Quiet Sun's sole album was recorded while Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera was recording his debut solo record, Diamond Head. That album included an incredible roster of musicians (and the classic track "Miss Shapiro"), but it also sought to cover the same pop territory as Roxy Music, and most certainly succeeded. Mainstream, then, was the progressive "studio twin." Manzanera returned to keyboardist Dave Jarrett, as well as Bill MacCormick and Charles Hayward: the former an ex-Matching Mole bassist, and the latter the future This Heat drummer. Quiet Sun had, in fact, first been together in 1970, while the members were at school in Dulwich; failing to ever secure a recording contract, they broke up in 1972. Thus resituated, Quiet Sun set out to right their unfinished business and record their original set of music. They share writing credits, contributed individually though; yet each track blends seamlessly into the next. "Sol Caliente" leads off; and once it kicks into full gear, the heat, as the title suggests, indeed turns up. Yet it's Manzanera's electric guitar that gives the album its unique twist on the Canterbury formula, lending it much more of a "rock" feel. To wit, it's a highly electric experience, bordering on manic at times—especially on the wonderfully titled "Mummy Was an Asteroid, Daddy Was a Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil." Jarrett primarily keeps his hands on both electric and acoustic pianos, while the Hayward/MacCormick rhythm section is dynamic throughout. The album's one vocal track, Hayward's "Rongwrong," takes a cue from Robert Wyatt, both musically and lyrically. But unfortunately, this would be the only album from Quiet Sun. Manzanera then formed the relatively disappointing but critically successful 801, releasing a couple of albums on Island Records before returning to Roxy Music later in the decade.

Khan was the brainchild of Steve Hillage. Previously in Uriel (aka Arzachel), the guitarist went off to complete his studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where much of the album was subsequently written. Gaining support from Caravan's manager Terry King, he formed Khan in 1971, with Nick Greenwood (ex-The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) on bass and Eric Peachey on drums. Dave Stewart replaced original keyboardist Dick Heningham just prior to recording Space Shanty, their first and only album. The title track reveals some heavy psychedelic rock, but with a fair amount of melody and hippie flair. Building on the Arzachel/Egg formula, the record showcases Hillage's distinct guitar style. Here, he first finds the echo effect that would provide the signature to his guitar work with Gong; but he also doesn't shy away from bending a few notes either. Stewart's organ, of course, is a fine complement, particularly on "Stranded." Hillage's first solo album, Fish Rising, would be the logical successor to this record; just check out the closing section of "Driving to Amsterdam." After the album's release, Hillage and Stewart carried on with a new rhythm section for a few short months; but an offer from Kevin Ayers lured Hillage away, and the band ended abruptly, with Stewart moving on to Hatfield and the North after a spell of unemployment. The album was originally issued by Deram in the UK and Brain in Germany, but also was reissued years later in the US on Passport Records. Following his departure, Greenwood released a solo album called Cold Cuts, featuring Heningham and Peachey, which he had recorded in California in 1970, prior to joining Khan.

Having recused himself from Roxy Music, Eno set upon a solo career. His first two albums, 1974's Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), were planted firmly in the glam and art rock of his former band; however, Eno's forte was experimentation, with a revisionist outlook towards rock ‘n' roll. Eno's third vocal record, Another Green World, is generally regarded as his finest. The album hosts a veritable cast of musicians from the timeline, including Robert Fripp, Percy Jones, Phil Collins and Paul Rudolph. Alternating between so-called pop songs and instrumental vignettes, the album is pure Eno. Using he and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards, he uses chance to guide compositions and literal descriptions to find sounds: "Wimshurst guitar," "anchor bass," "choppy organs," and so forth. The deadpan "I'll Come Running to tie Your Shoe" is classic, as well as the plaintive "St. Elmo's Fire." The treatments Eno applies to the songs are more interesting as the songs themselves—sound for sound's sake—which speaks to Eno's compositional modus operandi: it's really not about the destination the song brings, but rather the journey while it's playing. To wit, witness "In Dark Trees," "Becalmed" or the title track. From here, Eno's career would follow two paths, one continuing his pop muse into production (and a final vocal album), and the other exploring process or "non-music," beginning with Discreet Music for his Obscure Records in late 1975. In 1976, Eno would then venture off to Germany to work with Cluster's like-minded Roedelius and Moebius and collaborate on the first of a legendary trio of albums with David Bowie, as well as participate in the 801 supergroup with Phil Manzanera, Bill MacCormick, Francis Monkman and others.

