Behold B-Music, the US arm of British record label Finders Keepers Records, 40 years in the making, introducing fans of psychedelic/jazz/folk/funk/avant-garde and whacked-out movie musak to a lost world of undiscovered artifacts from the annals of alternative pop history. Catering to record collectors and DJ-producers alike with a huge emphasis on sample-friendly soundscapes, rocksteady back-beats and primitive electronic experimentalism. Discerning purveyors of the bizarre and abnormal should expect the Japanese choreography records, space-age Turkish protest songs, Czechoslovakian vampire soundtracks, Welsh rare-beats, bubblegum folk, drugsploitation operatics, banned British crime thrillers and celebrity Gallic Martini adverts.
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BMS 051CD
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2013 release. Galvanizing its ongoing commitment to the lost music of the Czech New Wave cinema movement from the late 1960s and 1970s, B-Music presents a short series of soundtracks for films by the country's master of the macabre and the nation's first point of call for freakish fairytales and hallucinogenic horror, director Juraj Herz. Regarded as the final film of the Czech New Wave, Juraj Herz's Morgiana (alongside Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders) was made after the Prague Spring during Czech cinema's most scrutinized censorship era, deep in the throes of communism. Lubos Fiser's score for Morgiana visits darker hallucinogenic corners for this tale of two sisters seen through the perspective of giallo- esque "cat's eye" camera work revealing poison-induced hysteria fuelled by sibling rivalry and desperately twisted jealousy. Adopting his mysteriously macabre musical persona, the versatile Fiser interweaves chimes, harps and harpsichord with echoing flutes, lutes and piano, applying his signature orchestral tension and experimental percussion traits in the form of treated pianos, vibra-slaps, tape samples of striking matches and spring reverbs to this oblique heady selection. Drawing similarities with other stark monochrome thrillers, such as Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Herz's comparatively untraveled classic 1969 feature film, The Cremator, also used the apolitical subjects of fantasy and surrealist horror to evade the communist censors overzealous censorship. Herz's macabre depiction of Ladislav Fuks' fictional account of a local crematorium boss whose hallucinogenic obsession with the afterlife is boasted by a beguiling score and theme tune from the country's finest experimental soundtrack composer, Zdeněk Liska. Featuring an ongoing partnership with studio conductor Frantisek Belfín and soprano singer Vlasta Soumarová Mlejnková, Liska puts his radical concrète and resampling techniques to one side in favor of celestial choral and orchestral arrangements; menacing giallo-esque tension and recurring rhythmical motifs of Eastern bells and chimes. From a country and era when isolated soundtrack music remained commercially-unreleased, these two scores have been rescued and remastered, featuring extensive liner notes by Andy Votel and Dan Bird.
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BMS 044CD
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2012 release. Ireland in the late 1970s and early 1980s was an island in the grip of unrest, with civil and political strife in the north, and a tardy economy and religious hegemony in the south. To be young in Ireland at this time was extremely tough with many choosing to follow the well-worn path of emigration. A significant number of those that stayed had little choice but to join the dole as employment opportunities were scant. However, the increasing influence of those windows to the wider world such as TV, radio and print were combining to fuel imaginations and plant seeds of disaffection amongst an increasingly sophisticated and pop literate youth desperate for change. Needless to say when punk entered the mainstream the cultural and social conditions were such in Ireland that a new generation of kids were perfectly primed to tap into its energies and values. Focusing on a three-year period from 1980 to 1983, Strange Passion is a compilation of rare, unheralded and unreleased Irish music that emerged after the first wave of punk and new wave bands. A time when the raw primitive sounds of punk began to absorb new ideas and technologies and emerging acts were reaching audiences on an unprecedented scale thanks to new magazines such as Hot Press and Heat, RTE Radio 2 and its Fanning Sessions, as well as new youth magazine programs on national TV like Anything Goes. Access to UK broadcasting and magazine cultural behemoths (Peel, NME, Morley, etc.) as well as touring bands such as The Clash and PiL also played their part in creating an appetite for this thrilling new subculture and soon venues such as The Magnet, Dandelion and Project Arts Centre in Dublin and Kampus in Cork became significant live music hubs. This was catalyzed by new youth scenes which sprung up particularly in the main urban centers of Belfast, Derry, Dublin and Cork. Fuelled by boredom, antipathy towards society and inspired by the developing DIY scene in the UK, new bands, independent labels, fanzines and creative art provocateurs began to emerge. Such was the rapid growth and creative freedom of this new culture, that for a couple of years there seemed a constant stream of emerging acts producing work that was both original in content and presentation. Undoubtedly U2 were the breakthrough act from this new generation of acts. However, others such as Virgin Prunes with their Dadaist-inspired blend of performance art and punk offered a darker vision, tapping into the latent energy of their environs which resulted in extraordinary live events and the odd incendiary TV performance. Live legends, The Threat and Chant! Chant! Chant! were gone almost as soon as they arrived, but so fully-formed were they already that recordings they did leave behind stand as prime examples of post-punk music. Finders Keepers Records/B-Music are proud to present the first-ever compendium of Irish post-punk and new wave -- featuring extensive liner notes and rare photos, with the full participation of the featured artists and bands.
