The messages on the sleeve of this record are somewhat confusing. First, the front promises us “easy listening” and adds a logo saying we are dealing with “background music” (or “BGM”). The back adds to the titles classical indications what style and tempo they are in. So we have scherzoso, moderato but also tempo di […]
Baligh Hamdy is a composer well known for his work with Egyptian super star singer Oum Kalsoum and Hamdy’s wife, Algerian born Warda. Here’s a real oddity from his hand, an EP with a rather daring silk screened cover (daring considering it was released in Egypt in the sixties). This mini-album has 6 beautiful instrumental […]
This Brasilian album from 1968 is suprisingly unknown and probably pretty rare. You wonder for what reason since it’s such an excellent bossa nova record. Tuca displays a nice feel for understatement in her voice and although a portion of the material is in a breezy mood, the blackness of the cover can be felt […]
Housed in an incredibly nice cover with a unique pre-historic Flinstone vibe (the drum, the model, the hair…), this record contains several outstanding cumbias. I thought the following cumbia (eh, or Gaita?) from this record is a nice one to post because it features a great hot-jazz guitarist who at one point goes out of […]
I wish I knew exactly where these guys came from. I always like it when a record has you looking at the world map for cues (and when it gives you an urge to travel). Anyway, they are from one of “the islands” and what they do is way cool. And loud. Six party tracks […]
The title of this record immediately reveals a certain insecurity on the part of the producers as to what exactly they were marketing here. You wonder why Los is cursive, why “TEEN-AGERS” is between quotation marks, and why there’s a dash between TEEN and AGERS. These kids sure look like teenagers. They even live up […]
Here’s an experimental record from 1980, featuring the side long “Formal and Informal Music.” It’s performed by three musicians and led by the electronics guy Tom Hamilton. I can best describe it as an oscillating electronic bee-hive with beautiful woodwind solo’s by J.D. Parran and percussion by Rich O’Donnell. Especially the flute segment is amazing, […]
The Italian Phase 6 series might have had one of the coolest strings of sexy covers ever. This one is an absolute favorite of mine. The typefont, the angle, the color of the sky, the choice of model, the negligent position of her bikini. One can almost smell the hot herb-filled air of Italy’s coast […]
Louis Andriessen, the well known anti-elitist Dutch avant garde composer, has always been boasting about the fact that he incorporates popular music in his work and that he cuts through high and low culture. But the fact is, nobody on the street would be able to wistle a Louis Andriessen tune (maybe apart from his […]
I don’t know very much about Madagascar, apart from the fact that it’s flora and fauna is unique due to the separation of the Island from the African mainland in ancient times. Also, I understand the language Malagasey is amazingly enough of the Malayo-Polynesian family and bears resemblance to the language of Borneo. With all […]
I’m guessing these guys were from the Dominican Republic, since the back cover has an advertisement for a Dominican disco album, but I’m not sure. The cover is as vague as can be, with many typ-o’s and bold stickers to re-arrange the tracklisting. Luckily the music is quit good, with a typical island mix of […]
I don’t know if the dance instruction label Statler catered to strip joints, but that would explain a thing or two about this record. Music is far from jazz. It contains 17 raunchy instrumentals by the group The Night Shift and the “free” instructional flier that comes with it must be seen as totally random (as […]
Here’s an Indonesian psychedelic record with lots of fuzz grooves, some sound effects, borderline psychotic vocals and a totally whacked out use of the English language. The band consists of drums, bass, guitar, organ and vocals and it is one of those records that make you realize how endless the sound possibilities are for a […]
The moment time travel will be made available to the general public, this is the kind of record I will be ordering, in retrospect, from 1965. Those who love vintage record oddities will agree this disc has a lot going for it. First, the very format is peculiar. It’s a 10″ microgroove record, but it […]
Cantor Raymond Smolover apparently wasn’t an unimportant figure in the Jewish music scene in the states, having produced and written (comic) opera’s and also teaching singing and vocal training techniques to many. Here’s a curious record he did with the youth choir The Nifty Levites for the Bell label, called “Edge of Freedom, a folk/rock […]
Okay, the music on this Indonesian reggae record might not be all that good, but hey, how often do you stumble into Indonesian reggae? The accompanying track, called Reggae Beat, is actually quite charming. Especially the flute parts are rather exotic, with a gamelan scale that blends in nicely. The organ sounds pretty spaced out […]
This record was given to the new owners of Volkwagen Transporters back in 1980, promising them “technical impressions” of the van in question. Apparently, people who were into this particular Volkswagen van were heavily interested in abstract musical interpretations of the insides of their car, or so the people from the marketing department assumed. So how does […]
This excellent robot cover houses a record that is a fake soundtrack to a non-existant animation film about the space adventurs of the robots Apogee and Perigee and their android dog, creations of the mad professor Persec, and their fight against a totalitarian society. Almost all tunes are anoying to a point that they are […]
This is a totally common record from Slovakia that has pretty bad synthesizer pop tunes. One track is insane however. It’s the track that’s called Random and according to the sleeve, here Alojz explores the possibilities of the synthesizer playing on it’s own. I wish the synthesizer had played on it’s own for the entire […]
The side long piece Aguas territoriales has a very cool concept that is executed perfectly. We start off with the sound of dripping water. Every minute or so the Cuban composer Carlos Farinas adds another electronic effect to it, progressively rendering it unrecognizable untill it sounds as the score for some scifi flick. Halfway into […]
This little 10″ record by the all girl band The Singers is one of the most entertaining pieces of vinyl I own. Everything is right about it. One side has covers of tunes as Bang Bang. The other side has the Indonesian blend of pop and Krontjon music. The western side has a lot more […]
Cameroon born novelist, poet, musicologist, historian, radio DJ and multi-instrumentalist Francis Bebey (1929) conjured up this relatively unknown record for Ozileka Records in 1979. If you’re familiar with his classical guitar work, this stuff may come as a suprise. Deploying an assortment of synthesisers, the tunes range from feather-light afropop to very exciting grooves. One […]
This record strikes me as being very odd. It sounds so contemporary, you almost suspect it’s a hoax by some sample dudes from 2006. But it’s not. It’s on the French Cam, so it’s probably from the beginning of the eighties. There are several stand out tracks, with subdued electronic beats, percussion and sound effects, but the […]
“Suite from the original music of the seven coproduction films of the Bulgarian and Hungarian red cross societies.” Composers Victor Tschoutschkov and Georgi Genkov did an excellent job on this soundtrack for several Red Cross documentaries and educational films from the sixties. This is something of a politically correct Mondo affair where director Gyorgy Karpati took […]
What can be said about Pino Manci? When entering his name on Google you get the reply “Did you mean: Pino Manic?” So all we know is the little information that is offered on the cover. Pino led a combo in the Safari Room at the Kyalami Ranch, South Africa. The repertoire that made it […]