Incredible follow up to the sold out Zwartjes Tapes 1, this vinyl continuation takes us deeper into the sublime world of the cult Dutch director Frans Zwartjes’ soundtrack tape archive; dream-like, disjointed, disturbing, peculiar, sexy, unexpected and totally unique.

Frans Zwartjes is famous for his art-house films (look him up on YouTube). A Dutch underground auteur, his prolific output dates from 1968. A unique talent, Zwartjes produced, directed and edited his own films (his last work was in 1991), but more importantly he created and improvised the soundtracks too. Zwartjes and his large body of work is only now being recognised by a wider, more international crowd, with screenings at the NFT and other important art-house cinemas across the world. The recordings on Tapes 2 were mixed directly from the Zwartjes soundtrack tape archive. They were assembled directly and in real time by Zwartjes archivist Stanley Schtinter and have never been issued before.

The music and sound have been put together as two long, seamless sequences; they are dreamlike, unsettling, peculiar, plugged-in, prescient and unlike any other soundtrack we have heard. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Yes you might be tricked into thinking you've bought the soundtrack to one of Mart's B/W, arthouse 'blue' movies; but post-watershed this is not! Instead it's some of the most eerily evocative, strangely compelling 'found sounds' I've heard for a while.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Limited to just 750 copies.
Single LP, standard black wax. None of this dicking about with 180 gram tip ons, multi coloured wax, obis, useless inserts or unwanted novelty extras. Just rare and beautiful and interesting music. So there.

Rare musical magic from the Bruton library catalogue – ambient, spacey, pastoral and electronic. Music by John Cameron, Alan Hawkshaw, Francis Monkman, Brian Bennett and more – all total masters of the scene. All very cool. All very now. All will sell very fast.

Over the last three decades Jonny Trunk has collected and written about library music. But he’s never had a great deal of luck with the Bruton catalogue. By this he means that he’s never stumbled across a massive stash, or lucked-out buying a huge run for practically nothing –that’s the kind of thing that used to happen in the 1990s and the early noughties if you were out there looking hard for library music. But he did manage to get about 25 in one hit about 20 years ago when the BBC shut down their “TV Training Department” near Lime Grove and also when a box of Brutons ended up being dumped at a hospital radio, and they didn’t want the records, so Jonny got a call.

There are lots of Bruton albums in existence – over 330 LPs in the vinyl catalogue, issued between 1978 and 1985. That’s a lot of music to wade through if you are looking for sublime modern day sounds. For many years now the “trophies” from the Bruton catalogue have been the beat or action driven LPs – the two Drama Montage albums (BRJ2 and BRJ8) have always been the big hitters, and others such as High Adventure (BRK2) too.

But Jonny has always found himself drawn to the lime green LPs, the pastoral, peaceful albums (The BRDs), which were full of the kind of gentle, lovely music that would turn up in Take Hart as Tony was painting a woodpecker or a badger or an Autumn tree. The other Brutons he likes are the orange ones (The BRIs) simply because they are full of experimental futuristic electronics and would remind him of 1980s ITV backgrounds. This LP series includes Brian Bennett’s cosmic classic Fantasia (BRI 10). Jonny has been knows to refer to this style of library music as “Krypton Factor library”, because it’s exactly what that strange but successful 1980s TV quiz show sounded like.

In recent years as interest in library music has expanded, we’ve watched
the price of a handful of Brutons really going through the roof - not the just the action and drama ones, but the more esoteric and experimental LPs too – like the BRDs and the BRIs. Jonny gets the vibe that people finally want to hear this other more interesting and experimental side of the Bruton catalogue. So what better time than now to put together a compilation of such sublime period sounds.

Not only does this album bring together a set of fabulous cues that would cost the average man in the street a month’s wages (if the originals were all wanted and if you could even track them all down), but it also chops out the need to listen to other tracks on library albums that are nowhere near as good.

