Since Sonicbond Publishing launched at the end of 2018, iwe have published books that span most genres in popular music, from easy listening to psychedelia and from pop to metal. However, it is in the world of progressive rock that we have found our most comfortable home. This book features eleven chapters from books on some of the greats of the genre, including from our On Track series Yes, Genesis, Caravan, ELP, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree and Steve Hackett solo. Our Decades series offers up chapters on Marillion in the 1980s and Van Der Graaf Generator in the 1970s and our Year In series has a chapter on Aphrodite’s Child’s seminal 666. This is just the tip of the iceberg, though, and for the up-to-date list, check out the complete stocklist at the back of this book. The book contains two exclusive pieces that you won’t find in printed books anywhere else. Nick Holmes’ detailed chapter on Porcupine Tree’s Closure/Continuation can be found in the current E-book but not yet in the printed version. Stephen Lambe has rewritten his own chapter on Yes’ ‘lost album’ Talk, released 30 years ago. Contents: Closure/Continuation (2022) from Porcupine Tree On Track (Revised Edition) by Nick Holmes (to be published in 2025) Talk (1994) from Yes On Track by Stephen Lambe. Revised version for future Editions Aphrodite’s Child – 666 (1972) from 1972: The Year Progressive Rock Ruled The World by Kevan Furbank If I Could Do It All Over Again It Again I’d Do It All Over You (1970) from Caravan On Track by Andy Boot Tarkus (1971) from Emerson, Lake & Palmer On Track by Mike Goode Wind & Wuthering (1976) and the Spot The Pigeon EP from Genesis On Track by Stuart Macfarlane Acquiring The Taste (1971) from Gentle Giant On Track by Gary Steel Songs From The Wood (1977) from Jethro Tull On Track by Jordan Blum 1985: The Heart That We Have Live from Marillion in the 1980s by Nathaniel Webb Meddle (1971) from Pink Floyd On Track by Richard Butterworth Defector (1980) from Steve Hackett On Track by Geoffrey Feakes 1975: The Undercover Men From Van der Graaf Generator In The 1970s by Steve Pilkington

Yes are the archetypal 1970s progressive rock group. Playing powerful and adventurous music when it was briefly part of the mainstream, the band thrilled millions with their iconic albums and epic live shows. Records like Fragile and Close To The Edge helped define an era and although the band dissolved at the end of the decade, Yes emerged once again with 90125, a streamlined, modern sound in the 1980s and a US number one hit single in ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’. Now in their sixth decade, the band continues to release albums and play live into the new millennium, despite numerous, sometimes controversial, lineup changes. This book examines each one of Yes’s studio albums, highlighting the many high points, and the rarer missteps, as well as focussing on the changes in band dynamics which led to some varied – but always interesting – music. This new, expanded edition celebrates a flurry of recent Yes activity, including new albums The Quest and Mirror To The Sky as well as a detailed examination of the band’s live recordings, making this the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to the band’s music yet written It is essential reading for Yes' legions of fans worldwide. Stephen Lambe is an author, publisher and festival promoter. He is an acknowledged expert on progressive rock, having written the best-selling Citizens Of Hope And Glory – The History Of Progressive Rock for Amberley in 2011 – and has discussed the subject on BBC Radio. He has co-hosted the Summer's End Progressive Rock Festival since 2006 and is a former Chairman of the Classic Rock Society. His first live concert – of many hundreds – was Yes at Wembley Arena in 1978. He lives in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, UK.

