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A lost paradise, a lost innocence, and a lost culture; these are the dominant themes presented in Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 masterpiece Walkabout, a survival story of two children lost in the scorched Australian wilderness. Together with other seminal Australian surrealistic outback films, (e.g. Wake In Fright) Walkabout was a film that reshaped the Australian film industry and defined the country’s New Wave. On the cusp of the film’s 45th anniversary it is pertinent to observe that the film’s origina…
**Incredible pioneering recording of extended synthesiser and percussion technique from the Australian experimental underground. Edition of 500** Welcome to the strange musical world of Tolley & Dara, an experimental duo whose incredible music held a marginal yet vital position on the fringe of the Australian music industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Consisting of jazz bassist and synthesist David Tolley and percussionist Dure Dara, their union was a relationship of romance and inten…
Regarded as the link between Italian acid folk, Library music and Krautrock, Living Music was a collective of Italian Musicians, artists and poets active in the counterculture and student movement of Rome in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Taking their name and concept from the New York experimental theatre group ‘Living Theatre’ husband and wife duo Umberto Santucci (jazz critic, graphic designer (Brainticket) and photographer, library composer) and Gianfranca Montedoro (Jazz and rock singer, m…
***180 gram orange vinyl, 2019 stock*** Phoenix Records present a reissue of Flower Travellin' Band's Anywhere - originally released in 1970 - the debut album from the legendary Japanese rockers fronted by Yuya Uchida. Although consisting mainly of cover versions, Anywhere still exhibited many of the musical traits that were to come to the fore on the band's next release, the classic Satori, an album of original material delivered with panache by the increasingly confident Uchida in 1971. Anywhe…
Enigmatic UK-based singer and pianist Bill Fay's dark and haunting work gained him a strong cult following in the late 60s and early 70s. He released two albums on the Deram label in the early 70s and promptly disappeared into relative obscurity for 30+ years. In the last 10 years or so those albums have finally begun to get the recognition they deserve, and 4 Men With Beards is proud to be able to bring them back into circulation on 180g vinyl. First up is his self-titled 13-track debut from 19…
Selva Discos returns to the LP reissue game with a bang – by giving a new life to the stunning and very sought-after Memória das Águas album by Fernando Falcão. Originally recorded in 1979 in Paris but only released independently in Brazil in 1981, the album comes complete with genre-hopping explorations that swirl around ambient soundscapes, lively jazz, experimental-leanings, Afro-rhythms and a unique blend of Latin grooves and French pop with a Brazilian accent, but it also comes with a story…
First 200 on Red Transparent Viny. LP Gatefold 180 Gram + Poster. 500 hand numbered copies. The original soundtrack of the 1976 cult movie 'Napoli Violenta', composed by Maestro Franco Micalizzi, sees a deserved reissue. A classic 70s Italian crime soundtrack – presented here in full format for the first time ever, and filled with wonderful tunes in a variety of styles! There's a quality to the music that really matches the badass image on the front – a bold, forceful approach that has th…
LP Gatefold 180 Gram + Poster | 33 RPM500 Hand-Numbered. A driving Italian soundtrack from the height of the cop/crime years – done with really full arrangements by Franco Micalizzi, in a way that easily rivals some of the best American work of the genre in the 70s! This score from 1976 (here reissued on wax) features an amazing band, spacey grooves, some jazz atmospheres, timeless brass-crescendos, the charm of '70s funk and the untameable talent of the maestro! Most of the orchestrat…
LP 180 Gram. Black vinyl edition. Easily comparable to the vaste number of movies from the erotic-dramatic genre popular between sixties and seventies, Alessandro Fallay’s Le Altre – a pretty much unknown director of Iranian origins – boasts an amazing soundtrack from the unforgettable Piero Piccioni, one of the acclaimed masters of the genre. The album moves between easy listening atmospheres to jazz and lounge, among Roma and Cinecittà’s summers parfumes. Everything topped off with woods, Hamm…
Continuing the twisted pop explorations of Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno's sophomore album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), is more subdued and cerebral, and a bit darker when he does cut loose, but it's no less thrilling once the music reveals itself. It's a loose concept album -- often inscrutable, but still playful -- about espionage, the Chinese Communist revolution, and dream associations, with the more stream-of-consciousness lyrics beginning to resemble the sorts of random conne…
