★The Roundtable

France's near-revolution of May '68 kicked the country's small but vibrant counter-culture into overdrive and birthed a local underground music scene. The bands it spawned made music with far less rock purity than groups from the UK and US - their influences foregrounded improvisation, disjunction and genre-blending: Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, free jazz and radical politics. The introduction of the synthesiser in the early 1970s added fuel to the fire. This six-track compilation inau…

530 pages!  While music fans worldwide celebrate Germany's Krautrock revolution, the equally radical French underground scene has remained largely hidden from view. Ian Thompson's groundbreaking Synths, Sax & Situationists finally illuminates this extraordinary movement that emerged from the revolutionary ferment of May 1968, revealing a generation of musicians who produced some of the most distinctive and vital experimental music of the entire decade. At the dawn of the 1970s, French musicians …

Tip! Behind the deceptive veneer of the demure monotone artwork, something unassuming lies within this long-play waiting to be explored. Intrigued by the ironic title, enticed by the elegant text positioned alone on the beautifully tactile matte canvas, the listener will experience musical wonderment at odds with the presentation and discover that the 1976 album Colours is a powerful yet sophisticated set of electric soul-jazz. An inspired recording that bursts with warmth and texture, the pivot…

Tip! Existing somewhere between the post-psychedelic period of Soft Machine and the electric funk of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Black And White, the 1976 album from Norway’s Vanessa is without question a formidable beast of a jazz-rock record. A potent brew of sonic experimentation and pulsating off-kilter groove. Taking their name from the genus of Nymphalidae butterfly, Vanessa was founded in 1971 by saxophonist Svend Undseth and pianist Frode Holm, the founder of the Oslo record store turn…

Big Tip! It is widely accepted that the recorded musical output of Indian-born British guitarist Amancio D'Silva came to a premature closure with the landmark 1972 albums, Cosmic Eye and the unreleased masterpiece Konkan Dance. The Roundtable are here to prove otherwise, announcing the discovery of an extraordinary lost recording. Forty years after it was recorded we proudly present Sapana, the forgotten piece of a remarkable musical legacy, the final recording from one the most singular artists…

Following the critical acclaim of the 2020 compilation Pyramid Pieces, The Roundtable return with a second offering of modernist jazz from Australia. Another vital document further examining the nation's jazz scene during the late 1960s and 70s. A fertile period that witnessed the birth of an independent movement and the development of a distinct Australian jazz sound. While continuing to focus on the modal forms explored in Volume 1, this second edition shifts direction slightly, this time also…

Composer and saxophonist Brian Brown produced some of the most refined Australian jazz recordings during the 1970s. A versatile musician whose distinct impressionist music melded modern jazz with the outer limits of free experimentation. Considered to be his greatest work was the 1975 concept album Carlton Streets, an ambitious recording that romanticised the sights, sounds and the nostalgia of this once-bohemian Melbourne neighbourhood. Differing from his eco-jazz composition Wildflowers heard …

Following in the footsteps of the landmark 1966 double-quartet recording by Joe Harriott and John Mayer, Indian born musician Amancio D’Silva produced some of the most adventurous and sophisticated recordings within the canon of ‘indo-jazz’, a term used to define a pioneering east meets west synthesis that reflected the shifting musical and cultural landscape of post-war Britain. An experiment which reached a pinnacle in 1972 with D’Silva’s seminal recording Dream Sequence by Cosmic Eye (The Rou…

** First LP reissue of rare 1974 Canadian Free Jazz album ** Beyond the striking photography of the cover artwork, a cursory glance at this LP may appear misleading. One could be forgiven in thinking that what they had discovered was of a more obvious British provenance, but on closer inspection the truth is revealed… London in fact refers to London, Canada, an artistic hotbed that famously spawned the highly influential insurgent noise ensemble, ‘The Nihilist Spam Band’. Less celebrated yet equ…

Borrowing its title from an infamous Australian jazz composition, Pyramid Pieces is a long overdue compilation which documents a period of Australian modern jazz that flourished during the late 1960s and 70s. A brief yet vital survey which examines an isolated yet thriving vibrant scene that was largely unheard outside of its own country. Whilst many local musicians found success abroad in the UK or the USA, those that remained found limited support for jazz from the commercially-minded mainstre…

If conceivable, imagine a collaboration between Brian Eno and Aphex Twin, both in their ambient periods, recording stock music for an Italian Library music label. If so, then behold Psycorama!, a collection of experimental music used to soundtrack a series of films and documentaries produced by the Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini.Composed by Mario Nascimbene, a name synonymous with the golden age of Italian film music, a composer whose grandiose scores of the 1950s and 60s defined the very …

