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…
Cybernetic Circus
Vinilisssimo present a reissue of Giampiero Boneschi's Cybernetic Circus, originally released in 1973. Giampiero Boneschi is a complete musician: he composes, arranges, directs, acts as a producer, and also plays the piano. But he is also an adventurous artist who has managed to combine his work with vocalists, jazz or even easy listening music with other highly experimental projects. His name is familiar to library music fans, and his recordings for Music Scene, CAM, or Fonit are some of the mo…
Zamaan Ya Sukkar: Exotic Love Songs and Instrumentals from
Zamaan Ya Sukkar is a rich musical portrait from the time when Cairo was the vibrant cultural heart of the Middle East and the grandeur of the leading orchestras was incomparable. Unearthed Latin and jazz-tinged tracks will let your mind drift off to the glamorous nightlife of '60s Cairo. Meet some forgotten souls of the Egyptian music scene and cinema world. Sensual voices and Bollywood-like orchestra sounds inflame the senses of the body with an intangible exotic twist! All music is remastered…
Music From The Soundtrack Respectable Families
Dark Tango, mysterious twist, and psychedelic cha-cha-cha! Nothing you
would expect from a '60s Egyptian soundtrack. Romanticist and artistic
all-rounder Abd Al-Rahman Al-Khamissi stands out with this absolute timeless musical production for his 1969 movie Respectable Families. Four abstract instrumental dances to express poetry through music.
La Schiava Io Ce L'Ho E Tu No
Thanks to the triple alliance of the Roman labels and distributions Cometa Edizioni Musicali, Beat Records and Four Flies Records, finally one of the most iconic and long-awaited works of Maestro Piero Umiliani emerges from the archives. Recorded in September 1973 in the Ortophonic studios in Rome, La schiava I have it and you do not, soundtrack of the homonymous film by Giorgio Capitani with Lando Buzzanca and Catherine Spaak, has for years been one of the most sought after titles of the Floren…