Yes, we can dig it! Soul Jazz hits the jackpot once again with this completely amazing collection of songs from Blaxploitation films during the golden era of 1968-1975. There are a million reasons why this collection is so fucking great. But one critical way, in which this comp has become a defining collection of the sound and culture, is that most collections of Blaxploitation music up to this point only really focused on the camp and kitsch aspects of the movement, when really it was about so much more: true independence, total empowerment, bold political statements, reclamation of culture, off the hook fashion, and music with such real and deep soul, which provided the perfect soundtrack to these revolutionary films.
Can You Dig It? does a great job of mixing many amazing ultra obscure tracks some more well known jams, balancing the joy of discovery with the stone cold fact that no matter how many times you hear something from Curtis Mayfield's Superfly it always sounds so damn good. But of course this being Soul Jazz, they dig WAAAAAAY deeper, giving us truly stunning and burning tracks from the likes of Willie Hutch, Martha Reeves, Dennis Coffey, Solomon Burke & Gene Page, Don Julian, Johnny Pate, as well as tracks that somehow slipped under the radar from bigger name folks like James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes.
The sequencing and variety and richness in sound is so compelling and wonderfully varied. So often when this is playing for a while in the store people will ask "Is this still that comp?" and when we say yes they shake their heads in astonishment and usually have to get one right away. In fact right after the amazing Yo La Tengo instore performance last weekend, we put this on and all three members of the band at different times came up to us needing to know what it was and of course they bought one right away. Finally someone has done justice to the music of this movement and era, and our ears are in total heaven!
The double-cd version comes with an out-of-control informative and visually pleasing 100 page book as well as awesome postcards and stickers. The vinyl versions are split into two volumes and while it's awesome to have these songs on vinyl, the bummer is that the vinyl format doesn't come with the amazing 100 page booklet...
Ok, so originally we were going to review the bizarre "Necro-Demonic dungeon crawl" fantasy boardgame that this cassette is the audio companion to, along with listing the tape, but we already sold out of the few copies of the game we had (yep, we know some nerds!). Maybe we'll get more, we'd like to, definitely let us know if YOU are interested. We haven't had a chance to actually play the game yet ourselves, but boy does it look cool, with creepy black & white & gray art by Fort Thunder comic book artist Mat Brinkman. In the game, each player takes on the role of an evil Necromancer, digging tunnels in an subterranean crypt and creating grotesque monsters out of ooze to fight against his rivals and their hordes, vying to become the sole master of the Darkest Pit. Pretty darn black metal, eh?
In addition to looking cool, apparently it's actually an excellent game, receiving a pretty high user score on the BoardGameGeek website (7.9 out of 10) and we're read lots of good reviews. Can't wait to play it when we find time and learn the rules. If/when we get more copies in, they sell for $84. Like we said, let us know if you'd like us to get you one! Check out the YouTube trailer for the game at www.caveevil.com - which doesn't actually show the game or anyone playing it, instead it's a short movie purporting to show what the horrific, troglodytic existence of these Necromancers is all about. Love the low-budget special effects.
Soooo, anyway, the folks who made the game also have a tape label, and this is the official Cave Evil tie-in release, with some of the same sounds heard on the soundtrack to the trailer. This 90 minute mix features tracks by 15 different underground artists: Night of Ultraviolence, Wizard333, Swordsect, Abandoned Places, Manifester, Cex, MarderIII, Muroc, Hatred, Crypt Enforcer, Whispers of Dead Gods, Tres Quatro, Mammal, OoznDmrr, and Khand, plus sound FX by filmmaker Damon Packard, who did the trailer. It's an ultimate sinister cinematic synth experience, variously featuring blackened drones, eerie dark ambience, primal percussion, majestic synth-horns, and other dungeon-worthy, DIY sonics. Cool, creepy stuff that is certainly whetting our appetites for a session of Cave Evil. Limited to 300 copies on pro-dubbed chrome plus cassette.
If this does well, we'll stock some more Rotten Shape cassettes, all of which the label has assigned a "GVR", or Game Voice Rating, on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being hardest) noting how difficult it is to speak over the music in a gaming setting. The Cave Evil Radio Mix has a GVR of 2.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Completely hilarious bloopers will keep you in stitches. Andee keeps telling the story of how he had to listen to Joe from Souled American imitating the drunken John Wayne! Everyone from William Shatner to Elvis, Colonel Sanders, Tom Brokaw, Liz Taylor, Billie Holiday, The Beach Boys, Barry White, Casey Kasem (of course), Jack Palance, and more.
