My first encounter with David Torn was also an ECM album - Cloud About Mercury. I actually found it used sometime shortly after it's release in 1986. I didn't know who David Torn was but was well aware of his fellow bandmates - Mark Isham, Tony Levin, Bill Bruford. He might be better know by some as a gueest musician. He's worked with Tori Amos, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Happy Rhodes, Jeff Beck, and David Sylvian to name a few. Also had a more prominent role in Bruford Levin Upper Extremeties; Levin Torn White; as well as leading up Torn, Karn, and Bozzio.

For those who are acquainted with Torn as a guest musician he does have a fairly trademark style that once you get to know you will recognise even if you don't already know he's on as a guest musician.

As far as I know this is his only true solo project to date. He plays guitar and an electric oud (a guitar like instrument used in middle eastern and mediterranean music). No credit is given to whatever he's using for his loops.

The music is played solo without overdubs as near as I can tell. It's very ambient and should certainly be of interest to people who like Robert Fripp's solo guitar works.

This was the Dixie Dregs lineup that I first come to know live and otherwise. The Montreaux Jazz Festival performance was used for side two of the LP Night of the Living Dregs. I had no idea the concert was filmed. This represents the band at their prime. Keyboardist Mark Parrish, would soon be replaced by T Lavitz, who is a better keyboard player, but this as this performance testifies, he was no slouch either. Oddly enough, the back cover of this DVD shows a band picture with the original keyboardist from Freefall, Steve Davidowski (guess there was only room for one Steve in this band). Steve Morse was at his most inspired around this time, even though he has certainly grown in skill over the years.

The set list is a little disappointing as it lacks some of the prime cuts from What If (Night Meets Light, Odyssey, Travel Tunes, What If), but I'm not complaining. Now I have something more than just memories of the many Dregs shows I saw back then. It is more of a forward looking set which includes Attila The Hun, that didn't show up on an album until three years later. Also of note, but of less interest to progressive rock fans, is the bluegrass style ditty, Kathreen, never released on a regular album, but only showed up on their demo album, The Great Spectacular, from 1975. If you have a copy of that album, you have something rare, indeed.

Thrown in for bonus are two live TV appearances, one on American Can'tstand (Bandstand) and one on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert. On the former, you get to see them both try out a vocalist, in an attempt to appeal to a more mainstream audience, and with Mark O'Connor, who only played with them for one album, but a few great live shows before the band disbanded for a few years.

As great as the band studio albums were, the live shows took things to an even higher level. Now you can see what you missed, unless you didn't.

Bram Stoker is 100 years dead as of April 2012. Imagine that. Nosferatu is actually the name of a movie released in 1922 based on Stoker's novel Dracula but the studio wasn't able to get the rights the novel. The music was created for a modern Polish stage production that is supposed to be "of" the novel. I wasn't able to verify what they are actually calling the play, but anyway...

I was a big horror movie fan and also a movie soundtrack fan when I was a kid before I got into prog and jazz and classical so I had to go for this album and it has some of all of that all rolled together. Before you even get to the music you have to take a look at and a feel of the package. The Tzadic label gets two thumbs up for all the CD album packaging and artwork I have encountered so far. The outer cover is a velvety textured black cardboard with dark red slick textured lettering and a little bat on the front. The back is also smooth and velvety with dripping blood from the top edge. The booklet is more of a matt finish but also uses slick clear lettering on the front and clear slick blood streaks running down from the top edges of the pages in various patterns. The booklet has a few pages of pictures from the production (play, dance?) and it looks like it would be really good to see. Maybe it will make it to DVD one day.

Two other albums come to mind and they are Philip Glass's Dracula soundtrack for the Bela Lugosi movie that did get the novel rights and Harold Budd's (not at all about Dracula or Nosferatu) She Is A Phantom. The latter album comes closer to it for having vibes and a more atmospheric quality to the music. Put the three together and you'll have a nice spooky trio.

The track names are fairly indicative of the music you get as the characters and story themes inspire the music. Desolate Landscape starts out the album with foreboding dark ambient music. Mina mellows it out a little while with piano and vibes. The Battle of Good and Evil noisy as you would expect from a battle between good and evil. John gets to in a little of his trademark sax strangling of course. Very industrial sounding a little Nine Inch Nailsish.

Sinistera and Van Helsing have that spooky vibes driven sound that makes me think of the Budd album. Fatal Sunrise brings back some mellower sax work and Bill Laswell steps forward with some atmospheric bass. Hypnosis comes in and spins around your head vibes and electric piano. The Lucy theme has some similarities to another piece from another album, but I can't quite put my finger on it right now. All of the non-undead persons titled pieces on this are really down to earth, mellow, and contemplative. Nosferatu on the other hand is screwy and creepy with rat noises and Zorn's breath.

The Stalking is one of those trademark Bill Laswell ambient dub style pieces. It's a long stalking too, as all stalking should be I guess. Old horror movie stalkings tend to be that way. It's the longest piece. The bass plods on along and creepy keyboards and squealing sax drift in and out and about. The Undead is a quiet piece with John on piano. Death Ship sounds like a creaky old vessel on a dead sea. Jonathan Harker has Rob Burger, the main keyboardist in the group, taking center stage in a duet with the group's percussionist, Kevin Norton, on vibes.

Vampires At Large, bass and electric keyboards lurking about. Renfield, piano and vibes again, hesitant, a little mysterious. Stalker Dub wraps it up, figures, did you remember to shoot it in the head with a silver bullet? No wait? that's all wrong. The stake, the stake, aieeee!!!

Imagine Tony Williams, Bill Laswell, Pharoah Sanders, and Buckethead walk into a bar…

You don’t have to.

Apologies to Byard Lancaster, Graham Haynes, and Nicky Skopelitis. You guys apparently also walked into the same bar at the same time and the end result is one intense album, but I’m not familiar you guys.

This is oh my God intense instrumental music. Also Tony William’s last album before he died.

Ironically I was browsing around for Buckethead stuff and ran into this, Arcana, which also happened to be the name of the company I was working for at the time.

Spacey jazz rock with a little metal seasoning. So synthymetaljazzrockfusion? Not well known but well worth getting to know.

If you haven't heard this one it's sort of like a long lost Brand X album. I confess to knowing nothing more of Wilding and Bonus beyond this album. The music here is very much in the vein of '70's Brand X and has appearances by Phil Collins, John Goodsall, John Giblin, Robin Lumley, Morris Pert.

But even if you take away the nekkid women cover it's still a really fun instrumental album and very much in the vein of what Brand X was doing at the time.

I should probably rectify the lack of familiarity with Danny Wilding and Pete Bonus. Also fortified with Bayette and Rebop Kwaku Baah.