Few artists have had as great an impact with their debut single as Procol Harum. Mesmerising and perplexing in equal measure, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' remains the perfect distillation of the possibilities of psychedelia in that brief period when British pop seemed to promise a summer of love that would last forever.
Soft Machine are perceived as cold and forbidding. At their peak in the 1970s, they purposefully raised the hackles of pop journalists, the musical establishment, and even their own fans. Their music was designed to exclude all but the most devoted.
Of all the British bands that blasted to fame in rock's golden age, Nektar remain the most mysterious and least documented. Because they chose to base themselves in West Germany, until now commentators in their native land have tended to overlook them.