The cues here all date from between 1978 and 1984. They come from the BRD, BRI, BRH, BRJ, BRM, BRR and BRs catalogues.

The composers are all legends within the genre, and here, were doing what great library composers do best – fulfilling a brief and utilising modern studio equipment to both commercial and beguiling effect. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Clear vinyl repress.

Originally written and released by Woody Guthrie in 1947, this cover version of “Pastures Of Plenty” by Pete Tevis – a Californian folk singer living in Rome in 1962 – was arranged by Ennio Morricone. A few years later, Sergio Leone wanted Morricone to score his up and coming western called A Fistful Of Dollars. Legend has it Morricone wrote some music, Leone hated it. Morricone then played him this old single. Leone wanted this music but with a new melody over the top. The rest is film music history.

This is the first ever repress of this hugely important single since 1962. Originals copies are mythical to say the least.

Holy shit! If it isn’t three unheard 1960s and 1970s reels from the unreal and unreleased Basil Kirchin Tape Archive. Sublime pastoral jazz, autistic children screaming, spooky vocals, experimental tape manipulation and more from the master of such thing.

HISTORY:
The three parts of this new Basil Kirchin album come from three very different tapes from his archive. All parts were unreleased until now.

“Pat’s Pigs” actually sounds to me like a Basil bird recording, slowed and treated, mixed with simple improvisation. But it could well be pigs. Pat’s pigs. This whole tape recording may have been an early experiment towards what was to become Worlds Within Worlds Parts I and II. A lot of Basil’s work was headed in that direction.

“Electronic” – first of all this is not that electronic. There are elements of the classic Kirchin drone sound here, mixed with multiple and treated recordings of the autistic children of Schurmatt, along with Esther, his wife, singing. I remember speaking to Basil many years ago about his Schurmatt recordings. Esther worked as a nurse with the children, Basil got to know many of them, and became fascinated by the extreme musical noises they would make with their voices. This recording is not necessarily for the faint hearted, but makes for extraordinary listening, based on the fact this would have been made and mixed, simply as a classic and progressive Kirchin experiment, back in the late 1960s/ early 1970s. This also has untreated elements that would eventually contribute towards Quantum, his preferred version of the WWW concept.

“The Suspended Fourth” comes across like a soundtrack, so it could well be part of what Basil called his “imaginary film music period”. It has a very distinctive and pastoral Kirchin style leitmotif that repeats along its glorious and slightly disturbed 21 minutes. It’s very well produced, possibly built up and improvised over a few days, could well have been an experiment, a pitch or just something that had to come out in the groovy studio. The tape itself states that this is The Suspended Forth with a subtitle: “The Musical Study Of A Mind, Part 1 Schizophrenia”. It therefore could even be something to do with a soundtrack he was asked to make for a mental heath conference for psychiatrists at Earls Court in the late 1960s (see States Of Mind, JBH005LP – the British jazz musical line seems like it could well be the very same). But who knows for sure? I shall continue looking in the archive for other possible parts.

Before I go, the original title for this album and the artwork come from an empty tape box in the archive, which I think sums up all sorts of things about Basil, his awesome music and the tape archive all at the same time.

More reel discoveries will follow. Thanks for listening as always. 

Yes, at last! Kinky keyboard porn! Whisper porn! Vinyl Porn! And all at the same time.! And what an ASMR treat we have for you here. Recordings of 12 incredible bespoke mechanical keyboards made and recorded by the master of this modern art, Taeha Types. Yes, this is actual typing sounds on amazing future / retro / cutting edge keyboards. Every track different. Every keyboard different. Listen and weep. Or sleep. Or something. An INCREDIBLE and UNIQUE listening experience. The first mechanical keyboard album EVER!!!

