Musea Records (slogan: Les classiques du futur, French for "The classics of the future") is a French non-profitrecording company founded in 1985 by Francis Grosse and Bernard Gueffier in Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, specialising in progressive rock.[1] Musea also acts as a distributor for associated smaller labels and operates an online shop. "Musea" is an obsolete plural form of "museums", aptly representing the catalogue of artists and bands published and produced. In 1996, Musea Records moved its business headquarters to Metz.
Grosse and Gueffier met in 1981 at a festival in Reims. Gueffier was able to persuade Grosse to write for his music fanzine Notes, which was devoted mainly to the unfashionable trends in music at the time. The following year, they began compiling a discography of French releases from progressive rock, folk, fusion and electronic music, which appeared in 1984 under the title La Discographie du Rock Français. The first edition included a compact cassette with unreleased tracks by Troll, Uppsala, Eskaton and other bands whose albums were difficult to obtain due to poor or complete lack of music management. The success of the book was such that, after the first edition quickly sold out, a second revised edition was published in 1986 and a third completely revised edition in 1994.[1] In 2000, Musea also published the Encyclopédie Des Musiques Progressives by Jean-Louis Lafiteau.
Gueffier and Grosse found that most musicians working in these unpopular styles were rejected by a commercial system. Bernard Gueffier commented on this in an interview in 2014 as follows:
[…] in the 80’s, I observed that all record companies forgot about Progressive Rock and turned to more profitable styles such as Punk or New Wave. I found particularly inacceptable that any music style may be condamned[sic] only for profit reasons[2]
So it quickly became clear to Gueffier and Grosse that the solution could only be to have to distribute this music as a self-production. Another aspect came to the fore: Since they came into contact with many artists through the development of the discography and at the same time the demand for albums by these very artists increased among many readers, the two felt inspired to set up a record company. In November 1985, Gueffier and Grosse then founded Musea Records.[1]
The first activity was to collect the stock of non-distributed albums by French artists in the fields of progressive rock, jazz-rock/fusion and new age music. The publication of a catalogue made it possible to sell them both to private customers and to wholesalers in France and abroad. At the time, this catalogue comprised about one hundred titles and consisted mainly of in-house productions that became collectors' items: DÜN, Falstaff, Synopsis, Eider Stellaire, Nuance were some of the first bands to sell their albums this way.
Then, in March 1986, Musea started its own production with the album Jeux De Nains by Jean-Pascal Boffo. Stylistically, the album resembled some of Steve Hackett's pieces. From the beginning, Musea was keen to treat each album as a complete work, where music, cover, concept and lyrics should be part of a coherent whole. One of Musea's greatest achievements was the re-release of long-forgotten albums by groups such as Sandrose, Pulsar, Arachnoid or Acyntia, which belong to the milestones of French progressive rock history.
In the early 1980s, the CD format was introduced. Musea had previously only released vinyl albums, but in 1987 they decided to produce on CD as well. Since the size of the CD box did not allow for the same design possibilities as the vinyl albums, the label founders, together with a meanwhile expanded staff, decided to create elaborate booklets with a wealth of information, texts and pictures of the respective artists.[1]
Original master tapes were also often restored and released with additional, previously unreleased material. A typical example is the Neuschwanstein album Alice in Wonderland from 2008, which was originally only available as a demo cassette. The cassette was elaborately sound-engineered to an acceptable sound standard and released as a CD together with an extensive booklet. Another example of Musea's efforts to revive lost material is the album Vermod by the Swedish band Anekdoten. Initially self-produced, the album was subsequently bought up by the Japanese label Arcàngelo and sound upgraded. However, the print run was quite small and quickly disappeared from the market. Musea then later offered the band to upgrade the original master tapes to a similarly high sound standard as the Japanese edition.[3]
Musea's reputation for bringing back to light the lost treasures of progressive rock has now spread far beyond France. Artists from all over the world contacted Musea to release their own projects through this label. As this was not just progressive rock, sub-labels were founded: e.g. in 1988 "Musea Parallèle", dedicated to jazz-rock/fusion music, and in 1994 "Brennus Music", which focused on heavy metal.[4] Other sub-labels for a wide variety of musical genres were to follow: Angular Records (Neo-Prog), Gazul (New Music), Ethnea (Folk and World Music), Dreaming (Electronic music and New-age), Bluesy Mind (Blues rock) and many more.[2]
The historical reappraisal of numerous older, mostly out-of-print productions also interested foreign labels, which made licensing agreements with Musea to release certain titles from the Musea catalogue in their respective countries, such as South Korea, Japan or even Russia. But the system also worked in the opposite direction: Musea could acquire licences from foreign companies in order to be able to publish them in Europe. Outstanding examples of this are the Pink Floydtribute albumPigs And Pyramids (2002) under the leadership of Billy Sherwood (ex-Yes) or also the comeback album Focus 8 by Focus. Also the Procol Harum albums from the 1970s were reissued by Musea in Digipak format.[1]
The re-release of older albums by the Swedish band Kaipa deserves a special mention. The reissues sold so well that it inspired the band to re-unit in 2000.[citation needed]
Musea not only produces groups and individual artists, however, but also supports them at live events. From 1994 to 2000, for example, the label participated in "ProgFest", the oldest and best-known progressive rock festival in the USA. Recordings of such live performances were also recorded and released. Since 1997, there have been participations in the "Baja Prog" in Mexicali near San Diego (USA), or the "NEARfest" (USA), the "Prog'Sud" (France) and the "Rio ArtRock Festival" (Brazil).In 2024, Émile Jacotey, Ange's 1975 concept album, was remastered.[5]
Bands
Musea published or is publishing albums by the following musicians and bands, among others:[6]
Procol Harum were an English rock band formed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, in 1967. Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of the few singles to have sold more than 10 million copies. Although noted for their baroque and classical influence, Procol Harum's music is described as psychedelic rock and proto-prog with hints of the blues, R&B, and soul.