Story has it that after listening to Jade Warrior's music, Steve Winwood convinced Chris Blackwell to sign the band to his Island Records. Now reduced to the core of Tony Duhig and Jon Field, the duo left most of their musical past behind, including vocals and any trace of psychedelia. On their 1974 release, Floating World, each track is presented as wide and cinematic in sound as it is descriptive in title. After the introductory "Clouds," "Mountain of Fruits and Flowers" emerges with a stirring bass line. "Waterfall" flows like a river, before descending into a cataclysm of conga drums. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, "Red Lotus" erupts with Duhig's heavily distorted guitar! The second side courses about the same as the first. "Rainflower" is a gentle guitar number, while the jazzy "Easty" adds rhythm underneath. "Monkey Chant" features Duhig's brother Dave on lead guitar and is another improbable (but welcome) heavy number. The plaintive "Memories of a Distant Sea" closes, briefly reprised on "Quba." Characterized by dynamics and world influences, Jade Warrior use their instruments like paintbrushes, yet never completely fill the canvas. And like the oriental-flavored album art, their music is both restive and contemplative, and generally avoids all clichés but their own. The duo also presage the instrumental "fourth world" and new age genre that would rise to some commercial prominence in the 1980s. Jade Warrior would release another three albums of much similar effect for Island before splitting up in 1979; and little would be heard from either musician during the 80s.

Following six months off to regroup, Robert Fripp's next move was forming a completely new King Crimson, coaxing away drummer Bill Bruford from Yes and bassist John Wetton from Family. Whether Fripp knew it at the time or not, the rhythm section that was the core of the new lineup would go down as one of the finest in rock history. Violinist David Cross and ex-Sunship percussionist Jamie Muir rounded out the lineup. Save for the gentle track "Exiles," the album contains little of the former Crim sound. Fripp's raison d'être for resurrecting the band was something much different: rock improvisation. The album opens with the loose form of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" as testament. Shifting and complex, the track moves between moments of beauty and fury with equal conviction. "Easy Money" exposes the fierce underbelly of the rhythm section in a more conventional form. Cross's violin seems like an uneasy sounding proposition, but it was meant that way, right? Fortunately, he also plays Mellotron. Wetton is a distinctive vocalist; his stately delivery of Richard Palmer-James's lyrics on "Book of Saturday" is refreshing. Wetton and Palmer-James share the same Bournemouth birthplace—the latter also was a founding member of Supertramp. But rising from the ashes of "The Talking Drum" is the angular guitar riff of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two," which is both a signature song for the lineup and a perfect close to this new chapter in Crimson history. The band made its live debut in October 13th, 1972 in Frankfurt; however, Muir left to join a monastery prior to the album's release. Larks' Tongues In Aspic was well-received critically and commercially, reaching No. 20 in the UK and No. 61 in the US.

Agitation Free remained busy after recording their debut album, appearing in the cultural program for the 1972 Munich Olympics as well as touring France for a few months in 1973. Guitarist Stefan Diez deputized for their second album, titled 2nd; it also saw release on the Music Factory label. "First Communication" opens the album. With its guitars in unison, it offers a sound that has more similarities with the improvisations of American Southern rock than with the German krautrock of the day! Never mind though—the ensuing "Dialogue and Random" is pure electronic bliss. The following two-part "Laila" offers more of the band's wonderful jam-band rock; again, the dual guitar interplay of the second part is sublime. The lucid journey continues on "In the Silence of the Morning Sunrise;" Paced by a metronomic drum, the light melody reveals more of the band's close interplay, draped in Michael Hoenig's ever-present synths. "A Quiet Walk" goes acoustic, while the closing "Haunted Island" is a rare vocal number from the band. Following the album's release, the group kept busy with radio broadcasts and touring; but by 1974, the band had run its course. After a farewell concert, Agitation Free broke up, and a final record, Last, was released in 1976 by the French label Barclay. Though one of the more musically accessible bands of the era, Agitation Free's records were, for a while, interminably difficult to find. But the story has a happy ending: Hoenig went on to work with Tangerine Dream before forging a solo career, while Lüül Ulbrich would join Ashra towards the end of the decade and also foster a successful solo career in the 80s.

