Reissues
Toby Dammit (Original Film Soundtrack)
Fellini 60’s experimental flick Toby Dammit is a great film by a legendary director. 'Liberally adapted' from Poe's 'Don't Wager Your Head to the Devil', Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit was shot in twenty-six days over the winter of 1967-68, at the experimental film centre near Cinecetta in Rome. It is an extraordinary piece of genuine film psychedelia, and rightly regarded to be amongst the director's finest work.
Dammit reveals that he haunted this personal apparition of the devil; a littl…
Codice d’amore orientale
**CD version** “Codice d’amore orientale” had been often labelled as one of the lowest points reached by the b-movies from the ’70s. Essentially, it is just a genuine attempt to exploit the success of the erotic genre, very popular at the time: the movie tells the story of two young lovers, running away from their families that were against their union. The two are given shelter by a minister of love, who introduces them to the secrets of Kamasutra.Definitely not an art-house film, and surely di…
Sway
**CD version** Sante Palumbo was born in 1932 in Cerignola, a small village near the city of Foggia, in southern Italy. After studying at Foggia’s conservatory, he moved to Milan in 1954. Unlike other musicians who were rapidly recognised by the local jazz scene, Palumbo started to be noticed only at the end of the 60s. At the beginning of his career he was one of the most in-demand pianist for studio sessions. When in 1969 he became part of Giorgio Buratti’s trio, the critics praised him as one…
Percussioni ed Effetti Speciali
**CD version** The long and prolific career of Piero Umiliani, also consisting of dozens of collaborations for television and cinema, has given (and is still delivering, given the amount of material that is finally coming back to light) a long series of experimental albums and music libraries that showcase his songwriting skills, as well as a natural curiosity towards avant-garde and more ‘difficult’ sounds. We can attribute to the second category this “Percussioni ed effetti speciali”, a title …
La Conquista di Luna
**CD version** A journey into space with a wonderful sound – served up here as a set of cosmic instrumentals from Luciano Michelini, most of which have a pretty groovy vibe! The mix of 60s instrumentation, spacey touches, and light electric moments peppered with cool keyboards or woodwinds, and occasional wordless vocals – all in this way that provides a wonderful 60s fantasy of the moon, and one that's actually a lot more exciting than any of the real moon landing records out there. There is on…
Suspense
**CD version** Among all the aliases used by the great Piero Umiliani, M. Zalla is perhaps his richest and surprising: mainly used to produce experimental records that had little commercial appeal, this ‘nom de plume’ (along with Moggi) is tied to memorable episodes of his career, releases such as “Problemi d’oggi” (literally “Today’s Problems”), “Mondo inquieto” (i.e. “An Unsettling World”), and also “Suspense”, now reissued by Schema Records.
And if titles such as those mentioned above may som…
Oeil Vision
Modern Silence present a reissue of Oeil Vision, originally released in 1964. One of the best albums by legendary French pianist Jef Gilson, recorded in 1963 with Jean-Luc Ponty on violin,Daniel Humair on drums, Jean-Louis Chautemps andPierre Caron on tenor sax, Guy Pedersen and Henri Texieron bass. A superb line up for this beautiful album including two splendid versions of "Chant-Inca" (a hidden cover of Pharoah Sanders "Creator Has A Masterplan"). Essential French spirit/avant jazz. Gilson wa…
FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy
Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change.
Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. T…
Di Tresette ce n'è uno, tutti gli altri son nessuno
Available for the first time ever on vinyl is the 1974 soundtrack by Alessandro Alessandroni for the Giuliano Carmineo (as Anthony Ascott) directed Di Tresette ce n'è uno, tutti gli altri son nessuno, known in English as The Crazy Bunch. The sequel to Lo chiamavano Tresette... giocava sempre col morto (Man Called Invincible), the film is a goofy, slapstick comedy spaghetti-western, but the Maestro’s soundtrack is anything but goofy. Haunting, sparse, and riveting, the soundtrack is easily t…
Music For Film And Theatre
The long awaited second volume of soundtrack works by German pop and avant-garde futurist, Felix Kubin, following 2008's Music For Theatre And Radio Play. Some of Kubin's most adventurous and far-reaching music stems from his commissioned works for films, theatre and radio plays. Freed from conventional song formats and genre stereotypes he effortlessly combines musique concrète noises, splashes of haunted virtual orchestras, Gameboy music minuets and voice collage, interspersed with tons of sus…
Distress Signals I + II
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. Distress Signals I and II will be released by Artoffact Records in this combined double-CD featuring the original artwork of Distress Signals, as well as a copy of the liner notes from the tape insert.
