Thank you for visiting the Esoteric Recordings website and this news page.

You may know that the label launched last month with releases by RARE BIRD, DAEVID ALLEN, EGG, JONESY, BIG SLEEP, MARSUPILAMI and PALADIN. For more details on these releases please visit the “All Releases” page on this website. I’d like to thank all of you who have emailed messages of support. It means a lot to us and we aim to make Esoteric Recordings and this website a home for the discerning music lover. For October we have some very interesting releases of albums which have long been favourites of mine.

We begin with three albums by the legendary Welsh group, MAN. Perhaps one of the most innovative Welsh bands on the 1970’s, Man recorded two albums for Pye Records (beginning with “Revelation” in 1968), before signing to United Artists in 1971. The recordings they made for UA are now regarded as their “classic” work and I’m pleased to announce that Esoteric will be reissuing Man’s entire UA catalogue over the next four months. All the albums will be remastered from the original analogue masters and will be expanded to include previously unreleased bonus material, fully restored artwork and brand new liner notes written by the wonderful Deke Leonard. In October we begin this programme of reissues with the re-release of the albums “Man”, “Do You Like It Here Now? Are You Settling In” and an expanded “Live at the Padget Rooms, Penarth” (which has been newly remixed from the 8-track masters and now includes the entire concert). We’re very pleased with the finished results and I hope you will be impressed too.

We are also releasing the first of our brand new “front line” releases this month, the excellent “Otherworld” by SPACE RITUAL. The band features former Hawkwind members Nik Turner, Terry Ollis, Dave Anderson, Thomas Crimble, Mick Slattery and Del Dettmar, who have delivered an album worthy of anything in the Hawkwind family canon, and a record which is contemporary but fully aware of the musical heritage of those who contributed. The album will be accompanied by a UK tour, details of which can be found on the “Live” page of this website. On this tour Space Ritual will be joined by a variety of support acts, including Deke Leonard’s Iceberg at concerts in Bristol and Swansea.

I got some of the Esoteric releases- Paladin's 'Charge', the Jonesy anthology, Big Sleep's 'Bluebell Wood'- and was very pleased with them so the Man catalogue is in good hands (though they weren't in yet in my nearby record store which has these titles). Esoteric used to be Eclectic Discs but have changed name and distributor now.