0.720 Aleacion - same ($9.99)
Titles are arranged alphabetically with the latest additions highlighted in yellow.
0.720 Aleacion - same ($9.99)This 1986 Mexican instrumental progressive album is an excellent one, featuring violin and flute and emphasizing pre-Hispanic Mexican music. Here is a RealAudio excerpt courtesy of Zoltan’s Progressive Rock Webpage. At Prog Archives you’ll find another audio sample as well as several in-depth reviews.
Anima Mundi - The Way ($15.99) 
Jagannath Orbit (2008, 67-minutes) is the second CD for Cuban band Anima Mundi, and there is no way this band can fly under the radar now. It’s been six years since their debut, and their sound has changed. For one, they’ve switched to singing in English, using both male and female vocals to good effect. Jagannath Orbit is spectacular, pure symphonic prog with Yes the dominant influence throughout. To be a fan of Yes and not be excited by this album is probably impossible. Like Yes, Anima Mundi take the listener close to the edge of heaven with music that varies from fragile to soaring, breathtaking, and glorious. Here are links to reviews. This mini-LP edition is the 2009 limited edition released by the MALS label under license from Musea, which comes in a heavyweight cardboard sleeve.
Anima Mundi’s third CD The Way (2010) continues in the same direction. As the band says: “Although without doubt The Way is an album of our times, it was created to bring back the spirit of the seventies to our days, not only to recall the inheritance of the golden age of symphonic prog bands, but also to conceive the visionary atmosphere and the artistic aura of those times in which music, in a general sense, evoked a greater resonance with the cosmos, nature and human spirituality.” While Yes remains the dominant influence, often it’s more the spirit of Yes that Anima Mundi are reanimating rather than copying the Yes sound exactly. Read reviews at Prog Archives and ProgNaut.
Septentrion (2002) is Anima Mundi’s brilliant debut CD. At its core the music is 1970s symphonic progressive rock sung in Spanish, with some of the neo-prog energy, but Anima Mundi add original elements that make their music unique. Most importantly, the band has two people playing Galician bagpipes. When these two musicians aren’t playing pipes, they’re often playing recorder or tin whistle. So you have a Genesis-derived symphonic rock which at various times features majestic bagpipes, some early music elements à la Gryphon or Gentle Giant, and finally, some Vangelis-style symphonics. It is all exuberant and uplifting, with excellent vocals in Spanish, and it lasts 71-minutes with no filler!
Arbatel - Sumerios ($15.99) Gamadion is the 2004 debut by this Mexican progressive rock band. Most of the album is instrumental and comes from the quartet of keys, guitar, bass and drums. The music gets stronger toward the end of the album where there are guest vocalists and a guest on violin and viola. The second mp3 icon above leads to the band’s website -- to find the audio samples, click on the MULTIMEDIA button.
Sumerios (2008) is Arbatel’s superior second CD. Opera-trained Rosario Maza joined as lead vocalist. Her vocals are often wordless or spoken word; there are no typical pop vocals, and the music is heavily instrumental. There is a strong resemblance to Il Balletto di Bronzo’s famous Ys album and to Le Orme’s Contrappunti, the latter itself influenced by ELP, and Arbatel add an original flavor to it all.
Avant Folk - Avant Folk ($13.99) Because a certain chunk of our customer base will skip past this due to the word “avant”, we’d like to rename this band “Symphonic Folk”, even if that isn’t entirely accurate either. Avant Folk is an instrumental ensemble led by Eblen Macari, a 30-year veteran of the Mexican progressive scene. The two other members are Eblen Marcari M., who appears to be his son, and Mauricio Sotelo (ex-Cabezas de Cera). Their sound is a combination of acoustic and electric instruments including 6 and 12-string guitars, Chapman Stick, percussion/drums, electronic effects, and a couple instruments invented by Sotelo’s brother Francisco (also a member of Cabezas de Cera). Their 2011 debut CD (digisleeve) is both lively and lovely, at times a Mexican counterpart to Gordon Giltrap, Anthony Phillips, or Pat Metheny, sometimes quite energetic, at other times spacey. Those who remember the Mexican band Flüght have an even better reference point. We like it a lot.
