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NEKTAR Releases Entire Catalog Digitally Via Hybrid Recordings

Hybrid Recordings and the legendary progressive rock band Nektar have entered into an agreement granting Hybrid worldwide rights (excluding Germany, Switzerland, and Austria) to digitally distribute Nektar’s entire catalog.

“We are thrilled to have Nektar’s remastered catalog available digitally through Hybrid Recordings,” says Al Cafaro, co-CEO Metropolitan Talent, Inc. “Our hope is to have their catalog revitalized through this process maybe leading us to work together on a new Nektar release.”
Formed in Hamburg, Germany, in 1969, Nektar was one of the first rock bands to introduce concept albums and full-album-length suites. Among the group’s storied successes are three gold-certified albums, “Remember the Future,” “Down to Earth” and “Recycled.” Nektar has continued into the present day with new albums and world tours.

In October 2003, Nektar negotiated full rights for its entire back catalog outside of Germany and began a full remastering campaign. April 2004 saw the release of the classic albums “Journey to the Centre of the Eye,” “A Tab in the Ocean,” and “Recycled” (all with previously unreleased bonus material). That month, a special, remixed CD boxed set of the band’s entire August 1974 concert at New York City’s Academy of Music was also released on the band’s own Dream Nebula imprint, part of the UK label Electric Discs.

The above albums and all future releases – remastered from the original tapes, using the highest standards – are available via download from sites such as iTunes.

Hybrid Recordings is a subsidiary of Metropolitan Talent, Inc., a multifaceted entertainment company led by co-CEO’s John Scher and Al Cafaro. The company’s concert division, Metropolitan Talent Presents, produces live events throughout the Northeast. An artist management division (Bruce Hornsby, Little Feat, Art Garfunkel, the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir & RatDog) and the independent Hybrid imprint (Johnette Napolitano, Gin Blossoms, Assembly of Dust, Jen Chapin) are also under the Metropolitan umbrella.

Hybrid Recordings

Roye Albrighton

François Couture @ All Music
Best and mostly known for his tenure as lead guitarist in the 1970s progressive rock group Nektar, Roye Albrighton enjoys a small but devoted following, both in his native England and in Germany. After the demise of his group in the late ‘70s he laid very low. By 1999 he was warming up for a come-back and released his first solo album in 2002, synchronized with the reunion of his old band.

Albrighton is born in 1949 in Coventry, England. After a client had paid his TV repairman brother with a half-broken guitar, he began to learn by himself at the age of 10. Dropping out of high school at 15 he dived head first into the turbulent life of a rock guitarist. He cut his first sides in 1965 with a local group called The Peeps (or occasionally Martin Cure and The Peeps), a Beatlesque quartet. After the addition of a keyboardist, it was rechristened Rainbows and recorded two more singles for CBS in 1969. As it occasionally happened in those days, the group was promoted in Germany and toured there. Albrighton decided to stay and performed on the blues-rock circuit in continental Europe and Scandinavia. He met Ron Howden and Allan Freeman in Hamburg, where they decided to form the group that would become Nektar.

The guitarist enjoyed relative fame with Nektar, earning himself a place in progressive rock history and almost making it big in the USA around the time of 1973's Remember the Future -- the group remains one of the most widely known non-British European prog rock acts, right after Focus. After the completion of Nektar's seventh LP, Recycled (1976), Albrighton tried to convince his record company to cut him some slack for a solo career. Denied this option, he called it quits. He joined the jazz-rock group Snowball for a while and recorded with Quantum Jump (which had in its ranks Rupert Hine, future producer extraordinaire). When neither projects proved to be anything more than recreational he hooked up with Freeman, hired a new rhythm section and reformed Nektar for one last album: Man in the Moon, released in 1980.

With bassist Derick Holt and drummer Brendan Day, Albrighton formed Grand Alliance which remained active for a couple of years in the early ‘80s, releasing one album. After that project fell apart he remained very quiet and relocated to England. In the mid-'90s he started to work on his first solo project, The Follies of Rupert Treacle, released privately in 1999 and publicly in 2002, the year the original Nektar line-up was reunited for the album Prodigal Son. =>>>>>>>>>>>

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