The Sound of Soul
When Alan Parker recorded the killer library soul-funk LP The Voice of Soul with session vocalist Madeline Bell in 1976, some bright spark at Themes decided to also release all of the backing tracks as a separate, and equally innocuously title LP called The Sound of Soul. Thank goodness for bright sparks. Released as a collection of “unobtrusive musical backings in various rhythmic styles”, the LP’s original description dryly explains “these tracks have been issued without melody and are therefo…
The Voice of Soul
Veteran library musician Alan Parker recorded with session vocalist Madeline Bell for his Themes International Music label and the result was 1976’s The Voice of Soul. The sensational uptempo dancer That’s What Friends Are For is probably the most well known track on the record, and is a big hit on the rare groove scene, but it is by no means an anomaly. The Voice of Soul is essentially a perfect, sophisticated soul album with heaps of swagger and sass from beginning to end. Its once generic-sou…
Mystery Movie
James Clarke’s Mystery Movie was released in 1974 as “modern, small group compositions in various moods. Ideally suited to the new Americanised style of T.V. and cinema film where music is used to create the mood and carry the action”. So this collection covers a lot of bases, but it does so brilliantly and has absolutely no right to be such a fantastic listen from start to finish. Mystery Movie is best known for the slick drum breaks underpinning the top-notch jazz-funk chase theme Car Patrol, …
Full Circle
Alan Hawkshaw (piano/Hammond) and Shadow’s drummer Brian Bennett are responsible for some of the slickest, funkiest and most sought-after library records ever made in the UK, particularly ones recorded on the legendary KPM label. Their work has now become the go-to place for sampling in music today. Artists such as Dilla, Nas, and the xx, right through to the billion selling Kanye & Drake have taken Hawkshaw’s and Bennett’s immaculate beat-driven soundscapes for their own usage.Their new album, …
Synthesizer & Percussion
Released in the same year as Synthesis over on KPM, 1974’s Synthesizer and Percussion is its essential companion piece. “This record features the many distinctive sounds of the ARP Synthesizer plus percussion in various moods and tempos” is the even more underwhelming than usual library record sales pitch for Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett’s second collection of what is basically minimal G-funk, with overtones of primitive acid house. This is ridiculously good. This is one of Hawkshaw and Benne…
Hot Wax
Hot Wax is an assured KPM masterclass from a dream team line-up of Brian Bennett, Alan Hawkshaw and John Fiddy. Here we’re treated to what happens when all three decide to explore “the latest trends in production music”. The latest as of 1976, of course. John Fiddy’s numbers are sumptuous, string-led and light. Floaty soft-psych underpinned by a solid groove, particularly on Taste For Living and Fresh Start. If you're into Koushik and those early Manitoba/Caribou records - and you should be - yo…
Synthesis
The “vivid contemporary sounds for a fresh visual image” make up the now canonised Synthesis from Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett. These two greats go deeper than usual on this collection, and the end result is a synth concept record of sorts. Released in 1974, it’s an essential companion piece to their Synthesizer and Percussion LP, released on Themes International Music in the same year.Like most of our favourite library records, Synthesis has that gloriously funky, “weird electronic music” vi…
Piano Viberations
Piano Viberations’ “small group jazz featuring piano and vibes with rhythm” makes for a gorgeous Francis Coppieters showcase, surely one of Belgium’s best-kept musical secrets. Released in 1975, and arguably the most low-key of the KPM and Themes records we’re re-issuing, this is easily our current favourite. The Open Highway is the appropriately-named opener, and immediately demonstrates Coppieters’ dexterous interplay between piano and vibes in assured, joyous fashion. The shuffling bossa of S…
Big Business / Wind of Chang
The two sides of 1973’s Big Business / Wind of Change are mainly the work of the great Keith Mansfield but there’s a killer cameo each from Alan Hawkshaw and David Snell to help deliver “a thematic suite, diverse in mood, applicable to dramatic and environmental situations”. A Be With favourite and truly one for the heads. The Big Business of side A is all the work of Keith Mansfield. It’s heavy on the suspense and features the vital Hot Property, an insistent groove so good that Madlib sampled …
Voices In Harmony
Voices In Harmony was released in 1973 as “a selection of contemporary pop titles featuring voices, brass and rhythm”. We choose to describe this collection of works by Keith Mansfield and John Cameron as “a string-laced, harmony-drenched KPM classic”.From the bright, lilting harmonies of Liquid Sunshine to the melting flutes of Loving Touch and Gentle Persuasion, this is warm, effervescent soul music for dreamy, idyllic moods. The supreme Husky Birdsong is so, so smooth, with its unrelenting bo…
Distinctive Themes / Race To Achievement
Released in 1976, Distinctive Themes / Race To Achievement is legendary arranger Nick Ingman exploring the two distinct ideas of “impressive themes varying in style from Basie to Elgar” and “a study in the pressure and rewards of achievement”.Distinctive Themes is a veritable indulgence of variously-tempoed, full orchestra, big band workouts, from relaxed swing to more propulsive themes. The progressively building Expanding Markets is a true highlight, with its rolling pianos, contemplative elec…
The Planets
Joel Horwitz was one of those synthed-out figures in and around Oregon's iconic hippie stronghold during the 1980s. Recorded at Studio E Redlands, Ca. USA, 1978, using a large array of electronic devices, such as ML 101, Carlos Robelli String Machine, Voice, Kalimba, Drumset Percussion w/Gong, Dual Phase Shifters along with a heavy battery of phasing and time-based effects-lands somewhere between a ‘library music’-styled mood excursion and a genuinely transformative mind melter
Paleo Music 1987-1998
Conrad Praetzel is a California-based electronic keyboardist and percussionist who concocts impressionistic vignettes, developing his knack for mixing electronic and ethnic instruments, with haunting short tracks wherev electronic sounds and Indian and folk traditions gather together in a multicultural fusion.