Scored by the legendary Italian film composer Armando Sciascia, Sea Fantasy is a conceptual suite of twelve exotic themes evoking the many moods and dramas of life under the sea. Recorded in 1972 for Sciascia’s own Vedette label, the album is a key recording within the micro-genre of Italian underwater library music. A mosaic of evocative modern classical, flamenco textures and a surge of raw analogue synthesizers.Mysterious aquatic music that sits comfortably alongside other Italian Soundtrack …

The Fevered Rantings of a Delusional Madman? Or… The Profound Musings of a Stand-Up Tragedian? You decide. Here, reissued for the very first time, are the seminal recordings of Brother Theodore. Theodore was a staple of late-night talk shows like the Late Night With David Letterman show, a denizen of dubious ‘70s exploitation films such as the ‘Jaws’ sex-parody GUMS and the disco-vampire flick Nocturna, onetime Chess Champion of New York City and alleged offspring of Albert Einstein. Whether rav…

Praised by Quentin Tarantino as one of the greatest films from Australian New Wave cinema, Next Of Kin (1982) was a highly stylised psychological thriller in the bloody tradition of European art-Horror. Scored by none other than ex-Tangerine Dream/Ash Ra Tempel drummer and German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, the music featured in the film was a unique hybrid of pulsing Giallo-moods and hypnotic Berlin-School electronica. Due to the limited availability of the film over the years, rumo…

** First LP reissue of this highly collectable Italian Library session. Remastered from the original master tapes. Replica of the original tip-on sleeve. ** Undoubtedly one of the central figures of 1960s/70s Italian film music, Alessandro Alessandroni defined the very essence of the genre with his vocal group, I Cantori Moderni. Renowned for his pioneering reverb guitar sound, sitar exploration and a phenomenal whistling technique, (Perhaps best known for his contribution in shaping the famous …

** Edition of 500 copies ** Sequel to the mythical RCA LP “The Feed-back”, the legendary insane amalgam of avant-improvisation and motorik Krautrock-influenced beats that understandably has become one of the most collectable ‘Library Music’ related LPs ever issued. In 1971 ‘Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza’ returned to the studio to record a sequel. This is that record. For reasons unknown Niente was never originally issued but one listen will convince that not only is it the sequel…

** 2022 much needed repress ** Milestone! Recorded in 1972 at the legendary Landsdowne Studios in London, Cosmic Eye is an extraordinary piece of recorded music. Led by Indian born guitarist Amancio D’Silva, Cosmic Eye was a highly innovative studio experiment in which ‘Jazz Meets World’. Following in the footsteps of other pioneering Landsdowne jazz recordings such as Joe Harriott & John Mayer’s Indo Jazz sessions, Cosmic Eye is modal, but is also under-pinned with traditional Indian instrument…

**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…

Post-Nuclear Mind Music? Lizard Strategies? Void Spirit...? These bizarre titles are just a few of the self-coined terms that Australian electronic musician Ian MacFarlane has conjured to represent his eccentric sonic world. An artist whose unique style of electronic experimentalism has balanced dangerously close to the edge of popular convention, existing outside the mainstream and extending well beyond the fringe of any sanctioned independent scene. A futurist outsider whose extraordina…

2016 Release. Perhaps the most bizarre artefact to emerge from the phenomenal world of Italian Library music. Originally scored for a 1978 RAI If you can imagine the gathering of a group of Australian session musicians channelling the sounds of Herbie Hancock Headhunter’s and Marc Moulin’s Placebo, recording an album out of hours at a TV studio and then releasing a privately pressed hard hitting jazz rock record then what you have is Arena, one of Australia’s most revered and scarce rare gr…

Perhaps the most bizarre artefact to emerge from the phenomenal world of Italian Library music. Originally scored for a 1978 RAI television documentary, the album titled Tuscan castle and country seat conforms to nothing you know or understand about library music. Studying composition under maestro A.R Luciani, the young Teisco composed innovative home studio recordings that parallel the outsider technique of French soundtrack composer Francois De Roubaix. With little resemblance to the standard…

Accompanying the premiere release of the lost soundtrack to the 1971 film Walkabout, The Roundtable offer a further lost piece of music associated with Nicolas Roeg’s seminal New Wave masterpiece. In addition to John Barry’s spellbinding original score, several pieces of popular music can be heard throughout the film transmitting from a portable radio, an obvious symbol of western civilization as the protagonists wander disorientated in the ancient tribal Australian wilderness. Here we have docu…

