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Guitarist Rusty Cooley is mainly an autodidact. In 1996 he laid his hands on a seven-string guitar and he hasn't been playing anything else since then. He’s a guitar teacher nowadays and meanwhile he composes his music not only for solo stuff, but also for his band called Outworld. His debut album features ten instrumental tracks, two of them being added as bonustracks with the vocals by Outworld-singer Kelly Carpenter, whose voice belongs to the same category as those of Marc Boals or Michael Vescera.

Little is known about Climate Of Earth, a Japanese duo consisting of Taro Matsuda (keyboards, programming, logdrum, vox) and Sanjin Syugetsu (rhythm programming). Their music however, sounds somewhat familiar: I hear traces of the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), but also influences of Casiopea can be found, but the rhythmic component is more prominent. I guess that this music was conceived for discos and thus not particularly interesting for fans of progressive electronic music.

Ripples In Time contains progressive metal from the Danish band Chrome Shift. It's the debut album from founders Otto Schütt (guitars) and Jens Christian Nielsen (bass) together with Rasmus Bak (vocals), Jakob Paulsen (keyboards) and Poul Terkildsen (drums). As we all know Dream Theater (DT) is one of the bands that had a huge impact on the prog metal scene. In the accompanying flyer with this promo again DT is mentioned as one of the main influences, but also Pain Of Salvation and King's X are named.

Dolores Castro is a quite handsome keyboardist from Spain making electronic music in the vein of ambient and chill out music. She now delivers her debut album through a branch of the French Musea Records label. Fifth Dimension contains eleven tracks, fully instrumental, and composed and played by Castro. She seems to be inspired by the great masters like Vangelis. She adds nice grooves, a bit of a danceable beats alternated by relaxing, catchy piano and synth melodies.

A Rondo is the second album by the Brazilian band Calix. The line-up consists of Renato Savassi (vocals, flute, violin), Sanzio Brandao (guitars, violin), André Goday (drums, percussion, vocals), Marcelo Cioglia (bass, vocals) and Bufino Silvéro (keyboards, vocals). Some tracks are orchestrated by a chamber orchestra. Their music isn't easy to describe, because of the use of the native language - only one track is sung in English - but also because the musical style differs from song to song.

Jack Bruce is one of the most renowned bass players from the United Kingdom. He's famous for his work with Cream, his solo projects and numerous collaborations with top-notch musicians. He's still making records and doing live performances. His remarkable voice is recognized instantly. Originally he played cello, amongst others, but he developed into a multi-instrumentalist although his bass playing remains his trademark. The album Automatic was originally released as an LP in Germany (1983) and later on in the UK (1987).

Mirek Gil, one of the member founders of the Polish renowned prog outfit Collage, started Believe as a solo project.

The American trio Backyard  Tire Fire, consisting of Ed Anderson (vocals, piano, guitars, harmonica), his brother Matt Anderson (bass, vocals) and Tim Kramp (drums), has released their second album on the independent Originality Is Everything-label (O.I.E). Their music sounds nice but can not be categorized as symphonic prog or progressive rock. The slide guitars, harmonica and the pedal steel guitars provide the sound an overall country rock feel.

5BridgeS originates from the Netherlands. They have been working together with their current line-up for about three years now. The band name refers to the extensive catalogue of Keith Emerson and the five-piece outfit tries to ‘cross a bridge’, reaching out for the sounds of the seventies, wherein truly crafty musicians were still allowed to sound genuinely, passionately warm and a bit rough on the edges. 5BridgeS uses keyboards including MiniMoog, Hammond organ and Taurus pedals.

Na het onverwachte succes van Concerto For Group & Orchestra (1969), geschreven door toetsenist Jon Lord en uitgevoerd door Deep Purple en het Royal Philharmonic Orchestra onder leiding van dirigent Malcolm Arnold, kreeg Lord het verzoek om een opvolger te schrijven. Dat werd Gemini Suite (1971), een album dat stijltechnisch niet wezenlijk verschilt van eerder genoemd album. Deze plaat bestaat uit zes delen, waarbij in elk stuk een instrumentalist de hoofdrol vertolkt.