Regal Zonophone Records was a British record label formed in 1932, through a merger of the Regal and Zonophone labels. This followed the merger of those labels' respective parent companies – the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company – to form EMI. At the merger, those records from the Regal Records catalogue were prefixed 'MR' and those from the Zonophone Records catalogue were prefixed 'T'. Record releases after the merger continued using only the 'MR' prefix.
Ange is a French progressive rock band formed in September 1969 by the Décamps brothers, Francis (keyboards) and Christian.
Vertigo Records is a British record company. It was a subsidiary of the Philips/Phonogram record label, launched in 1969 to specialise in progressive rock and other non-mainstream musical styles. Today, it is operated by Universal Music Germany, and the UK catalogue was folded into Mercury Records, which was absorbed in 2013 by Virgin EMI Records, which returned to the EMI Records name in June 2020.
Procol Harum is the debut studio album by English rock band Procol Harum. It was released in September 1967 by record label Deram in the US, following their breakthrough and immensely popular single "A Whiter Shade of Pale". The track does not appear on the UK version of the album, but was included on the US issue. The UK version of the album was released in December 1967 by record label Regal Zonophone.
Shine On Brightly is the second studio album by English rock band Procol Harum, released in 1968 by record labels Regal Zonophone and A&M.
A Salty Dog is the third studio album by English rock band Procol Harum, released in 1969 by record labels Regal Zonophone and A&M.
Exotic Birds and Fruit is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Procol Harum. It was released in 1974. The cover artwork for the album is by Jakob Bogdani, a noted Hungarian artist whose paintings centered on exotic birds and fruit.
Apocalypse is a progressive rock band from Brazil that plays symphonic rock with strong electronic keyboard orientation.
This is an introductory page to timelines of artists, albums, and events in progressive rock and its subgenres. While this page shows the formation of significant bands in the genre, the detailed timeline is presented in separate articles for each decade.
Guy LeBlanc was a Canadian keyboardist and composer. He led his own progressive-rock band - Nathan Mahl, and was a member of the British progressive band Camel from 2000 to 2015. He produced and released his own solo, as well as Nathan Mahl's discs, and had appeared as guest keyboardist on several other releases.
Oaksenham is an electric and acoustic progressive rock band established in 2001. Oaksenham’s core consists of experienced musicians that have played in a range of influential Armenian rock bands: Vahagn Papayan and Ashot Korganyan from the same progressive band very popular in 1990s in Armenia.
Glass is a progressive rock trio from the Pacific Northwest. The group consists of Greg Sherman on keyboards, vibes and Mellotron, his brother Jeff Sherman on bass guitar, guitar, bass pedals and keyboards, and their childhood friend Jerry Cook on drums and percussion.
Yesterdays is a Hungarian symphonic progressive rock band based in Carei, Romania.
Jack Dupon is a French progressive rock band. The band's music is created in a "scientific-empirical" way, based on themes, using counter melodies and poly-rhythms performed by one or several of the musicians, and with total improvisations during live performances or recorded and reworked in the studio. They are often labeled by the media as the worthy heirs of Frank Zappa, King Crimson and Gong. Onstage Jack Dupon, a fictionalized character, travels back and forth through time to help in bettering the world.
Twenty Four Hours is an Italian progressive rock band with various influences, including the psychedelic one that is the predominant element. After their first album, strongly encouraged by Nick Saloman and entitled "The Smell of The Rainy Air", a self -produced vinyl in January 1991, the group has acquired a certain notoriety thanks to the welcome of specialized music critics signaled the debut of the band among the best releases of 1991.
Battlement is the only official studio album by the German progressive rock band Neuschwanstein. It is still considered one of the most remarkable German productions of this genre of the late 1970s. The album's importance to the progressive rock scene is also evident from the fact that there are hundreds of articles, reviews and blogs on Battlement worldwide, from North and South America, throughout Western and Eastern Europe, to Central and East Asia.
Neuschwanstein is a progressive rock band which, although never signed to a major record label, were nevertheless able to release an album that was highly regarded in the prog rock scene in the 1970s.
Alice in Wonderland is the second album by the German progressive rock band Neuschwanstein, although in terms of the recording date it was actually the group's first production, which was also not supposed to be released as an album. Originally intended as a demo tape in 1976, the French label Musea finally released it as a CD in 2008.
Minimum Vital is a French progressive rock band founded in 1982 by the brothers Thierry and Jean Luc Payssan from Bègles near Bordeaux.
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