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BMS 037CD
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2011 release. Precisely four decades since the original release of the 1971 LP Histoire De Melody Nelson, Serge Gainsbourg's most celebrated composer, arranger and composer Jean-Claude Vannier now returns to the same artistic territory that has since come to represent his most iconic period and continually inspire almost five generations of experimental rock luminaries. Respected throughout France as a long running singer-songwriter and experimental composer in his own right, it has taken this inclusive forty-year period for his music to travel beyond his central European fan base, thanks to a growing community of vinyl archeologists and French pop and conceptual rock enthusiasts who have come to clearly recognize the recurring production credits to JCV as a seal of quality and approval while taking gambles on Parisian picture sleeve pop. This all-new LP comprises a personnel of the legendary European session players that appeared on classic Vannier and Gainsbourg scores such as Cannabis, La Horse, Slogan and Les Chemins de Katmandou as well as Histoire De Melody Nelson itself, and his own mythical follow-up LP, the truly bizarre 1973 avant-garde ballet L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (which was finally rescued from obscurity in 2005 by Finders Keepers as the label's debut release). The rhythm section line-up for the album alone reads like a European record collector's wet dream. Recorded partly in Paris and partly in the UK (not unlike the classic Gainsbourg LPs), the album Roses Rouge Sang (trans. "Blood Red Roses") hears JCV taking care of vocal duties in his own unique style, combining the macabre and the optimistic with ingenious word-play and expert poetic use of the French language. Flourishing from initial rehearsal sessions for the first-ever live performance of Histoire De Melody Nelson (which was eventually staged by Finders Keepers at the Barbican Theatre in London in 2006) Roses Rouge Sang captures the authentic line-up just weeks after their initial reunion. With Roses Rouge Sang, JCV combines a lifetime of experience working with some of the best orchestras and pop rhythm sections throughout the world, with a return to his roots and his initial, radical ideas on how contemporary music could combine the two.
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BMS 041CD
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2012 release. The electrification of K.S. Chithra and Kollywood pop! Known by adoring fans and devotees, throughout South India, as Chinna Kuyil (trans. "Little Nightingale") on account of her expansive vocal range and crystalline, sweet voice, the uplifting and surprising sound of K.S. Chithra is, for many, best exemplified by the early plugged-in-pop she made in the 1980s with the man/machine who first introduced her to the Tamil film industry, Maestro Ilaiyaraaja. There are few records you will hear that combine the sounds of a child's choir, a DX7 bass line, three types of drum machines, a mariachi trumpet cry, a re-sampled 40-piece orchestra and an electronic bass line that takes the Moog Taurus by the horns and rides into the Indian summer. There is probably less chance of hearing a vocal performance so confusingly dazzling that it instantly detracts from the previously aforementioned wish-list combination of bizarre instruments, but for those intrepid enough to dig a little deeper and take a detour due East, pick-axing right where Lollywood meets Bollywood -- then prepare to be rewarded with a double, triple and quadruple whammy! This compilation focuses on a small and select handful of Chithra and Ilaiyaraaja's developing collaborations from the formative years of their relationship between -- 1986 and 1991 -- a vibrant time where analog recording techniques and digital technology first overlapped and Chithra, as a developing vocalist, adapted to the sounds and arrangements of a classic maverick composer pushing the boundaries. Rare Tamil recordings -- never previously released on CD and considerably rare on their original vinyl pressings.
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BMS 043CD
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2012 release. Alaska, 1980. The robotic harmonica and his Clones have landed on glacier planes. Meet mutant commander Gary Sloan -- this is the dawn of Harmonitalk! Less than 100 copies of this privately-pressed Alaskan electronic harmonica album by the tight-knit synth trio called Clone actually survived the journey out of their Anchorage base camp, leaving an explosive trail of unidentified synth-pop, new age, low-fi blues, techno, vocoded folk-funk and prog-rock blazing behind them. See what happens when a homespun innocent blues collective become possessed by the souls of Vangelis. Klaus Schulze and Suzanne Ciani on the frost-bitten film set of John Carpenter's The Thing.
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BMS 033CD
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2011 release. The follow-up to Absolute Belter (BMS 023CD), Absolute Fusioon draws together the best tracks from Fusioon's short but vital discography. Drawing comparisons to the likes of Black Sabbath, Soft Machine, and Egg, this is an essential release for any discerning collector of rock. From the foundations of the Catalonian rock laietà movement. An uber-legendary exponent of ibiza's 1970 psychedelic club scene. An essential for fans of freak-funk and symphonic jazz-rock with no Egg-ception. Imagine a Spanish mutation somewhere between Goblin and the Stark Reality. Featuring tracks from the cosmic studio of Jose Llobell (Enterprise/Oliver's Planet).