HISTORY:
For the last few years a small scene has been growing. The mechanical keyboard scene. It’s now quite a big scene actually. It makes total sense as most of us use keyboards everyday, so why not have an amazing keyboard to use instead of the total crap one you have. I mean just look down. It’s shit isn’t it. So, some people worked out that things could be improved. A lot. So they started to make incredible, kinky keyboards, using both old and new tech: and the possibilities and options in construction are endless. There are key cap options (GMK ABS, PBT etc etc), spring options (Cherry MX, Pandas, Alps etc etc) and even backplate options (steel, aluminum, copper etc etc), and of course case options too. And all these options make a big or little difference. And once made these keyboards are carefully lubricated spring by spring to give them that little extra smoothness and “ping”. The results are beautiful, fetishistic, futuristic in an odd retro style, and they sound AMAZING when they are typed on. This is classic ASMR / whisper porn, the gentle click and rattle of carefully lubed springy keyboards make the hairs on the back of your neck rise. Either that or they gently woo you into a peaceful, sublime state. This is a classic and groundbreaking new Trunk album for our modern stressful times.

The recordings on this album are the first ever release of mechanical keyboard sounds. They are from a selection of (enhanced) keyboards from the 80s, 90s and now. They were recorded by the master maker of the modern mechanical keyboard, Nathan from Taeha Types. He has a large following on Instagram, YouTube (videos of his hands typing on his keyboards hit 10K in just a couple of days after upload), and he now has over half a million views on his Twitch channel where he constructs keyboards live.

Sleevenotes on the album have been put together by Jonny Trunk and Stu London (AKA Futurecrime) from the London mechanical Keyboard scene. He knows what the fuck he is talking about. And you might not understand it, but you can catch up real quick. Like I did.

Album mastered by Jon Brooks, who also really understand these sounds. And if you don’t, don’t worry, lots of others will.

Extraordinary unreleased homemade electronics from the late 1960s made by a pioneering ballet dancer and musician. With possibly the best name ever.

There are very few Ernest Berk recordings. As a pioneering ballet dancer, instructor and electronic music artist he was surprisingly prolific. He made music for all sorts of uses – he even made library music – and of course this very album of his music for two of his ballets.

Towards the end of his life Ernest Berk gifted his entire collection of works, tapes, documents and all to the Historical Archive Of The City Of Cologne. Tragically, in 2009, a large part of the archive collapsed (due to the construction of an underground railway) destroying 90% of the everything. Berk’s tapes have tragically never been recovered. They are assumed lost forever.

So these two recording – issued privately circa 1970 – remain precious to say the least. There were no masters, this new pressing was simply transferred from the original copy held by his family. We have done our best to restore the sound. I have also reproduced the original notes, and from what I can gather this album may well have been pressed and given away as promotion for the Dance Theatre Commune.

Ernest Berk was born in Cologne, Germany and cams to England just before the war. He started a dance company in London and wanted a sound especially suited to his experimental dance style. This he found in electronic music.

Berk feels that electronic music is able to express the feelings of contemporary society in a more potent and communicative way than conventional forms of music. This is not to say he disregards traditional forms of music, rather, he blends the best elements of both, creating a new and exciting sound.

Over the years he has gained an international reputation as a composer of electronic music. His works have been heard in Berlin, Cologne, Florence, Edinburgh, United States, to name a few. He has scored a number of films, plays and ballets. Ernest and his wife, Ailsa, opened a new studio at 52 Dorset St, W1, in April, 1970 where they give tuition in modern dance, electronic music and percussion. They also teach at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama and at ILEA Institute (Stanhope). The studio is headquarters of the Dance Theatre Commune which the Berks created in order to combine their work in dance and music with those already working in similar spheres. 

