An upgrade of Melchiori and Luciani's Brilliant Aspetti Della Natura in lossless (Library, late 70s)

To me this is one of the most beautiful of all library records-- at least, side b is.  It was posted previously, in fact the trilogy from these two composers was completed (for me, at least) when I posted on prognotfrog their "Inchiesta sul Mezzogiorno" (which can be reuploaded by request, in mp3).  The other album was on the dusty shelf blog long ago and was called "Atmosfera" and to me was the least successful (can be upped again in mp3). Oddly enough as separate composers I never found their material to be as good as this set.  Although it always struck me as annoying that the Luciani compositions, which are far superior, were in mono whereas the Melchiori electronica are stereo.

The standout track for me is the legend of the lake, which reminded me of the north of Italy and the gorgeous castle Scaliger on Lake Garda and the Roman ruins in the north of the peninsula.  I mentioned this before here with Luciani's Eventi.

Here's the upgraded version of the song:




The beauty of the song lies not only in the use of a cello to play the melody, which as mentioned innumerable times sounds plaintive and sad to us, but in the high-treble chords with plenty of second intervals the piano is playing, without any bass addition to detract from the bell-like percussiveness and quasi-dissonance, and the downward pattern of these chords evokes rain.  Notice also how interesting and well-composed the bridge is, taking it away from the simplistic (I - IV - V) chord progression of the stanzas.  Sheer genius.

Does anyone know where it was used, as doubtless it must have been being such a heavenly composition...   For when I think of music, I have repeated before (over and over in fact) that, as an atheist, music is the closest I will ever get to heaven or to put it differently it's the closest to heaven we mortals will get while we are here on earth.


P.S. Apologies for the warped tracks (A4, A5) which we can safely blame on the Italian jerk who sold me this and overcharged me by 50 euros...  anyways to compensate I threw in the old mp3 rips of those tracks...

A. R. Luciani's Allarme Ecologico (1973), at last

I had been dying to hear this one for so many years, since I first discovered A.R. Luciani's trilogy series with Melchiori, and I was so excited when last month it finally became available-- until I listened to it.  Mostly it's in the classical modern music vein, but not as inspired and creative as so much else he created.  There's just not a lot to hang on to.  You can see on the right I've posted a lot from him already, notably my rip of his oceanic work.  His discography, probably incomplete, on discogs.

Really, it's an odd mix of dissonant atonal Hitchcock Psycho-like music, classical borrowings, the usual Stravinsky cameos, plus a couple of relatively generic soundtracky theme songs.

Ultima Migrazione:





The music on Difacimento della Natura is great-- minus the odd sewer bubbling sounds in the background, perhaps a fatberg of wetwipes:

Gelmetti,Luciani,Turicoli - Nature Et Montagne (Sonimage ‎– SI 802)

While scanning the Luciani discography I came across this album with appealing titles relating to European sights.  Subject lines include the Dolomites (big disappointment for us, just some mountains, and not very tall either), Cypres (are we allowed to go there still??  don't get into any arguments with the locals!), Muletier Corse (no desire to visit Napoleon's hometown, wasn't he pretty much the French Hitler?), Vendanges (are you kidding-- French wines are the worst in the world!! only old men with no taste buds still drink that stuff, and even their worst vintages are overpriced), Cimes (let's all hang out with some eurotrash ski bunnies? sure, sorry, but I'll be in Colorado myself, where the women know how to shave, or, in the best cases, wax), etc., etc...  I was particularly curious about his treatment of the Chateau de la Loire (A2) (magnificent, recommended to all):





Unfortunately it's a little too baroque for my taste, unlike the superb compositions of the earlier Aspetti della Natura.  Having said this, there are some interesting pieces.  The B3 Glaciers of Gelmetti is one:





Too bad said glaciers will be all gone in a couple of decades thanks to European inaction in the climate change department.  We'll see what happens in Paris this fall with moving forward on cutting greenhouse gases as opposed to government spokesperson gases.

