FINDERS KEEPERS - Forced Exposure

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During the maiden voyage into an expansive vat of unreleased music by Polish composer Andrzej Korzynski, Finders Keepers Records originally presented his previously unreleased electro/ orchestral/experimental score for Andrzej Zulawski's surrealist '80s horror classic Possession in 2012. These 25 cues were written and recorded exclusively for the 1981 award-winning film starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neil, but due to the progressive, stark and modernist nature of the finished film less than half of them made it on to the actual director's cut -- leaving many of the tracks on this spackage totally unheard outside of Korzynski's studio. The intended Possession score in its entirety marks an important axis in Korzynski's career where his various musical disciplines overlap. In one respect it marks his first forays into to synth driven electronics and disco drum machines, while other tracks epitomize the well-honed techniques used in previous Zulawski scores, such as Third Part Of The Night and The Devil, which rely on his inimitable orchestral arrangements and combination of clavinet, Rhodes, piano and electric guitar. Available once again on black 12" vinyl for the first time since its original release some 11 years ago, Finders Keepers' ongoing commitment to the important restoration of Korzynski's music aims to shed new light on the seldom manufactured productions of the composer whose vast cinematic catalogue warrants overdue global status alongside other golden era Eastern European composers such as Kryzstof Komeda, Jan Hammer, and Zdenek Liska -- not to mention the best of the French and Italian soundtrackers, such as Roubaix, Vannier, and Nicolai. Duplicated and carefully remastered directly from Korzynski's original master tapes this album boasts the uninhibited studio experiments and retains the pre-cut ambience.

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The lost Belgian blueprint of Brussels based jazz fusion and how free form Franco-Flemish punk put Zeuhl school in the Classroom via the conception of COS. Emerging from behind the same clouds that kept formative Belgian progressive jazz records like Brussels Art Quintet and Kiosk's Mona Call in tangible obscurity, these impossibly rare early Euro jazz recordings shed a new ray of light on the intricate foundations of the scene that elevated COS, Marc Moulin, Placebo, Marc Hollander and Telex to Zen master status, while also capturing one of Europe's best female vocal artists in the midst of her wide eyed and uninhibited prime. Never before released on vinyl, these tracks provide a sonic chalkboard of Daniel Schell's ambitious musical equations, recalculated by precocious polymaths, then conveyed via Pascale Son's inquisitive child-like vocal explorations. For those keen to learn the Histoire De Melody COS? The classroom door is open -- prepare to be schooled!

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Twenty-two 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. Originally released exactly 30 years ago 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 Liska (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.

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As one of the most triumphant and beguiling directorial debut features to emerge from the fruitful Polish New Wave, Andrzej Zulawski's 1971 film Third Part Of The Night not only earned the thirty-year-old filmmaker a place next to other radical Polish directors such as Skolimowski and Has, but also galvanized a creative bond with long running collaborator and composer Andrzej Korzyński, providing fans of foreign abstract/suspense cinema with a potent creative fusion to match those of Fellini/Rota and Argento/Goblin, amongst others. Quite simply one of the heaviest psych rock film soundtracks of all time, Andrzej Korzyński's short and unreleased score matched the blueprint that adorned the drawing boards of conceptual French jazz orch-rock composers like Jean-Claude Vannier, Francois De Roubaix, and Alain Gourageur, creating a soundtrack that unknowingly begs comparison to Masahiko Satô's Belladonna Of Sadness and Billy Green's Stone. As one of the first progressive pop writers to come out of the vibrant (but carefully scrutinized) Polish beat scene with his bands Ricecar 64 and later Arp Life (and composing for national heroes such as Czeslaw Niemen, Niebiesko-Czarni and Test) Korzyński's growing passion for conceptual rock and jazz music soon lead to instrumental composition and soundtrack scores. Third Part Of The Night (1971) perhaps epitomizes that triangular on-screen unison in its vibrant youth and feeds it through a hallucinogenic mangle finding astonishing beauty (within a repulsive synopsis) against a bleak and shattered backdrop and accompanied by progressive, psychedelic orchestral rock music -- elements which would intensify for all three creatives with the next film, Diabel, which was banned by the Polish government the following year until 1988. Third Part Of The Night also marks the public unison of Żuławski and Braunek whose later private romantic relationship is said to form the basis for another defining Żuławski/Korzyński defining endeavor with the 1981 film Possession exactly a decade later, encapsulating a period that bequeaths a previously unopened vault of some of the composers finest and most inspired sonic adventures.

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Part fantastical historic sonic biopic, part anthropologic journey into the deep roots of Belgium's monstrous cosmic rock sound, this wholly individualistic concept album combines the lead members of the mighty COS (Daniel Schell and Pascale Son) with studio genius Alain Pierre (Ô Sidarta (FKR 107LP), Des Morts (FKR 114LP)) and celebrated Dutch progressive rock singer Dick Annegarn, for what many consider to be both the overlooked hiding place of Belgium's deepest psychedelic moment and European prog's lost map to the "Franco-Flemish Boom". Emerging from the wider musical family that counted Marc Moulin, Placebo, and Marc Hollander amongst its creative kin, Daniel Schell's most profound conceptual project ambitiously combines the tale of the heroic historical figure of Count Egmont (1522-1568), while simultaneously tracing the evolution of the ud, or oud, ("the grandfather of the guitar") in this multifarious hallucinogenic epic. Featuring key members of other collectable groups such as drummer Felix Simtaine from Solis Lacus and bass player Jean-Louis Baudoin from the mythical Classroom (COS predecessor), this best-kept secret vinyl release also harbors the voices of Dirk Bogaert (of Belgian hard rockers Waterloo) as well as Catalan singer Ilona Chale (Marc Hollander/Aksak Maboul) before her later tenure as the COS front woman. Initially released in 1978 via Zeuhl school distributors, Free Bird, alongside French pressings of Don Cherry, Jacques Thollot, and CAN, it is plain to understand the niche nature of this maligned "lost COS" LP as it finally blooms from between the cracked branches of European jazz-rock-synth-psych-prog-pop history... and beyond! Edition of 750; black vinyl.