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BMS 040CD
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Restocked; 2012 release. With a sonic portfolio that boasts commissions for the Xenon classic pinball machine, the sounds for the Meco Star Wars theme, the Atari TV commercials and the electronic sound effects in the original Stepford Wives film (amongst many others) the mutant electronic music CV of Suzanne Ciani is proof that in a 1970s commercial world of boys toys, monopolized by a male-dominated media industry, a woman's touch was the essential secret ingredient to successful sonic seduction. A classically-trained musician with an MA in music composition, this American Italian pianist was first introduced to the synthesizer via her connections in the art world when abstract sculptor and collaborator Harold Paris introduced Suzanne to synthesizer designer Don Buchla who created the instrument that would come to define Ciani's synthetic sound (The Buchla Synthesizer). Cutting her teeth providing self-initiated electronic music projects for art galleries, experimental film directors, pop record producers and proto-video nasties, Suzanne soon located to New York where she quickly became the first point-of-call for electronic music services in both the underground experimental fields and the commercial advertising worlds alike. Counting names like Vangelis and Harald Bode amongst her close friends, Suzanne and her Ciani Musica company became the testing-ground for virtually any type of new developments in electronic and computerized music, amassing an expansive vault of commercially-unexposed electronic experiments which have remained untouched for over 30 years... until now.
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BMS 046CD
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2012 release. 18 outbursts of unreleased testosterone from the 1970s Mancunian rock underground. Unissued studio demos and rare tracks of hard rock, hairy funk, heavy, prog from the toughest unknown rock groups of Greater Manchester, England. Man Chest Hair liberates these heroic outbursts of rare and unreleased Northern testosterone from Mancunian pop's awkward coming of age purple period. The hairy funk and hard rock foundations of Manc punk and metal laid down by the self-sufficient post-beat unsignables. Man Chest Hair documents the missing stink between The Hollies, The Hermits, Hamburg, Hannett and Hotlegs with a heavy emphasis on dirty drums and filthy fuzz from beneath the black rainclouds of Greater Manchester. Ahead of their time, under the radar and over the heads of the trembling music industry these glorious live action trailblazers crank the ignition of the eclectic Mancunian metal machine, engines blazing between 10cc and full throttle Motorheads. Man Chest Hair boasts the seldom recorded, unshaven sounds of the Mancunian "independent" industry from the future capital of "indie" music. Cruising via prog, psych, funk, glam and hard rock with no toilet breaks or refuels along the way. This is the sound of do-or-die DIY from beneath the rainy city sky documenting the trouble behind the stubble, the aftershave sting that followed and the good-humored bromantic chippy dinners that united Madchester before it was clinically diagnosed. "A sonic polaroid of plump 1970s Lancashire technology in action. Let's hear it for real men that built their own studios from denim, rock, wool & sweat." -- Graham Massey (808 State)
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BMS 053CD
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2013 release. Femme fronted pocket punk and domestic-synth pop from French DIY workaholics X Ray Pop. Compiled from the mastertapes of the original 1980s privately pressed vinyl LPs and minuscule cassette runs. X Ray Pop are a group of whom are easy to scratch the surface, but almost impossible to get the bottom of. With an iconic moniker, telltale graphic style and demanding 'buy me' Day-Glo color coding policy the French vinyl output of X Ray Pop as a specialist subject is, at first glance, memorable and achievable. Cocksure fans of Euro wave pop often proclaim X Ray expertise from behind many a record shop counter or blog page but the truth of the matter is that no-one, not even the band members themselves, have the knowledge or mental capacity to truly understand the splatter range of the god speed anti-tactics that have turned this interchangeable, unarrangable and thirty-year sustainable auto-pop combo into one of uber-legendary status. For those that tread the chemins of 80s Gallic record racks, from agit pop to Zeuhl-school (bridging synth pop to Celluloid) these 7" square flags reading El Gato, L'Eurasienne, Alcool and Fuzzy Christmas are merely alluring landmarks pointing to another sebaceous underground of magnetic tape that flows swiftly (like Magma) awaiting Pirates and liberators alike. Peeping out of a warren of unexplored passages their seminal self-distributed debut singles and appearances on the genre defining alternative funk Alternative Funk Folie Distinguée compilation in 1984 made them an omnipresent fixture for the French tape wave scene that shaped a generation and influenced many more to follow. But beneath the trademark fluorescent sleeves stands the highly stacked foundations of endless cassette-only releases that give this pocket punk husband and wife duo one of the most impressive and elusive back catalogues of all their cut 'n' paste French funk contemporaries.
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BMS 047CD
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2013 release. Lost love songs and self-pressed pop acetates made in the late '60s by the previously unheard California folk duo Don & Stevie Gere. These recordings of unreleased and unknown American acidic folk and acoustic pop sat untouched and unplayed in a box of unmarked studio tapes at their family home in Los Angeles for over 40 years. As original pop songs and guitar-based arrangements from Don Gere, the man who made the stoner psych soundtrack for cult movie Werewolves On Wheels, these rescued one-off pressings were sung in harmony with his teenage sweetheart and lifelong partner, Stevie Howard, recorded at LA based walk-in studio sessions. Sprouting a missing branch in the family tree of L.A.-based artists like Curt Boetcher and Doug Rhodes (The Millennium), Waddy Wachtel (Buckingham Nicks) David Gates (Bread) and members of The Steve Miller Band, this CD includes original versions of tracks written for or featuring all of the above, as well as destroyed and unreleased film music. What might have been considered a "lost" treasure until now has remained previously unshared outside of the duo's own private relationship, and presents fans of obscure folk and privately produced pop with a unique collection that defies collectability and paints a fuller picture of a lesser-spotted enigma in uninhabited unison with his closest musical confidant.