A disappointment not to discover a gem like the aforementioned treasure.  But the hunt continues.

A. Riccardo Luciani avec April Orchestra Présente RCA Sound Vol. 9 (1977)

I felt I should make an attempt at completing some of his huge discography, because the three albums he did in conjunction with Marco Melchiori were so beautiful.  Compositions here are baroque, medieval, slightly adventurous but not excessively or predominantly so.  There is less of the crystalline textures that made the three albums referred to above such masterpieces.  When I posted the missing of the three on prognotfrog (Inchiesta sul Mezzogiorno) I mentioned the other two had been posted on the dusty shelf blog, sadly now in slight hibernation.  Of course if you don't have a taste for classical music, you should not listen to these records.

By the end one is overcome with the sense we are in the court of King Arthur, but oh well-- the search continues, as I always say.  And anyways we'll be hearing more from Luciani soon, like it or not.

More Library and more Luciani with Divertissement Baroque (Kaleidoscope No. 6) -- Lossless Available!

I don't know what possessed me to buy another baroque outing from Luciani.  Maybe because of their great popularity out there in the ''blogosphere" or perhaps "blogtopia."

Anyways, what you see is what you get here for sure.  A little too light for my tastes.  A typical sample, B2, Clementina:





Notice the famous whistling of the composer.

Joachim Sherylee and Jacky Giordano albums, by request

There's a ton of music here to go through, or perhaps to slog through, and in no way could I describe myself as an expert on library records, there are many out there of course who know far more than me.  All I can really do is present some of my favourite tracks from these albums and hope you haven't heard some of these before.  Here's his probably incomplete discography.  Many albums as usual are hidden under aliases, such as the requested Joachim Sherylee ones.

I suppose 1974's Challenger is the best known from him, but I didn't think it was the best, though the track called See Off shows his compositional abilities in the dreamiest of moods:





An earlier album called Rhythmes et Melodies, perhaps his first release (?) from 1973, I thought was simply average, disappointingly lacking anything too strong to cling to.  It's not included below.

For funk fans though the years 1975 to 1978 were his golden age, with just a never ending series of dynamic and interesting beats topped by that beautiful fuzzy organ plus guitar sound.  Not so much progressive composition, but 1977's Music Report just knocked me out, reminding me most of the famous April Orchestra album by Puccio Roelens: dynamic and well-written 70s funk instrumentals.  What could go wrong?  The gorgeous title track of Music Report:





Well, what went wrong is that electronic music in the late 70s beat up the funkosphere, so that following the 2 organ albums, Giordano jumped on the 'simple electronic' bandwagon of Jean-Michel Jarre where musical simplicity and atrocious repetition in the style of Etudes for Children was valued.  I include here the later albums Electronic, Sequences, and Paysages 2.  Here and there though the great composer could still shine brightly with a beautifully written complex track like Wind of Sun:





Unfortunately most of that album (Electronic) was written by Benoit Hutin, who is noticeably inferior.

I want to save some last words for my favourite Giordano album which is Paysages 1. This is cowritten with someone unknown to me called Paul Baile who went on to make the third in the series (anyone know if it's worth pursuing?)

It presents a completely different style of music, the A.R. Luciani / Milan Pilar school of melded pop - classical composition, but with the utmost delicacy and just exemplary composing acumen and imagination.  Is it the combination of the two that worked so well?  Distinct to the remainder of the Giordano oeuvre the instrumentation involves harp, flute and other chamber instruments.  Thus Glistening Dream is representative:





How to explain?
So the search for the most beautiful music carries on.