Colonne Sonore Originali 1957-1962
The late great Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, perhaps most famous in the English world for Blowup, Zabriskie Point, and The Passenger created his most arresting work, the so-called “trilogy on modernity and its discontents” in the early 1960s. Comprised of 1960’s L’Avventura, 1961’s La Notte, and 1962’s L’Eclisse, this is not a narrative trilogy, but instead a stylistic one. With music from the brilliant composers Giorgio Gaslini, and Giovanni Fusco this is an essential collection…
Pulsar Music ltd
An outstanding lbirary CD (Originally on Cometa) played by Pulsar, a short living group formed in 1976 by jazz musician Enrico Pieranunzi and Silvano Chimenti , was called The Pulsar in honor of the neutron star and, to date, it was thought that their only album had been used for the soundtrack of the MarioCaiano's movie Milano Violenta. The feel of the album is similar to that of some of the best tracks on the Stroboscopia comps – with lots of tight drums, rumbling basslines, and cool electric …
Les Stances À Sophie
As the legendary Art Ensemble Of Chicago celebrates its 50th anniversary, Soul Jazz Records release a new, fully re-mastered edition of the group’s seminal 1970 album Les Stances à Sophie, which features the great singer Fontella Bass on the opening track Theme de Yoyo, a stunning 9-min opus that continues to startle and compel new audiences today. Drawing upon the mutual soul and funk background of Bass and her then husband Lester Bowie with all the power of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago’s collec…
Africa Oscura
**Edition of 500 copies, killer afro-dark electronics masterwork** Recorded by composer and multi-instrumentalist Giuliano Sorgini between 1974 and 1976 in his studio in Prati district in Rome, a stone’s throw from Italian television offices, Africa Oscura is a set of tracks inspired by the wildest and most obscure secrets of those lands, intended to be the background of some tv documentaries.Some tracks were recorded during the same session of Zoo Folle, the album widely recognised as his maste…
Nouvelle Ambiance: Sounds From The Pan-African Paris Underground
"Paris - Brazzaville - Kinshasa - Abidjan - Douala. A celebration of the underground Pan-African music scene centered around Paris in the '80s featuring never-before-reissued productions and dance floor sure-shots taking in new forms of dance floor-ready Rumba, Bikutsi, Soukous, Boogie and more. In the early '80s a perfect storm of social, technological, political and cultural developments brought about a unique music scene centered around Paris, away from the major labels and pop charts. Musici…
Slalom
Dagored present a reissue of Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for Slalom, originally issued in 1965. This is a legendary soundtrack from maestro Morricone, ranging from jazz to lounge atmospheres of mystery and suspense, with ethnic elements of Middle Eastern culture, a classic surf-spy theme song, hippy bongo suspense, orchestral moods, cocktail blues, roller rink electric guitar and much, much more. This new expanded edition includes an additional ten minutes of material. Edition of 500 on pink vi…
Svegliati E Uccidi
Dagored presents a reissue of Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to Svegliati E Uccidi, originally issued in 1966. This perfect "noir jazz style" soundtrack was composed by maestro Morricone for the Italian crime thriller Svegliati e Uccidi (Too Soon To Die), directed by the well-known Carlo Lizzani (who first gained notoriety working on such Italian neo-realist classics as Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (1948) and Giuseppe De Santis's Bitter Rice (1949) and starred Robert Hoffman and Gian Mar…