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BMS 045CD
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2012 release. 22 rare and unreleased vintage tracks from the secret vaults of one of the most enigmatic composers in '60s/'70s/'80s European cinema. Originally recorded in the best studios in Poland, Italy and France for experimental film, political allegories, lost television shows, sound libraries and radio -- these tracks have been hidden behind the Iron Curtain on lost master tapes and film reels until now. Secret Enigma is the first ever dedicated anthology of this great composer's work. In artistic cinema Andrzej Korzyński's unique experiments with jazz, pop, rock, orchestral and electronic music make his name synonymous with the most praised (Andrzej Wajda) and the most provocative (Andrzej Żuławski) Polish filmmakers (counting many more in between). As an early patron of the Polish New Wave and a key exponent of the development of conceptual Polish pop music, his expansive portfolio has remained commercially unreleased and untraveled (like many of the original socialist-era Polish-made films) and has yet to find its deserved place next to the work of Ennio Morricone, François de Roubaix and John Barry. Now enhanced by a renewed interest in vintage art house film and a subculture of open minded music collectors, many Easter European artists, such as Krzysztof Komeda (Poland), Zdeněk Li?ka (Czechoslovakia) and now Andrzej Korzynski, have finally begun to earn their place alongside their Central European peers. For lovers of film music and experimental pop this debut anthology and appraisal of Andrzej Korzyński's work is well overdue, and is stylistically probably never more relevant.
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BMS 030CD
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2011 release. The previously-unreleased spooked-out psychedelic jazz score to '70s Czech's "other" favorite teenage witch-flick. Directed by Vacalav Vorlicek (3 Nuts for Cinderella/Who Killed Jessie?) from the studios that brought you Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Daisies and The Cremator. Finders Keepers presents the entire studio sessions, plus psychedelic effects by Angelo Michajlov (Marta Kubisova's arranger) performed by the Karel Vlach Orchestra. "Imagine Gary Bartz and Nucleus meeting Swedish singer Doris at a Czech pop festival with the cast of H.R. Pufnstuff as the moody stage security." Includes a 28-page full-color booklet with photos and extensive notes.
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BMS 035CD
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2011 release. Overqualified Krautisch kommune kountry and mock-rock rituals for a cinematic cycledelic monster cocktail. Lychanthropic Z-Movie soundtrack by Don Gere (Curt Boettcher/Kid Dynamite/Don & Stevie), welding motorik redneck funk with broken Eastern promises. Imagine marrying Amon Düül 1 to Sandy Bull in a phony black mass with Skip Spence and The Godz as bridesmaids. B-movie junkies, gather round and prepare yourselves for what could only be described as a cinematic speedball. Take a combined hit of two of the most potent strains of toxic cinema, dress it up in ritualistic robes and make it dance to the beat of a stoned, motorik, country commune soundtrack. Like an exploito double bill where both films merge into a single feature, this directorial debut by an ex-Roger Corman protégé and future Russ Meyer art director (another heady cocktail) is the product of one writing duo's fleeting time in the driving seat as the moviedrome marathon approached its dwindling finish line. Werewolves on Wheels emerged in 1971 in a climate where the B-movie genre of the previous two decades began to make way for the early glimpses of imported slasher films and video nasties. American projection booths were frantically casting the net for surefire domestic, cheaply-made hits, desperately looking for new ideas to milk their legacy of all-American biker flicks and teenage monster-movies, which led to film companies taking gambles on new screenplays from young writers and directors born out the free-wheel generation.
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BMS 052CD
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2013 release. Sharing social circles and spiritual ideologies with artists such as Iasos, Connie Demby and Deuter, whilst splitting label release schedules with Laraaji, Laurie Spiegel and Wendy Carlos, the unique Florida-raised soul mate duo known as Emerald Web released their privately pressed debut LP at an axis where post-prog rock met proto-new age and ambient electronic music. At the turn of the 1980s, Bob Stohl and Kat Epple embarked on a ten-year spiritual journey playing at planetariums and laser shows above the same Californian silicon city that devised the early computer music software, unifying their state-of-the-art modular synth soundscapes and organic compositions of flutes, bells and field recordings and furnishing a self-pressed cassette tapeography of inimitable Emerald Web music for their self-funded Stargate label. Having first communicated via the medium of music as flute players at a South Florida jam session, the future space music luminaries would be instrumental in assisting synthesizer companies via feedback and consultancy in developing instruments such as the Lyricon wind synth (favored by Suzanne Ciani and Bruno Spoerri) and various sponsored machines for Arp, Buchla, EML, Computone and Orchestron. Named after a laser show formation and combining influences from science fiction films, fantasy novels and a broad musical spectrum including Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, It's A Beautiful Day and Goro Yamaguchi, Bob and Kat would balance day jobs as synth programmers as well as TV and film soundtrackers under the moniker BobKat Productions (counting microscope nature documentarian Carl Sagan amongst their clients) with evening synthesizer shows at galleries, spiritual centers and even punk clubs. This compilation album comprises early tracks from Emerald Web's debut vinyl release and the four rare cassette-only albums on Stargate Records from 1979-1982. Taken from original master tapes and recorded using revolutionary and prototypal music technology, many of these tracks have never been on vinyl or CD until now.