PS
I forgot this excellent one:

A rare VA Italian library from 1974, Astrofisica (Il Cielo)

In the midst of containment, lockdowns, quarantines, isolations, cancellations and coronascares, let's try to remember the glory of Italian library albums and their blissful beneficence like the touch of a great and tender sainted pope from albums along the lines of Gianni Marchetti, Oscar Rocchi, Marco Persichetti, A.R. Luciani, and of course OST composer Ennio Morricone, the inimitable one.  And let's feel happy for those Italians who were so unhappy with us tourists in the past and now are lucky enough to have all their beautiful cities to themselves: Venice or Milan or anywhere else they despise the millions of tourists who prop up their economies.  Of course we will all be in the same position as them, and the poor people of Wuhan, China, very soon...  Unfortunately the music here is quite abstract and concrete, along the lines of that library that everyone constantly asks me to reupload from years ago, I don't even remember its name.  Note the composers involved in the database, here.
Telescopi, a composition by Bozzalla:





An expensive rarity that really, to my ears, doesn't deserve to be.

And finally everybody remember the following:

Please don't panic.
More importantly, please don't be calm.
At this time the risk for the domestic dog species is considered to be low.
Continue with daily life as before.
Pretend nothing has changed.
We will continue to closely monitor the situation and update things because they are changing dramatically every day.
We have vomited up everything, out of an abundance of caution.
Do not buy, use, sell, or put on any kind of mask whether surgical, N95, or cat-whiskered, unless you are about to die in the next few seconds.
Please, do not hoard toilet paper.  You can use your hands. And it will be of no use to you anyways when you are on a respirator in ICU drowning in infectious fluids filling your gasping, dying lungs, suffocating on a dumb bat virus.

Viral videos, you youtubers?
Viral lives...

A. R. Luciani: Eau. Mer. Profondeur-- finally a complete and lossless !

I guess there are already four records I posted from this amazing composer (Eventi, Divertissement Baroque, Nature et Montagne and the amazing Aspetti).  He was very prolific however and it's doubtful we will see the end of them.  Without more ado then here's another very classically-influenced record which was available in truncated form earlier.  At least it was enough that it convinced me I had to buy a copy of this to hear the totality in its enlightening glory.  The two sides are somewhat different, with the first being mainly full-on orchestral borrowings from classical composers (the Rite of Spring makes an odd appearance with polytonality on one track) while side two is much more accessible featuring harp or vibraphonal backgrounds and chamber or woodwind instruments playing melodies above.

Example, Lumiere sur la mer, which showcases the always-plaintive melancholy sound of the oboe atop a harp and synthesizer or electric piano, thereafter building more with flutes and strings. Really quite gorgeous, and as I said multiply in the past, the sort of stuff I wish were played in concert halls throughout the world instead of the usual old boring programme that draws such apocalyptic hordes of hearing-aid-eared nonagenarians whom I often see drinking the cream from the tiny little free cups they place beside the sugar for those who buy cheap coffee...  such is old age (and mine and everyone's future), I guess...

Library composer Alex Serra in Atmosfere and Continenente [sic] Mediterraneo

Not much in the database in regards to this artist, with two logged LPs.  His music is very similar to so much Italian library from these pages, cf., Luciani, Fallabrino, etc.
A curious misspelling on the album cover at top, not indicative of the wonderful and professional library musical contents, cf. the title track:





The Atmosfere album is not as good, being too atmospheric.

Library composer Brian Bennett, 11 albums

I can't believe how lazy those KPM covers were.  They didn't even change the colors the way international postage stamps did in my stamp collection I treasured so much as a child, which my mom kept and threw away a few years ago to my utter and total chagrin.  Or maybe it's still sitting in our basement somewhere next to all our kids' rock collections, which I expect to toss out too.  Who cares, anyways.  We don't use stamps anymore, right, now that we have amazon, youtube, tiktok, snapchat, whatsapp and instagram????  Hey--what's a stamp?  You actually had to lick those things?  Yeah, you millenials know all about licking.  OK boomer.  Yes, let's not go there, take it to twitter, if you want WWII-like raging arguments.

Some of these have the great Alan Hawkshaw, my favourite library composer, included.  On the other hand, I had never heard of Brian Bennett until looking through the Hawkshaw discography for stuff I missed I came across his name.  And unbelievably, there are still libraries by Hawkshaw that haven't been 'digitized' yet for us all.