Well it looks like everybody wanted to be on this album, and lots of them are: Primus (with the theme song and more), Ozzy Osbourne/Old Dirty Bastard/DMX/Crystal Method, Wyclef Jean, Devo, Ween, Meat Loaf, Perry Farrel, Rick James, Elton John, and more...argh. Almost worth the 17 bucks though for "Come Sail Away" as sung by the show's Cartman. Several other tracks are pretty amazing too, actually, including the aforementioned Ozzy/Ol'Dirty etc. thing, the Chef's outrageous "Chocolate Salty Balls", and especially "Kenny's Dead", a remake of Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead" done No Limit style by Master P & crew--which basically makes unintended mockery of the entire gangsta rap genre. Ah, you can give it as a Christmas present to your favorite South Park fan.
Skiz Fernando, the mastermind behind WordSound, the underground illbient hiphop label outta Crooklyn, NY (now relocated to Baltimore, actually), has written, produced, and directed a straight-to-dvd movie called Crooked. It stars our favorite laid-back,
The double-disc digipack contains a dvd of "Crooked" and also a cd with the film's 21-track, 73 minute soundtrack, featuring Sensational, Anti-Pop Consortium, Spectre, Scotty Hard, Prince Paul, Unipod, Leon Lamont, Ish, Mad Luck & Robo, and Mentol Nomad. Dark, druggy, damaged, dubby hiphop in the freaky WordSound style is what you'll find here, and with the exception of Sensational's cuts, we're told all are exclusive to this soundtrack.
As for the dvd itself, well, you know how your parents taught you, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? Well, we're gonna try to apply that rule here, but we will just say it's a sometimes amusing, mainly tedius bonus to a pretty great WordSound compilation cd! The liner notes compare it to Space Is The Place, Wild Style, Rockers, and Ghost Dog! Definitely not. Although it's funny to see Sensational acting (and he's not bad), this would have been so much better if they would have just made a real documentary about the whole WordSound scene, rather than trying to make a fictional "movie". It's also possible that Skiz and Co. were so stoned when they edited it that they left stuff in they were supposed to take out, or vice versa...
But, it has its moments -- some of the best parts feature the horrified reactions of a snotty record store clerk and a sleazy label exec to Sensational's lo-fi rap stylings. And, WordSound headz will want to check it out anyway, along with the soundtrack.
Wordsound sold us this direct, apparently it's not available through their regular distribution channels, so it may prove to be a rather "limited" release.
Soundtrack to the film documentary about artist R. Crumb.
The movie ruled, right? If you didn't see it, do so... first off Dave Chapelle is of course incredibly funny and charismatic and clever (as you probably know). And the artists he's selected for his block party (that's what the film is, a documentary about a free concert Chapelle put on in Brooklyn) are all big name sort alt hip hop stars. Even if you don't think you're into The Roots or Jill Scott or whatever, you might find yourself a fan after viewing this! A feel good triumph!
Soundtrack to the Susan Sarandon/Sean Penn movie. Previously unreleased songs from Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Johnny Cash, etc, Plus (if you can believe it) on 2 songs Eddie Vedder collaborates with Qawwali giant Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. You'd think such a pairing would sound awful, but it doesn't at all. Really.
Now here's a collection that's guaranteed to titilate: 40 hot and sticky tracks from 70's porn flicks. And it's all over the musical map, from tracks that sound like they could be from a lost recording of Raymond Scott's 'Soothing Sounds For Sex' to some
Psychedelia in film and Psychedelic music sometimes serve at cross-purposes. In films, trippy visuals and dreamy passages often define the strangeness of the music, a factor that is often missing when hearing the music out of context. While true psychedelic music can overbearingly take center attention, a quality that doesn't work with most narrative films. Take for instance this new Cherry Red collection of obscure Italian soundtrack pieces from master composers, Morricone, Umilani, Rota, Piccioni and others from the strange and trippy side of their filmography. While the films, such as Fellini's Toby Dammit (An Eli Roth horror favorite) and Polanski's What? featured creepy sub-plots, surrealistic dream interludes, drug freakouts, as well as off-beat comedy, spy capers and other absurdities, the musical approach was less psychedelic as we know it and more of a liberal cross-pollination of musical genres and forms. Eastern raga and jazz? Why not?
Baroque harpsichord and creepy organ dirges? Sure! Multi-tracked flutes and wah wah guitar? Awesome. While not everything here is as trippy as you would expect, this is a pretty extensive survey (28 tracks!) of little heard soundtrack music that will serve the creepy and surreal moments of your life quite well.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Second volume of this popular collection of Bollywood madness. More bizarrely recorded, genre splicing, manic and sometimes ridiculous Indian film music. Bring on volume 3!!
A collection of Indian film music classics, kind of a bizarre and infectious lo-fi hybridization of genres. If you liked the "Bombay The Hardway" disc, or our favorite, the great "Dance Raja Dance" collection of Vijaya Anand's film music, you'll surely dig this. Features the illustrious Asha Bhosle! Recommended.
