Review: Library music maestro and original member of The Shadows Brian Bennett has a raft of sought-after records to his name, but this is surely one of the most prized. As with the best library music, the execution of the compositions is impeccable - like slipping on silken luxury leisurewear for your ears. The record has been a rich source for sampling over the years, so half the joy is in spotting licks and loops from your favourite tunes, but equally these disco-fied delicacies funk all on their own. Lovers of the Black Devil Disco Club vibe will be more than happy getting down to these tasteful cosmic groovers, unbelievably repressed for just the first time on Isle Of Jura since the original release in 1978.
Review: Three years ago, Dutch multi-instrumentalist and producer Noam Offir unveiled his debut album as Soul Supreme, a vividly realised fusion of jazz-funk, jazz-fusion, hip-hop, soul and electrofunk flavours that boasted impeccable musicianship. Poetic Justice, the rising star's hotly anticipated follow-up, continues in a similar vein whilst aiming higher. The musicianship is, if anything, even better, with liberal use of horns, P-funk synth sounds, Clavinet, warming electric piano motifs, loose limbed drums (blessed with the swing of live drums, but - we think - MPC-powered). It's basically the same old super Soul Supreme sound, taken to the next level. As a result, Poetic Justice is even better than its lauded predecessor. Don't sleep on this one!
Review: The tireless work of Funk Night continues here more steamy late-night sounds. This time it's Sunday Papers at the helm and first off comes 'Smoke.' It's a dense, busy cut with sleazy guitar riffs, plenty of sonic grit, raw, edgy drums and vocal stabs as well as some hints of psyched-out soul. On the flip, the rather horribly titled 'Greasy Meat Pocket' is actually a lovely sound with pensive piano chords and signature Hammond organ grooves that make for a nice late night jaunt.
Review: 'Available Forms' is the latest masterwork of the musical project Tobor Experiment, led by Giorgio Sancristoforo, an Italian sound artist and music software designer based in Milan. Active since 2007, Sancristoforo's work has largely centred on highly technical odysseys in avant-disco, exploring surreal takes on the ambivalent promises made by the tide of technological advancement, channelled into a that has been described, perhaps quite cleverly, as 'moogsploration'. Coming after a 12-year hiatus on gatefold LP, Sancristoforo returns to his go-to label Bear Funk for yet another foray into this retro-modernist vision, mixing genre-bent jazz, electronica, nu-disco, and psychedelic influences.
Review: Blue Foundation returns with another lush and immersive album that deepens their signature blend of dream pop, shoegaze and ambient electronics. Crafted over three years by the much loved Danish duo Bo Rande and Tobias Wilner, Close to the Knife explores themes of melancholy and introspection through layered textures and haunting vocals from Wilner and Nina Larsen. Guest appearances from Scarlet Rae, Helena Gao, and Sonya Kitchell enrich its emotional depth, while contributions from Chinese experimental noise band Wang's Xie Yugang and drummer Federico Ughi add complexity to this shapeshifting soundtrack.
Review: Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and electronic music pioneer Mort Garson just keeps on giving, even now, 15 years after his death. Archival releases since have come not-so-thick-and-fast, but occasional and well thought through, with Journey to the Moon & Beyond the latest example of this. Not, as the cover and title might suggest, the score to some forgotten 1970s animated classic, but instead a collection of stuff very few will have heard before, let alone had opportunity to buy, it's really something special. On the track list, then, you'll find the soundtrack to 1974 Blaxploitation movie Black Eye, or at least part of it. Similarly splendid, but in a very different way, are the grand tones of 'Zoos of the World', originally made to accompany a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. Then there's the music he wrote for the 1969 moon landings, as used by CBS News at the time. History bottled, or rather pressed, get it while it's fresh (and in stock).
Review: The work of legendary drummer turned library musician Klaus Weiss continues to be reissued. For this series, Dynamite Cuts are looking back on a mid-1970s series of EPs released by Weiss originally for the famous library Sound Music. Carrying a minimal production that still has appeal for the modern listener (don't Dynamite know it), the four tracks here are curt, squelchy and beat-centric, with highlights including the clavichord-wacky 'Frogs', the sonically obese 'Productive Facilities', and the space-age drum freakout 'Coordinates Meeting'.
Review: The man behind the Death Is Not The End label and archival NTS radio show got plenty of people talking earlier in the year when he presented the music on this record on the airwaves. It is a brilliantly authentic document of a very special time in the history of British music culture. Pirate radio was the voice of the underground, the mixing pot for the musical sounds and scenes of the time with their famous phone-ins, shout-outs and adverts all adding to the atmosphere of each broadcast. Relive it now as often as you like with this brilliantly assembled collection.
Review: Dynamite Cuts brings the heat once more with a second volume of their Sound Music 45s series. Siegfried Schwab takes care of the A-side with 'Getting High', a scorching funk workout with hard-worked guitar chords and precise percussion over lots of wah-wah effects. 'Feel It; flip the script with a superbly stripped-down jazz-funk lounge sound. Klaus Weiss then steps up on 'Time For Rhythm' with some loose, percussive funk beats that are raw and organic, then Peter Thomas closes down with 'Documentation', a more richly instrumental and multi-layered jazz-funk sound that conveys real grandeur.
