PROGROCK.COM'S Essentials

At a time when progressive rock labels seem to be closing faster than they are opening, this indie is going from strength to strength. Owners Mark and Rayna Monforti take a moment to draw breath and reflect on their 2025 successes.

- Words: Stephen Lambe

It's a tough time for independent progressive rock labels. With so many inactive or producing only the occasional release, the previously thriving scene has contracted to a handful of participants. One relatively new organisation that's very much bucking that trend is Progrock.com's Essentials, run by husband-and-wife team Mark and Rayna Monforti. They've hosted concerts in their Chicago home for some years, but when the duo bought the Progrock.com domain name in 2013 from mailorder retailer Shawn Gordon, it was initially just a home for their online radio station. However, an opportunity arose in 2019 to partner with Detroit-based band Discipline on a reissue of their classic Unfolded Like Staircase. The album was remixed during lockdown by Rush producer Terry Brown and released in 2022. Since then, the label have signed several established progressive artists, most notably Australians Unitopia and the resurgent Solstice. But they've also attracted a growing roster of British and American artists, and 2025 has seen excellent releases from Spriggan Mist, Tribe 3 and Ghost Of The Machine. But a label was not their initial intention.

Did you originally plan for more releases after Unfolded Like Staircase?

Mark: It was intended to be a one-off, but then Unitopia came to us wanting to re-release their album The Garden. They were previously with InsideOutMusic, but that label wouldn't repress it, so we had to buy the rights back from their parent company, Sony, and we put it out with some bonus and live tracks. Then I found myself organising a tour for them in 2023 with Chester Thompson on drums, and I had no idea what I was doing! We then put out Chester's solo album [Wake-Up Call] and one by Don Schiff [