From discogs:

Born 1940 in London. Percussionist since the 1950s. Joined Cliff Richard & The Shadows in 1961.
Since the mid 1970s arranger, conductor and record producer, composer for film and TV.

In this instance, definitely the LPDP applies, after 1978-1979 in which he made quite a great deal of nice funky energetic music alternating with lovely gentle symphonic music along the lines of the great John Fiddy, the slow decline begins.

Nonetheless I think we can all agree that in the immortal 1974 track called Nuplex there is just about everything we can and do love about the great library music of the 1970s, the funky beat, the synths, the horn section, the lovely rhodes piano curlicues, the very tasteful string section touches:





I love how all the instruments meld together so absolutely perfectly.
On the wonderful 1978 Bruton album Drama Montage the track Fast and Furious is just that:





And that album has numerous delights in it.
In the same year, Tone Poems has a delicatesse that recalls all the best of A.R. Luciani's work (did I ever post a lot of his stuff in the past).  Unfortunately the guy who ripped it, and I won't swear here, did it in mono.  I might just buy the vinyl and redo the rip, bring you back a lossless, because I think it deserves better.  Consider the Migration track, demonstrating his quasi-miraculous ease with classical composition:





That track alone later appears on a different library album.
Special mention for this album, called Voyage into Discoid Funk (1978). which was his attempt at crafting a fusion concept album along the lines of Lenny White's Venusian Summer which in fact is quite similar.  A number of high energy standard fusion tracks in there, overall really a solid album that came as quite a surprise to me (because I never heard it before, despite it being right up my alley).

In this package there are a couple of albums he made in conjunction with the great Alan Hawkshaw.
I didn't check too closely who wrote which songs, but there's one thing I can say for certain: the closer for 1974's KPM Synthesis, which is called Mermaid, is 100 percent from Hawkshaw, and you will agree too when you hear that unmistakable synthesizer:

A Roberto Anselmi: Strumentali - Storie, from 1985

He made a large number of library records back in the day, this one came out in 1985. The name was one of many rarer library composers requested from the country of Italy. As was mentioned so many times before Italian library records are always curiously overpriced, for me never quite fitting the level of quality of the music.  The bio on discogs:

Roberto Anselmi, italian, director and composer, author of music for images, for several television programs, theater performances, documentaries, theme songs and commercials.

Unfortunately the music is relatively generic library music from the early 1980s.  Much of it seems to have a melancholy bent, such as this one:




Clearly the chamber instrumentation and oboe solos throughout recall such classics as the Aspetti della Natura, the A.R. Luciani, etc.

Bonus, another library I found with him plus Tarossi and Maioli, this one from 1987,which features a couple of nice songs but is also rather generic.

A. R. Luciani - Eventi (Italy, 1978)

A very Mahleresque, sometime baroque, purely orchestral entry from this master of library music whose discography I will try sporadically to complete.  Note that a large no. of these have already been ripped, albeit poorly, for mp3 listening, which I appreciate since it allows us to decide whether spending 50-100 dollars on a record is a waste or not.  Specifically I became interested in his music when I heard the shockingly gorgeous "Leggenda del lago" on the Aspetti della Natura collaboration with Melchiori which I will reproduce here for those who don't know it:





I was always puzzled as to whether this particular song was used as a soundtrack theme on a movie somewhere, and if so, where exactly, maybe someone out there knows and can clarify.  It will always remind me personally of driving through the North of Italy when we decided to stop to see the gorgeous Castle Scaliger on Lake Garda.  At the end of a little peninsula there stretching into the lake like a finger are the ruins of an immense roman villa which I ran through quickly as we were in a rush to get to Milan.  I will never forget the beauty of those ruins on the lake and the sadness of loss it represents.  The pictures you can see here don't quite do it justice, particularly with regards to the extended scope of them, but you can see why the song reminds me of this trip.