Review: Originally recorded in Rome with top-tier players like Giorgio Carnini and Giovanni Tommaso, this psychedelic library session bridges modal jazz, Latin percussion, and fuzzed-out funk. This reissue restores the 1970 cut in full, swirling through ghostly organ grooves and spiralling rhythm sections with a clarity that feels startlingly fresh. 'Psichefreelico (Sostenuto)' and 'Bacharachico' glide between dreamy lounge and scorched delay-drenched oddness, while 'Africaneidico' pulses with loose Afro-Latin syncopation. Mined from Italy's golden age of library music and remastered from mono tapes, it's a masterclass in instrumental storytellingivivid, woozy and totally transportive.
Review: Talk about a time capsule. While the obvious nostalgists out there scour and share their cassette eight packs, desperately converting the mixes they contain to digital files before the inevitable unspooling renders the original recordings obsolete, here comes Death Is Not The End - a record label that lends its name to (well, hosts) a show on NTS Radio - with the ultimate trip back to a time many weren't lucky enough to live through.
As the name suggests, this is literally a collection of no less than 40 radio adverts that appeared at some point or other on London's once-plentiful pirate radio stations between 1984 and 1993. Many are poor quality in terms of production, a good number use samples from some of the biggest dance tracks of the day, loads namecheck some legends of the UK rave scene, and every single one would be loads of fun to drop into a mix or use as a sample for productions. Not that we're recommending doing anything without license.
Review: Renowned DJ and selector MURO is a Jedi-level compiler and this new collection of his delves into Victor's extensive archives to spotlight a world of Japanese jazz, fusion and AOR. It take sin plenty of internationally known names like Yasuko Agawa on the sunset sounds of 'L.A. Night', Sadistics who offers the more psyched out guitar leans of 'On the Seashore', Yuji Ohno's neo-Balaeric bliss-out 'The Dawn of Seychells' and Hiroshi Fukumura's soul soothing Ry Ayres-style melodies on 'White Clouds.' These are luxurious sounds and timeless tracks with MURO's signature funky perspective making this a brillaint choice for brighter, warmer days.
Review: Welcome to the parallel musical universe of Miss Maria Teresa Luciani, a landscape of sonic architecture and theoretical composition constructed by a family of engineers that reinvented the wheel before the vehicle even began the journey. Imagine, if you will, the musical equivalent of Peter Cook's Archigram group or the soundtrack to Charles and Ray Eames' private sketchbooks, hinting at a new municipal, utopian metropolis just hours before the blueprints are suspiciously misplaced by the courier and mainstream pop building regulations piss on our asbestos bonfire. These 1972 constructions of progressive, cyclic, proto-industrial colour music were never intended for public habitation. These are the Sounds Of The City in a galaxy far, far beneath our radar and above your expectations that was never built. Pseudo-futurist pop music? Cubic folk? Tape-op-art? Si, grazie!
Review: James Francis Marion Jones was a Black American religious leader whose movement turned into the Church of Universal Triumph, Dominion of God. During the fifties, he hosted his own weekly television shows in Detroit on a Sunday afternoon, making him the first black preacher to do so. His late night sermons were full of passion and power, and half a century on they are as fascinating as ever. On each side of this reissued 12", extended live recordings of two speeches are presented, meaning those who want to hear them won't have pay upwards of L800 on second hand sites, as they would have up until now.
Brian Bennett & Alan Hawkshaw - "Name Of The Game" (4:25)
Dave Richmond - "Confunktion" (4:38)
Review: Measured Mile is a new 7" label run by regular Ace consultant and confidante Bob Stanley. The plan is to release DJ-friendly 45s that are either very rare or previously unavailable on seven-inch. On this new one come two pieces from esteemed library musicians - the well known pairing of Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett, and Dave Richmond. 'Name Of The Game' is a slow instrumental blues piece with beats ready to be plundered for hip-hop beats that once soundtracked a 1970s aftershave ad, while Richmond's 'Confunktion' is a motivational builder-upper with drums and organs aplenty.
Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys - "Soran Bushi" (3:06)
Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys - "Hanagasa Odori" (3:14)
Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys - "Sakura Sakura" (7:33)
Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys - "Yagi Bushi" (7:23)
Review: Japan's revered DJ Muro has put together his first ever compilation for BBE. Diggers Dozen is a real gem with 12 tracks of Japanese jazz-funk and Latin-jazz goodness that fuse traditional instrumental with traditional melodies. These tunes were originally made for the 70s for Nippon Columbia by legendary composers of the time such as Kiyoshi Yamaya, Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys, Kifu Mitsuhashi, Toshiyuki Miyama and more. Finding these cuts on their original pressings is rare and expensive so don't sleep on this real collector's essential.
