; the isolation and alienation of “Push Comes to Shove”; the desire for escape on “One Foot Out the Door”: A carefree California beach party Fair Warning is not.

Having said he felt angry and frustrated during the sessions, guitarist Eddie Van Halen uses the forceful arrangements as a playground for his seemingly unlimited arsenal. Supported by a crack rhythm section and a hyped-up Roth, he performs with an almost impossible combination of punk-like intensity, technical finesse, lyrical fluidity, and unbridled emotion. The virtuoso was increasingly butting heads with Templeton and seeking a freedom in the studio he believed denied him.

No wonder he plays like a bat out of hell. Listen to the rapid-fire manner in which he slaps the high and low E strings on the 12th fret of his instrument on “Mean Street,” instilling the tune with funk flair and metal-spiked sharpness. For the pouty strut of “Dirty Movies,” Eddie Van Halen contributes slide guitar magic made possible after he sawed off the lower portion of a Gibson SG so he could reach further down the fretboard.

Related intensity, urgency, and daredevil momentum punctuate the surging “Sinner’s Swing!” A heavily flanged, delicately melodic introduction frames the attitudinal “Hear About It Later,” among the most creative arrangements of Van Halen’s career. And do riffs come any bigger or magnetic than those on the high-wire kick of “Unchained”? As for the out-of-left-field “Sunday in the Park,” an instrumental composed on an Electro-Harmonix micro-synthesizer: Who but Eddie Van Halen to supply creep factor in such an ingenious way?

Despite selling fewer quantities than Van Halen’s prior efforts, Fair Warning remains for many diehards the record that epitomizes all of the band’s immense strengths —Roth’s manic energy and tongue-wagging humor, Alex Van Halen’s rhythmic heartbeat-in-your-chest bombast, and Michael Anthony’s lucid bass lines included. Arriving when the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and new-wave movements were taking flight, it signaled a shot across the bow from a band determined to stay a step ahead and provide proof nobody could touch what it delivered.

More than four decades later, Fair Warning still sounds that alarm.

Yes's 1972 3-track recording masterpiece, Close to the Edge, presents a snapshot of an adventurous rock band at the peak of its powers, daring to push itself musically, both as individuals and as a unit.

The first half of the 1970s was an especially fertile period for British progressive rock, laying claim to classics such as Tarkus, Selling England by the Pound, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, The Dark Side of the Moon, and Thick as a Brick. Collectively these and other works represent the best British progressive rock had to offer. Yet, many reviewers cite Close to the Edge as the ultimate prog rock album.

Author and music journalist Will Romano writes: "Yes had previously penned epic tracks for The Yes Album and Fragile, but nothing on the magnitude of the musical gems appearing on Close to the Edge. It's something of a small miracle — perhaps even magic — that the virtuoso quintet crafted such a cohesive and compelling album during an often-hectic recording process that very nearly relegated this monumental work to the dustbin of history."

The album's centrepiece is the 18-minute title track, with themes and lyrics inspired by the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha. Side two contains two non-conceptual tracks, the folk-inspired "And You and I" and the comparatively straightforward rocker "Siberian Khatru." Original drummer Bill Bruford found the album particularly laborious to make, which culminated in his decision to quit the band after it was recorded, to join King Crimson.

Close to the Edge became the band's greatest commercial success at the time of release. It peaked at No. 4 on the U.K. Albums Chart and No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, the highest position Yes has reached on the latter chart.

In 2020, Close to the Edge was ranked at No. 445 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in a tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket with textured stock by Stoughton Printing.