Reissues

Amleto Armando Roelens, also known under the moniker of Puccio, had a musical career almost entirely devoted to jazz; he was one of the first in Italy to play jazz music with his orchestra at the end of World War II, a genre that at the time was regarded as a vulgar import from the states. After some collaborations with RAI, the Italian national public broadcasting company, the fortunate encounter with the composer Armando Sciascia led him to write arrangements for many albums released by Vedett…

*2022 stock* “Musica per commenti sonori” is a cult series within the diverse world of Italian library music. In the late sixties and seventies, the small record label Costanza Records has published several releases precisely focusing on ‘background music’, including works of great composers such as Peppino De Luca, Roberto Pregadio, Franco Micalizzi, Vito Thomas, Giancarlo Thomas, Puccio Roelens, Riccardo Luciani, and by the protagonists of this long-time due reissue: Sandro Brugnolini and Stef…

Elodie here featuring core members Timo van Luijk and Andrew Chalk, playing live in Germany in 2015. Performing a pure duet of flute and string synthesizer over one episodic track 'Odyssee', a poetic and melancholy synchronous soundtrack to a film made and shown by van Luijk on the same evening. 'Odyssee' was mastered for CD release by Denis Blackham and is packaged in handmade gatefold mini LP style sleeve with Japanese language obi.

Inchiesta Sul Mondo is a double experimental concept album, mainly electronic, on topical problems of the period in which it was released, the middle 1970’s. The two records have two different arguments: Stati d'animo and Diagnosei Ecologica. Maestro Luciani is a well-known artist in the library music scene. His very personal style is the result of musical studies from childhood that allowed him to achieve a diploma in composition, choral music, choral conducting, and more. The avant-garde and c…

"Musica amore" is an extraordinary album (1972) by Maestro Piccioni which includes songs from various soundtracks showing his many facets. He utilizes the gorgeous voice of Shawn Robinson in "Right Or Wrong" and "Once and Again" (from giallo thriller “...Dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora” aka "Marta” e "La Volpe Dalla Coda Di Velluto” aka "Eye Of The Hurricane”), the choir I Cantori Moderni di Alessandro Alessandroni, the band of I Marc 4 (M. Majorana, A. Vannucchi, R. Podium, C. Pes) a…

A tough, funky ‘70s instrumental score that perfectly fits the insane violence of this seldom-seen Lee Van Cleef hitman film! Quel Pomeriggio Maledetto (aka The Perfect Killer) is one of the wildest, sleaziest Eurocrime movies ever made; it ultimately got made with Lee Van Cleef as the star and featuring such sexualized violence as a female getting shot in her nether regions, a straight-razor fight with trans women and some rapes that make you feel more uneasy than do most. But no rundown of the…

L'amica (1969) is an intriguing Alberto Lattuada film starring Lisa Gastoni (portrayed in the cover photo of the LP), Gabriele Ferzetti, Elsa Martinelli, Ray Lovelock, Jean Sorel and Frank Wolff. The music is by one of the greatest pianists, composers, conductors and arrangers in the world of soundtracks, the Argentine naturalized Italian Luis Enríquez Bacalov, author of music for countless high-level films including “La Seduzione" "Quién sabe", "Django", "Roma Bene", “Milano Calibro 9" and winn…

The 10th Anniversary edition of this classic album from the master of drone and Kosmiche Musik was originally released on CDr by Kill Shaman in 2006. Sonic Meditations presents a first time vinyl and cassette edition, newly mastered after being out of print since 2009. "Gorgeous drifting ethereal krautrocky ambience is what Expo '70 is all about, and eyes closed, you'd be hard pressed to not think this was some Ash Ra Tempel disc or some long lost A.R. and The Machines lp. Crafted entirely from …

More than to reward the artistic ambitions of the artist, the majority of Library records were generally functional to sonorizations and conceived for a commercial use. So the main difficulty for the artist was to demonstrate his compositional versatility that allowed the use of his songs in different contests : documentaries, spaghetti western movies, television programs and dramas, news reports. “Clouds”, fourth chapter of this new and exciting Spettro series, is a classic library release in i…

Masterpiece!!! If we talk about ideas, we surely talk about “Idee 1”, one of the best collaborations between Massimo Catalano and Remigio Ducros – together with “La fatica”, that will be reprinted in a while – with contributions from the amazing Daniela Casa. Daniela is one of the few women in the “Italian libraries” scene, but she’s more talented than some of her better known male colleagues. If Daniela, and so her husband Ducros, are names linked to a tiny niche of soundtracks’ lovers, Catalan…

Released by Octopus in 1973 and now available for the first time on vinyl on Spettro, “Bass Modulations” is a record included in many “hip hop breakbeats” charts and it pays specific attention on bass – as title – and percussions. Composers are Antonino Scuderi, who worked on 2 tracks, ‘Overtime’, with low frequencies and a primitive drum machine, and ‘Range in’, one of the most strange track of this compilation, Roberto Conrado, Roman composer, already member of Gli Apostoli in the 60s, and Pie…

Ruscigan is Guido Baggiani, neapolitan composer and trumpet player, ex Karlheinz Stockhausen’s student. Ruscigan is Piero Umiliani, one of the most important Masters in Italian music, author of dozens of soundtracks and library recordings. “Disagio Sociale” was always considered as Umiliani’s solo work, even though it’s not part of his detailed and official discography as, i.e., “Viaggio nel domani”. Despite all the mystery and the discomfort of not knowing, the re-release of “Disagio sociale” i…

The 1966 debut of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, a collective made only of composers, with Ennio Morricone on trumpet, Frederic Rzewski, Franco Evangelisti, Mario Bertoncini, Roland Kayn, John Heineman and Ivan Vandor.

Gatefold sleeve. Controlled Bleeding announces its first proper studio album since 2002. Larva Lumps And Baby Bumps is a startling record: it somehow flawlessly mixes industrial noise and prog rock into a beautifully stream-of-conscious work that is at once fairly brutal and lovingly serene. The opening piece, Driving Through Darkness, could be the title of a pop-ballad, until you realize the actual meaning of the word 'driving'; jumping out at you seemingly in medias res, the album and tra…

Originally released on the short-lived Psychout Productions out of Sweden in February of 1985, Knees and Bones was Controlled Bleeding's first vinyl album and was a continuation of the brutal electronics and industrial noise of the first tape releases. In many ways, this album is the definitive industrial record of the period, featuring screeching metal, distorted power electronics, Paul Lemos' guttural, animal-like screaming, and a healthy dose of feedback. The original Swedish release …

Purple vinyl edition. After several tape-only releases in 1984, Controlled Bleeding released its first album on the then-brand new Dossier label in Germany, a label with which Controlled Bleeding would collaborate closely over the next years. Experimental, noise-laden industrial, Body Samples is at times less abrasive than the previous year's tape experiments and was influenced by ambient soundscapes and rhythmic noise of the mid-80s. The album also eschews the longer pieces found on the t…

Unreleased before, and quite different from the Broken Flag tape!!  "Released on Gary Mundy's Broken Flag label in 1984, the first Controlled Bleeding album was Distress Signals, an almost impossible to find cassette-only album of brutal powernoise and experimentally distorted and tortured vocals. The near hour-long performance is immediate and harsh, and the tape has a kind of holy-grail quality amongst collectors, not least because of the special status of Broken Flag, but also because i…

Double LP, grey vinyl, Gatefold sleeve. "First ever authorized reissue of Controlled Bleeding's rare Distress Signals tape on black vinyl. Released on Gary Mundy's Broken Flag label in 1984, the first Controlled Bleeding album was Distress Signals, an almost impossible to find cassette-only album of power-noise and distorted vocals. The 2LP is issued in a sublime gatefold sleeve featuring the original artwork of Distress Signals, as well as a copy of the liner notes from the tape insert. This…

Awesome archive double LP set, of Serbian electronic music pioneer!! What's the definition of a treasure? Something precious hidden in a safe place by a king maybe? Double LP - 3 sides of music with an etched 4th. Stunning stuff. Offen music begin their journey... big tip! Serbian electronic music pioneer Rex Ilusivii (The King of Illusions in Latin) left an extensive collection of never-heard-before musical gems in his mother's place, and other secluded corners of the world. They have been…

Matthew David’s Leaving follows up on his own recent ambient meanderings (the excellent Mindflight LP) with this special double cassette presentation of privately-issued New Age/Psychedelic gems from 1980 and 1984, revived and reissued The two tapes are duplicated exactly as they were originally released, with 6-panel j-cards containing extensive liner notes. The tapes are bundled in a midnight blue & gold sleeve, and come with immediate digital download. SunPath is the 1980s outsider New Age mu…

Leaving Records is proud to present, with humble gratitude, three re-issues of seminal works by new age musician, composer, and laughter meditation workshop leader Laraaji. Recorded between 1978 and 1983, these works have not been re-issued in full since their original release. Although some excerpts of the material have been featured on various compilations, this is the first time in over 30 years that one can experience the uninterrupted duration of these cosmic etudes in their complete form. …

Michael Edward "Mike" Cotton hit the UK professional jazz circuit with his trad jazz outfit The Mike Cotton Jazzmen in the 1950s. The Mike Cotton Jazzmen recorded three singles and one EP for Columbia between 1961 and 1963, prior to moving from jazz to a more pop / R&B oriented style and a band name change to The Mike Cotton Sound. They were regulars in the London R&B / Mod club circuit of the early sixties and in 1964 they released one single and their eponymous LP on Columbia, plus one single …

Conceived as a studio project and conceptually inspired by the world of sci-fi novelist Aldous Huxley, Brave New World was created by Reinhart Firchow (recorders, flutes, ocarina, Stylophone, percussion, vocals), John O'Brien-Docker (guitars, organ, percussion, vocals, wind chimes) and Herb Geller (flutes, cor anglais, saxophones, organ). They where aided by Dicky Tarrach (drums, percussion), Lucas Lindholm (bass, bass fiddle, organ, piano) and Esther Daniels (voice). Irishman John O'Brien-Docke…

Born in 1940 in Berlin, Ralf Nowy's musical interest was first exposed to an audience during his school years, when he formed his first rock'n'roll band in the late fifties. After graduation from the Konservatorium, he joined the German jazz scene and also worked for the Saaerland radio station. His recording career began recording exploitation albums designed for dance parties, following the path opened in Germany by artists like Paul Nero (a.k.a. Klaus Doldinger). But with the rise of the krau…

Niagara's third LP Afire is the rarest one from kraut drummer, formerly of Sunbirds, Klaus Weiss' band. An astonishing album which returns to the minimal sounds based on percussion and rhythm of their first album, yet retaining a feel of harmony all through it - this time not provided by the brass instruments that had been added in S.U.B., but though to the high emphasis put on combining a variety of drums each tuned to their perfect pitch, and the contribution of Embryo's bass player Dave King.…

Originally released in 1975, “Música Eletrônica” is considered the first electro-acoustic / electronic  album made in Brazil.  It features tracks recorded between 1962 and 1970 by avant-garde / electronic music pioneer Jorge Antunes.  Early electronic oscillations, white noise, feedback, loops, tape manipulation, treated vocals and proto-minimalism / sampling / glitches… Mandatory to anyone into Pierre Henry, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Schaeffer, Ralph Lundsten, Louis & Bebe Baron, Ihlan Mimarog…

“10,001 Dreams” is a perfect distillation of Paul Marcano’s musical essence: thoughtful, psychedelic, pop-oriented music but with a deeply progressive ear for song structure and the intuitive glow of a well-crafted lyrical refrain.” (Jack D. Fleischer—10, 001 Dreams, Liner Notes) A thematic sequel of sorts to the sci-fi psych odyssey exploring cosmic ideology that was the British Columbians debut—LightDreams’ Islands In Space—10,001 Dreams from 1982 finds its leader, Paul Marcano, edging closer …

CD version. Here's another Gong album no one seems to know about, as this is basically Gong plus poet/musician Dashiell Hedayat (otherwise known as Melmoth). Evidently the lyrical content (especially on the suite "Eh, Mushroom will you mush my room?") is hallucinogen-related, and if you are an early David Allen-period Gong fan, you are sure to love this one as it is classic 1971 Gong, replete with Malherbe sax solos and killer gliss guitar. Hedayat proves to be an adequate guitarist (the album w…

More than a halo of mystery surrounds "Le due stagioni della vita" (The two seasons of life), a film virtually impossible to find in any format, that we hardly know the names of its actors and director. The latter, Samy Pavel, of Belgian nationality but born in Egypt in 1944, debuted in 1972 precisely with this film, which was presented at the Venice International Film Festival in the same year. The author of the soundtrack is Ennio Morricone, who was already a World famous composer in t…

A great little soundtrack from Ennio Morricone with an overall dreamy feel to the best numbers on the set! "Vergogna schifosi" is a 1969 movie directed by Mauro Severino, a "Generation '68" film whose aim is to depict a social protest against the middle-class youth of the time, with the deserted - as empty as the protagonists - city of Milan in the background; everything is tied together by a mysterious murder that occurred years before, resurfaced by a mysterious individual. The soundtr…

* Recorded on May 28th 1972 * Tomasz Stanko was considered the first free-jazz trumpeter in Europe. He debuted at the end of the 1950s in Krakow and in the1960s joined Krzysztof Komeda’s quintet, later recording a masterpiece of European jazz, the album “Astigmatic”. In the early 1970s he was part of the international free jazz sceneand performed at major European festivals with his Tomasz Stanko Quintet. In the 1980s Stanko played with Cecil Taylor, and led his own bands that incorporated regga…

Musics was published from 1975 to 1979, by musicians and artists on the London scene of free improvisation, focusing on the most innovative participants of their generation. Steve Beresford, David Toop, Annabel Nicholson, Evan Parker, David Cunningham, Lindsay Cooper, Eddie Prevost, John Russell, Derek Bailey, Val Wilmer, Hugh Davies, Peter Riley and many, many others contributed to the writing, graphics and photography. Musics  was a blueprint for the interdisciplinary activities of sou…

Never before commercially released library breaks monster recorded in 1975. A really must-have for any Library Breaks DJ vinyl collector. This is Silvano  Chimenti and Romano Rizzati (alias Walter Rizzati) and a loose assemblage of primo Italian library session-players, I Gres recorded three blistering albums of funky library music. A sublime selection of work from this legendary sound library ensemble – an Italian group who were so cool, so groovy, they were virtually a genre unto themselves…

Tip! Twenty years after its initial release, Amon's "El Khela" still shines out like a pillar in the dark ambient field. Mysterious, catacombal, bleak, monumental, cryptic ambience. This new edition contains a remastered, repackaged and graphically renewed version of the original album + a second CD with rare, unreleased and reworked tracks. Coproduced by Eibon Records and Silentes, "El Khela Al'Akhdar" comes in digisleeve + 2 inner sleeves."This album from Amon (Andrea Marutti) is a particular …

Black Truffle present Speak To Me, the sixth full-length release from 3/4HadBeenEliminated, the Italian trio of Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli. Based on source material recorded in Bologna and Berlin over the course of several years, the album is made up of two side-long pieces meticulously constructed in post-production by Tricoli in his singularly dense and unpredictable style. Although their live performances have always been entirely improvised, in their recorded work t…

There is not much to say about the music composed by James Bernard for the Dracula Hammer Films. Everyone knows what we are talking about here. And this version is probably the definitive edition. The new revised artwork includes a rare picture of the late Maestro, taken from his estate's private collection. The complete recordings remastered from the original analog tapes. Master and sound restoring done by Roberto Zamori at Film Music Art Studio.

Class on your turntable. What we have here is a stunning crime-jazz soundtrack blended with exotica flavor, composed by one of the main legend of Italian sound: an Armando Trovajoli at his best, with an outstanding, still undiscovered film score, unreleased on every format until today. The amazing main theme, sung by the astonishing voice of Lyda McDonald, was published on an mega-rare 7'' on RCA label in 1961 and is now impossible to find. All the rest of the score is completely unheard, finall…

First ever issue in its entirety for this indispensable score by Italian cinematic jazz- father Piero Umiliani, obtained by having access to the original reels with the complete soundtrack's recording. Top class Italian crime jazz composed for a 1959's comedy directed by Nanni Loy (sequel of "I Soliti Ignoti", realized by Mario Monicelli just the year before, with almost the same artistic cast of "Audace"). Chet Baker, who was at that time in Italy, joined Umiliani's octet with his unmistakable …

Sonor is glad and proud to announce the reissue of a very underrated Piero Umiliani's masterpiece. "Switched On Naples", originally released in 1972 on ‎OmiCron LP 0023, is an outstanding ‪‎library with pure touch of genius: Maestro Umiliani revisits Naples popular songs in an electronic way with the use of synthesizer. The record is entirely carried out with electronic sounds. Edition of 500 copies.

Very RARE 'cult' Library album by maestro William Antonini and his orchestra recorded with the deep sounds of Dirmaphon studios in Rome. Very small Library and Orchestra production by the pianist Antonini during his career as session man, this is the unique long-playing we have and for sure a lost collectible gem. Excellent studio orchestra arranged by the maestro. Expect some strong Blues Rock influences with loads of Killer Psychedelic sounds all over the place / amazing Jazz-Funk and Blues Fu…