Reissues
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…
Ambient 4: On Land
Brian Eno's masterwork album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version. On ‘Ambient 4 (On Land)’ – the final edition in Eno's ambient series – his palate shifted from electro-mechanical and acoustic instruments towards “non-instruments” like pieces of chain, sticks and stones. “One of the big freedoms of music had been that it didn't have to relate to anything – nobody listened to a piece of music and said, ‘What's that supposed to be, then?’, the way they would if they were looking at an abstract painti…
Music for Films
Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1978. Standard 1 LP version. “Arguably the most quietly influential of all his works” according to the BBC, this conceptual record was intended as a soundtrack for imaginary films, with excerpts later featuring in movies by directors including John Woo and Derek Jarman.The album is a loose compilation of material, composed of short tracks ranging from one-and-a-half minutes to just over four, making it the antithesis of the long, ambient pieces he later …
Ambient 1 (Music For Airports)
Brian Eno's Ambient album from 1982. Standard 1 LP version.. Though not the earliest entry in the genre (which Eno makes no claim to have invented), ‘Ambient 1 (Music For Airports)’ was the first album ever to be explicitly labelled ‘ambient music’. Eno had previously created similarly quiet, unobtrusive music on albums ‘Evening Star’, ‘Discreet Music’, and Harold Budd's ‘The Pavilion of Dreams’ (which he produced), but this was the first album to give it precedence as a cohesive concept. He gav…
Discreet Music
Brian Eno's pioneering Ambient album from 1975 re-pressed for 2018. Standard 1 LP version. While his earlier work with Robert Fripp on ‘No Pussyfooting’ and several selections from his own ‘Another Green World’ feature similar ideas, ‘Discreet Music’ marked a clear step toward the ambient aesthetic Eno would later codify with 1978's ‘Ambient 1: Music for Airports.’The inspiration for this album began when Eno was hospitalised after an accident. Whilst bed-ridden and listening to a record of eigh…
Part V, Night
The Book of AM* is a collection of inspirational songs, poems and stories composed in different parts of the world through the millennia up to the present day and edited and set to music and graphics by Juan Arkotxa and Leslie MacKenzie. The Book expresses core themes from Eastern and Western philosophical and religious traditions and it follows the cycle of day with five parts - Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. When the Book was first published in 1977 the incomplete Part V, Night, …
A symphony of amaranths
**Repress limited to only 500 copies in textured art paper. Included inner sheet with liner notes and pictures. Newly mastered sound from the original tapes and will include one bonus track recorded in the same sessions.** First ever vinyl reissue of this 1972 masterpiece by another of the big names in UK Jazz. Neil Ardley was offered the leadership of the seminal New Jazz Orchestra in 1964. Under his direction the Orchestra moved though different styles and changes of personnel, bringing in mus…
Long Orme
Ultra rare, sought after French acid folk psychedelic masterpiece, Long Orme is the work of singer-guitarist-songwriter Yves Fajnberg, his girlfriend singer Anne Marie Butel plus a full cohort of musician friends. The LP was laid down to a 2 track Revox Reel To Reel recorder between late 1974 and early 1975 and originally released in 1975 by Sonart Disques to such a limited run that an original copy sells nowadays for no less than 400 euros.Together with Yves Chauvet, Fajnberg had worked on Domi…
Sukram Gurk
'Sukram Gurk' was the title chosen for the Siloah second LP. It was the name of Markus Krug spelled backwards. Markus' name was chosen because it was the one that sounded better phonetically to the ears of the trio. The sound of the album takes it all one step further, turning into an electric storm, yet retaining the free psychedelic improvisation feel of its predecessor. The Wah Wah reissue is made in cooperation with Thom Argauer family, it has been cut from the original master tapes, has ori…
Siloah
Coming out of the boiling Munich scene of the sixties that also gave us the original Amon Düül (Thom Argauer had played in a dixieland band with Chris Karrer in the late 60s, actually), Siloah are one of the best kept secrets of the krautrock production. Siloah had a hard core including Thom Argauer, Manuela von Perfall, Heinrich 'Tiny' Stricker and Wolfgang Görner, plus a host of guests coming and going, everybody was free to join and play at any time, guest members often joining from the Baums…
Cru 4 (Isidore Isou, Orlan, Mats Lindstrom, Jean-Paul Curtay)
Fourth issue of CRU Magazine, the annual magazine of the Berlin art space La Plaque Tournante ran by french composer Frédéric Acquaviva and english mezzo soprano Loré Lixenberg, which states what has happened or could have happened in the last year at La Plaque Tournante. This issue, printed at 500 copies, includes 1CD, 1DVD, 3 playlists of exhibited material, 3 postcards, 3 affiches and 3 catalogues into the form of posters, featuring Frédéric Acquaviva, Isidore Isou, Orlan, Mats Lindstrom, Je…