Porcupine Tree began in 1987 as a solo project for Steven Wilson but became a four-piece band when Steven was later joined by Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin, and Chris Maitland (who was later replaced by Gavin Harrison). Their first live gig was in a pub in High Wycombe, England, in 1993, but by 2010 the band had toured Europe and America extensively, ending up by playing to thousands of fans at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall in London. The band was nominated for two Grammy awards, and their last album, The Incident, made the top 30 in both the UK and the US. Although often labelled as a progressive rock band, Porcupine Tree constantly changed style. Beginning by playing psychedelic music, Porcupine Tree experimented with space rock, dance, trance and melodic pop as well as prog rock. In their last few albums, the band created a new hybrid of progressive metal riffs, melodic strength and rich vocal harmonies, with strong lyrics and powerful concepts. This aspect of the band has provided their most enduring legacy. This book analyses all Porcupine Tree’s studio albums and EPs in forensic detail, providing illuminating insight into the band’s music for existing and new fans alike.

For four decades, Depeche Mode dominated electronic music, from the naïve melodies of 1981’s Speak & Spell through to 2023’s Memento Mori. Through changing line-ups featuring Vince Clarke, Alan Wilder, and Andy Fletcher, singer Dave Gahan and main songwriter Martin Gore have been the band’s core. Starting as teenagers and now in their 60s, they have survived worldwide fame, addictions to drink and drugs, and near-death experiences, while continuing to innovate as technology and the music business evolved. An acclaimed live band, it is through their fifteen studio albums that Depeche Mode have best expressed themselves, from the industrial darkness of Black Celebration (1986) to their popular breakthroughs with Music For the Masses (1987) and Violator (1990) and the emotional upheaval of 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion. The band survived the chaotic fallout from that album and tour in the mid-1990s, with Gahan experiencing a near-fatal drug overdose, to regroup with Ultra (1997). They continued their explorations of love, death, sex, and politics on acclaimed albums Playing the Angel (2005), Delta Machine (2013), and Spirit (2016). Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, proven survivors Depeche Mode have their story told here in song-by-song detail. Brian J. Robb is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling biographer of Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt. He has also written books on silent cinema, the films of Philip K. Dick, Wes Craven, Laurel and Hardy, the Star Wars movies, Superheroes, Gangsters, and Walt Disney, as well as science fiction television series Doctor Who and Star Trek. His illustrated books include an Illustrated History of Steampunk and Middle-earth Envisioned, a guide to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (Winner, Best Book, Tolkien Society Awards). He is a Founding Editor of the Sci-Fi Bulletin website and lives near Edinburgh, UK.

Even after 40 years, critics of Tears For Fears have tended to describe them as an 80s band. This is understandable when songs like ‘Mad World’ appear in films that typify that period and ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ has had a prolonged life as one of the most played songs on streaming services. Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith quickly transformed from their first band, mod revivalists Graduate, to introspective studio obsessives with The Hurting, to global hitmakers on Songs from the Big Chair, before releasing The Seeds of Love - epic both in terms of vision and cost. Musical differences and strained relations led to the dissolution of the original partnership at the end of that decade, while Orzabal carried on under the Tears for Fears banner into the 1990s. Everybody loves a happy ending, and in 2004 the reformed duo released that jocularly titled album. Then followed a long wait for a new record, a period occasionally punctuated by extensive touring around the world. The patience of their loyal followers was rewarded in 2022 with the universally lauded The Tipping Point. Taking in Graduate and the duo’s solo work, this book covers the band’s complete career, album by album and song by song. Paul Clark is a writer, freelance journalist, musician, and lecturer. He has previously worked as both a sports and music journalist. For over 18 years, he has lectured in news, sports, and music journalism. He is an avid gig-goer and record collector and can often be found crate digging in the region’s record stores. Born in Liverpool, he now lives in St Helens, UK.