Evidently some of these library LPs are still quite rare, like the interestingly titled "Allarme Ecologico" which I hope will not be too pricey if and when it turns up, considering I have just returned from a long sojourn on a road trip to the beach where my family spent a lot of money, not just on toys for the children and toys for my wife (like her Louboutin shoes).  Expecting it to be cheap to stay near the ocean proved overoptimistic of course, as I found the concentration of tempting amusement parks and arcades too much for my young kids who were attracted like moths to outdoor lights (as always it was father moth who got most burned there in monetary terms) to the loud sounds and stuffed animals that broke after one day's handling and the rides they were far too scared to enjoy but which nonetheless cost plenty of money for a few tears and an anxiety attack-- maybe next time I can just feed my kids coffee and cigarettes till they get a much cheaper panic attack?  And of course no family holiday is complete without my wife going shopping to those damned outlet malls in the United States where you can easily spend thousands of dollars on the basis that you're saving money by getting great deals, and I have to listen to my wife saying each time "I'm just looking in this store!!" each look of course costing me a few hundred dollars, after a few hours, I'm begging her to stop looking, those looks are just too expensive-- like the way a porn star needs constant plastic surgery maybe... I guess that's what being married is all about... daddy better work hard and overtime too when he gets home and stop buying those expensive records...

Here's a really beautiful track:

The Great Gianni Fallabrino and Momenti Musicali from 1973

The album Progetto Europa was the first I heard from him and turned out to be just a delight of masterful library inventiveness.  So thereafter I tried to seek out the remainder of his discography.

On this 1973 library release there is some gorgeous classical chamber music with cello & guitar.  A surprise to hear so much texture with only a duet.  As usual, the melodic bowed cello conjures some of the most plaintive, melancholy, and expressive emotions fit for the standard human brain.

Consider for ex., the track called Third World:





And of course it's quite reminiscent of my old favourite Luciani, from whose work I posted 6 LPs in the past.

Credits:
Cello – Nazareno Cicoria
Classical Guitar – Veraldo Paolini

Some favourites in different genres from within this blog...

The above is a painting/collage that I bought long ago and sits hanging above my turntable-computer set up and that, obviously, resembles the room full of books and records plus CDRs, DVDs, and backup hard drives it looks down upon.

Many many years ago, perhaps decades, perhaps in the nineteen fifties, the commenter asked me for my favourite blog posts.  It's a hard task to carry out, for the usual reasons: I barely remember what I did a week ago, what would you expect going back the 7 years I've done this crazy thing? But of course the biggest problem is that, as my wife said, it's the same album I just keep collecting over and over again.

Nonetheless it sure makes sense to close out this year of 2020, that so many have already said deserves to be entirely forgotten and erased from humanity's collective memory.

The other problem is that I've been more busy with work this year since the pandemic began and for this sadly I count myself lucky when I hear so many stories of people who have suffered through the opposite, particularly all those in the artistic and hospitality industries.  And no I don't work for amazon.com and the (new) emperor of the world Mr. Bezos currently with ownership of 70% of the milky way galaxy.

I will go by categories of which chamber prog (classical music-influenced prog), not surprisingly, is the longest.

It would be nice if people would assemble their own list of favourites, not necessarily from out of this blog, but secondly, post their final requests to close out the year.  More on that at the end.

I give you links back to the blog, but if there are missing uploads obviously I will repair and reup anything.  I don't mind having functioning links for all the music here, which will last hopefully a while, by god's grace, or rather, by the gods of silicon valley's grace.

