Abstract Forms
**300 copies** Abstract Forms is a selection of rare as yet unreleased in any physical format Sandro Brugnolini recordings from the late '80s and early '90s. The sixteen electronic tracks were produced for television background use or synchronization and, thanks to their great intensity and suspense, are still perfect to be scored in any number of thriller sequences, connecting smooth jazz memoirs filtered with machines overplayed on videogame sounding backgrounds. The majority of these experime…
Macbeth
This 1971 darkly evocative and eerie music of Third Ear Band fitted perfectly with Roman Polanski’s cinematic vision of the acclaimed Shakespearian drama
Rock Satellite
Funk is the magic word on this record here. Puccio Roelens (1919 – 1985) was an Italian composer, orchestra leader and pianist active from the mid 1940s to the time of his passing in 1985. You can easily place him in the “library music” category with his heavily rhythmical instrumental funk with a jazz / fusion edge. Layers upon layers of different rhythm patterns get shifted here and your body moves at full throttle to the sensual, steaming hot grooves. Signore Roelens moves through a bunch of …
Electronic Hair Pieces
Mort Garson was the master of the moog and a pioneer in electronic music from the late 60s and 70s where he participated in some unforgotten projects such as Lucifer, The Zodiac, Ataraxia and Plantasia. The following review centers on his album “Electronic Hair pieces” from 1969 on which he tickles your senses with instrumental adaptions of the songs from the musical “Hair”. He performs all the tunes on a contemporary moog synthesizer system even with electronic percussion. Since you might recog…
Speedball Experience
In stock now!! Okay, as the title already suggests, this compilation is made entirely of early 70s library music which was recorded for so called music libraries from whose stores, movie makers and TV producers could license certain titles for their productions. In most cases the compositions were a conglomerate of popular music genres such as funk, psychedelic, rock and soul. I have experienced a few French productions of that kind before, but now it is time for some Italian stuff. I am quite p…
Astromusic Synthesizer
Another great but late (1928 – 2003) synthesizer artist and pioneer, this time from Italy. His works date back to the early 60s and maybe even beyond considering his age. In the mid to late 60s he became quite active in the field of western movie soundtracks for example. This album I have the honor to review is a concept album on the zodiac signs and the music it contains could not be more diverse.
The elements that unite all the tunes are the entirely synthetic, yet warm analogue sound and the …
The Unexplained
Electronic impressions of the occult, reissued for the first time. The late, great Mort Garson (1924-2008) was a hotshot of electronic music's pioneering days, known for his groundbreaking occult works such as The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds (1967) and Lucifer: Black Mass (1971). A different side of his creativity emerged in his 1976 Plantasia project (FD 5003CD/LP), an inspired album of Moog compositions to be played for growing plants. The previous year he released this hypnotizing album, which ta…
The Moomins - ltd
People of a certain age love the Moomins. It was the quaint Swedish children's television show about a gang of woodland creatures who looked something like hippopotamuses. Weirdly, the evocative, dreamy music was made in Leeds by a couple of punk-era musicians Graeme Miller & Steve Shill and Finders Keepers have already issued the soundtrack on vinyl. This version is a Winter Wunderland Edition which is the same soundtrack in more 'wintery' sleeve art.
Music For The Films of Takashi Ito
Lucky restock, sold-out at the label**numbered + handmade in an edition of 250 copies only and no re-press ever; 2x180gr vinyl in custom-made screen-printed outer (sealed), containing two risograph inserts featuring original writing by filmmaker Takashi Ito and composer Takashi Inagaki; additional, unreleased music contained on each accompanying CD** Takashi Inagaki’s collaboration with the filmmaker Takashi Ito began in the late 1970s with the short film Spacy: a nightmare of the eternally rec…
D.O.C.
