I Recommend...

Hi all,

Only to inform you that this EXCELLENT thread is now Sticky which means that it'll never leave the first page.

I hope the high standards observed until now here be kept. Good luck and congrats to the starter and participants.

I would like to bring to your attention the site of one of our members  - ViolinCyndee, who is a musician and a classically-trained violinist who  appears on Spaceseed and Harvey's CD Empire of the Night due out in June 2006. She appears on other projects as well.

You can listen to mp3's on her site - http://www.cyndeeleerule.com/music.html.

http://www.cyndeeleerule.com/

Here is her biography as it appears in her website:

Cyndee Lee Rule

Cyndee Lee Rule is a classically-trained violinist who has performed at such prestegious venues as Lincoln Center, the Tweeter Center, the First Union Center and Trenton War Memorial. She has performed as a first violinist for the Philharmonic of Southern NJ and is a classical violin instructor.

Although her main focus had been classical for many years, her meeting with Hawkwind's Nik Turner during his Fall 2003 tour with US spacerock band Spaceseed, would shift her direction into a completely different realm.

John Pack of Spaceseed invited Cyndee to join the band for their Fall 2004 tour with Nik. She also joined their Fall 2005 tour, this time hosting Hawkwind's Harvey Bainbridge. Cyndee's compositional skills and violin playing are featured on Spaceseed and Harvey's CD "Empire of the Night" due out in June 2006.

After the Fall 2004 tour with Nik and Spaceseed, Doug McMahon of Philadelphia-area spacerock band Scattered Planets, invited Cyndee to join his band. With ever-changing members one never knows what to expect, but the core of the sound comes from the programmed synths and video-game atmosphere created by Doug. Cyndee adds a spacey element by using heavy effects on her violin, while her husband Jeff Nutkowitz switches from glissando guitar to bamboo flute for added ambiance.

Shortly after joining Scattered Planets, Steven Davies-Morris approached Cyndee for session work on Systems Theory's debut album "Soundtracks for Imaginary Movies". Steven went on to produce and engineer "UFOsmosis", and Cyndee and Steven have many more projects in the works, including Systems Theory's 2nd CD "Codetalkers". Greg Amov of Systems Theory also made a tremendous contribution to UFOsmosis, providing wonderful compositions for Cyndee to add violin to.

Here is another thread telling aobut her show with Gong in Amsterdam:

Cyndee will be performing a solo set at the Gong 2006 Event in Amsterdam!
ViolinCyndee & Gong in Amsterdam!!!

          These are releases I purchased recently which I can wholeheartedly recommend.  I didn't want to compile a "My favorite Releases" list because I find this boring and redundant.  I wanted to put a list together of bands I just recently got into or albums by them I just recently purchased.  I find it harder and harder to find bands I really enjoy since I have a rather large prog collection.  I've had to expand my listening to other countries and other genres of prog.  I've come to find many excellent bands from countries I'm not used to and much of this list reflects this.  There's some excellent prog out there with singing in other languages than English, my favorite being Italian.  I've acquired over 100 Italian prog releases in the last two years and theres got to be well over 100 more on my wish list.  Two more countries with more and more releases I'm acquiring are Sweden and Spain/Spanish related(South America).  More recently I've gotten into Polish bands.  I'm also getting more and more bands from France.  I've always been into German bands, hence I haven't mentioned them.  I hope someone finds a new band from this list to enjoy.