VARIOUS ARTISTS
Round And Round: Progressive Sounds Of 1974 ESOTERIC
Five hours of quality prog from a key year in the genre’s development.
Astonishing to think that all the dazzlingly inventive music compiled for this four-CD clamshell box was made in the same year. Naturally, journalist and labelcatalogue consultant Mark Powell’s informative sleeve notes are careful not to suggest 1974 was anything like prog’s year zero, however. Rather he holds that it saw a growing appetite for lengthy, conceptual songs made by questing folks who knew their way around a fretboard/keyboard. He also notes that the year in question saw some of prog’s most diverse influences coalesce.