First 200 on Orange Marbled Vinyl. 180 gram audiophile vinyl LP; Gatefold sleeve + movie poster. Second release from the vaults of Spettro and another classic Italian gem of the late Sixties, a wonderful score from the genius of Bruno Nicolai, renowned for his long collaboration with Ennio Morricone and for countless and beautiful works for tv and cinema. Femmine insaziabili – also known as Carnal Circuit – is a 1969 Alberto De Martino giallo flick (with a young Romina Power) whose best part is…
First 200 on Transparent/Pink Vinyl. Rome was, of course, the pulsating heart of Italian library music – it is the place where tv and movies are made, so editors and musicians tend to gather there. But we must not forget what was happening, at the same time, in Milan – where there was a very active music industry, but leaning more on the pop and jazz side. The Roman style was more connected to the classic and orchestral tradition, but the musicians in Milan adopted …
Fabio Borgazzi – aka Fabio Fabor – played literally every known style of music, from baroque to “satanic” electronic, in his library music albums released during his career which lasted almost seven decades.Born in Milan in 1920, Fabor was one of the great artisans of post-war Italian popular music. Author, arranger and conductor with a classical background, he started writing songs (in the 1950’s and 1960’s) for popstars such as Nilla Pizzi, Johnny Dorelli and Milva; he then turned to music for…
First 200 on Yellow Vinyl. More than to reward the artistic ambitions of the artist, the majority of Library records were generally functional to sonorizations and conceived for a commercial use. So the main difficulty for the artist was to demonstrate his compositional versatility that allowed the use of his songs in different contests : documentaries, spaghetti western movies, television programs and dramas, news reports. “Clouds”, fourth chapter of this new and exciting Spettro series, is a c…
First 200 on Green Marbles Vinyl. The early Eighties marked a transition in popular music, especially for a generation of musicians (still heavily influenced by the previous decade) trying to assimilate the changes in aesthetics and technology which were occurring. Disco music is dead, so is prog, synths are still too expensive and unreliable, jazz is lost somewhere and the term “fusion” has become really popular. This the environment in which this album …
Rome was, of course, the pulsing heart of Italian library music – it is the place where tv and movies are made, so editors and musicians tend to gather there. But we must not forget what was happening in the library music world, at the same time, in Milan – where there was a very active music industry, but leaning more on the pop and jazz side. The Roman style was more connected to the classic and orchestral tradition, but t…
Ruscigan is Guido Baggiani, neapolitan composer and trumpet player, ex Karlheinz Stockhausen’s student. Ruscigan is Piero Umiliani, one of the most important Masters in Italian music, author of dozens of soundtracks and library recordings. “Disagio Sociale” was always considered as Umiliani’s solo work, even though it’s not part of his detailed and official discography as, i.e., “Viaggio nel domani”. Despite all the mystery and the discomfort of not knowing, the re-release of “Disagio sociale” i…
First 200 on Pink Vinyl. Masterpiece!!! If we talk about ideas, we surely talk about “Idee 1”, one of the best collaborations between Massimo Catalano and Remigio Ducros – together with “La fatica”, that will be reprinted in a while – with contributions from the amazing Daniela Casa. Daniela is one of the few women in the “Italian libraries” scene, but she’s more talented than some of her better known male colleagues. If Daniela, and so her husband Ducros, are names linked to a tiny niche of sou…
**Royal blue vinyl edition** Ken Elliott was the keyboard player for Second Hand and Seventh Wave, two obscure and elusive bands from the Seventies British underground scene, and this is the first ever reissue of his ultra rare gem released in the UK in 1979. After fourty years Body Music still sounds as a highly eclectic album. This is groove oriented music based on a series of both motoric and infectious Electro Funk rhythms and Synth Pop Disco elements. In other words this is great fuel for d…
First issue of this previously unreleased Oriental psych monster from the organ king of Casablanca, combining traditional rhythms with spaced out modern sounds. Nuits De Printemps is the third part of Abdou El Omari's Nuits-trilogy. This album contains dazzling instrumentals, spiced up here-and-there with some traditional vocals. While playing his fine melodies, Abdou switches swiftly from his Farfisa Professional mothership to an analog ARP synthesizer. This new sound and some funky wah guitar …