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Expanded reissue of mega rare 1979 unknown vanity pressing LP that blends ethnological field recordings, musique concrète principles, and introspective synthesizer music from this cult European studio maverick and historic collaborator of COS, Philippe Druilet, Marc Moulin, and John Surman. Alain Pierre's Mondo movie soundtrack to the controversial Des Morts shares very few stylistic rivals, but fans of Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain soundtrack and some of the more eldritch early sampling experiments of Jean-Pierre Massiera will certainly draw fragmented comparisons herein. Other listeners might file this album at the weirder end of your Smithsonian Folkways shelf, just before the Video Nasty soundtracks. Presented in remastered form comprising extra vintage studio outtakes (in accordance with the films morbid narrative), Des Morts serves as a would-be sequel to Finders Keepers' previous Ô Sidarta (FKR 107LP, 2021) release witnessing Pierre balance his allegiance to the Belgian bandes dessinée scene and Thierry Zéno's shock cinema oeuvre from the heart of his uber-legendary Brussels based experimental recording studio through the 1970s. Presented in remastered form comprising extra previously unreleased vintage studio outtakes. Edition of 750.

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It has been exactly ten years since Finders Keepers first intrepidly entered Andrzej Korzynski's cavernous musical vault, but the label now announces the safe retrieval on a true heavy psych holy grail of the Polish composer's mind-bending oeuvre. The comprehensive elusive archive of the deeply psychedelic soundtrack to Andrzej Zuławski's forbidden film Diabeł (The Devil) (FKR 112LP) is perhaps the most detailed dossier one could wish to find -- including audio sketches, rejected proposals and pre-butchered variations that play out like an intense and veritable creative conversation between the director and the maestro, both widely recognized as true mavericks of socialist-era Poland's fertile artistic landscape. Never intended for anything as conventional as a straightforward movie tie-in promotional disc (state owned Eastern European record labels rarely did this), the music in this archive has required special forensic inspection. The 7" here is more than just a companion piece, and it is far from a selection of the (non-existent) poppy title themes to promote a full feature-length album. This standalone release is wholly unique in its own right, giving Finders Keepers listeners a final access all areas snoop into the mind of one of the pillars of our alternative musical community. As those familiar with Zuławski and Korzynski's long-running relationship will understand (a methodology best exemplified in the schizoid soundtrack to the film Possession), their exchanges were deeply nuanced and often complicated, with lots of artistic "tennis" thrown into the mix. The key plot in this behind-the-scene fable is that after delivering his original off-kilter psychedelic score to the director, maestro Korzynski was asked to make the music "totally unique, like something from another planet", to which Korzynski took his tapes, pulled down the vari-speed to a guttural grind and continued to recompose over the top using avant-garde electro-acoustic techniques while deploying psychedelic skills of guitarist Winicjusz Chróst. This limited record release proudly boasts Korzynski's original uptempo awkward psychedelic pop music prior to the doom-laden growls that make the official films soundtrack a true Goliath of Eastern European soundtrack composition. Released alongside long-awaited liberation of Andrzej Korzynski's full psychedelic score for Diabeł (FKR 112LP). Sourced from the elusive original master tapes with the full cooperation of the CeTA archives in Warsaw Transparent red vinyl; edition of 500.

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Wipe your blade clean. The bloodline of Eastern European kosmische and groundbreaking, grinding cinematic psych rock finally emerges from fifty years of forbidden forestland to fill your thirsty grails. Poland's prime progressive provocateurs Andrzej Zuławski and Andrzej Korzynski finally expose the jagged roots of Possession and The Silver Globe and give the devil his due via this historical vinyl release. If an opening strapline that reads "Forget everything that you thought you knew about the history of psychedelic rock and horror movies" appeals to you, then further potentially hyperbolic phrases like "Lost Grail" and "Banned Forever" will surely clinch the deal, leaving the hugely significant wider context of this dream come true release surplus to requirement. But as we hope you have come to expect from Finders Keepers releases "The devil is in the detail" and the fact that any mention of the perpetually elusive original master tapes to a 1972 project entitled Diabeł and the phrase "Holy Grail" have become synonymously associated only adds the twisted irony that surrounds this genuine masterpiece of both aforementioned fields. For those fastidious enough to pursue the hunt, these unearthed recordings represent the crowning glory of the lifelong unison of maestro Andrzej Zuławski and filmmaker Andrzej Korzynski, two genuine mavericks of Polish experimental cinema who challenged artistic and societal norms, on both sides of a politically restricted regime and on an international artistic stage, without compromise. Friends since childhood, Korzynski and Zuławski may have become divided by limelight and geography (Zuławski the intrepid emigre), but they remained united in their kaleidoscopic creative vision, resulting in a fractured stream of troublesome and mind-bending golden era collaborations such as Possession, The Silver Globe, and Third Part Of The Night. This long-awaited liberation of the psychedelic masterpiece known as Diabeł finally completes the duo's full vista with what many consider the most vital piece of the prism. Sourced from the elusive original master tapes with the full cooperation of the CeTA archives in Warsaw. Released alongside The Devil Tapes (FKSP 022EP) the original off-kilter psychedelic score rejected by Andrzej Zulawski.