Down From The Mountain is a recording of a live concert held at the Ryman Auditorium (a.k.a. The Grand Ole Opry) that featured many of the artists that appeared on the soundtrack to the Cohen Bros. popular film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The concert was documented on film by D.A. Pennebaker (who directed the renowned film on Bob Dylan "Don't Look Back" among many other
Long overdue reissue of this wonderful soundtrack to the film Downtown 81, which starred the now-deceased artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and was written by Glenn O'Brien. Here we've got 20 tracks representing the breadth and range of the hip downtown NY
This is not only a cool document of a scene that was breathtaking in its diversity, but this is also a very handy sampler to the music of this time, much of which is now recognized as seminal. It's rare that a soundtrack documents a scene well (as opposed to just featuring throwaway tracks by bands who saved their best stuff for their own albums), but this album does it! The booklet's got a bunch of film stills and lots of information on the bands.
Listen to *all* the soundclips to get an idea of the range of styles represented on this great record.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Disturbing and baffling, but pretty amusing collection of music from German "Indianerfilmen" - an entire genre of German films about Native Americans. No, not cowboys and indians, just indians. Yes, there's a lot that's just plain WRONG about this genre - the cover features a buffed out topless German man in Indian drag, replete with long black wig, feather & rifle. The music on this disk, which spans from 1966 to 1978 (must have been a popular genre), ranges from faux-Indian psych-rock (sung in both English and German), country, cabaret, lieder and instrumental scores which, when not actual Morricone covers, sound as though they could accompany a Sergio Leone film. Includes two pages of liner notes in German if you can read it. Supply limited.
From those same sonic jokers who brought us "Deconstructing Beck" comes this latest copyright infringement: manipulated snippets of movies (including "Titanic", "Wizard of Oz", "Gone with the Wind", and lots more). The concept is hilarious, but what makes the record really successful is the carefully constructed experimental music, some of it melodic, some intense, some way out there. It's simply LOVELY to listen to, especially the first track: an almost unrecognizable version of the Celine Dion "Titanic" tune that REALLY sounds like someone drowning. Worth the price of the disc for this piece alone!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Soundtrack to Jon Moritsugu film features 2 previously unreleased Barbara Manning pieces (she made me cry during "The Arsonist's Song" at Terrastock), 2 previously unreleased Emily's Sassy Lime songs, and others by No No Boy, Dub Narcotic Sound System, and Dixieland.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Someome at Trunk records has a very dirty mind. And apparently a very dirty collection of recordings. But lucky for us, they're happy to share their dirty little treasures with the rest of the world. Flexi-sex compiles actual recordings originally issued as flexi discs that came free with certain British porn mags in the late seventies/early eighties (Whitehouse and Rustler if you must know) and contain some of the most hilarious and patently un-sexy sexy recordings we have ever heard. Over cheesy, bawdy seventies porno-jazz-schmaltz, older sounding British women, recite their sexy scripts, some more convincingly than others. Lots of talk of pricks and shafts and tits and hairy balls (Kathy Mcginty anyone?) and stems and bottoms and fannies (and fanny means something much different in the UK, needless to say there are no fannypacks over there...) and lots of heavy breathing and sighing and moaning, but all delivered in super prim sounding British accents. Which maybe could make it more sexy, that whole Educating Rita thing, but actually seems to have the opposite affect. Several of the women also make sure to let you know that while they may not be the sexiest women around, they are most definitely the horniest. Good to know. Be warned before you listen to the sound samples that this is definitely X-rated (well, at least R rated) so prudes steer clear.
Cup has been raging about it for months. Allan finally got a hold of an import dvd of it (and a t-shirt!). Andee's just about to watch it. And we've got the import soundtrack compilation in stock now!
Sooo, what's with all the hubbub?! Well, the center of attention is a mockumentary indie film which may be described as "Driver 23" meets "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" meets "American Movie", but... Canadian. It's all about the tragicomic misadventures of two Molson-chugging burnouts (think a Canadian Bill and Ted, ten years older and wasted most of the time) spewing stoner wisdom like "turn up the good, turn down the suck!"
If that piqued your interest (or not), give the following news a moment's ponder too...
This cd contains a couple of extra special songs performed by AQ ultra-fave Canucks the New Pornographers *and* Sloan (psst, they even do a Rush song)! This very well could be the only peep you'll be hearing from those NPs until they unleash their new album sometime next year, and who knows when we'll be hearing from those Sloan boys? So if you need your fix... FUBAR is where it's at! It's also where you'll find NoMeansNo, Chixdiggit, The Sweet, Girlschool and more. For the most part the concept here is Canadian indie/pop punk bands doing covers of Canadian rock/metal classics from the past: thus, NoMeansNo does Neil Young, GOB tackles Kick Axe's "Heavy Metal Shuffle", Sum 41 performs the Helix anthem "Rock You", while other bands cover April Wine, Loverboy, Toronto, BTO, etc. And lets not forget he-man Canadian metaller Thor (a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek 80's relic himself) doing the film's catchy theme, "FUBAR Is A Super Rocker". Throw in some originals from Creeper (loser metal band of Fubar star "Dean") and some out-of-context dialogue from the film, and what other album could possibly be more fun and surreal?? ...Know what else? These filmmakers received funding from the Canadian government to do this. Fill yer boots, eh!
