MAX RICHTER - Retrospective (4CD)

The success of Max Richter's Recomposition of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, our best-selling classical release of the past five years by a significant margin, has resulted in this repackaging of four of his earlier releases in a stunning box set by Deutsche Grammophon. A beautiful hybrid of ambient, classical and electronic styles.

"Whether it be the Haruki Murakami readings and subtle piano arrangements with the broken synapse electronics flickering in the background on parts of 2006's Songs From Before or the more mechanical effusions that emit a dystopian glow from 2008's 24 Postcards In Full Colour, there is a restless energy percolating beneath the elegance and the elegiac. 2010’s Infra closes out the set, an album that fuses the electronic, the orchestral and the ethereal like no other piece this reviewer’s heard before or since.

By corralling all of Richter's fine works of this period together, Retrospective firmly underscores the belief that music can transcend all boundaries. From the soaring wonders of On The Nature Of Daylight right through to the mournful violin that sees out Infra 8, Richter beckons for the listener to close their eyes and jump into the nebulous abyss of their own imagination. That ability is truly magical." - TheMusic.com.au

VA - Inner City Beat! Detective Themes, Spy Music and Imaginary Thrillers

An exciting Soul Jazz compilation spotlighting British library music composers who provided background instrumentals for suspense-laden, action-packed TV shows and films. There are non-stop thrills to be found here amongst the funky breakbeats and jazzy grooves by David Lindup, Johnny Hawksworth and co.

"Library music was meant to be used by film studios or television and radio stations. It was never meant to be commercially available. The music was recorded on spec by music libraries. They often hired young unknown composers, musicians and producers. Once recorded, record libraries sent out demonstration copies of their music to production companies. If the production companies liked what they heard, they’d license it from the music libraries. That was how it was meant to work.

Often, the music recorded by library companies was never licensed. Since then, it has lain unheard in the vaults of music libraries like KPM, De Wolfe, Amphonic and Conroy. This includes the music on Inner City Beat!, recently released by Soul Jazz Records. It features twenty-four slices of jazz, funk and easy listening. It's like returning to what was a golden period in television and cinema." - Dereksmusicblog

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (DVD/Blu-ray/OST)

Offering respective peeks into both the biographies of the band and their Memphis scene peers as well as rough and alternate mixes made during the recording of their three studio albums, this documentary and soundtrack are must-see/-hear material for both Big Star fanatics as well as those new to the group.

"A treasure trove of home movies and photographs allows director Drew DeNicola and co-director Olivia Mori to document the band’s coming together and falling apart and offer a passionate tribute to its brilliant, beautiful music. The film is by turns joyous and poignant (Bell died at the age of twenty-seven), and the filmmakers unfold with great care the band’s stuttering beginnings, their record company’s fumblings, and the eventual rediscovery in the mid-eighties that brought the musicians some of the adulation they so richly deserved." - The New Yorker

"All too many music documentaries send you away feeling unsatisfied, but with its heartfelt backstory and generous helpings of music, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is a shining exception: the filmmakers' urge to be true to their subject is palpable. It doesn’t hurt that Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori frequently crank up the volume and allow the shimmering chords and moody sweep of Big Star to enfold the influential rock band’s mythic story of years in the wilderness and late rediscovery." - Film Comment

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN (DVD/Blu-ray)

A must-see documentary for music fans, Searching For Sugar Man is the story of Sixto Rodriguez, a singer from the early '70s little known in his native USA who became a musical folk hero in South Africa. After seeing this film, you'll want to buy his music which accounts for why the soundtrack was our #7 Top Selling release of 2012. We also stock his albums Cold Fact and Coming From Reality both reissued by Light In The Attic records a few years ago.

"Music documentaries have come thick and fast in 2012, but this one’s the best and easily the most successful...It’s a heartening, uplifting film, touched by the shy, sweet-natured spirit of Rodriguez; you find yourself willing him to succeed. Director Malik Bendjelloul structures his story skilfully, and in a 30-minute ‘making of’ extra, engagingly relates how he came close to abandoning Searching for Sugarman because he had ran out of money. He emerges every bit as much of an underdog as Rodriguez himself." - The Telegraph

VA - Big Band Present: Italo Funk Experience

Another excellent entry in Nascente's Experience series. Bene!