Cabezas de Cera - Hecho en México ($12.99) This is a 2007 live CD with excellent audio quality from this adventurous Mexican instrumental band blending folk/ethnic elements and fusion into an original style of progressive rock. They combine acoustic instruments with electric/electronic, including sax and other wind instruments, guitar, Stick, drums and more. The CD comes in an elaborate digipack including a slipcase. 70-minutes.
Cast - Art ($13.99) 
Cast - Mosaïque (2CD, $18.99) 
Cast - Al-Bandaluz (2CD, $18.99) 
Through 2008, Cast released albums so regularly that one had the feeling this Mexican band had always been a part of progressive rock. It might have actually been so had the lack of funds not forced them to wait 20 years before they could begin releasing their works. Now with a huge catalog of CDs and after promoting numerous Baja Prog festivals in Mexicali, Alfonso Vidales and company took some well-deserved rest before returning with Art or Cast Art (2011, 69-minutes, digipack), the first new Cast CD in three years. Cast’s current guitarist is Claudio Cordero from Chile (check our South American page for his 2007 CD Enlace.) To some extent, Art represents a return to the earlier Cast style, that dense, fast, energetic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach where if Cast notice a space in the arrangement, they fill it with another instrumental part. Of course there are some more tranquil passages that do leave room for the music to breathe. The other return to the past is that the vocals are in English on this album and male only, though relatively low in the mix. There is a four-part suite and another four-part suite. A lot of modern bands do something like this style but then forget to state any memorable themes or hooks; Cast on the other hand have gotten rather good at it.
2003’s double-CD Al-Bandaluz showed that Cast was far from reaching the end of its musical evolution, as a new line-up injected new life into the band. You’d think that any band that had been around this long would have peaked by now, but this album exceeds their previous work, more instrumental and more complex than any before, with little if anything that could be called neo-prog. Instead, Cast are influenced primarily by 1970s Genesis but ranging quite a bit wider than that, including PFM, Camel, and other classic prog bands. Vidales has yet to get the recognition he deserves as both player and composer; he really is in the top tier of progressive rock keyboardists. This is an essential prog album.
Nimbus (2004) is a massive CD at 79-minutes. No matter how high Cast set the bar with each album, the next one always seemed to exceed it. With male and female vocals in both English and Spanish and improved production, Nimbus showcases a band at the peak of their abilities. There isn’t a real songwriter in the band, so they concentrate on what they do best: lengthy tracks of sophisticated symphonic progressive in the classic style, with lots of instrumental content. The addition of a full-time woodwinds player (lots of flute) and a slight new-found jazz influence have taken their style to the next level. Really, Nimbus ranks with all but the top tier of 1970s progressive bands (though a small amount of metal guitar betrays it as a modern album).
The double-CD Mosaïque (2006) shows that Cast are as prolific as ever. Four of the tracks are older, previously-unreleased compositions, and the rest are new. This new work goes beyond even the remarkable quality level of Al-Bandaluz and Nimbus, featuring lots of woodwinds (flute, clarinet, sax), male and female vocals, and nothing that can be called neo-prog. There is a pastoral, renaissance feel at times, while other material is reminiscent of the top South American 1970s prog bands. The new material is sung in Spanish, while two of the older compositions are in English. Cast established themselves as the premier Mexican progressive band a long time ago, now they must be considered among the top progressive bands worldwide. Highest recommendation.
With surprising reliability, Cast had a new CD ready in time for each year’s Baja Prog festival in March. And every year, one wondered whether Cast could top the previous CD, which they invariably did. Com.union (2007, 70-minutes) begins in the familiar Cast style of old, with attractive bits strung together, though one gets the sense the bits could be rearranged in any order and the song could stop at any time and it would matter little. But this soon gives way to a further development of the more sophisticated style Cast had been developing over the past few albums. The bulk of com.union is 1970s-oriented, devoid of neo-prog, with a slight jazz influence typical of 70s prog bands but usually absent from neo-prog. The big difference is that Cast have learned to leave enough space in the music for it to breathe and to flow naturally, a more organic sound that contrasts with their earlier everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. With the vocals now in Spanish throughout, several tracks sound very close to Italian 70s progressive, others to the first-generation Argentine progressive bands or to certain 70s Spanish prog bands (minus the flamenco). It seems to take Cast’s live shows a few years to catch up to their studio work, but on record at least, Cast are world-class.
