Produced at AIR Studios, London, January 1974. On sticker:- The original stereo mix of the 1974 classic- Newly cut from masters approved by Robert Fripp, Includes exclusive codes for 320kbps MP3 downloads of an original 1974 vinyl transfer
-200-gram super-heavyweight vinyl.

Esoteric Recordings America is pleased to announce the release of a newly re-mastered and expanded clamshell box edition of the classic album, Turn of the Cards by Renaissance. Released in 1974, the album was an artistic triumph and heralded the band’s commercial breakthrough in the United States.
Featuring highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion), Turn of the Cards was recorded in March 1974 at De Lane Lea studios in Wembley, North London and featured the band incorporating symphonic orchestral arrangements into their material extensively on classic pieces such as ‘Running Hard’, ‘Things I Don’t Understand’ and ‘Mother Russia’…

Formed in 1972, this ethnic/kraut jazz quintet (Jochen Leuschner, Reinhard Karwatky, Gerd Bock-Ehrmann, Deiter Kramer, and Ludwig Braun) released their self titled album the same year in a relative discretion. This album made an exploration in long / space rock improvisations relied on jazz grooves and weird electro -acoustic sounds. The "ethnic", mystical elements are obvious notably due to the acoustic percussions rhythm sections. Compositions are mainly instrumental and improvised, brightly showing the technical capacities of the musicians. After several departures the band will be organised under a trio form, recording in 1973 the seminal "Time Machine". This album features astonishing manifestations of freaky fusion jazz exercises mixed with weird experimentations and mysticism. This album was recorded at Dieter Dierk's mythical studio…

Windows is a live album by Jon Lord and the German conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener. The music and the record are primarily credited to Lord. It was taped at a concert in Munich, (West) Germany on 1 June 1974 and the music is a mix between progressive rock and orchestral late romantic/modernist styles. The piece on the first side, "Continuo on B-A-C-H" is a loose attempt to build on the unfinished triple fugue that closed Johann Sebastian Bach's "Art of the Fugue". The second side of the LP is a three-part composition called "Window". In the liner notes of the LP album Lord makes a comparison between the rhapsodic structure here and the renga tradition of chain composition of poetry in medieval Japan. The music of the middle section was lifted from Lord's earlier crossover effort Gemini Suite (1971).

John Dawson Winter III album reissue with different title, different artwork and different running order of the tracks. John Dawson Winter III is the seventh studio album by Johnny Winter, released in 1974. John Dawson Winter III, known as Johnny Winter, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Best known for his high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances in the late 1960s and 1970s, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. After his time with Waters, Winter recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

After a scission of the avant-garde group "Kluster" due to the departure of Conrad Schnitzler, the two musicians Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius go to work in duet as "Cluster". The band's first years were clearly orientated to Krautrock and to experimental electronic music. Consequently, the production of the band started with massive, radical improvisations, constructed around electric organ works, electronic collages, guitar sound manipulations, feed back. The result is rather similar to Kluster's underground, conceptual music, very chaotic with lot of distortion and reverb. With its repetitive, hypnotic guitar patterns and embryonic electronic collages, the second album "II" can be seen as a classic in 70's German electronic underground. This high quality experimental electronic music will progressively lead the band to something far from the krautrock scene and extreme music…

Baker began his comeback after five years of musical inactivity with this excellent CTI date. Highlights include "Autumn Leaves," "Tangerine," and "With a Song in My Heart." Altoist Paul Desmond is a major asset on two songs and the occasional strings give variety to this fine session.

Natural Boogie is the second studio album released by Hound Dog Taylor and his band The HouseRockers. Released on Alligator Records in 1974, it was the follow up to their 1971 debut album Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. Natural Boogie was recorded at Sound Studios in Chicago, and produced by Hound Dog Taylor and Bruce Iglauer. It was Taylor's second album, and the last to be released during his lifetime.

One of the most successful of all the progressive rock bands to come out of the UK, Yes is featured here in their 1974-1976 incarnation, with Patrick Moraz on keyboards during Rick Wakeman’s "sabbatical." It was 1974 and the band was at its commercial peak with albums like Fragile and Close To The Edge dominating the charts in the UK, in Europe and in the USA. As with their contemporaries ELP and King Crimson, Yes had taken the musicality of prog-rock and brought it to the masses. In retrospect, the prog movement of the '70s was the fore-runner to the popular "jam band" movement of the late-'90s and early-'00s. • Vocalist Jon Anderson is in fine form and was probably at the peak of his vocal prowess when this performance was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour in December 1974, at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Hartford Connecticut. • This line-up of the band, which featured original members Anderson and bassist Chris Squire, as well as guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, and keyboardist Moraz remained intact until Wakeman returned to replace Moraz in 1976. • The Close To The Edge-era line-up later reformed in the late-'90s and has toured on-and-off since then, until the premature death of Chris Squire in May 2015.

On Chris de Burgh's debut album, his gentle, beguiling vocal style is introduced, which instantly trademarks him as a genuine master of the soft ballad. de Burgh's engaging dominance of words and lyrics carries both his love songs and his simple light rock tunes to a higher level, thanks to the attention and care given to each of his pieces. As an inaugural album, the songs hold well as they are delicately cushioned by his voice, but are substantially thin where melody or appealing choruses are concerned. Both "Windy Night" and "Watching the World" draw the most attention, bringing de Burgh's silkiness to the focal point. "Satin Green Shutters" beautifully illustrates his knack for sounding sincere and charismatic within the boundaries of a love song…

When it was released at the end of 1974, this album seemed pretty redundant to fans of Brian Auger's band. Two of the four songs had just been released in superior studio versions a few months earlier, and the two other selections from Second Wind had little new to offer over their studio versions. In retrospect, the music is good, but this record is not the place to start for an introduction to the music of this fine band.

Iko Iko, an Album by The Scorpio Brothers. Released in 1974 on Thimble.

This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he'd wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group's music had been self-contained – Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra – it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time.

A vintage concert performance from treasured singer/songwriter, Melanie, captured at New York's gorgeous cultural epicenter, Central Park! Like Simon & Garfunkel's own Central Park live album, Melanie pours her heart and soul out on this previously unreleased recording that includes her best loved songs "Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma," "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)," "Peace Will Come (According To Plan)" and more! Packaged with an 11" x 17.5" full color poster featuring informative liner notes written by Melanie's manager and music journalist, Dave Thompson!

In many ways, Badfinger is a continuation of Straight Up – an unabashed, concise pop album – but there's one important difference: Todd Rundgren was a taskmaster on Straight Up. He may have not jelled with the band, but he brought out their best. Chris Thomas didn't work the same way, although he's equally skilled in the studio, and he made a state-of-the-art pop record, which meant that they didn't necessarily play to the band's strengths. Instead, they tried a little bit of everything, with everybody throwing in a song or two, all in hopes that something would click on the radio. As a result, Badfinger is a bit of a mess.