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BMS 049CD
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2013 release. For the uninitiated, the composer of this music is also a master craftsman who, throughout the 1980s, combined his off-the-wall ideas and sky high expectations using craft, experimental technology and a trusted team of participants to help concoct some truly bizarre local produce in mass quantity without compromise. Ilaiyaraaja, known to his family as Gnanadesikan, and to many of his zillion strong fan base as Isaignani (meaning musical genius in Tamil) represents the epitome of a nostalgic national treasure, especially for a single solo composer in the Tamil micro music industry. His euphoric electrified music of the '70s and '80s (and beyond) captures every essence of joy and jubilation and is still used in celebration as much as it is celebrated in its own right. A man of humble physical stature and sparsely equipped with a self-sufficient studio of compact electronic devices, Ilaiyaraaja literally commands celebration with his single-handed symphonies. Defying any fair comparisons in the Western world (besides inadequate parallels to Joe Meek and Jean-Pierre Massiera), it is also virtually impossible to find similar electronic mavericks in the East. Imagine a mixture between Turkey's Ilhan Mimaroglu and the acidic synthesizer ragas of Charanjit Singh and you're still left short of the songs. Essentially, Ilaiyaraaja is to the local Kollywood film industry what RD Burman/Bappi Lahiri or M.Ashraf/Tafo are to Bollywood and Lollywood, but then remember that Ilaiyaraaja is a one-man band, with a single vision and zero competition. This compilation reveals more tasty treats from B-Music's ongoing obsession with The Crown Prince Of Tamil Pop -- focusing on his growth in the mid-1980s as a confident young composer adding freak pop fuel to the flickering flame of Kodambakkam's Kollywood film industry, while embracing domestic synthesizer technology and fusing the power of electro and synth pop to his Carnatic canon.
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BMS 050CD
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2013 release. Known amongst a small group of teenage friends as T.R.A.S.E. (Tape Recorder And Synthesiser Ensemble) this previously-unearthed and fully-formed electronic music project was spearheaded by a 16-year-old schoolboy as an extension of his woodwork, metalwork and science classes in 1981. Composed and recorded using a self-made synth, audio mixer and electronic percussion units, T.R.A.S.E. would bridge the gap between a love for sci-fi horror soundtracks, Gary Numan B-sides and an extracurricular hobby as a sound and lighting designer for school plays -- bequeathing a backstory as unique and unfathomable as the individualistic sonic results that he would finally commit to C90. Having successfully recorded his only solo album, Electronic Rock (which was never duplicated beyond his own demo copy), this early musical achievement by Andy Popplewell stands up as a rare self-initiated example of embryonic experimental electro pop and genuine outsider music, marking the early domestication of synthesizers and the dawn of electronic home recording studios with uninhibited results. Unhindered by adult concepts like self-consciousness, popular snobbery, fashion, pride and fear of failure (while funded by paper rounds and odd jobs in his Mancunian community), Andy, armed with the plans to the Chorosynth kit module, an old junk shop piano keyboard and some hand-me-down tools from his deceased dad, would fill an exercise book with plans, arrangements and self-penned new wave pop lyrics to fully realize the potential of his one-man synthetic symphony. Reaping the benefits of his own stenciled circuit boards and soldering iron skills (whilst occasionally enlisting the part time help of his younger brother on guitar), T.R.A.S.E.'s homemade technology pop continued to bloom right up until the very cusp of adolescence when careers officers and real life responsibilities saw the end of Andy's reel-to-reel multitracking, which is finally presented here for the first time since it was sung and played. This ambitious cross section of robotic funk and moody soundscape sequences gives instrumental nods to John Carpenter and Kraftwerk next to unpolished vocal drones worthy of a sedated Human League or Joy Division, all of whom shared radio dial digits amongst Giorgio Moroder, Tubeway Army and The Glitter Band as Popplewell's clearest unabashed influences. T.R.A.S.E.'s final hiatus was followed by Andy's working education in London under BBC employment as a trainee radio engineer (not far from the closed door of the Radiophonic Workshop) which has since led to a widespread reputation as one of the country's leading independent tape engineers/editors/archivists, indiscriminately splicing and baking vintage tapes for anyone in-between Alpha in Brussels and ZTT in London, and having worked with hundreds of reputable studios, pop stars and media companies throughout his career.