It is quite satisfying for an author to learn that his brainchild has been favorably accepted by students as well as by professors and thus seems to serve some useful purpose. This horizontally integrated text on the electronic properties of metals, alloys, semiconductors, insulators, ceramics, and poly meric materials has been adopted by many universities in the United States as well as abroad, probably because of the relative ease with which the material can be understood. The book has now gone through several re printing cycles (among them a few pirate prints in Asian countries). I am grateful to all readers for their acceptance and for the many encouraging comments which have been received. I have thought very carefully about possible changes for the second edition. There is, of course, always room for improvement. Thus, some rewording, deletions, and additions have been made here and there. I withstood, how ever, the temptation to expand considerably the book by adding completely new subjects. Nevertheless, a few pages on recent developments needed to be inserted. Among them are, naturally, the discussion of ceramic (high-tempera ture) superconductors, and certain elements of the rapidly expanding field of optoelectronics. Further, I felt that the readers might be interested in learning some more practical applications which result from the physical concepts which have been treated here.

In April 1967, the Bee Gees launched themselves onto the international music scene with the release of 'New Yok Mining Disaster 1941'. Whilst that haunting classic would be the first of many hits, the Bee Gees consisting of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb had been releasing records since 1963. As extraordinary as it sounds, with more than ten years of performing and four years of recording behind them, the Gibb twins, Robin and Maurice, were just seventeen while elder brother Barry was only twenty. In an incredible career the Bee Gees would go on to sell over 200 million records, making them among the best-selling music artists of all time, they would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Australian Recording Industry's Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and receive lifetime achievement awards from the British Phonographic Industry, the American Music Awards, World Music Awards and the Grammys. According to Billboard magazine the Bee Gees are one of top three most successful bands in their charts' history. Few musical groups have provided the soundtrack to our lives like the Bee Gees, and it all started in the fascinating decade that was the 1960s.

IT was the year the Sixties really started swinging - the Summer of Love, when the Rolling Stones said 'We Love You' and The Beatles pointed out that 'All You Need Is Love'. The piper was at the gates of dawn, a strange brew was bubbling in the mellow, yellow mind gardens and a purple haze air was in the air. At the centre of the year's tumultuous social and cultural change was the mind-expanding music called psychedelic rock, a multi-coloured mixture of amazing sounds, when imagination and experimentation ran riot and the old musical boundaries were torn down in a haze of hallucinogenic abandon. In this fascinating book, Kevan Furbank looks at the roots of psychedelic rock and examines the contributions made by some of the biggest bands of the year, including The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Love, Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys. He examines the hits and misses, the successes and failures, the bands that were born to be psychedelic and those that had psychedelia thrust upon them - sometimes with disastrous results. And he shows how the genre planted the seeds for other forms of popular music to take root and flourish. If you love music, and want to know why 1967 was such a watershed year, then you will want this book. It is eye-popping, mind-opening and horizon-expanding - and a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Every now and then a band comes along that defies convention, refuses to be pigeon-holed, thumbs its nose at comfy predictability and blows raspberries at commercial wisdom. That band is Gong. From 1970 to the present day, Gong have ploughed a unique musical furrow - part progressive rock, part spacey psychedelia, part proto-punk, ambient trance, drum 'n' bass and absurdist political performance art. With a cup of tea in hand (and a revolving propellor on his head) long-time fan Kevan Furbank examines all the Gong albums from Magick Brother in 1970 to 2019's The Universe Also Collapses, chronicles the stories behind each recording and examines the songwriting, arrangements and mythology that inspired each track - with new insights from Gong bassist Mike Howlett and synth wizard Tim Blake. In doing so, he also looks at the contributions made by the many great musicians who have passed through Gong in the last 50-odd years, including guitar hero Steve Hillage, mercurial drummer Pierre Moerlen, flute and sax maestro Didier Malherbe and, of course, hippy foole, whimsical visionary and Gong founder Daevid Allen. He also attempts to gather together the branches and off-shoots of the Gong family tree - including Mother Gong, Gongmaison and Pierre Moerlen's Gong - and the important solo recordings.If you have never heard any Gong, this book is the perfect introduction. If you have, you will want to go back and revisit the glorious music this band has made. In the words of the Pot Head Pixies, why don't you try...

Covering the grown of twentieth-century American popular music, this work explores the question of why some music styles attain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches.