Reissues
Impur II
Essentially a pretty great concert by a large 19 strong ensemble with Fred conducting as well as playing. Lots of rhythm, harmony, rock noise, exotic instrumentation, power, complexity and melodic writing, with stretches of chaos, eccentricity and theatre. Totally different, then, from Impur Part I which was a deconstructed, spatialised simultaneity of musical events heard through open windows or by wandering through rooms; Impur Part II was an unannounced performance upon which audience …
Live In Japan
Concert recordings made at various venues in Japan in 1981 and released by Recommended Records Japan in 1982 in an edition of 1000. Out of print since, though highly sought after, it has now been transferred and remastered by Tom Dimuzio for this official reissue.
Fred was just starting out on his long career as a solo improviser when he made this double LP, and still using the now long retired Charles Fletcher custom double-neck guitar (one fretted, one fretless) and the Burns Black Biso…
Nowhere Sideshow Thin Air
This is Frith's sixth CD of music for dance, featuring three commissions by three different choreographers each sharing, as Fred says ' a certain obsession with melodic deconstruction.' Two of them feature - and were especially written for - the remarkable violinist Carla Kihlstedt.
Fred and Carla perform one of them (Fred playing a huge array of instruments here as on all pieces), are joined by Fred Guiliano, (samples) and Gail Brand (trombone) on another, while the third features Fred, …
Allies
For an artist known for incredible prolificacy and the seeming instantaneousness of his work, Fred Frith's ballet score Allies has managed to acquire a long and checkered history. Created in 1989 for the post-modernist Bebe Miller Dance Company, Allies appears near the start of a period where Frith began to separate his efforts in multi-movement works designed for dance, theater productions, and film from the short, improvised guitar pieces and work within rock styled ensembles that he had…
Guitar Solos
Although it was originally recorded in 1974, there are pieces on Fred Frith's landmark Guitar Solos album that are probably still making guitar players scratch their heads wondering "How did he do that?" Don't expect any kind of Yngwie Malmsteen-style wankage; Frith instead uses a volume pedal, tapping, and other extended techniques to produce everything from chiming, bell-like notes to unearthly howls. It almost never sounds like standard guitar-with-plectrum playing, but the pieces have a …
Cheap at Half the Price
Frith's last album for Ralph Records stepped back from the progressions of Speechless to a concoction of pop-like ditties and instrumentals recorded at home on a four track. And for the first time, Frith sings, in a strange high-pitched tone. A little more production and sound manipulation and this could almost be a Residents album, circa 1978. As a pop-song writer, Frith is okay; he shrouds socialist discussion in lyrics about dogs and insects while keeping the song structure simple and r…
Technology of Tears (And Other Music for Dance)
"Sadness, Its Bleached Bones Behind Us," and "You Are What You Eat" are unrelenting slices of hard-edged sounds over a pulse. "The Palace of Laughter, The Technology of Tears" is an imaginative, intense, varied suite comparing music which represents the past "frozen tears" of sadness -- displayed as images before us by the media, etc. -- with the "hot tears" of the moment that cannot be absorbed by technology. "Jigsaw" and "Jigsaw Coda" (1986) creates patterns with constantly shifting acc…
Behind Brigitte Bardot
Equal parts concept record and mash note, Behind Brigitte Bardot celebrates the legendary French sex kitten via West Coast jazz interpretations of her biggest film themes. The precise raison d'être behind the album is a mystery, but it's nevertheless a charmer, boasting some of Pete Rugolo's lushest and loveliest arrangements. Teamed with an all-star cast including altoist Bud Shank and trumpeters Jack Sheldon and Pete Candoli, Rugolo adapts themes like "Arsenic Blues," "Mambo Bardot" and "T…
Charade
Henry Mancini's soundtrack provides an easy listening tour of continental musical history: Parisian café songs on "Bistro," Eastern European gypsy music on "Bateau Mouche," Schubert quartets on "Bye Charlie," and some beer barrel polka on "Punch and Judy." Thrown in for variety's sake are dashes of Bond soundtracks, Cossack songs, and Strauss waltzes.Mancini also shows his south of the border touch on "Mambo Parisienne" (picture Perez Prado sporting an accordion), "Latin Snowfall" (transcende…
The Great Escape: Original Motion Picture Score
Elmer Bernstein's music for John Sturges' movie The Great Escape (1963) has proven to be one of the most enduring of all action-film soundtracks. The soundtrack is strong from start to finish, full of dramatic passages and moments of inspiration.
An incredibly rich score that rewards repeat listens. Complete edition/double LP pressed in a limited edition of 500 copies.
Jazz In The Space Age
Doxy present a reissue of George Russell And His Orchestra's Jazz In The Space Age, featuring Bill Evans and originally released in 1960. From the original liner notes of Burt Korall: "(...) This album points the way to the future. It is prophetic because George Russell felt compelled to make it so. 'Jazz is changing, the sixties could well be a crucial decade,' says the composer. 'One thing is certain. A variety of sound and rhythms, many of which are alien to what audiences are used to, w…
The Eastern Moods Of Ahmed Abdul-Malik
Doxy present a reissue of Ahmed Abdul-Malik's The Eastern Moods Of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, originally released in 1962. One of the most compelling albums ever recorded by Ahmed Abdul-Malik, the set's got a style that's very strongly in keeping with the "eastern moods" of the title - with less of a jazz sound than some of Abdul Malik's other work, and more spare, exotic instrumentation overall. The group on the set is a trio - Ahmed on bass and oud, Bilal Abdurrahman on alto, Korean reed flute, …
In den Garten Pharaos
CD version. In Den Gärten Pharaos" was originally issued in 1971, this time by Pilz, yet it wasn't precisely on the folk vein that Herr Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was trying to keep the label into by those days. It's sound drinks directly from the same waters that brought Affenstunde, although there is a clear move towards some less dark passages, and the use of church organ as the main instrument, plus a first introduction into the ethnic music elements that Popol Vuh would soon mix into their cauldron…
Early works 1980-82
CD version. Innersleeve with liner notes and lyrics, as well as photos. With this release, EM Records shine a light into the dark and yet strangely uplifting world of Inryo-fuen's early '80s wonderland: a surreal, adventurously analog, positively negative realm of freedom. Following the EM Records release of Inryo-fuen's enigmatic Ho-aku (EM 1125CD), Early Years 1980-82 collects the band's earliest recordings, originally released on flexi and vinyl, here re-edited, re-mixed and remastered.…
Mörder Tape
First ever re-issue of this mythical Maurizio Bianchi tape from 1980. Mörder Tape was recorded in Milano at Mectpyo Studio using concrete sounds and radio waves. Another very fascinating M.B. early experiment. Limited edition of 150 copies in digipack. Cover images are original M.B. artworks from 1980.
Gli Italiani e L'Industria
In stock now! From the legendary Omicron label secret archives, one of the rarest and nearly impossible to find album signed by Piero Umiliani. Awareness of Piero Umiliani’s genius is widespread nowadays,not least on this incredible Gli italiani e l’industria, a soundtrack of a mysterious TV documentary by Romolo Marcellini broadcasted in 1967, and never appeared again from then, which was focused on virtue and vice of Italian post-economic boom industrialization. The music perfectly reflects th…
Chi Sei?
In stock now! Considered one of the finest and most successful works composed by Franco Micalizzi. A 500 limited-edition LP which includes two tracks never before released on vinyl, a reworked painted lettering title designed by Luca Barcellona, and extensive liner notes by Los Angeles' Rendezvous DJ/film event founder, and Four Flies collaborator, Alfonso Carrillo: "A film score that was quite unheard of in horror – a funk and disco-tinged soundtrack, with a sound reminiscent of a blaxploitati…
La polizia incrimina, la legge assolve
In stock! Maybe the most iconic soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis. Definitely the one that is closely linked with Italian crime movie genre “poliziotteschi”, made eternal by dozens movies set in mid 70's violent big cities. For the 50th anniversary of Beat Records, a coproduction with Four Flies, the first time ever reissue of this Italian soundtrack's masterpiece. A terrific tracklist that gave rise to the Italian groove, then used many times, from Umberto Lenzi's Napoli Violen…
Mark il poliziotto
"Mark il poliziotto" (Blood, Sweat and Fear) is a 1975 movie directed by Stelvio Massi, the first of a successful trilogy featuring Franco Gasparri as main character in the role of drug squad commissioner Mark; the actor had been borrowed from the world of photonovels, typical Italian photographic stories published on several magazines that saw him as protagonist for several years. The film is one of the most successful examples of the 'Italo-crime' genre under many points of view: the plot, th…
Forever Alien
When Spacemen 3 -- the seminal, drone-indulgent English psych duo comprised of Peter Kember and Jason Pierce -- split in 1991, Pierce shuffled off to acclaim in Spiritualized. Meanwhile, Kember charted a less predictable course. As Sonic Boom, he released Spectrum in 1990, then, after taking a liking to that handle, released Soul Kill (Glide Divide) as Spectrum in 1992. Kemper alternated between those monikers and Experimental Audio Research (E.A.R.) throughout the 1990s, building a rich, …