Cosmos
"Cosmos" is a hard-to-find, alternately chaotic and tightly organized mid-'70s session that was issued on the Cobra, and then Inner City labels. Sun Ra provided some stunning moments on the Rocksichord, while leading The Arkestra through stomping full-band cuts of atmospheric or alternately hard bop compositions, peeling off various saxophonists for skittering, screaming, at times spacey dialogues. (AMG)
"They Make No Say" | 45s on 33
An endearingly effervescent introduction to the synth-pop democracy of Polytechnic Youth, They Make No Say: 45s on 33 collects 13 songs from hard-to-find 7” gems issued by the North London label over the last 3 years. As a subsidiary of The Great Pop Supplement, Polytechnic Youth was established in order to circumvent the pressing plant lag created by RSD; using a vinyl cutting lathe bought in Germany, 2014 to quickly, efficiently, and crucially, affordably manufacture short runs of clear 5” sin…
Magnetic Systems
From the same vibrant cinematic landscape of '70s studio supergroups as Goblin, The Pawnshop, The Feedback, and The Braen's Machine comes the Magnetic System, the Italian incognito dream-team composed of Milano prog keyboardist Vince Tempera, Cinevox sibling Franco Bixio, and video nasty maestro Fabio Frizzi (whose career it launched). Bridging giallo jazz-bass-driven prog and the arrival of home studios and synthesizers, the film music of the Magnetic System marked a sea change in Italian gen…
Hareton + Meta
With a life spent record digging across the world and a near encyclopedic knowledge of Brazilian music, its rare for David 'Mr Bongo' to come across an incredible record from that rich period that he doesn’t already know, but that's what happened with this one. This one began with a tip off from Floating Points, followed by frenzied digging and researching... and the joyful receipt of a mysterious package from Brazil! Printed in black and three special fluorescent inks on high quality white card…
S.P 73
Brazilian arranger and composer Hareton Salvanini was born in Bauru and grew up in Campinas. S.P 73 is his first LP – he worked tirelessly with his right man and brother, Ayrton, was a theatre director. The 'Hareton + Meta' EP was written and recorded for one of Ayrton’s productions – Hareton wrote the music, Ayrton the lyrics – which was given out at performances. S.P 73 was recorded with the full Campinas Teatro Municipal Orchestra, the same orchestra that that featured on ‘Hareton + Meta’ EP.…
Flaviola e o Bando do Sol
Flavio Lira (aka Flaviola) only recorded one album, which was released on Lula Côrtes' 'Solar' (Rozenblit) imprint. Even now the album sounds astonishingly fresh; full of native acoustic Brazilian instruments, folk guitars… he even crinkled cellophane into the microphone to get a uniquely trippy effect. It is a contemporary sounding album that features the likes of Zé De Flauta, Lula Côrtes and Robertinho de Recife.
Flaviola’s music has been compared to Vashti Bunyan. He now resides in Rio de Ja…
Satwa
Written, recorded and released just as Brazil’s military dictatorship reached the climax of its long black arc, the one and only album by Satwa is a divinely subtle protest, often cited as Brazil’s first independent record. Formed after the return of Lula Côrtes and Lailson from their respective foreign excursions – the ‘Satwa’ project lasted only a year, perhaps due to their differing stripes. Lailson was from the verdant former Dutch colony of Pernambuco, while Côrtes hailed from the wild b…
Rosa De Sangue
Re-issue of this monster rarity. Originally custom pressed in 1980, ‘Rosa de Sangue’ is the closing chapter of the amazing Recife psychedelic movement that flourished and centred around the work of Lula Côrtes, beginning in 1973 with the release of Satwa, and the creation of ‘abracadabra’, Lula’s loose art/music/design collective. “I want to close all of this with a golden key”… and a golden key it is.Entering a small local studio with a head full of songs and his freshly road tested ‘mountains …
No Sub Reino Dos Metazoários
**Lucky restock, few copies in, totally sold-out at source** Another incredibly original album from the Solar/Rozenblit catalogue, this features the fabulous trio of Lula Cortes, Marconi Notaro and Ramalho. With Lula Cortes at the controls, writing, playing and illustrating the album cover. Soon after recording the classic album ‘Satwa’ (MRBLP083), Lula was back in the same Recife studio with his friend, the cult poet and writer Marconi Notaro to lay down another equally magical album.This joyou…