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There's a devious religious sect underneath the Tower Of London which consists of some of the most greedy and powerful men and women in the world! The plot of this obscure Soho-based German thriller perhaps feels more believable during today's political climate than it did when it was released back in 1966, taking diehard fans of Edgar Wallace paperback adaptations on a slightly more macabre and mystical journey than they had come to expect. What is perhaps less believable is the almost "criminal" fact that this films unheard spooked-out jazz score by one of the most innovative European players and composers has spent almost fifty-five years locked away. For those who thought soundtracks and conceptual cinematic records like Mad Monster Party and The Vampires Of Dartmoore were unrivalled in there phantasmagorical micro-genres, well the time has come for the original "jazz electronicien" Bruno Spoerri and the Finders Keepers archivists to unleash thick plodding bass lines, mind-bending percussion effects, wayward electric organs and breakneck European jazz to the loneliest part of your record library. Encapsulated in the unbroken chains of baritonal chants by mystical mad monks during cloaked underground ceremonies while the life-blood of some of the most important and coveted players of the Swiss, French and German jazz scenes perform outlandish musical exchanges under Dr. Spoerri's watchful eye Der Wurger vom Tower delivers on a rare conceptual brief marking a truly unique moment in their combined careers. Having finally been liberated from Bruno Spoerri's meticulous master tape vault this music takes you to the furthest reaches spanning right back to his first-ever feature-length soundtrack commission in order to find its place alongside other recently resuscitated oblique jazz scores by the likes of Basil Kirchin, Krzysztof Komeda, Angelo Michajlov, Roger Webb, and Jonny Scott. For an established jazz composer like Spoerri, who would quickly gravitate towards the rise of electronic music to become one of its biggest champions and pioneers, it is easy to identify within this score the early murmurs of minimal electronic sound design and bizarre jarring keyboard motifs which wouldn't sound out of place in recordings by Sun Ra if you can imagine an unlikely recording session with the John Barry Seven. Heinz Pfenninger's thick plodding bass notes (complete with double tracking and spring reverbs) embody the classic Bert Kaempfer. and Tony Fisher's wet bass sound, successfully pinning down the sodden plot against the damp underground canals of '60s London in conjunction with legendary Swiss jazz drummer Rolf Banninger as the rhythm sections unwittingly channels McCallum and Axelrod in the dark shadows.

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The first progressive girl group of the French Occitan language pop scene bring you folk funk, sun-baked bossa, Coltrane jazz and their own brand of punky "Dizco Rural" against an untouched French Balearic backdrop spanning the late '70s and '80s. If even the most assiduous of European record collectors consider the Occitan language music scene to be France's best-kept secret then it's as fair to say that the incredible multifaceted recordings of langue d'oc prog girl group Lei Chapacans has spent the last four decades hiding in plain sight. In all fairness this overlooked treasure chest of minority language excursions into folk funk, Balearic, bossa, John Coltrane-penned jazz, baroque psych, Palestinian poetry, comedic synth skits (and even the rawest form of femme-fronted multi-lingual punky disco) has been stowed away in inconspicuous photographic record sleeves, falsely evoking something closer to contemporary C&W while oft-misplaced in record shop cassette racks alongside "traditional" spoken-word and scholastic albums. So, for the uninitiated, don't be too hard on yourself. The fun starts here. For those who are familiar with the rare and sought-after one-off solo album by Occitan singer Miquela (FKR 103LP) and have craved for more, then you've come to exactly the right place. Lei Chapacans (a name that roughly translates to "The Vagabonds") is the all-girl vocal group assembled by Miquela herself just two years after her debut release, having toured the world and snubbed major label record deal offers with a steadfast allegiance to the protection of the Occitan language in which this album is primarily penned and performed (minus a small amount of German and sarcastic English in one rebellious instance). For European collectors with a penchant for French savoir faire, but have further yearnings for folkloric femme funk, then it's time to look towards the Occitan sunset where you will meet Lolo, Miquela, Sophie, Irena, and Denise. These amazing, and undeniably culturally important recordings might have taken some time to find a wider audience, but for music lovers, crate diggers and vinyl vultures alike there are still a lot of tasty morsels out there to be scavenged and devoured, ask any self-respecting Chapacan and they'll concur wholeheartedly.

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Finders Keepers Records present both the hallucinogenic orchestral music to Robert Benayoun's Paris n'existe pas (1969) and the rhythmic onslaught and cyclic waltzes from Patrick Chaput's La bête noire (1983) complete with an extensive booklet of essays, interviews, secrets, and rare images from both of these mythical cinematic obscurities. From deep in the vaults of the Parisian composer, Jean-Claude Vannier finally liberates two previously unreleased and fabled film soundtracks that mark significant milestones in the career of this legendary composer and his close connection to the French free jazz scene. Comprised on this one vinyl disc you will find the only existing original historic recordings to his first ever 1968 collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg as well as the entire lost musical score for Vannier's first major star-studded solo film commission.

