Freedom's Lament
David Callinan is nowadays better known as a writer having published an amount of books moving from the thriller genre to children's stories and also some non-fiction essays, but in his younger days he spent many years on the road as a musician and singer-songwriter. He formed Irish folk band The Spalpteens prior to moving to what has been dubbed as "celtic swamo music" with Urban Clearway, with whom he toured with the likes of Elton John, Billy Connolly. Fairport Convention and Rod Stewart, a.o…
Rendezvous With The Sun
You may probably remember the name of Howard Wales due to his association with The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but besides those important collaborations Wales has also produced some highly interesting solo material. Among it, one of the best jazz funk / psych fussion albums ever: Rendezvous With The Sun. Wales had played backing artists such as Ronnie Hawkins, Lonnie Mack, James Brown or The Four Tops as a session musician before becoming a member of psychedelic blues combo AB Shky, who moved…
Spectral Nether Street
Steve Howe's recording career began as early as 1964 under the production of Joe Meek when he was the lead guitarist of the savage R&B outfit The Syndicats. He then joined The In Crowd, who soon became Tomorrow, legendary pioneers of UK psychedelia who along with Pink Floyd and Soft Machine changed the face of pop music forever.
When Tomorrow's singer Keith West's first solo single became a huge success (it was a part of the "lost" Teenage Opera project by Mark Wirtz) all band members went thei…
E.s.p.
In Italy, the genre of documentary film has represented a particularly fertile field for a critical review of the musical contribution to cinema at least since as early as the 1950s. The Italian public television RAI used to broadcast disturbing paranoiac dramas, weird documentaries on the bottom of the sea and indigestible so-called “educational” movies. ESP was a television series produced by Rai in 1973, directed by Daniele D'Anza, and aired from Sunday, May 27 1973 to Sunday, June 17, 1973…
B81 Ballabili Anni 70 Underground
Due to an overwhelming number of reissues and to the steady and meticulous work of collectors and passionate music lovers who have been spreading the word about it, the realm of Italian library music has moved from being some kind of hidden cult to becoming a well defined niche. Authors such as Alessandroni, Umiliani, Sciascia, Tommasi and Sorgini have become more accessible to the uninitiated, while prices of the original presses of their records keep surging.Among the multitude of composers th…
Atmosfere N.1/2
Spellbinding Italian Library masterpiece (originally released as two separate LP in 1971), a near mythical recordings with holy grail status made by Riccardo A. Luciani (credited as David Hoyt Kimball due to contractual reasons) with the help of Luigi Malatesta (also known by the pseudonym Peymont). Another two tracks are composed by Serena Marega, an obscure female electronic musician active in the late 60s and early 70s, who played extensively with Teresa Rampazzi, and was a founding member …
Les Soleile De La Vie
Following the international release of “Evening Colours” in 1976, Jacqueline Thibault (Laurence Vanay) continued to compose songs that she recorded on her multi-track Revox. But she had little time for her own music, working day and night at legendary international recording studio, the Château d’Hérouville. Still, Jacqueline managed to bring together the compositions for “Les Soleils de la Vie” (The Suns of Life), with the help of her perpetual musical accomplices—Serge Derrien (guitar, …
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 …
Crossroads of Time
UK psychedelia moved into prog rock with spices of hard rock in the late sixties, some even coined a new label to describe the strong textures resulting of the mixture of rockier blues sounds, jazz, revolutionized freakbeat and the hardest side of popsike - ‘heavy psych’. Amongst the best works of the era were the two splendid LPs recorded by Welsh band Eyes Of Blue.The Eyes Of Blue where formed in 1966 and soon won the Melody Maker Beat Contest, a fact that secured them a recording deal with De…
Big Deal! (Weinberger Funk Library UK 1975-79)
Killer Library compilation full of highlights from the music archives of Josef Weinberger Ltd. in London, pulled from the most famous library albums on labels like JW (Josef Weinberger/ Theme Music), IA (Impress) or PM (Programme Music). First selection of 16 lost tracks by Toni Campo, Midas Touch, Trevor Bastow, Sidney Dale or Vick Flick, oscillating between jazz-funk, soul music, proto techno and eastern-tinged disco, with open drum breaks, fat bass lines and plenty of horns/ wah wah/ or…
Inchiesta Sul Mondo
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…
L'Amica
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 Mike Cotton Sound
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 …
Chiamate 22-22 Tenente Sheridan
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…
A me stesso con simpatia
This 1975 album is a studio session organized by Maestro Giacomo Dell'Orso (the husband of Edda) here released under his given name and not the Oscar Lindok pseudonym under which he made a number of recordings including The Fine Machine. This album had the simple purpose of a fun and playful session without preconceived models.
The result is a carefree album, from the friendly cover (Orso means Bear) to the music that is interwoven with bossa nova, samba, jazz and funk in a style that rec…
Due Temi con Variazioni
Many words were spent on the long and fruitful collaboration between Piero Umiliani and the director Luigi Scattini: new light has been shed recently on some of their works, in lieu of the reissue of soundtracks such as “Angeli bianchi... angeli neri”, “Questo sporco mondo meraviglioso” along with “La ragazza fuoristrada”, “Il corpo” and “La ragazza dalla pelle di luna” (the famous trilogy starring Zeudi Araya as a main character).In 1977 Scattini, a world famous Mondo Movie author, directed “Bl…
Urbanistica
**in stock now** Gerardo Iacoucci's Urbanistica is one of the most elusive LP from the very sought after Octopus series. Released in 1971 as a non-commercial album of background music specially recorded for cinema, radio and television, Urbanistica is now come back to life in a special 180gr limited edition of 500 copies.
Gerardo Iacoucci is one of the men behind Flipper's sound scene, also known for L'Avventura and Simbolismo Psichedelico (both published for Deneb label), but this is defin…