**CD edition** Issued alongside the compilation Musiche de Teisco, the Dual Planet label offers another piece of the mysterious cosmic puzzle of electronic library maverick Teisco. Fast forward several years to D.O.C, a library recording released under his new tag Rimauri, Here, you can hear how Teisco / Rimauri has refined the synthetic vision he started to work on with his earlier recording Dossier Special. This set conjures up instant thoughts of vintage computer game soundtracks or even a pa…
Musiche de Teisco
**CD edition** The last time we checked in with Italian musician Teisco aka Rimauri, aka Marco Melchiori, was quite possibly also the first time many of you checked in with this most singular of characters. For The Roundtable imprint’s reissue of his blasted ‘70s Italian library classic, Tuscan Castle & Country Seat, managed to be both a blast of fresh air for the library and soundtrack palate, and a defining moment in early 21st century reissue culture. But Tuscan Castle only tells part of the …
Dharmatma
You know it's Bollywood time again when you find classic Hindustani music, tinges of fuzz guitar and acid pop plus and a dance orchestra mixed for an album with epic anthems captivating and accessible at once. The musicians play with passion and the singers really chant their souls out to summon Krishna or just rave about tragically broken relationships and other problems of all day's life. This album really paints majestic pictures into your mind and lets you become part of a colorful mo…
Hare Rama Hare Krishna
Now we drift deep into the world of Bollywood. “Hare Rama, hare Krishna” is an Indian movie from 1971 which features an odd story about family problems, the flight of a young girl into the hippie lifestyle far from home and the quest of her brother to bring her back home. The musical framework of this movie has been created by Rahul Dev Burman (1939 – 1994), one of the most prolific soundtrack score composers from India. And the music alone plays a movie in your mind even though you may not know…
Mother Earth's Plantasia
Mort Garson is well known as one of the pioneers of electronic music in the late '60s; some may have heard of his contributions to quite a few pop hits back in the day, when he wrote and conducted orchestral arrangements for one or another popular artist. During the second half of the 1960s Mort Garson and his sidekicks Paul Beaver and Jacques Wilson, among others, discovered Robert Moog's synthesizer and made it an integral part of their future-pop music even before Wendy Carlos released her fa…
Panic Button
Skokiaan present a reissue of Georges Garvarentz's Panic Button, originally released in 1964. The mastermind behind this album can be seen as a luminary in the field of movie soundtracks, especially for the '60s and '70s, his career lasting til the early '90s, up to his untimely death. Panic Button is the third album of its kind from Garvarentz, composed for an Italian low budget comedy film, of the same name, released in 1964. The most interesting fact about the movie is the participation of cu…
Lebanon
Raja Zahr is an American music producer, singer and multi instrumentalist of Arab (Lebanese) origin. Here we go with the bare facts about this: his first album in a row of five releases between 1980 and 1984. The Arab folk influence is quite obvious on each track and gets more or less expanded if the specific song takes a turn into the realms of traditional music or comes as a plain and simple yet captivating pop song with great arrangements and haunting melodies. Mr. Zahr obviously had a fondne…
Mindbender
An incredible album that's as evocative as its title – one that blends together strings and electronics into a sublime suite of sound library grooves. Originally released in 1972, can be put in the field of so-called "library music," records made for use in movies and TV productions, commercials, and for similar purposes to enhance the tension of the atmosphere in very dramatic scenes or accompany the more mellow and relaxed moments with lush harmony carpets. And of all these library albums, thi…
Progressive Percussions
Eddie Warner, born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1917, was one of the leading figures in European exotica in the 1950s, operating from France, where he ended up at after the war. His repertoire of styles included several kinds of jazz- and Latin-based dance music such as mambo, baião, and chachachá, but, as a tireless explorer, he also found refuge in the library music and electronic sounds department. A cornerstone of his work in that field, Progressive Percussions, was originally released i…
Electro Violet
Electro Violet is the career spanning retrospective from legendary avant-garde composer Irmin Schmidt, out on Mute / Spoon Records on 20 November 2015. This 12 CD deluxe box set takes you on a journey through his entire solo work from 1981 to the present day. Irmin Schmidt is a founding member of Can, the German band whose unparalleled genius remains unquestioned, timeless and immeasurably influential. When all Can members decided to part and explore new sounds, Irmin teamed up with Swiss jazz a…
Un Beau Monstre
Greek born composer and conductor George Garaventz really complies with any expectations on his 1970 album for the French movie "Un beau monstre“ (A beautiful monster). This is a rather atmospheric and moody effort and except for the opening tunes of both sides this is entirely instrumental despite a few wordless female choirs adding an even deeper atmosphere to the compositions. The luscious arrangements and insistent melodies truly drag one into a colourful world of their own. Pop, psychedelic…