La bête noire: From the furious pen of controversial author Jean-Pierre Bastid (Let The Corpses Tan/Massacre Of Pleasure) and directed by one-time realisateur Patrick Chaput the gritty street crime thriller precedes the likes of La haine. Revealing itself to be one of Jean-Claude Vannier's most unique scores these previously unreleased studio master tapes capture self-styled batucadas and furious rhythm tracks next to frenzied carousel waltzes free from the stylistic time-stamp of their 1983 recording date. These experimental recordings remain independent from the pop and rock idiom and are both timeless as well as groundbreaking due to the deployment of key players from the French free jazz scene and the reunion of Vannier's long-standing Insolitudes. Showcasing a crack team of Palm/Futura/Actuel/Saravah label regulars such as saxophonist Philippe Maté alongside drummer Bernard Lubat, Arpadys/Voyage rhythm masters Marc Chantereau and Pierre-Alain Dahan, and session legend Michel Zanlonghi, this thunderous group bridges an authentic gap between The Jef Gilson Group and France's signature "cosmic" revolution. Previously unheard compositions, rhythms, and sound design experiments.

Paris n'existe pas: Previously the subject of biographical rock history, archival documentaries, and cruel bootlegging opportunity, the official master tapes to Jean-Claude Vannier's first ever studio date with Serge Gainsbourg poetically mirrors the title of the film... They didn't exist, until now. Culled from reference recordings, rehearsals, playback tapes, and work-in-progress TV magazine features, Finders Keepers in close collaboration with Jean-Claude present the genuine hallucinogenic orchestral and experimental sound design recordings that appeared on the 1968 film Paris n'existe pas. The brooding orchestrations and experimental music found on this record comes complete with interjections of modern jazz courtesy of French free jazz mainstays Philippe Maté and Jean-Louis Chautemps. With the help of an esteemed string ensemble Vannier also lays down an early orchestral blueprint for his own "approximately-Orient" signature sound in its earliest naked form just three years before Histoire de Melody Nelson would cause widespread controversy on its release.

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Eighteen sacred psychedelic suppositories from the laboratory of Mad Scientist and scalpel happy pop mutilator Jean-Pierre Massiera. Including the rarest and most sought-after fuzz funk, spooked surf and interplanetary prog from "The French Joe Meek" and all his schizoid split-personalities and freakish friends -- The Maledictus Sound, Chico Magnetic Band, Visitors, Human Egg, The Pirhana Sound, and Jesus himself. Bow down to the nine headed monster as he mutates and shape-shifts back through time to his humble beginnings in a Buenos Aireian province ravaging and pillaging the music of the European people for his own twisted benediction along the way. This might, as intended, sound a little bit dramatic but if there is one single ingredient that gives the eccentric JPM his distinct flavor it's a large dollop of drama. Add sprinklings of schizophrenia, shock, myrth, and macabre and you are on the way to a B-movie broth with an acquired taste, that has taken over thirty years to mature to perfection. Like all the best monsters, his split personality is the key to his infamy and the secret of his blood sucking success. To cut a long story short Massiera is, above all, a lover and purveyor of musique fantastique, and is willing and able to hijack whichever stylistic vehicle that passes him buy in order to do feed his lust. In the earlier part of his career, he honed his sordid craft amongst psychedelic circles in Nice and Quebec. From late 1972 onwards he moved to Antibes and started a disco revolution and became an in demand cosmic record producer... For years prog rock obsessives and disco aficionados have wondered if there were two unrelated freak merchants called Jean-Pierre Massiera, but, in this rare instance, exploito-maniacs from both sides of the cosmic coin are united by the work of this singular, single handed monstrous music manufactory. Another way to dissect the Histoire De JPM would read like a fantastic comic book. He started off as a musical scientist who was affected by chemical fallout in World War Two -- he spoke to Jesus, went crazy, and became a mad scientist. He then created a strain of mutant piranha fish which gave birth to a world of horrific monsters who assisted him in his murderous merriment. In the end he finds a giant egg and finally makes contact with aliens... That would be the end of chapter one and this is the era that Finders Keepers focus on for this compendium. Features Visitors, S.E.M. Studios, Jesus, Les Chats, The Starlights, Basile, Chico Magnetic Band, Les Maledictus Soundm Basile, Human Egg, Les Monegasques, Chris Gallbert, Hermans Rockets, Piranhas, and After Life.

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From deep in the heart of Moomin valley, frozen in time for many midwinters passed, comes a genuine treasure chest of never heard Moomin melodies and instrumental comet songs composed for the continued animated adventures of the fuzzy-felt freak folk friends who disappeared from UK TV pastures in the mid-1980s. From the top of the Hobgoblin's Hat and the bottom of Snufkin's satchel, original Moomin's composer Graeme Miller (The Carrier Frequency) kindly shares this patchwork selection of spellbinding sound poems and percussive peons made using the very same selection of ocarinas, kalimbas, miniature squeak boxes, Wasp-y synths, cornflake box shakers and a seemingly endless array of talent and lo-fi home studio trickery. Regarded as one of the most enigmatic, beguiling and haunting imported children's programs to ever grace UK TV screens, The Moomins was one of the first-ever commissions by Anne Wood (The Teletubbies) who ingeniously replaced the original Polish/Austrian/Finnish soundtrack with homemade music experiments by unknown post-punk theater students Graeme Miller and Steve Shill (aka The Commies From Mars) who after the screening of two unforgettable series in 1983 and 1985 were left in eager anticipation of rescoring further Moomin adventures with new melodies, arrangements and sound designs which then lingered in the ether waiting until the Groke awoke and Snorkmaiden sang once more. With future felt adventures screened exclusively in Poland and Germany for many years (often as feature films) these unheard recordings are the only genuine musical sequel to the bizarre UK version of The Moomins and stand as important inclusions the Graeme Miller's own portfolio of theatrical theme music and sound installations as part of The Impact Theatre Cooperative including collaborations with artists and writers such as Russell Hoban. Witnessed in fragmented form during a short run of incredible rare live screenings at The Barbican Theatre and various film festival this record marks the first time this music has been heard in its original full-length form, free from sound effects, dialogue and whimpers of euphoric joy and nostalgia from those who have continued to crave the company of the Moomin trolls and their mysterious music over the last five decades.