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Worlds Within Worlds (Part I and II) is one of the most important improvised jazz-based recordings of all time. Released in 1971 it sold just a handful of copies, but has become a keystone in the development of experimental and ambient sounds - originals now fetch £1000+.A perfect released for RSD, this will be the first time this exceptional, unique and highly desirable record has been repressed. Built up using layers of treated and slowed field recordings with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker improvising, WWW offers listeners a mesmerizing sonic experience that remains years ahead of its time. This pressing features a new gatefold sleeve (Kirchin hated the original sleeve), with images of Kirchin, his original field recording tapes and notes by WWW fan Thurston Moore. There are just 1500 being pressed with 250 on gold vinyl, which will be mixed randomly in with the 1250 black versions. There will be no way of telling which colour is which as all LPs will be sealed. The LP will not be repressed. Tracklist:Side One - Part One - Integration (Non-Racial)Side Two - Part Two - The Human Element

Out of print since 2001, a classic trunk records release gets a rare repress. Naïve and pastoral space music at its very best!

As a TV obsessed child, the Clangers was my favourite programme on the box, so you can imagine how excited I was when this came in!

What an unbelievable recording. The entire unreleased score for the entire Clangers TV series - that's music for all 26 episodes. It grows organically (as does the series) from small and simple phrases to complex passages of pure pastoral space music. It all climaxes with the awesome "Harmony Of The Spheres". The running order is exactly as it ran with all 26 episodes and includes some SFX, Tiny Clanger and Oliver Postgate's timeless introduction. This CD also comes with the unique and sweet "Clangers Opera" compiled by Oliver Postgate, an adventure on the Clangers planet starring the Iron Chicken. The CD booklet includes rare photos, early Clangers Sketches and a Libretto for the Clangers Opera written by Oliver Postgate. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Vinyl repress!!!!

Volume five of the killer Britxotica! series, looking this time at 16 super rare and briliantly bonkers latin and percussive pop cues from the wild British Isles!

Britxotica! (pronounced “Britzotica”) neatly describes an odd and yet undocumented pre-Beatles British musical scene where famed UK composers as well as unknown singers and bandleaders threw convention on holiday and went wild wild wild! Put together by Jonny Trunk with DJ / tastemaker and Smashing nighclub legend Martin Green, these groundbreaking new compilations shine new light on lost and forgotten corners of British culture and sound.

For this, Part Five of our planned Britxotica! series we head to lively latin tinged dancefloors where Brits could cha cha cha to the KIrchin band, “Jump In The Line” with Frank Holder and Mambo with Ido or Don. This killer collection of British dance obscurities brings us lively sounds from the rarest UK record bins, including this time an amazing cover version of the legendary loungecore hit “House Of Bamboo” plus the stunning “Jonny One Note” by Ted Heath, the track that originally introduced John Craven’s Newsround. To sum up, this is another exciting, wild and occasionally bonkers compilation by Jonny Trunk and Martin Green, two of the UKs most wild record collectors. Also, there are men in underpants on the sleeve, What’s not to like?

At the good ship Piccadilly we almost always offer our own reviews, but on this occasion I'll leave it to the man himself, Mr. Jonny Trunk.

'Rare and brilliant music as used in the late 1960s Amazing animated series we are not allowed to mention for legal reasons.

Way back in 1967, an animated superhero cartoon was released into the world. It was created by Grantray-Lawrence Animation and was based on a web-spinning, crime fighting blue and red dressed character that had originated in1962, in Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. This amazing series (that we’re not allowed to mention the name of for legal reasons) ran on ABC TV in the USA, then Canada, then a few years later started to spread its web further, running here in the UK throughout summer holidays, after school and possibly early mornings at weekends in the late 1970s. The series then got released on VHS video (and probably Betamax too) in the mid 1980s and still continues to spin its animated magic around the world through further broadcasts, YouTube and DVDs.

The series was notoriously low budget, with animated errors everywhere and numerous scenes, sequences and backgrounds being re-used all the time, often across the same episode. Even a certain spider logo on a costume would appear with six legs, then eight legs later on, then back to six again in the same show.

Series One opened with a newly written spider theme, a classic, hooky song all about doing whatever spiders can, and had, as Big George (RIP) once pointed out to me, a set of session singers falling slightly out of time with the backing track after the first verse. Series One also featured background music by jobbing composers Bob Harris and Ray Ellis but these cues and master tapes are now believed to be lost.