"Italian Funk Experience features lost soundtrack gems from cult soundtrack composers such as Piero Piccioni & Piero Umiliani, modal-jazz classics from Lee Konitz & Giovanni Tommaso, twisted Italian funk from the likes of Tony Esposito and super-rare pieces from the cult Italian library music label Rotary, many composed by Italian jazz-legend Amedeo Tommasi.

Big Bang is the production name of Simone Serritella, head honcho of the Italo-jazz re-release label Arision, and under his production name Big Bang, a celebrated jazz-dance producer and favourite of Gilles Peterson." - Demon Music Group

NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS - White Lunar

Vicious, tongue-in-cheek and crotch-driven, the Grinderman album was half-helmed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis—a pair of other-side-of-forty Aussies who clearly revelled in the winking depravity of it all. But anyone who has followed these two closely knows that, together or alone, these musicians are also as contemplative and thoughtful as they come, none more so than when they do soundtracks. They first linked up in this way to score Cave's screenplay for the western The Proposition, which played a little like a toes-getting-wet affair, complete with sections lifted and respun from Ellis' main act, The Dirty Three. But following that, their confidence has grown with each project, culminating in scoring this month's film adaption of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Despite the near-simultaneous release of that film's soundtrack, White Lunar is a two-disc collection of the best moments of these several projects, plus some odds-and-sods. Mainly using their primary instruments of Cave's piano and Ellis' peerless violin (although also flavoured by hits of keys, spoken-word and jarring samples), these soundtracks present a uniform sense of tense ambiance—like someone trying to enjoy a massage while in a straitjacket. This clearly suits the subject matter it's meant to complement, but if you're thinking that nearly two hours of it can get a little monotonous, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. Like The Bad Seeds and Dirty Three itself, much of your appreciation of this music depends on patience and open listening. Despite having no real standout moment, White Lunar is ugly, beautiful and, in the end, highly compelling stuff.

VA - Dirty French Psychedelics

This is not the 'official' psychedelic sound, but rather a sound that has been overlooked by revivals from the '60s to the '80s, ignored for lacking easy categorization. In 1970s France, moody orchestrations by Jean-Claude Vannier for the epochal Melody Nelson session with Serge Gainsbourg (as well as the less-acknowledged but artistically equal Brigitte Fontaine Est...) combined with the clash of exotic folk and cosmic jazz on the Saravah label to create an atmospheric and far-reaching sound that embraced open-mindedness, come-down grooviness, and the pristine (but definitely not smooth) production techniques of the time. It is a sound that's a purple haze without being “Purple Haze”, if you get my drift. Paris' Dirty Sound System have defined an amorphous genre, a rare thing in the compilations market, and have done it with a flow that betrays some serious mixtape obsession. A creepy and ominous mood is created by soundtrack greats François de Roubaix and Karl Heinz Schäfer, plus freaky pioneers Brigitte Fontaine and Dashiell Hedayat, along with many more.

JEAN-PIERRE MASSIERA - Midnight Massiera: The B-Music Of Jean-Pierre Massiera

Known to collectors primarily as the mad genius behind the nutsoid quasi-soundtrack album Les Maledictus Sound from 1968, French producer/engineer/guitarist Jean-Pierre Massiera epitomizes Finders Keepers' sensibilities perhaps more than any other artist. Recording mostly in the late '60s and '70s, Massiera's vision was to never do anything straight-ahead, whether playing cosmic surf music early in his career, charting similar psychotic territory as White Noise, Pierre Henry and Ennio Morricone, or experimenting with proggy disco. His ear for radical combinations of sounds and effects puts him in league with producers Joe Meek and Lee Perry--just check his version of "They're Coming To Take Me Away" in French! After being blown away by Midnight Massiera, you can also seek out the Mucho Gusto label's Psychoses: Freakoid (1963-1978), their second of two collections which focuses mostly on his weird Euro-disco period.