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Finders Keepers presents this uber-rare soundtrack to a film that never existed, performed by an imaginary pop group. Incredible Polanski inspired German hip-hop psychsploitation beats from 1969. You couldn't script it... You are nineteen minutes and twenty-two seconds in to your peak-season cruise around the kraut-schlock peripheries. To say the trip has been an eventful one would be an understatement -- you don't know what to expect next and your 12"x12" Germanic tour guide has proved quite unreliable thus far. As your diamond tipped vessel maneuvers through the grooves of your ninth horrific attraction (entitled The Soaked Body) the soundtrack awkwardly becomes background music and you are overcome with the sound of gushing water... "Help!" you think sarcastically, the music, or is that muzak, is drowning! This is the movie soundtrack to a film that never existed. This is the movie soundtrack by the band that was never requested. These were the sound library musicians who had to invent their own clients and imaginary cast, crew and plot to get their music heard, by a niche audience, before floating deep into the depths of the rare record reservoir gasping for breath. To take a cinematic cue the record in question is the Eurotrash pop equivalent of Jean Renoir's tragic/triumphant Boudu character who as a homeless, confused, and desolate down-and-out plunged to the depths to be unwillingly rescued, resuscitated then after gradually winning the hearts of an entire family becomes respected and revered as royalty. Over twenty years after the mad scientists, Dr. Horst and Ackermann, first breathed life into this short-lived beast, brave and intrepid vinyl explorers have sporadically returned to the doors of Dracula's Music Cabinet to resurrect the sonic spooks and mutated melodies to share with nerds, mods, rockers, hip hoppers, psych nuts, and krautsiders alike. The lifeless corpses of The Vampires Of Dartmoore that lay six feet beneath the belly of the Eins Deutschmark bins has since crept through the record collections of the aforementioned social circles devouring continental currencies and demanding random ransoms of 250 euros plus, not to mention sweat, tears (of laughter) and a lot of blood.

$29.00 IN STOCK

COS might not be the first genre defying progressive music group you've heard who share both wordless onomatopoeic vocals and a snappy three letter title (complete with philosophical leanings and alchemic penchants) but on listening to this first ever custom COS compendium you might have just discovered a new favorite! Perhaps it's no coincidence that COS share close spiritual, stylistic or social connections to the aforementioned bands, as one of the few long-withstanding single-syllable ensembles to remain utterly idiosyncratic and incomparable within their hyper-focused and impenetrable creative bubble. But as a 1970s group that effortlessly mix head-nod prog, synth-driven jazz, cinematic sound-designs, dislocated disco, arkestral operatics and high-brow conceptual anti-pop grooves, it's easier to remember the name COS than thumb the vast amount of genre-dividers in your local record shop which COS could occupy. With the crème de la crème of Belgian jazz/prog/psych/funk within their ranks, their combined idea-to-ability ratio litters the Cos-ography with concepts that aficionados, future fans, collaborators and critics still haven't began to unravel. With their earliest roots in the compact jazz group Brussels Art Quintet the group spent their sapling years creating art-school prog under the name Classroom, this flourishing collective, cultivated by multi-instrumentalist mainstay Daniel Schell, would soon shed its leaves, dropping band-members and typographics reducing its moniker to simply COS (a multi-purpose, globally recognized word, with links to alchemy and philosophy, with a hard phonetic delivery to suit the groups heavier rhythmic approach). In it's new skin, COS also shed all forms of orthodox language to find its true exclusive voice. Fronted, in the conventional sense, by the daughter of author and part-time jazz player Jean De Trazegnies, the bands wordless singer changed her name to Pascale SON, to accentuate the French word for "sound". Drawing comparisons with sound poets like Polish jazz legend Urszula Dudziak or Hungarian Katalin Ladik, but retaining the crystalline femininity (and funk) of Flora Purim, while effectively sharing an imaginary lyric book of non-words with Damo Suzuki, Magma or a future Liz Fraser... To use the word "unique" would, by COS academic standards, be lazy journalism.

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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 (FKR 019X-LP). 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 thirty-five-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 B-musicians, 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 Cabinet hit the straße Deutsche-o-phile diggers fingers started twitching nervously.