PROGRESSIVE FUSION:

Don Mock's Mock One-- his speed of light was hugely underrated, I enjoyed that one immensely as well:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/06/don-mock-flying-at-mock-one-in-1978.html

Mike Santiago Entity:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/01/mike-santiago-entity-white-trees-usa.html

and the other Mike, Mike Warren and Survival Kit (posted in comments below)

Aussie First Light:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-first-light-from-down-under-in-1978.html

and Aussie Alpha Omega:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/10/alpha-omega-1976-by-request.html

Gulgowski's Soundcheck:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/04/rory-vincent-sings-music-of-wlodek.html

Of course, all the myriad and incomparables of Jun Fukamachi (multiple posts exist all over the place):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2018/04/jun-fukamachi-plays-on-completely.html

Impressionistic Masahiko Satoh a close second:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/12/yet-another-japanese-fusionary-genius.html

Fellow Space Traveller James Vincent (possibly the most referenced artist in my blogposts):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-remainder-of-james-vincents.html

Bright Sun's Fenyes Nap:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/01/bright-suns-fenyes-nap-from-hungary.html

German Nimbus, the most wanted album of the decade:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2018/03/happy-easter-and-nimbus-1980-by.html

LIGHTER FUSION:

Michel Madore

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/02/michel-madores-le-komuso-cordes-from.html

Jukka Linkola
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/03/jukka-linkola-octets-proto-funk-from.html

(And his Banana masterpiece which was ripped for pnf in the past)

The Three Simon and Bard:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/01/simon-bard-featuring-larry-coryell-in.html

College Kid Peter Berkow:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2013/12/heres-huge-pre-xmas-gem-for-all-you.html
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/01/more-peter-berkow-with-thesis-from-1975.html

Fred Taylor's Court of Circe (note artist's appearance in the comments!):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/07/1982-usa-fred-taylors-court-of-circe.html

All the wonderful joys of Paul Winter and his Consort:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-early-years-of-paul-winter-consort.html

GENRE GRAND FUNK ROCK (i.e. not necessarily prog):

The best of 'em all Baby Grand:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2018/03/pomp-rockers-baby-grand-in-1977-and-1978.html

Ambush, my personal favourite:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/07/ambush-redux.html

Starbound Lady's Kickin' still:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/01/kickin-and-starbound-lady-usa-nebraska.html

Astoundingly prolific Raul Porchetto (really, prog):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/03/raul-porchetto-from-1972-to-1980.html

Daddy Warbucks, the tax scam man:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/07/daddy-warbucks-another-brilliant-tax.html

Crazy nuthead (turned preacher, recall) Karlos Steinblast & No. 1 hard rock:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/01/karlos-p-steinblast-compleat.html

Frank Robson's Two:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/05/frank-robson-st-1974.html

Fish Co., the most underrated unknown pop album ever made:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/09/fish-cos-1978-beneath-laughter.html

Sand's astounding West Coast rock (note artist appearance in comments!):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/05/us-west-coast-sands-1976-effort-head-in.html

The Exceptions - Simply Us, simply unparalleled:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-exceptions-simply-us-from-wonderful.html

GENRE TRUE PROGRESSIVE ROCK:

Level F (note the artists' commentary!):

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/09/level-f-stitch-in-time-recorded-1975.html

Ginga Rale Band, of course:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/06/ginga-rale-bands-1980-wir-bedauern-true.html

Mo's First Time:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-amazing-mos-first-album-from-1976.html

Genre's Commercial Success:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2014/03/genre-commercial-success-from-1978-new.html

XALPH:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/05/french-zeuhl-band-xalph-1974-1981.html

The Individual's Trauma:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-individuals-trauma-usa-1980-minor.html

Gerardo Batiz's multiple oeuvres:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/07/isla-from-gerardo-batiz-1981-plus-bonus.html

Tommy Korberg plus Stefan Nilsson in Blixtlas (below).