After Series One the company Grantray-Lawrence went bankrupt, so the amazing spider series (that we’re not allowed to mention for legal reasons) was taken on by producer Steve Krantz. He brought in new talent, including animation director Ralph Bakshi who later went on to turn a Robert Crumb strip cartoon into the feature Fritz The Cat. Krantz also slashed the already cripplingly small spider budget, and brought in the idea of using economic library music. Here, thanks possibly to an independent sync agent (it has been suggested that a company called Music Sound Track Services may have been the one) production turned to the KPM catalogue. This was one of the few really established library catalogues around at the time with a modern edge; it was full of fabulous, modern dramatic music tracks – often all on the same LP. But more importantly all the tracks were far longer than the one minute musical cuts that many of the fledgling USA library companies were issuing at the time. Not only would this KPM music be efficient, affordable and very easy to use, it would also mean syndication worldwide would not be held up by any future musical issues. Krantz produced two amazing spider series (that we’re not allowed to mention for legal reasons), and both were smothered with KPM music. In fact barely a spider second goes by without music playing in either the background or foreground.

For many years I – and many nostalgic others - have been thinking about putting this vinyl album together. For many enthusiasts this really is formative music – a junior foray into hip swinging crime jazz and esoteric musical grooviness. I’ve also read on line accounts by DJs from WFMU on the trail of original spider master tapes, and there’s even a whole forum dedicated to “Spidey-Jazz”. Then recently I was looking at an old spider tracklist and realized that several of my favourite KPM cues were there including Syd Dale’s “Hell Raisers” and “Walk And Talk”, both from one of the most elusive and desirable KPM albums of all time (yes, you just try and find yourself a copy of KPM 1002 right now), so I decided to push on and get the album made.

So, what features on this Spider-Jazz Lp? Well it’s music from the amazing TV series we are not allowed to mention for legal reasons, BUT, not music from Series One. No, but it is all from Series Two and Series Three. From looking at archival cue sheets, over 50 tracks from various early KPM 1000 series albums were used across episodes. I’ve distilled this down into one exciting and enthralling LP, and if this works a further Spider Jazz album may well swing in to production. If you’re interested (and I’m sure you may well be) cues here came from KPM1001, KPM1002, KPM1015, KPM1017, KPM1018 and KPM1043 and were composed by master library composers of the era – Dale, Hawkshaw, Hawksworth, Mansfield etc.

And if you are listening over there in the USA, you may well recognize many of the cues here not just from the amazing TV series (that we’re not allowed to mention for legal reasons) but also from classic 1960s and 1970s NFL highlight shows that we are allowed to mention. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Info: Black vinyl edition.

This LP represents the first ever sound recordings from the archive of cult Dutch film director Frans Zwartjes. The sound is unlike anything you maye have heard - dream-like, disjointed, peculiar, unexpected and totally unique. Frans Zwartjes is famous for his art-house films (look him up on YouTube). A Dutch underground auteur, his prolific output dates from 1968.

A unique talent, Zwartjes produced, directed and edited his own films (his last work was in 1991), but more importantly he created and improvised the soundtracks too. Zwartjes is still alive today and his large body of work is only now being recognised by a wider, more international crowd, with screenings at the NFT and other important art-house cinemas across the world. The recordings on Tapes 1 were mixed directly from the Zwartjes soundtrack tape archive.

They were assembled directly and in real time by Zwartjes archivist Stanley Schtinter and were originally issued three years ago on cassette, in an edition of 50. Don’t bother trying to find one of them. The music, sound and speech have been put together as two long, seamless sequences; they are dreamlike, peculiar, plugged-in, prescient and unlike any other soundtrack we have heard.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Shifting between kosmische synthscapes, abstract tape experiments and experimental jazz, this collection of self composed scores from Dutch auteur Frans Zwartjes is batshit, beautiful and brilliant all at the same time.