The Last Wave (also known as Black Rain in the US) was the final chapter in a trilogy of films scripted and directed by the leading auteur of the Australian New Wave, Peter Weir. Beginning in 1974 with the absurdist black comedy-horror The Cars That Ate Paris, and followed a year later by the lush gothic mystery Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Last Wave was a landmark in existential horror. Sitting alongside other Australian eco-terror films (e.g. Long Weekend) the film featured a haunting electroni…

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…

**small restock, last copies** Hand-crafted by renowned composer for exotic and erotic cinema Armando Sciascia in his bespoke Vedette Studio, the LP’s delirious instrumental concoction of pounding drums, supple bass, distorted piano, phased harpsichord, distressed organ and searing fretwork is a unique and lysergic Milanese trip. A clear predecessor to Sciascia’s legendary 1971 heavy psyche ‘Blue Phantom – Distortions’ LP, classic (and much bootlegged) tracks like the astounding ‘Circuito Chiuso…

Prepared pianos collide with subterranean VCS3 synthesis and mournful ornate strings, spectral choral arrangements ride menacing drones and eldritch bass rumbles in a phantasmic cinematic skin. Recorded between 1970 and 1971(and issued on the esteemed French 'Musique Pour L'Image' Library label in 1972), these sublime and concise symphonies of apocalyptic pulp dread receive their first ever commercial release here and are presented with 4 incredibly rare extra tracks from the original sessions. …

Armando Sciascia – by day, notable composer for Italian erotic and exotic cinema – by night, experimentalist and nocturnal avant-gardener. Lovingly crafted in his hand-built Vedette studio, Armando Sciascia’s “lust for experimental research” has never been mre evident than on these precious, never before commercially released 1974 Library recordings. “Violin Reactions” is a violently unique work, studiously constructed out of multi-tracked strings, ominous VCS3 drones and the drum breaks o…

Restocked, reduced price. A wonderful blend of organic rhythms and weird electronic sounds from groundbreaking sound library artist Egisto Macchi – served up here on a record that is posibly on of his best. Truly a compelling work, with a range of styles from minimalist soundtrack music, to fairly dramatic grooves with squeaky sounds, plonking string instruments, illustrative percussion, whistling and howling.  A walk through the city and it's parks by night with your own breath and footsteps, b…

First ever reissue for this ultra-rare Library lp from 1971. One of the strongest examples of Egisto Macchi's tactile and meditative approach to composition, an engrossing, intuitive refinement of the techniques and practice he honed over prior years with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. 'Bioritmi' breaks down to seven pieces making up a mesmerising voyage to the heart of modular composition and electronically processed percussions, looped up and effected with various early tape techn…

The missing link in the Morricone / Gruppo discography. Their original unreleased avant / cacophonic score to Elio Petri's manic Artsploitation masterpiece was the first and last time Morricone and Il Gruppo would co-sign an OST/session. Conducted by Bruno Nicolai with vocalisations by Edda Dell’Orso and drums by Vincenzo Restuccia, A Quiet Place In The Country is an historic (and quite forgotten) recording that sees Il Gruppo in their key gestational phase just prior to recordings for Deut…

Fuzz guitars, go-go beats, weird exotic soundscapes and Doris Troy (of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ fame) screaming about gizzards. Only in Rome, only in 1971. Brilliant but overlooked composer Berto Pisano and (we suspect) his no less talented brother Franco (working under a pseudonym) to craft the perfect score for this drug-fuelled piece of cinematic mayhem. Recorded at the Orthophonic Recording Studio, Roma 1971 and remastered in 2014 from the original stereo album master tapes this LP includes 2…

A sequel to the cult 1975 Australian space rock album Monster Planet. In 2013 The Roundtable curated a dedicated program redocumenting the music of Australia’s legendary space rock band Cybotron. A new generation of electronic music enthusiasts and krautrock fans alike had been introduced or had perhaps been reconnected to the unlikely yet incredible sounds of Australia’s unique brand of ‘kosmische musik’. This archival series included Steve Maxwell Von Braund’s groundbreaking solo album Monster…

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…

Composed by jazz eccentric John Sangster, Once around the sun was the score written to feature on the unreleased 1970 film documenting the Australian Ourimbah Festival: Pilgrimage of Pop. Unheard for the last forty years, the music from this film sees Sangster blend themes of Space mythology and 60s counterculture to produce THE most expansive, heaviest and experimental piece of music ever recorded in Australia. Reminiscent in tone Sun Ra’s Space is the Place and Jean Claude Vannier’s L’enfant A…