Cast not only had a new CD ready for Baja Prog 2008, but Originallis is a double-CD. It continues at the high level established with the past several CDs. Is it a coincidence that Cast started sounding like a world-class band when they began singing in Spanish, as they do again here? Those who haven’t listened to Cast in years might not even recognize the band now, except for their frequent everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. Cast’s style is still centered on the keyboards of Alfonso Vidales, here sounding more classically-influenced than ever, as Vidales’ classical piano chops are first-rate. Flute also plays an important role. Cast’s vocals used to be a liability, but on this album they are a real positive and are especially attractive when male and female vocals are used together. Still the album is heavily instrumental, using Genesis-like sonorities, but busier. No point comparing Cast to anyone else now, as they have too many albums to their credit. Read the DPRP review.
The rest are the older Cast studio albums currently in stock: Legacy (2000, 73-minutes) and Imaginary Window (1999, 67-minutes). Start with the latest albums and work backwards. Imaginary Window is the 2009 mini-LP edition released by the MALS label under license, which comes in a heavyweight gatefold cardboard sleeve.
Pyramid of the Rain (2005) is a CD-R containing four older, previously-released studio tracks and four live tracks. Three of the live tracks are previously-unreleased versions recorded at the 1998 Baja Prog festival. The point of this CD-R seems to be a final statement for the Cast lineup that existed from 1992-2002, as a new line-up took over after that.
Delta Red - Gama de Espectros ($13.99) Delta Red is a Mexican guitar/bass/drums trio playing instrumental progressive hard rock partly influenced by Red-era King Crimson, but more varied than that. Varied in style that is, but as with any band with this lineup, the sound palette doesn’t vary much. Their first album Gama de Espectros (2009, 67-minutes) should please fans of Japan’s Baraka and Show-Yen or the electric side of Chile’s Tryo.
Elfonia - This Sonic Landscape ($14.99) Elfonia are a modern progressive rock band out of Mexico whose main attraction is female singer Marcela Bovio. She can also be heard singing on Ayreon’s The Human Equation and Stream of Passion’s Embrace the Storm CDs, and Arjen Lucassen returns the favor with a guitar solo on one song here. Elfonia’s keyboardist Alejandro Millán is also a member of Stream of Passion. Marcela has a beautiful voice with a great range, able to sound angelic one moment and powerful the next. The rest of the band consists of keyboards/concertina, guitars, bass, and drums, with Marcela also adding some violin. This Sonic Landscape (2005) is their 2nd album, and it is quite similar to the Stream of Passion album. The production is excellent and the music is not what we’ve come to expect out of Mexico. Because of the female voice, Elfonia sound closer to several European bands. Elfonia do have a gothic element and there are some heavy guitar riffs, but metal is only a minor aspect of their style. Overall their sound is dark but lush symphonic progressive with touches of jazz and folk. Lyrics in both English and Spanish. 57-minutes, digipack.
Estigia - Profundos Mares ($14.99) 
Prog-metal band singing in Spanish, released in 2005 on the Chilean Mylodon label. Crunchy guitar, double-pedal drumming, symphonic keys, exactly the same as on every other prog-metal album.
Govea - Danza Urbana ($13.99) Govea is a keys/bass/drums trio led by keyboardist Salvador Govea, formerly of prog-folk band Gallina Negra and later Iconoclasta. Drummer Victor Baldovinos is also Iconoclasta’s drummer. Govea’s 2009 debut CD Danza Urbana also features a guest guitarist on one track. The music is primarily symphonic rock, covering ground from ELP to fusion to avant-prog (the latter characterized by modern classical influences). Read reviews at Prog Archives.