$29.00 IN STOCK

2023 restock. With his ongoing commitment to like-minded archivist label Finders Keepers Records, industrial music pioneer Steven Stapleton further entrusts the label to lift the veil and expose "the right tracks" from his uber-legendary and oft misinterpreted psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List. Following the critically lauded first instalment and it's exclusively French tracklisting both parties now combine their vinyl-vulturous penchants to bring you the next Strain Crack & Break edition which consists of twelve lesser-known German records that played a hugely important part in the initial foundations of the list which began to unfold when Stapleton was just thirteen-years-old. From the perspective of a schoolboy Amon Düül (ONE) victim, at the start of a journey that commenced before phrases like kosmische and the xeno-ignant krautrock tag had become mag hack currency, this compendium is devoid of the tropes that united what many would accurately argue to be the greatest progressive pop bands in Europe (namely CAN, Neu! and Kraftwerk) and rather shatters the ingredients across a ground zero landscape. This record includes the music that skulked behind krautrock and perhaps refused to polish its backhanded name belt. Including lesser-known artists like the late Wolfgang Dauner whose career proceeded and outlived the kosmische movement while consistently informing and outsmarting 'em whenever they got stuck in their metronomic ruts, or Fritz Müller, the man who was to Kraftwerk what Stuart Sutcliffe was to The Beatles but had more in common with Yoko and quite rightly couldn't give a shit about the Fab Four's Hamburg roots. Elsewhere there's a plethora of German bands made for German audiences as they try and shed second hand flower power Americanisms and feel the benefits of much harder drugs and the realizations of difficult second album budgets. Bonzo Cockettes show off their Big Muffs and drummers ask for extra mics while Conny Plank goes for parliamentary office and gives babies good firm handshakes for the camera. Tracks by Mr. and Mrs. Fuchs (aka Anima-Sound) who played their instruments completely naked throughout their anti-career alongside previously unpressed tracks by the scene's leading Detroit-born African American drummer Fred Braceful (Exmagma). Finders Keepers and Nurse With Wound continue to sing from the same hymnal with this ongoing collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from Steve's list, where many overzealous nerds have faltered (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick). Volume Two focuses exclusively on individual tracks of German origin -- the country whose music forged the prototype of the NWW inventory in the form of his secondary school vinyl want-list in the early 1970s. Features Wolfgang Dauner, My Solid Ground, Association PC, Fritz Müller, Exmagma, Anima-Sound, Tomorrow's Gift, Out Of Focus, Brainstorm, Thirsty Moon, Gomorrha, and Brainticket.

$20.00 NOT IN STOCK

Not content with liberating what many consider the rarest soundtrack on both the cut-throat Italian and Japanese collectors' markets (with the repress of the music to Eiichi Yamamoto's erotic-historic Pinky anime psych cinematic feature Belladonna Of Sadness), Finders Keepers Records return to the composer Masahiko Sato's bottomless well in an attempt to retrieve the elixir which enticed us in the first place. From a clutch of thirteen lost cues which never appeared on the mythical Italian-only soundtrack album, this limited 45rpm single finally combines the two elusive freak fuzz tracks aficionados unanimously agree to be the finest themes to feature on the film. Encompassing virtually all of the free jazz and screaming psych signatures found on Masahiko's own albums and collaborations, such as Amalgamation, Yamataifu and Rumour (all recorded around the same era), these two tracks also hear Sato experimenting with hard rock rhythms and Afro rock aesthetics devised to enhance the flamboyant and erratic folkloric storyboard of the film. Not scared to deploy radical 1970s studio devices like guitar fuzz pedals and keyboard ring modulators Masahiko literally pulls out all the stops with his organs, synths and pianos to deeply coat artist Kuni Fukai's most eye-popping scenes with his own sonic equivalent of hallucinogenic face melting mayhem. Complete with rhythm players and soloists from his associated bands The New Herd and The Soundbreakers these two tracks alone draw comparisons with the likes of Wolfgang Dauner and will certainly strike similarities to Miles Davis' Filmore/Bitches Brew period, but never without his own distinct Japanese jazz flavor, thus placing these tracks alongside other rare and unreleased psychedelic recordings such as J. A. Caesars music for the films of Shuji Terayama and Toshi Ichiyanagi and April Fools music for Yoshishige Yoshida's Eros Plus Massacre. Continued comparisons to Alain Goraguer's animation soundtrack for La Planete Sauvage can be attributed to Sato's use of Rhodes electric pianos, but as one of the first three people to import a Moog synthesizer to Japan (a key player on the collectable Electro Keyboard Orchestra), Sato's tracks on this 45 successfully convey his wash of electro enhanced layered noise that illustrates the films pivotal plague scene in which Fukai paints an unforgiving black sea over the world to avenge the honor of the films traumatized leading protagonist.

$20.00 NOT IN STOCK

Transparent bumper blue 7". Greg Kmiec's Xenon pinball machine was released in 1980 and marked a significant milestone in pinball technology and design. The expansion of microchip technology would provide new opportunities for sound designer and synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani, allowing for basic oscillator control and a wider scope for sampling capacity which could facilitate the higher frequencies of a female human voice and entirely reshape the concept of the machine in the process. By using state of the art Synclavier synthesizer technology and an invaluable experience in film scoring and record production Suzanne would devise a complete minimal music score for the machine, then dissect the piece into separate fragments that would be triggered throughout the game play adding an extra creative dimension in player inter-activity (potentially turning the participant into their own musical arranger). By incorporating her own infamous voice box (which had been the focus of a seminal David Letterman Show feature) Suzanne's combination of a harmonizer and a vocoder also provided the first-ever female identity to a pinball machine which in conjunction with the games ergonomic design and Paul Faris' figurative graphics (echoing the aesthetic of Rene Laloux and Roland Topor's La Planète Sauvage) Xenon was able to add a degree of subconscious sensuality to its performance, a feature previously unchartered in arcade development. This disc presents the full extent of Suzanne Ciani's groundbreaking musical effects for Xenon, in their isolated form, for the first time ever heard outside of the confines of the machine which recently earned the composer her own induction to the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame.

