Rē Records Quarterly -- A Series, Part 1: The Quarterly Vol. 1 No. 2 from 1985

I hope in the coming weeks to present to you the entire discography of Rē Records Quarterly (not to be confused with the similarly named ReR records label!!) because it's one of the least known but most treasure-packed set of records in progressive history.  At least I'll try to do the first two volumes which are the best, each consists of four numbers.

From the discogs Profile:

Rē Records was founded by Chris Cutler in 1978, as a vehicle for Art Bears and then other projects of his own. At the same time he launched Recommended Records, a specialised mailorder service which established its own label for outside releases. A Recommended shop opened in the early '80s, and in mid-decade the shop and distribution functions separated from the labels, becoming a workers collective and changing its name to These Records. In the early '90s Cutler merged the labels under the name ReR Megacorp and set up a new distribution and mailorder service under the same name. These Records continued until 2006, when it finally closed.

Often telling which label a release is on can be confusing, even with the release in front of you. The way to tell them apart is by the catalog numbers:
Re or Rē numbers = Rē Records [generally releases featuring Chris Cutler]
R.R. or RR numbers = Recommended Records [releases by other artists]
ReR numbers = ReR Megacorp [releases after 1988]

The quarterly albums they put out are compilations of the some of the best and most advanced progressive music the earth had ever heard.  In this installment you have a side-long suite that is incredibly well-composed by the Berlin Programme but the best tracks are from the famed Polish RIO group Reportaz.  Their music here is both advanced and accessible.

Note that many of these tracks were put out on CD samplers much later in the nineties, but on a quick scan of those track lists, I noticed they left out many of the most interesting and ingenious tracks, not surprisingly.  Why is that always the case?

The Fluent Reportaz:

These albums are very much in line with what the blog mutant sounds used to post. I was surprised they never posted any of these records in there, though I might be wrong.