Hello Madness - Light and Life After Dusk ($14.99) Hello Madness is the new project of Mexican keyboardist/composer Alejandro Millán, who is also a member of Arjen Lucassen’s Stream of Passion and the Mexican band Elfonia. Millán sings and plays keyboards, assisted by Enrique González on drums and Pablo González Sarre on bass. First, if your idea of Mexican progressive rock was formed by Chac Mool and Iconoclasta or even Cast, throw all your preconceptions out the window. Hello Madness could just as easily have come out of England. What is perhaps most surprising is that Millán is a more than capable singer, his voice strong enough to frequently be the focus. He has classical piano chops, and his keyboard style is closer to Tony Banks than Emerson or Wakeman. The songs on this 2008 debut CD feature soaring vocal melodies with heartfelt emotion over a lush symphonic rock base. The album has great sound too, thanks to mixing by Dutch keyboardist/producer Joost van den Broek (After Forever, Ayreon) and professional mastering. Because of the strong melodies and the absence of guitar, there are some suggestions of 1980s British pop, but this eclipses anything from that era in pop. This is what that trend might have produced had the bands consisted of actual musicians interested in making sophisticated music, divorced from the music business mainstream.
Iconoclasta - Resurrección ($13.99) 
Iconoclasta - Adolescencia Cronica ($13.99) 
Iconoclasta are a Mexican progressive band and one of the most important from that country. In the 1980s, they were the leading Mexican prog band, and though they continued throughout the 1990s, the quality dropped off. Iconoclasta blend symphonic prog, usually with similarities to the Italian 1970s bands, with some fusion and traditional Mexican music.
The Soliloquio / Suite Mexicana CD combines Iconoclasta’s third full-length album Soliloquio with the Suite Mexicana EP that preceded it, both from 1987, plus four bonus tracks. Soliloquio and Suite Mexicana are arguably the best things Iconoclasta have done, so start here. (Can’t argue about the price either.) This CD was first released on the Art Sublime label in an LP-size jacket. This is the Sol & Deneb edition, which comes in a standard jewel box.
Adolescencia Cronica (1988) and En Busca de Sentido (1989) are Iconoclasta’s fourth and fifth full-length albums. While their subsequent albums can be a bit fatiguing to listen to, Iconoclasta was still a good band on these two.
La Rencarnacion de Maquiavelo is from 1991, instrumental save one track. The line-up shrunk to a quartet on this album, and it was the first line-up without a pure keyboardist. It’s by no means a bad album, but Iconoclasta start to repeat what they’d done before. It lacks the freshness of their earlier work.
Since it’s been nearly a decade since the previous Iconoclasta studio album, Resurrección (2009, 60-minutes) probably refers to the band. Iconoclasta’s 1990s albums were a bit fatiguing to listen to. They were instrumental or mostly so, but the band no longer had a dedicated keyboardist, the production was slightly lacking, and their sound could be somewhat strident. While there still is no dedicated keyboardist on Resurrección, there are two female singers in the lineup now, singing in Spanish (English translations in the booklet) and sometimes wordless. The music is more lyrical than it has been since the early albums, with breathing space in the arrangements and some welcome folk elements.
Praxis were an offshoot of Iconoclasta, and this 1987 album is their only one. This instrumental album is one of the best progressive rock records from Mexico, similar to but more intense than Iconoclasta, with stunning duels between guitar and keyboards. The tempo is usually fast. You have to subtract a point for the sound of the keyboards and drums, but otherwise this is a great one. Here is a RealAudio excerpt courtesy of Zoltan’s Progressive Rock Webpage.
Saena - Saena ($13.99) |
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Eblen Macari Ensamble - De Beirut a Cosamaloapan ($13.99) Eblen Macari is a 30-year veteran of the Mexican progressive scene. He is Lebanese-Mexican, which probably explains the title of his ensemble’s 2011 CD De Beirut a Cosamaloapan (digisleeve). The Eblen Macari Ensamble is a quartet including Macari on 6 and 8-string guitars, his son on various ethnic percussion, Olga Martinez on clavecin (harpsichord), and Yusuf Isa Cuevas on various ethnic wind instruments. Their music has some elements in common with Avant Folk but fits more neatly in the world music category, generally lacking the rock elements of Avant Folk, with the harpsichord and the wind instruments a big difference.