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BMS 038CD
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2011 release. Finders Keepers/B-Music is given unparalleled access to the EMI Pakistan vaults to bring you Life Is Dance. Following the simplistic Bombay + Hollywood = Bollywood name game (that would in later years spawn Nollywood in Nigeria), Lollywood's Lahore based film industry was a profitable and vibrant one that found great success in the modest boundaries of its own country but was seldom savored outside Pakistan. However, the hugely important musical business spawned a bi-product that was viewed as a potential earner for international entertainment industry, EMI, which allowed talented musicians to create ambitious music with world class mediums at their disposal. Throughout the '60s and '70s this ranged from fuzz guitars, space echo machines and American and European synthesizers, but, due to the composers' indigenous roots, rarely a drum kit. Here you'll find fuzzy, scuzzy, twang-happy, spaced-out and funked-up Urdu-grooves complete with harmonium melodies and driven by some of the most random-factor, freakish, finger-numbing percussion that the South East Asian mainstream has ever had to offer. Above all, Lollywood soundtracks sound RAW! Re-imagine some of the most action packed Bollywood productions (which Lollywooders actively did) then fire the make-up department, take away the special effects budget and then improvise. The lack of gloss on a dusty Pakistani mini-LP makes for truly experimental Eastern pop music. So, it's time to meet the culprits. As an introduction, in place of R.D. Burman and Asha Bhole, we have Mr. M. Ashraf and his long-term female collaborator, Nahid Akhtar. This duo would provide Pakistan with its Gainsbourg/Birkin or its Morricone/Dell'Orso for over 20 years, recording squillions of cut-and-paste sonic collages and moog-fuelled desperate love/hate/chase/chill/kill songs mixing onomatopoeic Urdu lyrics with unexpected bursts of user friendly English language (which often elongates the running time passed the 5 minute mark) and throwing in the odd motif from a Barry White or Donna Summer hit. We also have legends like Noor Jehan, a national treasure and household name in Pakistan whose discography of film songs have deprived the vaults of EMI Pakistan of floor space for half a century.
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BMS 031CD
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2011 release. The original orchestral/electronic score from Karel Kachyna's 1976 Czech film adaptation of Hans C. Anderson's The Little Mermaid, composed by Zdenek Liska (The Cremator/Fruits of Paradise) featuring Lenka Korinkova. Liska's legacy in the history of European cinema is huge in volume but relatively modest in its celebrity. Having already composed nine scores for Kachyna's films to add to his 1976 filmography of 150 completed soundtracks, Mala Morska Vila is one of the most idiosyncratic and haunting undiscovered scores in the annals of European cinematic history. Much like the previous Finders Keepers firsts (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and Daisies), this soundtrack is available for the first time ever. Beautifully remastered from the original mastertapes with the full cooperation of the seminal Barrandov studios in Prague.
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BMS 020CD
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2010 release. Meet Stone. The trailer says it all. A deep Australian drawl narrates the scene over a psychedelic swamp-funk rhythm section doused in electronic percussion and treated keyboards. "Stone Is a Trip... The grave diggers are on the move -- a new breed of motorbike gang." The screen fills with images of slo-mo bike accidents, hallucinogenic trips and a death-defying cliff stunt which could easily be mistaken for a doppelganger scene in Psychomania. "Vietnam veterans with their own style of life, their own rules, their own religion." The scene swathes to a satanic ritualistic burial at the hands of a denim-clad crew of outlaw bikers with strangely familiar faces. To many global record collectors, DJs, music producers and general retrophiles living outside of Australia, Stone was primarily known for its electronic sound effects, psychedelic guitars, cosmic soundscapes and funky bass lines... In the '80s and '90s, before the global DVD boom, Stone to many people was first and foremost a soundtrack... The kind of soundtrack that makes you wish you could see the film but it'll probably never happen. The LP artwork alone was beyond enigmatic with its contradicting embroider logo alongside its striking futuristic airbrushed chrome insignia (designed by comic artist Peter Ledger and realized by airbrush whizz Errol Black). The huge parade of brand-new Kawasaki bikes inside the gatefold looked like something from the future compared to the classic full-dresser Harleys from the American Hells Angels movies. And when the needle drops into the groove and the freakish blend of didgeridoo and Moog (played by Johnny "Didge" Matthews and synth expert Andy Cohan) blended with unidentified clicks, belches and pops fly out the speakers, it is literally impossible to put a date, never mind a story line, to this acid-fuelled soundscape. The use of confusing and contradicting musical influences alongside bizarre noises is actually the secret sauce in this concoction and when the swampy psychedelic funk-rock rhythm section kicks in, you are left with a 45-minute program of skewed. Forward-thinking avant-pop that would stylistically fill a very lonely section in the record shop racks. There are not many records quite like Stone. Includes a 24-page booklet packed with notes and photos.