When The Centre Doesn't Move You're In It's Path (2:57)
Don't Wanna Say Goodbye (4:43)
Fangs (Avalon Emerson Re-Chip remix) (6:29)
Review: Nathan Micay's new album comes across several formats, with this being the black wax version. To The God Named Dream also comes with artwork that doubles up as an original multi-player board game that it is, according to the artists behind it, a hybrid of Jumanji and Hellraiser. "I listened to a lot of pop through the pandemic from Taylor Swift, Caroline Polachek and "Rain"-era Madonna and wanted to synthesise these references with my score work and downtempo and club music." He's made a good job of it too on what is his first album since 2020's The World I'm Going To Hell For. Live banjo and live breakbeats sit with 808 bass hits, big trance synths and plenty of melodramatic grooves.
Review: Following a near two-year absence from vinyl, the usually prolific Misha Paniflov is back on Funk Night Records with another nostalgic 45 rooted in deep funk, library music, cinematic soundtracks and psychedelia. The Estonian first offers up 'Dr Juvenal's Solution', a jaunty and genuinely heavy dancefloor work out marked out by sixties spy-movie guitars, bustling breaks, intergalactic synth sounds and warming bass. He opts for a more laidback, downtempo feel on side B, with stretched out, Peter Green style guitar solos and meandering Moog lines reclining atop a bittersweet backing track.
Review: This great series from Dynamite Cuts continues to delve deep into the alluring world of library music. It is sound that captures real feelings and evokes all sorts of memories, even those that are imagined, with a single note or seductive groove. This collection is made of tracks from the German Library series Sound Music Albums which sell for over L150 if you can find a copy. There are four tunes in all, three from Klaus Weiss and one from Peter Thomas, all of which add up to another great collection and a must for serious music heads.
Review: Dynamite Cuts brings the heat once more with a second volume of their Sound Music 45s series. Siegfried Schwab takes care of the A-side with 'Getting High', a scorching funk workout with hard-worked guitar chords and precise percussion over lots of wah-wah effects. 'Feel It; flip the script with a superbly stripped-down jazz-funk lounge sound. Klaus Weiss then steps up on 'Time For Rhythm' with some loose, percussive funk beats that are raw and organic, then Peter Thomas closes down with 'Documentation', a more richly instrumental and multi-layered jazz-funk sound that conveys real grandeur.
Review: Zone Black almost never was. The KPM music library originally commissioned Emil Amos to make a collection of new material which could be used in television and film. A little way into this process, the executive who did that hiring departed, and the artist opted to take what was there to the Drag City label in a bid to turn it into a proper album. The end result is something between the two. For all intents and purposes, plenty here fits into the library definition, but this is a far more personal, deeper and coherent take on the format. The foundations of library music - commercial use - soon thrown out with the dishwater, and instead the focus was on creating movements and arrangements that would hold up on their own, and create entire narratives independently, for themselves. Removed from what's happening on screen, you can live in these tracks and nowhere else.
Review: The JalapeNo label sure does like it hot and this one is no different. It sees the return of label regulars Skeewiff for a new series of outings that take the form of reworked covers of some of their favourite library tracks, inspired by greats of the genre such as Keith Mansfield, Brian Bennett, and Alan Hawkshaw. First up is 'Exclusive Blend,' a rather classic instrumental composition by Mansfield. 'Spanish Flea' is on the flip and is a version of a very famous work by Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass Band. It's a funky take with lots of percussive energy and big strings.
Review: Alan Parker & Alan Hawkshaw's Black Pearl is a classic from 1973 that deserves the regular reissue treatment it enjoys. It is a cult classic bit of library music on De Wolfe that takes the form of a collection of orchestral funk pieces that are perfect examples of the dramatic music styles synonymous with the 70s. Some pieces are widescreen, string laced opuses with lavish 60s exotica influences while others are more moody and dramatic with thunderous drums and edgier strings.
Review: Since its release way back in 1968, The Perfumed Garden has become a much-discussed cult classic. It's certainly a unique offering, with the whole thing built around Indian vocalist and poet Chitra Neogy's sultry and expressive spoken word interpretation of a centuries-old erotic text that has been likened to the better-known Karma-Sutra. Neogy's spoken word vocals, which often come drenched in reverb, are simply sublime, with some tracks consisting merely of these inspired readings. Where the album really comes alive, though, is when her words are given musical accompaniment - think sitar, tabla, strings and more - from an ensemble of experienced Indian musicians. An oddball gem that's well worth further investigation.
Basil Kirchin & Jack Nathan - "Viva La Tamla Motown" (3:50)
Alan Parker & William Parish - "Main Chance" (3:05)
Review: KPM Music might just be one of the most expansive music libraries out there, boasting a whopping 30,000 exclusive music tracks for licensing. Some of their earliest pieces are being reissued by Measured Mile, the latest of which appears here in the form of a split 7" by four of the label's most treasured contributors. 'Viva La Tamla Motown' helms up the A-side with wonky, laboured drumming and an excitable rock n' rolly guitar and harmonica. 'Main Chance' brings up the B with a more loungeified flutey strutter.
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