OK, I'm a sucker for this band's later period, when they were loud & rambunctious, and turned their backs on the pretentious aspects of early 70's Progressive Rock. This is the best sounding, best filmed, and best edited Gentle Giant concert available to date. They do play a lot of their earlier, contrapuntal stuff (which should thrill their long-standing fan base), but they approach it more like The Yardbirds wailing out "Train Kept A-Rollin" than one might imagine. The tempos kick as the band works up a sweat, and gives us a glimpse of where Rock 'N Roll should have gone in the 80's. After the concert we're treated to 6 Gentle Giant "rock videos" : Interview, I Lost My Head and Give it Back - plus 3 others from "Giant For A Day". Until now, these were legendary films that had hardly seen the light of day.

There are 2 additional live videos from 1974 on disc 1: "Excerpts From Octopus" (from The Old Grey Whistle Test, April 1976, which is of good quality, though not quite up to par with the main concert footage), and some super-8, hand held footage from the "In A Glass House" era . The latter doesn't do the music justice, but the band is well-known these days (26 years after their demise) as an organization that will give the public their due money's worth, warts and all. If you're a fan, you'll probably enjoy this addition, as it can have you reminiscing about a time when it was cool to be freaky - before the real sickness and schlock set in to Rock 'N Roll. Also on the first disc: Two galleries of Gentle Giant still photos from guitarist Gary Green's private collection.

Disc 2 is the audio of the Golders Green concert footage and is, to my ears, an improvement upon the previously released CD form, "Gentle Giant In Concert". This was the band's 2nd genuine live album, posthumously released in the 90's , now out-of-print.

I suppose this set could be an embarrassment of riches for some, and a guilty pleasure for others. For me it's both: To regain my composure, and get over the compunction of enjoying it so thoroughly after the first sitting, I had merely to remember where I'd come from.

"Phonography was Stevie's first LP release, and an out-of-the-blue masterpiece: terminally idiosyncratic but with all the compositional qualities of great pop. A gifted songwriter, R Stevie (son of Bob Moore, Elvis' bassist) grew up and was steeped in Nashville's countrypolitanism; but, as a recidivist rebel, he inevitably slipped into strange byways, following his own, unique path into celebrated obscurity - as this strange and compelling record attests.

Hans Arp said, 'My paintings are like fingernails: they keep growing and I keep cutting them off'. R Stevie's songs seem to follow the same rule. They create worlds, tell stories, trifle wantonly with form, harmony, structure and execution, and throw off passages of casual brilliance on the way. Lo-fi is integral to its purpose. You can't pay to get a sound like that.

So, when nobody seemed to want to keep Phonography in print, ReR Megacorp were happy to oblige - it's history. We took the opportunity to re-master and restore it to its original form."

Faust, Art Bears, ZNR, Robert Wyatt, The Residents, Henry Cow, This Heat, Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Stormy Six, Aqsak Maboul, Picchio Dal Pozzo, Decibel, Goebbels and Harth, The Homosexuals, The Work, Amos and Sarah, The Black Sheep, Feliu Gasul, The Muffins, R.Stevie Moore, Robel Vogel, Ron Pate/Raudelunas, Conventum, Joseph Racaille and Patrick Portella Originally released in 1982, this is a collection of specially commissioned and (at the time) newly recorded pieces by the most interesting groups and individuals then in the Recommended catalogue. Never reissued, it has slowly become a prized collectors' item - and remains an indispensable snapshot of the range and musical brilliance of this critical moment in the history of a small community of left-field groups struggling towards new musical languages. The breadth of imagination displayed is exemplary and it is amazing how fresh and original this music still sounds, and how much things have changed in only 25 years.