$25.00 NOT IN STOCK

The entire unreleased soundtrack for Jean Rollins 1971 ultimate French vampire hippy flick, Le Frisson Des Vampires. Embryonic psych funk recordings from Parisian teenage psych combo (including members of French No-No mod rockers Unity). Imagine an early Gong/Ame Son/Soft Machine session fueled by a 1000-year old, acid-infused blood transfusion. With origins in the Parisian underground, the free press revolution, new wave cinema, the Letterist movement, French surrealism, sexual liberation and the European progressive rock explosion Jean Rollin's 1972 film Le Frisson De Vampires still stands up as one of the most original European poetic erotic horror films after almost 40 since it's cosmic inauguration. Finders Keepers release the complete freak-rock soundtrack to the most phantasmagoric celluloid moment from "The First French Vampire Director" which has been shrouded in mystery, secrecy and red wine addled memories for four decades. Originally rumored to be played by a disbanded group of teenagers and lost in the edit suite the unabridged soundtrack of improvised freak-funk, commune rock and acidik folk could have easily been recorded by an early line-up of Gong or Ame Son and released on a label like BYG or ESP. The true origins of this rare psychedelic score and its unspoken legacy via private pressed free jazz albums and collectible mod rock 45s adds to the twisted tails that unfolds via our extensive liner notes making this release yet another counter-cultural pop milestone courtesy of Finders Keepers Records. Made on a shoestring in rural Northern France with a cast and crew that draws a blood red line between the avant-garde and the pre-cert video cassette the behind the scenes story of Les Frisson De Vampires engulfs a rampant river of cultural phenomenon such as Japanese Pinky films, X-rated comic books, The Mai 68 riots, and the forward-thinking no-no generation. Complete with classic and highly collectible artwork by French illustrator Phillipe Druliet and music that will appeal to fans of J.P.Massiera, Amon Düül 1, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Whakevitch, Fifty Foot Hose, early Pink Floyd, and Acid Mothers Temple. Originally released in 2010 as the inaugural release in Finders Keepers' dedicated Rollinade series, the release is presented here on black vinyl.

$14.00 NOT IN STOCK

From the same continental cosmic egg that hatched Marc Moulin, Marc Hollander, and Belgian synth fusion combo Placebo comes your favorite new Franco-Flemmish pop discovery. COS, where have you been all my life? Compact in name but wide-eyed in nature, it's understandable how the '70s band known simply as COS has remained trapped in the tight cracks between pop stardom and prog indulgence where other like-minded names like CAN, Zao, Neu!, and Egg have managed to squeeze into gaps of your record collection. In presenting one of the band's most infectious and potentially crossover legible tracks on this exclusive user-friendly 45, COS mastermind Daniel Schell not only breaks an unlikely new format for this lesser-known femme-fronted, electro/jazz fusion/prog pop opera/would-be disco cinematic six-piece but also sends a sonic telegram to a new generation of futurist pop aficionados ready to explore the deep realms of his band's dense, expansive and consistently rewarding catalogue. Placing the microscope over the central motif of the band's onomatopoeic 1978 triptych known as Mein Maschine Ist Schön (My Machine Is Beautiful) this very rare proposed single edit from the group's third album combines the type of warm, brooding, discoid funk and nymphish Morse code vocals that unite fans of Stereolab, Curved Air, Jan Hammer, Emerald Web, and Ursula Dudziak not to mention Schell's own close friends, the aforementioned, Hollander, Moulin, and Placebo. A prog rock 45 might sound like a contradiction in terms but with a band like COS you can only expect them to defy convention. Backed here with another deeply conceptual sliced of deep orchestral symphonic psych from Schell's short-lived FF Boom project from the previous year this suitably compact introduction to your new favorite COSmonauts provide digestible versions of some of Schell's finest moments and clears the decks for future explorations of a wider musical universe waiting to be explored. Turn on this beautiful machine and let yourself melt into the COSmix.

$25.00 IN STOCK

Within the elusive confines of this film awaits an unreleased album that defies categorization by a musician who in a different time and space would be revered amongst some of the most important exponents of progressive rock, dark ambient, krautrock, and pioneering synthesizer composition -- not to mention sound design and art-house film scores. As a protégé of François Bayle and Luc Ferrari who had studied classical music before immersing himself in found-sound manipulation and oscillators, Alain Pierre quickly became an enthusiastic go-to man for sound sculpture and technical studio proficiency in Belgium's small film industry. To the many generations of dedicated fans of the visual work of Philippe Druillet it might seem virtually impossible to adequately "score" the alien, futurist landscapes of the man who many called the "space architect", but once you have heard the sonic reactions of Alain Pierre on this the first-ever dedicated Druillet documentary, Ô Sidarta. Despite Druillet's large number of collaborations, it is fair to say that this criminally unreleased album by Alain Pierre would conjure up the closest synergy between sound and vision that either artist would come close to. The almost twelve of continuous music that Alain Pierre supplied for Ô Sidarta in 1974 fortunately appears in its entirety, unedited, as it does here for the first time ever away from its original broadcasts. Broadcast on Belgian and French TV that autumn, the film received a warm reception from Druillet fans, prospective film producers and space rock fans lucky enough to catch the short feature. Alain was a serious "live" performer, and his lesser-documented performances resemble the sound of Ô Sidarta most closely, proving that the Druillet collaboration was naturalistic and conceptually close to Alain's personal stylistic agenda. A rare recording of a one-off concert at the Université libre de Bruxelles in October 1976 reveals a very similar set of movements and soundscapes found on Ô Sidarta. This rare artifact has been included on the second side of this record under its original title "Notions de physique intérieure" (Notions Of Interior Physics) and stands as a perfect companion piece to Ô Sidarta -- complete with a very similar "kit list" including the welcome addition of an Arp Sequencer, a Korg Vocoder, and a Theremin. With Ô Sidarta, Alain successfully combines more unlikely musical influences, experimental techniques, and previously unheard soundscapes and studio tricks in to one twelve-minute score. Licensed with the full cooperation of composer Alain Pierre and remastered from the original master tapes.