YO LA TENGO - They Shoot, We Score

So each week, all these featured-release writeups get written on Sunday. The only reason this is worth mentioning here, in this review of Yo La Tengo's new self-released soundtrack collection, is that I can't think of a better time of said week to listen to these scores. From Ira Kaplan's VU's-a-Dead Man guitar reverberations to classic-if-expected full-band garage jams to brushes with jazz and classical orchestration, downtempo drum-machinery and even an awesome outright Neu! nod on Will Oldham vehicle Old Joy's end credits, with no apologies to the Q, this is my kind of Psychedelic Psunday.

OST - Juno

Much as in the films of Wes Anderson, pop music plays a key acting role in the success of Juno, a lovingly quirky tale of generational clashes brought on by a pregnant teen and the yuppie couple who wish to adopt her baby. The songs on this soundtrack are a split between classics by the Kinks, Mott The Hoople and the Velvet Underground, and solo tunes by Kimya Dawson, ex- of the twee NYC band Moldy Peaches. Dawson's tunes prize off-key sincerity and winking wit over fidelity, but while her songs pale a little next to two by Belle and Sebastian, they represent Ellen Page's character with an innocent accuracy.

JONNY GREENWOOD - There Will Be Blood OST

From the moment Jonny Greenwood's sublime string arrangements for Kid A's "How To Disappear Completely" hit your ears, you got the sense he was made for this type of work. And he couldn't have chosen a better film for his string work than the latest by auteur Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson's evocative, epic way with a camera, equally tender and bombastic, is a perfect fit. Well, mission accomplished. There Will Be Blood is a superb collection of mostly piano and string arrangements that sit just as comfortably next to Gorecki and Golijov compositions as they do Kid A.

OST - I'm Not There

Whether too close to the bone or unnecessarily eccentric, tribute albums usually just serve to remind you how much you'd rather listen to the originals. So go figure that this Dylan covers fest is great: varied, passionate, and remarkably consistent. Cat Power's take on "Stuck Inside of Mobile..." provides the jolt of energy her 2006 disc The Greatest sadly lacked, while Willie Nelson sheds light on one of Bob's better unsung tunes, "Senor" off 1978's Street Legal. From Yo La Tengo to Richie Havens, Karen O to Roger McGuinn, the roster is as eclectic as the man himself. Far more daring than the recent redundant Dylan hits pack.

JOY DIVISION - Unknown Pleasures/Closer/Still (2CD Collector's Editions) / OST - Control

           

What better way to celebrate Halloween than with some Joy Division. On the eve of this holiday comes both the soundtrack to Anton Corbijn's new film, Control, and a trio of collector's edition reissues. Unknown Pleasures and Closer, the two proper studio albums by the band, remain iconic touchstones of an at-the-time unheard of style of bleak, cutting songcraft. The half studio/half live Still is a slightly more uneven listen, but still contains stellar highlights, including "Dead Souls" and an early live version of "Ceremony", which became New Order's first single. As for the bonus material, each edition comes with a complete live set. The live sound quality is erratic and primitive, but it suits the band's twitchy, acidic performances perfectly, especially that of their darkly charismatic singer, Ian Curtis. Curtis himself is the main focus of Corbijn's Control, and the soundtrack sets the mood well. This collection won't provide much in the way of surprises for diehards (and some of the surprises, like the Killers' cover of "Shadowplay", may not be seen as a wise idea by all), but the cast themselves do a bang up job on "Transmission" and the rest of the soundtrack is a solid catalogue of influences and pivotal Joy Division/New Order tunes.

OST - The Darjeeling Limited

Film director Wes Anderson is almost as loved for his meticulously curated soundtracks as his idiosyncratic movies. From the mod explosion of Rushmore to the Portugeuse revisions of Bowie classics on The Life Aquatic, the man has some seriously eclectic, well-honed tastes. The Darjeeling Limited keeps his streak alive, matching cuts from Anderson faves The Kinks and Rolling Stones with theme music from a slew of Bollywood classics. The midsection is dominated by Indian themes, then bookended by Western music (both rock and classical), making things a touch segregated, but still fascinating and fun.