Finally as a little aside, we'd like to clarify that the Aquarius Records who released this compilation is not us, but a Canadian label with the same name. But, unlike most things on their label, we'd be proud to have put this out ourselves if we were a label... Canada + Comedy + Metal + The New Pornographers + Helix + Thor + Sloan + Kick Axe = Aquarius Record of the Week Big Time!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Soundtrack to Harmony "Kids" Korine's controversial film "Gummo", featuring much in the way of underground black/noise/death/doom metal sounds, some of them previously unreleased. Some names: Spazz, Absu, Bathory, Burzum, Eyehategod, Brujeria, Sleep, Destroy All Monsters, Namanax and more. Oh yeah, AQ-pal and CMJ metal scribe Ian Christe's Dark Noerd (black metal breakbeat band) appears, and Ian's smart musical aesthetic basically sets the tone for the whole collection. Now the question is, will "Gummo" do for any of these bands what "Kids" did for the Folk Implosion?
More funky fucked up soundtracks from lost porno films, a la the Deep Note compilations, but unlike those classic seventies jams, these all seem to be from the eighties and most of them seem to be borrowing themes from popular music and television shows, which sounds weird, and it is, but it also makes these pretty fun and freaky. Plus try to imagine folks doing the nasty to most of these songs and it's downright impossible. It more likely that you'll be imagining car chases, and poolside brunch on the Love Boat or some strange montage on Fantasy Island.
From "Move On" which is a total rip of that song that goes "Whatchoo gonna do when she says good bye..." with some very Steely Dan sounding instrumentation, to "I P Walk" which borrows heavily from that Rick Astley song "Never gonna give you up...". The best title of the bunch is definitely "Hawkwind And Fire", but instead of sounding like Hawkwind, it absolutely is the theme to some totally famous eighties TV cop drama. But the pinnacle of whatthefuck on this comp has to be "The Heist" which is actually the theme from People's Court!!! Who the hell is fucking to the theme from People's Court?!? Unless it's from some People's Court spoof porn movie, People's Pork or something....
The coolest track by far though is "The Bends" a groovy laid back heavy psych rock jam, with super out of place space age synths, all fuzzed out, the whole track peppered with weird damaged FX. Another track that makes it difficult to imagine folks fucking to it.
A pretty fun and fantastic listen all around, but it's definitely gotten us dying to see what sort of weird and wild sex could have possibly transpired to the demented strains of these far out tunes. Maybe the next porn music reissue, instead of just issuing a cd, should just go for it and reissue the actual porno? Just a thought...
Wu Tang's The RZA put together this popular disc with songs from the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog. Dark urban Hip hop R&B tracks mixed with "samurai code quotes" from the flick. Sunz of Man, Black Knights, Kool G Rap, Masta Killah, Jeru, Wu Tang Clan, The RZA himself and others appear.
Gathering together new and old recordings of the beauty of true country. Classics by legends such as Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard alongside exclusive songs from Neko Case (easily two of her best!) and The Souvenirs.
The great Public Information label releases another incredible collection of archival Library tracks, this time from the British archives of The Standard Music Library, recorded between 1970 and 2010. While many famous people recorded for Standard Library, including Delia Derbyshire, Tony Visconti, Michael Chapman, Sven Libaek, as well as Brian Eno and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), this anthology focuses on the more obscure composers and electronic output released for industrial films, sci-fi television and commercials. You get the full range over 30 tracks from bloop-bleep abstractions, cosmic kosmiche and new age as well as eighties VCR funk and John Carpenter-like horror-synth jams. If you liked the last library survey Public Information offered, Tomorrow's Achievements - Parry Music Library 1976-86, then you'll certainly dig this. Top notch collection!!! Limited, import.
When we think of Bollywood, our minds instantly go to the golden era of Indian film music from the '60s and '70s, with classical sitars and tampuras set to thriller and noir themes and exotic pop, often forgetting that Bollywood has of course never stopped making films, and the film music has continually changed with the times. Even with the discovery of other flourishing filmmaking centers such as Lollywood in Pakistan and the Tamil-speaking Kollywood of South India bringing in the influences of synthesizers and eighties pop, we still weren't prepared for the amazing modern sounds of another fertile film and soundtrack music scene, this time located a continent away in Kano, the capital city of Nigeria - thus their thriving movie industry is called Kannywood. This compilation, brought to us by the folks at Sahel Sounds and Mississippi Records who have previously brought us those Music From Saharan Cellphone comps, is a great introduction to the sounds of popular film music made by the dominant Hausa culture of Nigeria from the past few years.