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BMS 016CD
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2009 release. Finders Keepers is proud to present the mythical follow up to Heribert Thusek and Horst Ackermann's horror cash-in album Dracula's Music Cabinet. Back in 1968 a pair of Germanic behind-the-scenes sound librarians called Horst Ackermann and Heribert Thusek left a tiny, but indelible, pinprick on the history of German pop in the misshaped form of a sexy horror cash-in concept album called Dracula's Music Cabinet. Shelved at a micro-cosmic axis where Krautrock meets lesbian vampire horrortica and easy listening meets psychedelia, the delayed reaction of this mutant concoction eventually exploded in the mid-1990s in the hands of a generation of "record diggers," sending currency-crushing tremors through the wallets of mods, rockers, hip-hoppers, psych-nuts and Kraut-kompletists around the plastic-pillaging planet. The vinyl junkies had resurrected a monster, but, like addicts do, they ravenously sucked it dry and moved on looking for the next fix to feed their habit. Luckily for some, Ackermann and Thusek were also creatures of habit. And it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that they were holding the next dose, but by the turn of the millennium the mad scientists had been given a 35-year head start on the pop-archeologists and their mythical sequel was literally light-years ahead of their previous draconian installment. Encouragingly, the unclosed cabinet left a shiny white clue in the form of its closing track "Frankenstein Meets Alpha 7." Perhaps space was the place. Always read the label. The Ackermann and Thusek duo were far from dynamic. They were undercover agents hiding behind user-friendly mock-rock monikers and, like most BMusicians, the only way to sniff them out would be to read the small print. But when an unidentified record on an unknown label with a title like Science Fiction Dance Party crops up in the "Eins Deutschmark" crates, it's not exactly rocket science -- although the track titles might suggest otherwise. "The End of a Robot," "Monster on Saturn 1," "Galactic Adventures of the Outer Space Fleet," "The Whistling Astronauts," "Death Rays Out of the Universe." The telltale signs are all there and if that vintage psycoplasmodic colored vinyl doesn't clench the deal, then what will? When rumors about a space-age follow-up to Dracula's Music Cabinethit the straße, Deutsche-o-phile diggers' fingers started twitching nervously.
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BMS 007CD
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2007 release. For those who wanted to hear the heart-wrenching ramblings of another finger-picking twat in a John Martyn T-shirt while basking in the sun at another low maintenance/highly accessible "chill out" festival or lightweight "folk" event -- you might as well move along -- there's nothing to see here. Though, there is a reason why a Voice Of The Seven Woods gig stands out like a sore thumb, and you can guarantee he'll be asked back next time. An unnamed elderly guitar repairman at a reputable music shop in South Lancashire, UK is usually a mild-mannered character, but thanks to Rick Tomlinson, this nimble-fingered technician is slowly coming to his wit's end. The fact that this reluctant leading light of the fickle "nu-folk" movement has literally smashed his way out of a tight pigeonhole using his trusty wooden axe as a battering ram is evident by the blood-stained frets. But this is only part of the old man's concern. It's actually Rick's latest requests to make this handcrafted German guitar sound like a mutant instrument from the Middle East that are really eating him alive. Rick actually wants his strings to rattle and buzz. Legendary Anatolian protest singer Selda has already donated a Turkish electric saz to Rick's un-blinkered cause. And at recent gigs, when his guitar has been in surgery, his replacement sitar and oud have become trusty substitutes. Rick's collection of Kraut rock, South American psych and Turkish acid rock LPs has also clearly played a large part in his inspired current output. He has also played live with TWO members of seminal Krautrockers Can, built up a hefty daytime bar tab in Wales with the legendary Meic Stevens and has backed lost West Coast folk/pop luminaries Wendy And Bonnie. Add this to 12 months of shared stage space playing culturally disparate music with the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, Dead Meadow, Espers, Chris Corsano and Thurston Moore, and it's evident that Mr. Tomlinson's puerile approach to traditional musicianship is actually re-constructing musical bridges as opposed to destroying them. Perhaps it's Voice Of The Seven Woods who is the real musical repair man in this equation.
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BMS 010CD
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2008 release. After what seems like a decade of cross-continental detective work and blind alley buffoonery, Finders Keepers finally have the auspicious privilege to introduce the incredible music of one of the most important figures in Anadolu rock history, Ersen. Having performed nearly every kind of Turkish music throughout his eventful life (rock, pop, folk, arabesque) it is his early years (late '60s/early '70s) that are of particular interest to break-heavy-fuzz-loving vinyl vultures the world over. Working with names such as Kardaslar, Dadaslar, Mogollar, and Üç Hürel has cemented Ersen's position as one of the leading lights in Turkey's fledging psychedelic scene, legendary with collectors and DJs such as Madlib, David Holmes, Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), and Beyond The Wizards Sleeve. Each of the artists involved in the recording of this LP continued to record radical and experimental music and are considered the cream-of-the-crop among Eastern psych aficionados. In recent years the legacy of Anatolian progressive rock has gone from strength to strength, gaining popularity amongst DJs, producers and record collectors as an unrivalled source for unique sounds rarely found in other genres of international music and, until now, rarely heard outside their native environment. Thirty years down the line, the Anatolian Invasion is on its way to a record store near you.
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BMS 008CD
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2007 release. Effervescent songbird Jane Weaver has joined forces with Finders Keepers to produce a B-Music certified canon of femme-folk, laden with finger-picked meandering melodies, ethereal harmonies and wistful psychedelic leanings. This bespoke globetrotting decade-spanning collection traces a line between the acid-soaked protest rumblings of yesteryear and the forward-looking/backward-facing revivalists of today, as luminaries such as Wendy & Bonnie, Bonnie Dobson, Heather Jones and Susan Christie rub shoulders with the current cream of female songsmithery including Emma Tricca, Magphai, and Cate Le Bon. Limited restock.