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2013/10/tommy-korberg-stefan-nilsson-blixtlas.html

An beautiful and ancient old post, Wisse Scheper Topaz:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2013/10/wisse-scheper-topaz-net-1972.html

Evergreen State College albums:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-evergreen-state-college-music.html

Melisma's Like Trolls (note again artist-related comments)

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/04/next-masterwork-melismas-magnificent.html

And might as well include the two from Marie-Claire Seguin, though some will object:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/12/maire-claire-seguins-two-masterpieces.html

GENRE PROGRESSIVE CHAMBER or PROG-CLASSICAL, a personal favourite:

Doug Lofstrom's Music:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/01/doug-lofstroms-music-composition-from.html

Peter Wolf's Tutti:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2018/10/austrian-composer-peter-wolf-and.html

Joxifications, see below

Marco Antonio Araujo, RIP:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/08/beyond-brilliant-brazilian-composer.html

The wonderful commenter who found Nuevos Aires's 3:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/08/nuevos-aires-from-buenos-aires.html

Membrillar:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/06/membrillar-1984-argentina.html

Iviron (pnf) see below

Roger Kellaway's Cello Quartet, one of my favourite albums of all time, see below

Claus Ogerman in review:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-review-of-most-of-claus-ogermans.html

Thanks to the commenter who drew my attention to the recent CD Across the Crystal Sea which has brought me no end of joy in the last few months!

Rafiq Babayev, note there are 2 posts:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/06/azerbaijan-composer-rafiq-babayev.html

Yuri Chugonov, wow thanks a million to the guy who posted those!! Truly the single most underrated composer I've ever encountered:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-remarkable-lost-composerarranger.html

Igor Nazaruk's Forest Awakens (pnf), see below

Igor Brill's 3:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-amazing-igor-bril-or-brill-and-his.html

Lothlorien's 2:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/08/lothloriens-two-lps-st-1980-and-spaces.html

Marcia Meyer:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/01/marcia-meyers-magnificent-oeuvre-part-2.html

Albert Alan Owen's Keyboard and Strings Music

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/04/albert-alan-owens-keyboards-and-strings.html

And a big surprise for me, not knowing anything about this, having only known his jazz efforts: Keith Jarrett's masterful progressive fusion orchestral work Luminessence (1975), see below.

GENRE THE BELOVED LIBRARY MUSIC:

Modern Sound Quartet's 3:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/07/flp-116-modern-sound-quartets-1976.html
Gianni Marchetti (multiple posts), of course:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/03/gianni-marchettis-stunning-work.html

Oscar Rocchi and Magic Keys, of course:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2019/02/oscar-rocchis-magic-keys.html

The two from Marco Persichetti:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2020/12/persichetti-part-two-noi-quattro-from.html

Luciani's Aspetti della Natura:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-upgrade-of-melchiori-and-lucianis.html

Brandenburg:
https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-rias-orchestra-cond-by-helmuth.html
Jean-Pierre Bouquet's Classique et Moderne, see below.

And of course, all the myriad of April Orchestra from 1 to 1095, which you can still look up if you forgot them.

An unclassifiable favourite is Haitians Gerald Merceron and Mushi Widmaier, who appeared multiple times here, but especially for Merceron's masterpiece in 1979:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/10/return-to-haiti-1978s-lenergie.html

And Mushi's lovely and beloved masterpiece from 1983:

https://progressreview.blogspot.com/2015/04/mushi-lakansyels-absolutely-genius-kote.html

This LP was rereleased, thank god, just after it was last seen selling in the hundreds of dollars.

I bought a copy for 60 euros back then in 2015.

And this Xmas I'm going to do something I've never done before.  I'm going to ask you to post requests and this time I will try to fulfill as many as I can: gods of prog, selfish vinyl collectors, and lossless lovers be damned.  Well, it may turn out I'll chicken out here and there, in order not to annoy those powers that be who have been so generous with me in the past. 

So I guess this will be on a case by case basis, as the corporate people love to say. We'll try to onboard as many of you as possible and empower you all so reach out to me to connect for some face time so we can leverage this post and I'll give 110 percent so we're all on the same page on improving our metrics on best practices and everyone really just try to think outside that box.  Because that box, of course, is completely empty.

Merry Xmas.  OOPS sorry I meant Happy Holidays.  

Oh well: it is what it is.