$26.50 NOT IN STOCK

LP version. White vinyl with yellow yolk. Back in the latter half of the 1960s the burgeoning idiosyncratic group of alternative filmmakers coming out of (then) Czechoslovakia known as the Czech new wave were taking art house cinemas in western Europe and America by storm. The hour-long films that came out of the infamous Barrandov Studio production house played a competitive rival to that of the French and Italian new waves with their very own immaculate and spellbinding takes on cinema verité, film noir, surrealism and cinema concrète. But after the Soviet Union invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970. It is not until recent years that the genre has become widely recognized as a veritable and virtually untapped source of inspiration for fans of experimental cinema, psychedelic cinematography, baroque costumes and scenery, music and graphic design. Daisies pulls together what you might call the "Holy Trinity" of the Czech new wave -- director Vera Chytilová, costume and set designer Esther Krumbachová, and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera -- arguably the three most forward thinking and truly experimental minds in the whole of the CNW collective. Witness Les Petites Margeurites (original French theatrical title) as they mischievously flutter through Prague's finest restaurants accompanying middle-aged men on flamboyant double dates in gastronomic ménage à trois -- "If the world spoils itself, then we shall be spoiled as well" decide the two bikini clad button-cute Maries in the film's opening scenes. The radical and experimental nature of Daisies is further enhanced by its erratic score which consists of the juxtaposition of various non-melodic elements and sound effects, laden with a broad palette of samples and snippets of choral and classical vintage recordings spliced with concréte effects, traditional brass band music, Disney style exotica, Charleston dance standards, and token '60s beat tracks. Originally prepared for public consumption by Finders Keepers in 2007 and available once again this immaculate release was taken from the original reels and compiled in close accordance to the original storyline and comes complete with unseen archive images, original international poster designs and new and extensive sleeve notes. Compositions by Jiri Sust & Jiri Slitr, Eva Pilerova, Jan Klusák, and Marie Cesková.

$26.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Splatter vinyl (edition of 500). 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. Back in 2005, five years before Finders Keepers Records released Zdenek Liska's soundtrack to Malá Morská Víla for the first time, folklore and fairy tale fanatics around the globe celebrated the 200-year anniversary of the birth of one of the world's most celebrated children's authors of the published era. This Danish born writer's stories have been translated into over 150 languages and have continued to enchant and inspire children and adults, arts and crafts, film and theatre, providing a creative binding substance in modern society's social fiber. With a life story that entwines equal measures of tragedy, mystery, intensity and majesty to that of his own written work, Hans Christian Andersen's early years balancing contradictory roles as a weaver's apprentice, a soprano singer, a fledgling poet and an abused grammar school pupil with speculative links to the monarchy, manifested themselves in his written world of fantasy and fiction. His running themes of mutation, metamorphosis, rebirth, prejudice and class distinction are none more prevalent than in what are perhaps his two best known tales The Ugly Duckling, first published November 11th, 1843, and the bittersweet surrealist tale of The Little Mermaid, printed in the third booklet of the first volume of Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn (Tales, Told For Children) in 1837. One of the most idiosyncratic and haunting undiscovered scores in the annals of European cinematic history, Liska's forward thinking score has all the hallmarks of a Broadcast record, some 20 years before the band first committed sound to vinyl. Beautifully remastered from the original mastertapes with the full cooperation of the seminal Barrandov Studios in Prague.

$25.00 NOT IN STOCK

2023 restock. Back in the latter half of the 1960s the burgeoning idiosyncratic group of alternative filmmakers coming out of (then) Czechoslovakia known as the Czech new wave were taking art house cinemas in western Europe and America by storm. The hour-long films that came out of the infamous Barrandov Studio production house played a competitive rival to that of the French and Italian new waves with their very own immaculate and spellbinding takes on cinema verité, film noir, surrealism and cinema concrète. But after the Soviet Union invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970. It is not until recent years that the genre has become widely recognized as a veritable and virtually untapped source of inspiration for fans of experimental cinema, psychedelic cinematography, baroque costumes and scenery, music and graphic design. Daisies pulls together what you might call the "Holy Trinity" of the Czech new wave -- director Vera Chytilová, costume and set designer Esther Krumbachová, and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera -- arguably the three most forward thinking and truly experimental minds in the whole of the CNW collective. Witness Les Petites Margeurites (original French theatrical title) as they mischievously flutter through Prague's finest restaurants accompanying middle-aged men on flamboyant double dates in gastronomic ménage à trois -- "If the world spoils itself, then we shall be spoiled as well" decide the two bikini clad button-cute Maries in the film's opening scenes. The radical and experimental nature of Daisies is further enhanced by its erratic score which consists of the juxtaposition of various non-melodic elements and sound effects, laden with a broad palette of samples and snippets of choral and classical vintage recordings spliced with concréte effects, traditional brass band music, Disney style exotica, Charleston dance standards, and token '60s beat tracks. Originally prepared for public consumption by Finders Keepers in 2007 and available once again this immaculate release was taken from the original reels and compiled in close accordance to the original storyline and comes complete with unseen archive images, original international poster designs and new and extensive sleeve notes. Compositions by Jiri Sust & Jiri Slitr, Eva Pilerova, Jan Klusák, and Marie Cesková. Available on standard black vinyl and a strictly limited edition white and yellow yolk vinyl pressing (edition of 500).