Re: Nektar
Nektar were a band that came out of the late 60s/early 70s progressive movement. Like several other bands of that time frame and locale, they were natively British but primarily played the German scene. That's because Germany's scene consisted of more of a heavy experimental underground progressive rock thing and and Britain's scene was more so the left over trappings of psychedelia turned progressive on it's way to art rock ville. To make a long story short, it was the result of labels and the like bands they accrued.
Some of Nektar's efforts are very experimental and some like my personal fav. RTF and an album called Down To Earth were more the accessible thematic progressive rock thing.
Like many of the sadly little known German/UK bands, labels were to blame for the poor distribution and management of these acts. It's pretty shocking, if you get into the esoteric offerings of progressive rock groups from around the globe, how many of these groups had anywhere from 2 or 3 LPs to 10 or 15 LPs and they remain virtually unknown! These are first rate bands consisting of truly world class talent. Of course, language is a barrier to consider as well.
The funny and ridiculous story of the Nektar/Bellaphon CD thingamabob bares mentioning. Here is the condensed version. As stated originally, the band was much bigger in Germany than it was in it's home country. Naturally a label native to Germany (Bellaphon Records) had a piece of the action because they had originally released most of the Nektar catalog from the beginning. Back in the day, Quadraphonic recordings were the stuff. Thing is, you needed a Quadraphonic decoder built into a Quad receiver in those days to play and enjoy the records that were quadraphonic. This was true 4 channel stereo, not ambient surround. If you listened to the Quad recordings on a regular stereo, it sounded like crap. It was missing some audio information and certain things would be emphasized that were normally much lower in the audio mix. Well when Bellaphon, in all their infinite glory and wisdom, decided to reissue the Nektar catalog on CD, they accidentally pressed about 10,000 CDs in Quad without the decoding process. For years people were bitching that the recording didn't sound the same as the record. That's why. The record was released on two different major labels outside Germany. One was UA (United Artists) and the other was Passport Records. I believe both were gone bye bye prior to the invention of the CD.
Nektar had a poop load of albums. I have everything they ever put out commercially. The band itself reunited about 12 years ago. The band members authorized the remastering of the original stereo master tape mix of the Remember The Future album and released it in a limited edition on CD. I purchased a copy of this disc directly from the band themselves. It's signed by every living original member. Nektar did a very limited stop reunion tour with a couple of dates in the United States at the time of the CD's reissue.
They really are an amazing band.