Bollywood music became more popular outside of India as the industry moved from films to television and the music began to be heard on the radio. While the Muslim culture of the Hausa people frowned on Hindi cinema, they began to see the advantages of taking the medium of music and film and crafting their own cultural take on the genre, often lifting the music and plotlines wholesale into their own language and cultural tropes. The music, in the beginning was played with traditional instruments, but the invention of the Yamaha PSR keyboard and the switch from video to digital has increased production into thousands of movies and songs of strangely charming and fluorescent dance pop.
For anyone who loved the strange hybrid of new wave dance pop of that Shangaan Shake compilation, or the Saharan Cellphone comps, this compilation carries the same global hybrid of tradition and new technology with most of the music utilizing digital synthesizers and auto-tuned vocals (mostly to imitate the high pitch of Indian Bollywood singers) that emphasizes the exotic side of global pop but yet remains so insanely catchy and infectious.
The subtitle: "25 Artists, One Song". Yes, here's 27 versions of the theme song from the classic Gary Cooper western recorded in the '50s and '60s. Among them, versions by Tex Ritter (three of 'em, all different), Frankie Laine, Chet Atkins, Ferrante &
Aaaah, reunions are always a weird mish mash of emotions, the warm fuzzies and the uh-oh discomforts, aren't they? Lots of faces are fondly familiar while others don't register at all in your memory banks. Such is the totally case with High School Reunion -- A Tribute To Those Great 80's Films with both the selection of songs and the artists covering them. Some familiar notables are Matthew Sweet (American Girl"), Frank Black ("Repo Man"), Blake Babies' John Strohm ("Somebody's Baby"), Kristin Hersh ("Wave Of Mutilation"), and the odd fresh-faced presence of the Dresden Dolls ("Pretty In Pink"). Of course for whatever reason (a link to a warm memory, a personal turning point, a soft spot for the actual movie, or simply the fact that it was just a great song), so many of these songs are so near and dear to the teenage hearts in each of us... as are the '80s flicks from which they came. Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Pretty In Pink, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Valley Girl, Repo Man, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pump Up The Volume, Say Anything, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ah yes, we remember them all so well. It's a pleasure when the cover kicks as much butt as (or betters) the original, but extra painful when some band does a so-so (or worse) version. Fortunately few if any of the twenty tracks fall into the latter category, and most offer at least a respectful if unchallenging take on the oldie. A nostalgia'n'irony super-size extra cheese full meal deal!
The soundtrack to this Sean Penn / Michelle Pfeiffer tearjerker is comprised entirely of Beatles covers, and I'm sorry to say that it's pretty dire, except for the wonderfully earnest Rufus Wainwright rendition of "Across the Universe". Wainwright's voice just does not lie! Aimee Mann and Michael Penn romantically croon "Two of Us", and Paul Westerberg wails "Nowhere Man, and those're pretty good. But the rest of this stinks, including Grandaddy's version of "Revolution" and Nick Cave's embarrassing "Let It Be". Sigh. Other perpetrators include Eddie Vedder, Black Crowes, Sheryl Crow, Sarah Maclachlan, Ben Harper, the Wallflowers, Ben Folds, etc.
The long-awaited "stoner rock/doom metal" soundtrack to the perhaps equally long-awaited psychedelic splatter/gore flick "I Am Vengeance" by low-budget underground director Richard R. Anasky, who, inspired in his filmmaking by both '80s slasher movies *and* '80s doom metal like Witchfinder General, hooked up with Meteor City to put together this soundtrack, featuring the likes of Sheavy, Count Raven, Eternal Elysium, The Quill, Bloodfarmers, Space Probe Taurus, Naevus, Lowrider, Las Cruces, and others. I thought that doom legends Pentagram were supposed to be doing the theme song (it's on their last album), but here it's done by Doomsday Gouvernment (ex-members of Count Raven, who appear all over this comp). Anasky's liner notes seem to indicate that the Pentagram track will appear on a *second* volume of songs from the film to be released by doom label Game Two, but I haven't heard about a release date for that. Anyway, this is a fine comp of mostly-new (or hard-to-find) material by some excellent, if obscure, bands -- almost all of whom seem to have singers vying for the "Sounds Most Like Ozzy Osbourne" award!
