This is a chamber quartet of violin, cello, bass clarinet/clarinet and flute/piccolo (a pianist appears on one track) with transcriptions mostly by Giovanni Venosta (of Musci/Venosta) of music by 'classic' rock in opposition figures such as Thinking...

After two excellent albums of chamber rock (with the accent on 'chamber') by this great Belgian septet (2 violinists, accordion, piano, guitar, flute and double bass) and a third album that mixed things up a little bit by adding three vocalists on some...

Excellent second album from this fine Italian avant-progressive ensemble with more than a touch of jazz in them as well. Well played, well paced and everything just fits. Highly recommended!...

Really superlative first full length from this jazz/rock band. This French group from Strasbourg first came to attention 3 years ago with their self-released EP, which showed great promise. But this new release really ups their game and presents this...

This is the first release by Cucamonga, who are a Argentinian jazz/rock group. They throw in a lot of avant-progressive touches into their stew as well. Electric piano, sax, guitar, bass and drums. The big influences here that I hear are Hermeto Pascoal..

Rational Diet were a chamber rock/RIO-styled band from Belarus, who released 3 very well liked albums on the AltrOck label. They seem to have imploded somewhat nastily, with the result being two bands arising from the ashes: Five-Storey Ensemble and...

Second release from this large Belgian band, who grew out of folk music origins into into something closer to avant/avant-progressive rock, but whose folk roots definitely show through strongly in a number of good ways here. The group consists of...

"Kurai is a Japanese word that corresponds to the adjective «dark», without «gothic» or other emotional references. In a certain sense, Kurai is the Yûgen’s «shadow», both because draws on some hints from it (directly from Labirinto d’acqua), and above...

An impressive DVD release by this rehearsal intensive, Bay-area band who, as I write this, are on tour outside of the Bay-area for the very first time, impressing people everywhere!

"Following the release of their critically acclaimed album...

This Israeli progressive rock band has gathered a bit of a reputation for a bit of a unfortunate reason: despite being well regarded and well received by those who have seen them/heard their demos, they recorded this album in 2005 (with Udi Koomran...

The third release from this Spanish 'modern R.I.O.' styled group and definitely their most assured so far. While most of the characters from their previous releases remain Angel Ontalva (guitar and compositions), Victor Rodriguez (keyboards and...

Very good chamber-rock from Siberia (!) that uses two guitars, bass, drums, clarinet/bass clarinet, piano and female voice with guests on violin and viola on the majority of the tracks. For some reason, parts of this remind me a bit of Macchina...

One of the profound surprises in the avant-progressive rock world (or at least my world) was the release of the latest album by this Moscow band whose name is actually in Cyrillic and most closely comes out as "Vezhliviy Otkaz". Like Geese and Swans...

Third and best release yet from this fine RIO-styled chamber-rock ensemble from Belarus who have really hit their stride here. They are a 7 piece of Vitaly Appow-bassoon, Maxim Velvetov-guitars, Cyrill Christya-violin, Olga Podgaiskaja-keyboards, vocals..

A very good instrumental symphonic progressive rock band who feature flute, electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, bass and drums. This was the 2nd release on AltrOck's Fading subsidiary, which aims to release more 'proggy progressive' than what...

Second excellent release by this great French sextet whose first album was released on Tzadik (and was definitely one of the most 'avant-progressive' things on that label!). This is their second and everything great about the 1st remains here....

Subtilior is led by the leader of Areknames, who are one of the very best contemporary Italian progressive rock groups. With Subtilior, he is still working in progressive rock, but he's shifted his focus here strongly towards avant progressive....

Third album by this Italian 'difficult music' ensemble, who derive great pleasure in presenting for your ears what Frank Zappa referred to as "The Black Page" (i.e. musical scores so filled with notes that it appears as a sea of black ink)!...

Excellent, studio-quality, live album, recorded at the 2011 RIO festival. While this features music mostly drawn from their 1st (Labirinto d'Acqua) and 3rd (Iridule) albums, this is well worth owning because those albums were studio creations and were...