Metaconsciencia - Bestiario ($13.99) Metaconsciencia are a Mexican band in existence since 1996, and Bestiario is their 2003 debut. Two guitar players (Ricardo Moreno also plays a few keyboard parts) and a rhythm section (bass/drums) create a warm, colorful instrumental music that mixes 1970s progressive rock, jazz-rock, and Mexican music. You could lump this in with more recent Iconoclasta. It is a player’s album, not a writer’s album -- there’s nothing that qualifies as a song here -- and the tracks were recorded live in the studio. One guitar player is usually playing acoustic or classical guitar. The other is sometimes soloing in hard rock guitar mode (distorted tone, lots of notes, no point) but more often with a warmer jazz guitar tone. When the classical and jazz guitar technique shines through, or when you can hear the Mexican music underneath, Metaconsciencia are at their best. 61-minutes.
Musica d’Repuesto - aV abuC (Variaciones en la Cuerda Vol. 5) ($8.99) SALE!This is a very good, mostly-instrumental King Crimson style band from Cuba, also reminding one of the French band Tiemko at times. There are also touches of Present or Univers Zero. The album is a 53-minute collection of their best music, recorded in 1993. Read the review at Progressor.
Naranja Mecánica - 1993-1995 ($9.99) SALE!A surprisingly good album out of Cuba. Naranja Mecánica play a 1970s style progressive rock sounding closest to a mix of Jethro Tull and Banco, with influences of King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, and various other 70s Italian and South American bands. There are vocals in Spanish but instrumental passages dominate. In addition to the standard keys/guitars/bass/drums lineup, they use flute extensively. Read the review at Progressor.
Nirgal Vallis - Y Murio la Tarde ($14.99) This is the CD reissue of an excellent Mexican progressive rock record from 1985, plus 28 minutes of additional material recorded in 1995. Nirgal Vallis was the first band of José Luis Fernández Ledesma, who is the principal composer. The music is mellow symphonic prog with folk touches, a beautiful album and one of the best from Mexico. This is the MALS edition, produced under license from Musea.
Perfume de Mujer - El Monólogo de él Carocol ($9.99) SALE!El Monólogo de él Carocol is the latest from this long-lived Cuban progressive band, recorded between 1997-2000, continuing their blend of progressive rock and avant-garde tendencies, mostly instrumental, with some decent vocals. Actually, if you ignore the 21-minute improv toward the end of the disc, most of this is no more ‘difficult’ than King Crimson or Gentle Giant, both of which are influences, but the level of originality here is very high. Perhaps surprisingly for a Cuban band, there’s very little here that could be called Latin, and the arrangements are as sophisticated as the best European prog bands. With a playing time of 70-minutes, there’s still an album’s worth of quality progressive rock here. The material on Pollos d’Granja (75-minutes) was recorded between 1995-1998 and uses Spanish vocals, violin, keyboards, guitars, bass and drums. Surprisingly good! Read the ProgressiveWorld.net review of Pollos d’Granja.
Sintesis - En Busca de una Nueva Flor ($14.99)This is the CD reissue of a legendary 1978 album plus two bonus tracks. Not only the best first-generation progressive rock record from Cuba, this is one of the best from all of Latin America. It has influences of Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, and Italian progressive.
“Prog from Cuba that is as good as the best from England, Italy, and Spain. The music on En Busca De Una Nueva Flor reminds me a bit of the Spanish prog band Crack. The listener is treated to tons of classically-inspired themes led by Moog, piano, and even harpsichord, along with guitar, bass, and drums. There is a romantic Latin American feel to many of the themes that will mostly appeal to fans of Italian prog. The Spanish vocals, both male and female, are also excellent and vary from solo, to choir, to male/female unison. Sintesis produced one of the top albums from the late-70s prog scene.” [Zoltan’s Progressive Rock Webpage -- Here is a RealAudio excerpt courtesy of same.]
Various Artists - Musicas Geometricas ($6.99)Eight different musicians contribute avant-garde/experimental pieces to this collection on the Luna Negra label.
Adrián Zárate - De la A a la Z ($13.99) This is the 2009 debut CD by drummer and composer Adrian Zárate, who is a member of the Mexican symphonic prog band Saena. The album contains a mix of proggy jazz-rock, RIO, and chamber music, varied but quite interesting, more sophisticated and better recorded than a lot of what comes out of Mexico. The label compares it Daniel Denis’ Les Eaux Troubles and to Frank Zappa during Terry Bozzio’s tenure as drummer. Digipack.