The Western obsession with India's prolific film industry, and even more so the musical numbers that drive the narratives forward, has nearly reached its saturation point. The amount of "best of Bollywood" anthologies released to date seems to almost equal India's annual theatrical output. Which all just makes it that much harder for us when we want to tell you that Indiavision is quite assuredly the best collection of Bollywood music we've come accross. See, so much has come before that such a claim will be immediately written off as so much of the usual record reviewer hyperbole. So just hear us out. First of all, what is it that makes Indian film music so great? Well, one of the things most often cited by fans is the over-the-top arrangements on some of the better numbers. The really great film music composers like Kalyanji & Anandji and Laxmikant & Pyarelal are some of the most worldly specialists in all genres of music, integrating the talents of Ennio Morricone's Western period, entire western orchestras, regional Indian classical music, the newest in electronic developments and whatever fad happened to be big in the year which they were composing (Hawaiian slide guitar, psychedelic music, soul, funk, you name it). The greatest film scores manage to somehow meld all that together in a way that just begs for some kind of clever culinary analogy (which we will spare you from in this review).
What else makes a great Bollywood song? The vocalist(s). A good song can survive without a male vocalist; they're only needed in duets with the female lead. The female vocalists in Indian film music are the equivalent of lead guitarists in the golden age of American rock and roll, and their vocal chords have the same dynamics, presence and range as most amplified guitars. Singers like Asha Bhosle (India's shining star of singers), featured heavily on this collection (and all collections) have a way of disembodying their voices from their bodies. When Bhosle sings her voice cuts through the speakers like a scalpel. Half of this phenomenon is due to her amazing lungs, the other to the insane engineering skills of the producers who record these scores who choose to overload the microphone preamps and super-saturate the magnetic tape during the loudest passages resulting in an unholy natural compression of the signal. Second only to the likes of Lee Perry in his Black Ark period of the early seventies or dub master King Tubby, the production values of Indian film music is singularly twisted in their techniques. Like the aforementioned Jamaican demigods of the multi-track, the recordists here have an arsenal of reverb, echo and compression tools that -- while not as new as the gear used in Hollywood's recording studios -- are used to their absolute functional limit. All of those essential elements of Indian film music are represented on each and every song here. But unlike many earlier collections, which focus their range on a particular era, composer, or vocalist, Indiavision draws from a wide range of sources. The tracks included here date from as far back as 1966 on up to 1984, it includes such film score heavyweights as father S.D. and son R.D. Burman, Laxmikant & Pyarelal, Kalyanji & Anandji and Bappi Lahiri. The broad time spanned by the tracks makes this collection as a whole more varied and easy on the ears. There's also quite a good variety of both slow, sultry numbers and completely batty comical ones. Some, like the title music for "The Burning Train" (listed as an instrumental), which features gruff female vocals like those of Yma Sumac, or the "Cabaret Dance Music" from the film "Dharmatma" with its maniacal laughter are completely off the wall. Others, like "Yashomati Maiya Se Bole Nandala" -- a deadly serious romantic number with crooned vocals by Lata Mangeshkar -- and "Come Closer" -- a mellow and sincere funk/soul song sung by Salma Agha -- are beautiful respites from the cornball antics which are more often the songs of choice for Bollywood anthologies. Comes with a 30 page, full color booklet with plentiful liner notes in both French and English. Highly recommended!
Funny that there's such a renewed interest in cheesy seventies porn music. Especially considering that music in pornos always seemed to be some mediocre funk or soul, or sometimes super cheesy soundtracky fluff, and existed solely to fill out the sounds of a scene that would otherwise be nothing but grunts and groans and slapping skin. Not sure who decided that people looked (and sounded) better screwing to some totally innocuous R&B, but at some point it stuck, and thus porno music became a genre unto itself, immediately recognizable by its cloying melodies, boppy walking basslines, simple shuffling rhythms, silly synths and very un-funky funk. That said, these Deep Note collections have done a pretty great job of collecting the weirdest, and funniest, and thus the best the genre has to offer. None of these songs immediately evoke images of wild orgies or group sex or intimate lovefests, instead they mostly seem to evoke chase scenes, the credits of a sitcom, or background music for instructional videos. Which I suppose is what makes these so darn cool. Timeless in that totally dated way only porno music can be. But the real attraction here is the inclusion of a DVD, containing loads of the silliest scenes, weirdest dialogue, biggest... moustaches, Afros, and boobs, hairiest bods, unlikely locations and bad acting you will ever see! And prudes fear not! The editing has deftly left plenty up to the imagination, so the original X-rated clips have become a bit more R-rated!