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BMS 026EP
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2010 release. Taking self sufficient songbirds and melodic magpies under our frangible wing Bird Records aims to nurture effeminate euphony of every species, vintage or temperament. Apolitical - pro-musical. From the forlorn to the ferocious. From the predatory to the precouscious. Bird Records is an independent women's institute fuelled by artistic freedom and the simple sound of sonic sisterhood. Magpahi - "Tired and Weary Traveller": Falsetto fairy-tale folk songs and 16th century poems from the heart of the black and white birds nest. The Bunyan on the ball of Vashti's foot from the frost-bitten fells of supernatural Lancashire -- Alison Cooper is inspired by sepia storybooks, stray animals and flickering visions of the industrial North. Taken from the LP featuring Samandtheplants. Ali Babki - "Your Grey Eyes": Meet Anna, Ewa, Krystyna, Sylwia, Anna and Wanda. This sixfold sisterhood of Polish pin-ups took the Sopot music festival by storm under the direction of orchestrator Juliusz Loranc. One of many indigenous flocks from Communist-era Poland who failed to migrate beyond its climate. Jane Weaver - "Whispers of Winter": Taking influences from Eastern European children's cinema, Germanic kunstmärchen, '70s television music and early murmurs of '80s synth-pop, The Fallen By Watch Bird is a new conceptual pop project featuring seven chapters of cosmic aquatic folklore by songwriter Jane Weaver (Misty Dixon). Taken from the LP featuring Wendy Flower and Susan Christie under the collective moniker "Septième Soeur." Soledad Miranda - "El Color Del Amor": Commonly recognized as Spanish Horrortica director Jess Franco's most infamous leading-lady this Seville-born future Vampyros Lesbos actress released two sought-after and lesser spotted 7" EPs containing the only eight songs she ever recorded. Produced and marketed exclusively in Spain -- which was out of sync with her growing international readership -- tracks like "El Color Del Amor" showed a huge potential which would have undoubtedly blossomed if it wasn't for her untimely death on the road between Madrid and Portugal on August 18th 1970. Taken from the Soledad Miranda compendium. Emma Tricca - "Coming into Los Angeles": Italian songbird Emma Tricca is a natural product of all those miles travelled and all those songs played. Elegant and unvarnished songs that will endure as much as those that inspired Emma to pick up a guitar and start to sing in the first place. This exclusive track does not appear on Emma's debut LP Minor White. Sidan - "Gobaith": Translated as "Hope" this Cymraeg 45 by five-piece teenage girl group rarely pops up outside its native Wales. Originally formed as an extension of their school choir sessions, the group were spotted by long-running Welsh language independent label Sain (Sound) and released two EPs and an album alongside protest songs, comedy records and acid folk rarities by Meic Stevens and Heather Jones. Taken from the retrospective Sidan LP.
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BMS 027CD
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2010 release. Eckart Rahn is an untainted music lover in the purest sense. The original Kuckuck label founder came from a non-musical background in an obscure village in Germany with no money, few career prospects and little outlets for his creative energy. Sharing a common psyche with most young Germans after the Second World War, Rahn was literally starting from scratch, inventing his future with a blank canvas and taking risks with nothing to lose. The humble beginnings of the founder of one of the longest running European independents were simple -- when he eventually heard music he fell in love with it and dedicated his life to it. A man in charge of his own destiny, from this point on, Eckart Rahn was only ever going to be his own boss. The ideologies of rebellion, rule breaking and risk taking, which would provide the foundation for the German rock explosion affectionately known as Krautrock, were sewn into Rahn's DNA from the outset. When Eckart first heard a Blue Note recording of Sonny Rollins, Live at the Village Vanguard, he immediately spent his only money on the record with hope that he would soon be able to afford a record player to play the damn thing on. This unique approach to life would later lead Rahn through his career in the music industry taking gambles on forward-thinking artists in the hope that the record-buying public would eventually catch up. Christened with the German word for the cuckoo bird, the label was titled in reference to the way that Rahn would lay musical eggs under an unassuming parent company like the feathered brood parasite. Combining three key elements, Rahn worked alongside two other collaborative forces to get Kuckuck off the ground. With himself taking care of A&R and contractual paperwork, he enlisted the services of American DJ and record producer Mike Sondeck, who would bring American electronic composer Sam Spence to the label along with his imported Moog synthesizers (paid for by The American National Football League). Rahn would also share the company with a stylish design and advertising company from Munich called ConceptData who would supply Kuckuck's indelible graphic styling -- exemplified by its cuckoo logo and typeface and their unmistakable record labels. Most of the music you will hear on this compilation is from the pre-1974 period, which is in no way intended to paint the full Kuckuck picture. This compilation intends to focus on Kuckuck's prog rock years that would be filed under the kosmiche or Krautrock banner. You might spot that some early artists that might be filed under blues rock, pop or SSW are not included here but should be explored on their own merit or as a piece of the full picture puzzle -- a jigsaw that won't be complete until Mr. Rahn decides to take the key out of the cuckoo clock for good.
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