One look at the backgrounds of the members of Can (jazz pedigrees, students of Karlheinz Stockhausen, WDR Studio etc.) and the last thing you'd think is that they were a rock band. Similarly, listening to their music, you'd also probably have to stretch the concept of rock ‘n' roll to fit them in. Krautrock was Germany's answer to the psychedelic and progressive music of the late 1960s, and certainly a unique idiom in and of itself. But Can's post-psychedelic groove had much more to do with the avant-garde, even by krautrock's standards. The core musicians of bassist Holger Czukay, guitarist Michael Karoli, drummer Jaki Liebezeit and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt founded The Can in 1968 in Cologne. Their debut album, Monster Movie, featured American Malcolm Mooney on vocals (if you can call them that). Can doesn't necessarily prescribe to the "freak out" or "space rock" traditions of their pioneering krautrock brethren. Instead, the band treated each song as groove, but in the most non-ethnic sense. The incessant metronomic beat of "Yoo Doo Right" is epic, while "Father Cannot Yell" is classic; the band lock onto the groove and ride it straight through some freaky inner space, with Karoli's guitar acting the screeching electric counterpoint to Mooney's breathy vocal "rap." The proto-punk of "Outside My Door" demonstrates the influence of the Velvet Underground; but with its symphonic refrain, "Mary, Mary, So Contrary" reveals a slightly psychedelic edge. Following Mooney's abrupt departure (for health reasons), the band enlisted the similarly unique talent of Damo Suzuki for their next four albums.

In protest over the misconception of Aqualung (he claimed it wasn't a concept album), Ian Anderson delivered what might be the mother of all concept albums: the wryly-titled Thick As A Brick. Based on a "poem written by eight-year-old Gerald Bostock and set to musical accompaniment by rock group Jethro Tull," the album contains a single "song" spanning both sides of the vinyl. So much for the approach pioneered on Aqualung! This isn't a bunch of discrete sections strung together either; the work has considerable continuity and consistency over its sides—certainly a credit to Anderson's compositional ability-and the arrangement skill and precise ensemble playing of the band. Though former Blackpool mate Barriemore Barlow was the newcomer on drums, the album presents a core of musicians who had coalesced into a band. John Evan shines through on the Hammond organ; it's not an instrument that immediately comes to mind with the band, but no other screams "prog" louder. Of course, all the other stock Tull sounds appear, with no shortage of flute and acoustic passages. Just as important, Anderson's penchant for writing a memorable melody doesn't get lost in the massive composition: The main theme (Edit #1), with its killer hook and wry lyric, is an instant classic. The album's gatefold sported a tabloid newspaper, The St. Cleve Chronicle, which arguably remains the most elaborate record sleeve ever printed. The album immediately rose to No. 5 in the UK and No. 1 in the US. Regardless of its intent or delivery, the response to the album was extraordinary and certainly a testament to the times in which it was created. Imagine, one 40-minute-plus piece of music topping the charts. TAAB was and remains a rock milestone.

Violist Geoffrey Richardson jumped aboard Caravan in late 1972, while bassist John G. Perry joined after the Australian tour. They were two significant additions to the band, as both musicians would impart a significant influence on Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan. The band hired Dave Sinclair for a tour in the spring; but by the time they entered the studio to record their fifth record, For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night, Sinclair had returned as fulltime keyboardist. Pushed by a hard-driving guitar riff and punctuated by Sinclair's classic organ solo, the album's opener, "Memory Lain, Hugh," is a great return to form. Jimmy Hastings's flute and the stately horn arrangements help segue into the second section, "Headloss," and the band never skips a beat. Richardson's viola is well suited for the music, and his "Hoedown" reflects his new addition; however "C'Thlu" is a big departure, sounding more like Cream than Caravan! The second side contains several more compositions from Hastings that present a new, harder edge. The highlight is the stretch that begins with "L'Auberge du Sanglier" ("Wild Boar Inn") and runs through "A Hunting We Shall Go (Reprise)." Propelled by Perry's strong bass lines, the closing sections features Martyn Ford's powerful orchestration, augmented further by a rare synthesizer solo from Sinclair. Just after the album's release, the orchestra joined Caravan on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which resulted in the excellent Caravan And The New Symphonia record. It would be the only release for the band in 1974; and once again, neither album would chart, despite both being two of the strongest in Caravan's catalog.