Second volume of classic porn soundtrack recordings following the successful "Deep Note" compilation we listed a year ago. Like the previous collection, this one comes interespersed with dialog from the films themselves. And while the sound quality of the music is much better (many of the previous album's tracks seemed to be dubbed straight from the VHS tapes), the variety in the music is less interesting. Given that there's not much information on the individual tracks, it's guess work as to when they were recorded. But it seems clear that these tracks come from a later period of porn films. The musicians, more accustomed to what's expected of them in the studio are less likely to experiment. Either that, or the producers just chose to pick a collection of tracks which better represent what one might expect to hear on a porn soundtrack: smooth, funky jams and a few jazzy numbers. Which is a bit of a disappointment. With this collection is included a glossy booklet with plenty of sexy film stills and liner notes entitled "Casting Room Capers of a Female X-Rated Movie Director (circa 1974)" in which a supposedly "female" porn director recounts her experiences casting her first film "Hot Rocks". Unfortunately, the producers of this disc forgot to credit her name at the end of the booklet and a search on google revealed no such film from the early 70's so we can't give you "her" name either. Any porn experts out there who might be able to enlighten us? Once again, this one's for fans of Vampyros Lesbos, Schulmaedchen Report and other sexy soundtracks.
MPEG Download: ANONYMOUS "Slip It In" [/audio/deepnoteslipitin.mp3]
MPEG Stream: ANONYMOUS "Slip It In" [/audio/deepnoteslipitin.m3u]
Soundtrack to the Larry Clark film. Includes some of the very best work Lou Barlow and John Davis have ever done, we say! Very rhythmic, groove-oriented, lots of Silver Apples and Satie samples. New songs from Folk Implosion (Lou and John), Deluxx Folk Imposion (Lou, John, plus Bob Fay and the guitarist from Cheater Slicks), and hip hop outfit Lo-Down. Previously released songs from Daniel Johnston and Slint. I am happy to report that as of 9/95, the major label appeared to be treating the Deluxx Folk Implosion well, going so far as to supply them with unlimited room service at that year's CMJ show. The lobster chili was both decadent and delicious. Thank you, corporate giant.
Lots of folks probably have no idea what Pinky Violence movies are, but avid readers of the aQ list, might have scene (or hopefully bought!) several records by a local turntablist called DJ Female Convict Scorpion, whose name is in fact borrowed from one of the more famous Pinky Violence series of films.
In the late sixties, traditional gangster movies in Japan were replaced with "Pinky Violence" movies, which embraced nudity and violence and bondage, women in prison, women gangs, who often fought topless, low brow, lowest common denominator, maybe, but many of the films infused the sex and violence with plenty of subtle social and political critiques, and as you might imagine, they caught on, and became a sensation. Often psych rock bands like the Jacks or the Flowers were tapped for music, but just as often, a small cadre of composers created the strange sonic hybrids that were the soundtrack to some of the most over the top films you'll ever see.
From Western style Morricone soundtrack music, all strings and whistles, haunting and ominous, to sultry smoky jazz, groovy fuzz funk, and full on psychedelic garage rock, the sounds here are all over the map. In some ways this could have easily been an installment in Sublime Frequencies' ever expanding catalog of world musics, so varied and catchy and wildly exotic. Jazzy drums underpin fluttery flutes, crunchy fuzz guitar all tangled up with woozy porno funk, sexy sax, wah wah guitars, soaring strings, Eastern melodies, all wound into groovy cinematic funk jazz, xylophones and marimbas, horn sections, strange sound effects, wild drumming, it's hard to imagine how this stuff hasn't been sampled to death by DJ's. super funky, but WAY out there and psychedelic, sometimes dark, but more often jubilant and unhinged and FUN.
Super extensive liner notes, with a history of the genre, the soundtracks, the composers, and of course the starlets, and besides simply being a killer collection of funky soulful cinematic sounds, hopefully it'll get some folks out there to track down some of these amazing movies...
Similar to the spirit of those 'Ein Wigwam...' compilations of film music from East German westerns (Vol. 2 we listed just a few weeks back), 'Kosmos' collects the music from East German science fiction films and television programs, which while maybe not
Similar to the spirit of those 'Ein Wigwam...' compilations of film music from East German westerns (Vol. 2 we listed just a few weeks back), 'Kosmos' collects the music from East German science fiction films and television programs, which while maybe not
Soon after heaping tons of praise on the mighty Enter The Dragon Soundtrack, we're thrilled to also see this killer compilation of unreleased De Wolfe library tracks drawn from the legendary Shaw Brothers martial arts films circa 1976-1984. If you've seen a Hong Kong Ku Fu flick of that vintage, chances are good you've seen a Shaw Bros. movie. Influencing everyone from The Wu-Tang Clan to Quentin Tarantino, these low-budget "bashers" with insanely impossible story lines have fed the fertile imaginations of midnight movie geeks for years. These 43 movie cues hand-picked by Gareth "Cherrystones" Goddard, Joel Martin and Jon Jigoku, display quite a sweeping emotional range of sounds: moody spy themes, old west-style standoffs, funky Moog passages, ritual drums, suspicious flutes and percussion, tense orchestrations, haunting siren song. The best part is the names the De Wolfe library gave the cues: "Electro Beat 5", "Nerve Stretch 2", "Tension Trip", "Moonbird", "Bitter Lemons", "Dogarnit". For the library music fan or martial arts geek in your life!
