improved sound limited

The Eponymous Album

Impudence in vinyl. That's what you call debuting with a 2 LP set, made for the Liberty/United Artists label und self-assuredly self-produced. The result: a sound that the band sought and dreamed of, composed of the eclectic ingredients which make rock music a basic provision of life.

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes

CATCH A SINGING BIRD ON THE ROAD

The Private Album

"While my pedal steel gently weeps...": probably the first country rock album from Germany, also self-produced, this time for CBS. The title song "Catch A Singing Bird On The Road" is both a motto and a metaphor for melancholy. A change of direction aspiring towards the specific, the homogenous, the right and proper, with a laid back feeling and an almost idiosyncratic intimacy.

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes

RATHBONE HOTEL

The Back-To-The-Roots Album

The songbook of a journey to the southwest of the U.S.A., recorded in the CBS Studios in London, produced functionally and efficiently, without gimmicks, by the former Genesis and Camel producer David Hitchcock. A compendium of basic rock music in the classic Improved style, at times drenched in mellotron, at times tequila flavoured, and enhanced with the singular colours of slide and pedal steel guitar.

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes

ROAD TRAX

The Movies Album

A CD for traveling, for journeys through the wide, open country.
Cues for films by Wim Wenders and Erwin Keusch, specifically: "Kings of the Road", "The Baker's Bread" and "As Far As The Eye Can See". The music was chosen by the band for long trips, the "band's cut" if you will, marked by lots of melancholy, power and the knowledge that even in music, to quote a German proverb, "the journey is the goal".

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes

The Final Foreword

The First-Step & Last-Waltz Album

A journey in time from the "beat culture" of the sixties with the first Improved single "It Is You" to the farewell song from the third milennium. In between film music for Michael Verhoeven's "Engelchen macht weiter", for the TV series "Krempoli" and for an episode of the series "The Kommissar". The previously unreleased ballad "The Policeman" is also recommended to positively inclined ears.

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes

THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION

All Of It

Reserved for aficionados, freaks and self-confessed hedonists. (A little exclusivity never hurt: luxury and excess without regret.) A sumptuous CD box set in the shape of an LP box, with all five albums and, as an encore, the first release of "Bell Cantos – Ezra Pound Revisited", a very special and unique suite. Accompanied by a large format 64 page booklet with a new interview and copious backround information. The ultimate temptation for hard core Improved fans.

Tracks, Samples, Lyrics and Liner Notes