| # | Artist | Song (click to play) | Album | Year | CD label |
| 1 | Univers Zero | Civic Circus | The Hard Quest | 1999 | Cuneiform |
| The first Univers Zero album in 13 years. As always, it is a work of impeccable taste. Modern classical motifs with the edge of progressive music. Not quite as dark as earlier works, and actually displaying a sense of humor and light-heartedness. Perhaps the earlier Univers Zero could be compared to Homer's Iliad - dark and cynical, and the new UZ like Homer's Odyssey - a seasoned outlook that is perhaps more contented and wise. I hope that this new album marks a new beginning for the Belgian band. Great! | |||||
| 2 | miRthkon | Honey Key Jamboree | Wallytunes Vol 1A | 1999 | self-produced |
| An amazingly well-crafted home production. The compositions are completely un-predictable. The main things I am reminded of when listening to the album is John Zorn, Frank Zappa, and Mike Keneally. Much of the album is recorded completely by Wally Scharold on all instruments and other songs feature other musicians. This song reminds me a lot of Pierre Moerlen's Gong with it's emphasis on vibraphone and marimba. Highly recommended! MIRTHKON REKTOBAN walter.scharold@oberlin.edu | |||||
| 3 | Neil Sadler | Jazz Bastards | Theory of Forms | 1999 | Bleeding Arts |
| Great instrumental fusion. Many of the tunes have a be-bop jazz sensibility while others are more atmospheric and dark sounding a lot like Miles Davis' "Aura" album. The band features several Zappa-alums including Bruce and Walt Fowler who played with Zappa in the 70's and 80's as well as Steve Fowler who played with Zappa in the 80's. Also featured is Mike Keneally on guitar. All around a fantastic album. | |||||
| 4 | Seven Percent Solution | Carousel | Gabriel's Waltz | 1999 | Lone Starfighter Records |
| A modern neo-psych/space album from Texas. It's a somewhat laidback, quiet and introspective album with pleasant mellow vocals. | |||||
| 5 | PEST | Deblaston | Quinolone | 1999 | Cuneiform Records |
| This very talented and interesting band is very hard to categorize (not that that is necessary). This band from Austria, mixes disconcordant heavy rock elements with RIO, avant-garde, noise, experimentalism, classical chamber rock, etc, into an every changing collage. The instrumentation includes guitar, bass, drums, cello, and accordian. Very good challenging music from Austria. | |||||
| 6 | Solaris | The Duel | Nostradamus - Book of Prophecies | 1999 | Periferic |
| A great symphonic come-back album. This is only Solaris' third studio album, the last one from 1990. The flute playing of Kollar Attila is featured prominently in the melodies. A very good album with grand symphonic arrangements sometimes embellished with choir. The guitar leaves no doubt that this is also modern rock music. 400 people were treated to a wonderful live performance at Nearfest last year. Solaris is from Hungary. | |||||