Short form review: Ridiculously awesome.
We mean, kind of a no-brainer here, you know you want this - the sequel to B-Music's indeed wonderful The Sound Of Wonder comp has arrived, and of course it's awesome. As the subtitle Plugged-In Sounds of Wonder at the Pakistani Picture House suggests, it's another 16 tracks of vintage "Lollywood" soundtrack gems, exotic pop produced by the Lahore film industry circa the '60s and '70s, taken from the vaults of EMI Pakistan; a spicy blend of impassioned vocals, fuzz guitars, analog synths, spacey effects, lush orchestration, and ethnic hand percussion, music that's just a bit rawer and if possible zanier than its Bollywood counterpart, though not too dissimilar...
Life Is Dance sure starts off with a bang, a Great Googly Moogly of a track called "Zambo Zambo" boasting crazy gruff vocals that will have you staring at your stereo. That one goes on for nearly nine minutes, really a wild ride full of curious, catchy sonic juxtapositions. And somehow this album's compilers keep up the "Urdu-groove" awesomeness from there on in. Many of the big names Lollywood history appear here, among 'em Sohail Rana and Nahid Akhtar.
As always with B-Music/Finders Keepers stuff, impeccably researched, lovingly presented, with informative liner notes and evocative graphics...
A compilation of music and dialogue from over forty years of fairy-tale movies produced in the former GDR??!! Sounds like a total AQ cream dream! And it is... especially if you're part of our lucky German-speaking demographic! While the music magically ranges from wide-eyed, sparkly "why, hello bluebird!"-type crescendos to tense "no, Hans, don't go in there!" moments, we should mention that a hefty portion of the CD is dialogue highlights that are most likely dramatic conversations about golden geese and, um, prinzes und konigs und such, but since our German is limited, we're not entirely sure. Still, it sounds great and seems to transform everyone's mood into something sunny and full of possibility. Plus, the CD booklet contains saturated color photos of busty, blonde women in braids and bearded forestmen. Wunderbar!
A 2014 Record Store Day collaboration between two amazing obscurity-obsessive labels, Finders Keepers and Dual Planet, Monster Skies features a dizzy collection of damaged library sounds, far-flung private press pop and early electronic strangeness. We've carried some of the Dual Planet releases, but have yet to review them, like the Australian electric weirdo space-funk-rock of Steve Maxwell Von Braund, who provides the titular song to this collection as well as the reclusive Italian guitarist and electronic composer, Teisco, who may be the most marginally strange of the Italian Library composers leaning more toward Bruce Haack than say, Egisto Macchi. Suzanne Cianni, Lucien Goethals and Val Stephen provide some scintillating musique concrete and electronic composition, while Don Harper, Philippe D'Aram, and Andrzej Korzynski bring some wonderfully brooding cinematic horror vibes to the table.
Finally, Emerald Web, X-ray Pop, Clone and The Ultra Sonic Perception, give us some wonderfully sublime pop moments that buffer the oddities with wistful charm and eccentric groove. A fantastic collection and excellent introduction into a staggering undiscovered world of sound. Get one while they last!
Second installment of collected Western movie soundtrack music. Morricone and others. Great for your next pasta-fueled gunslinging showdown.
It's a good thing none of the artists involved with this project are local to the Bay Area, cos I'd have to go buy a gun and shoot them for crimes against music. And not just any music, this is soundtrack music by the acknowledged genius Ennio Morricone, the one and only. Yes, Morricone sanctioned this project, but that doesn't mean it's going to turn out good -- it just means whoever
We made a couple sound clips just for those of you with morbid curiousity.
Crate-diggers have long looked to Library music (anonymously created music cues made available for use in film) for obscure hip-hop and funk breaks. Back in 2000, Strut Records released this survey on the KPM library originally intending to create a series dedicated to mining the archives of UK's foremost music libraries. It has now been reissued in a deluxe format that includes a bonus cd of a live reunion concert at London's Jazz Cafe with KPM's top performers, Alan Hawkshaw (The Mohawks), Keith Mansfield, and Alan Parker, dubbed The KPM All Stars. The album proper also includes tracks by John Cameron, Les Baxter and a host of others focusing on funk, soul, Latin, jazz, and disco with a gritty seventies urban vibe. Break beats are plentiful, but what is most stunning is the solid session player chops being presented especially on the live disc, not to mention the stunning vocals by Madeline Bell on "That's What Friends Are For" (not the Dionne Warwick song of the same name, thankfully!). Fans of Gilles Peterson, or rare soul and jazz groove. take note! There's also a gatefold double lp version that includes both cds with it as well.