In August of 2014 a request was sent out by Gilles Peterson for someone to issue the incredibly rare Brazilian LP 'Tam…Tam…Tam…!'

This is because it’s an extraordinary album, only issued once in 1958 as part of Mieco Askanasy’s 1950s touring “Braziliana” show. It’s so rare not even Gilles Peterson has a copy (and let's face it, he doesn't just have a Record Room, he has a whole Record House...).

The original music was written and produced with José Prates and as an album it stands out as a keystone in the development of the Brazilian sound that was to explode around the world in the decade to follow. This is the first time this landmark LP has been issued since 1958. An original, if you ever found one, would cost you in excess of £1000.

The reason Gilles Peterson wanted this album reissued is because it is so extraordinary. Musically it works on a number of levels – firstly that the solid blueprint of 1960s Brazilian music runs throughout it. For example, if you listen to Track Three Side One “Nānā Imborô” you will hear “Mas-Que-Nada”.

Secondly, the infectious rhythms, melodies and exotic sounds that emanate from this album are deep, raw and totally engaging. And the more you listen to 'Tam…Tam…Tam…!' the more you hear its importance and influence.

This rare reissue comes at a crucial time, when in our connected and information saturated world few important things have escaped attention and reappraisal. Finding anything new and genuinely incredible is a rare feat.

One of the rarest, weirdest and most brilliantly odd soundtracks of all time, written and performed by one of the most fascinating underground characters ever.

Described by Jello Biafra as “a disco lounge lizard from hell”, Palmer Rockey and the Palmer Rockey story have to be read to be believed, and even then you might not believe it.

And this album has to be heard properly to understand the madness, weirdness and total passion brought to the studio sometime in Texas in the mid to late 1970s. Palmer Rockey was a remarkable con-artist. He made this one record, the soundtrack to his one weird movie. It’s incredibly rare, only one copy surfacing in the last decade. Once heard you may fall deeply for Palmer’s charms, it’s strangely moving and all wrong, like something straight out of the world of David Lynch.

The edited Palmer Rockey story goes something like this: after a difficult childhood but an interesting education, Palmer Rockey became obsessed by the movies. So obsessed that he travelled to the UK and tried to get a film script to Boris Karloff in Shepperton. Unsuccessful, he returned to Texas to make his own film. To do so (according to legend) he conned rich Texan housewives out of money. When he got money, he shot film, then fell out with the cast and crew. He then conned more money from different women, shot more film with different cast and crew, then fell out with them too. This continued for years. The “finished” film, It Happened One Weekend was only shown once (ironically just once, one weekend), at the premier in Canyon Creek, Sunday October 11th,1974. In fact the photo on the front of the album was shot by his wife the night of the premier. The film was written, produced, edited, directed and starred Palmer Rockey (as twin brothers of course), with all music by Palmer Rockey. The plot was apparently demonic and “beyond the room of terrifying evil”. Also included was a “Sunday Surprise Ending”. I believe the surprise that Sunday was that people laughed all the way through, and even walked out. It was a total disaster on every level, apparently nothing in the movie made any sense at all. But undeterred by such poor reaction he continued to tinker with the film – sure that it would eventually bring him an Academy Award. He released it again and again in several different versions over the next few years, firstly with the title It Happened One Sunday, which played briefly in Denver, El Paso and also at drive-in theatres. The film then disappeared, was recut with new scenes and appeared again in 1980, as Rockey’s Style, Scarlet Love and also Scarlet Warning 666. All the while Palmer Rockey was battling debtors, having already been sued in the 1960s by his uncle for non-payment of loans. There’s not a great deal of information about his career and life in the 1980s, but we do know he passed away in 1996, leaving behind very little apart from debt and this unusual self-pressed album. There is no sign or trace of any version of the film anywhere. And boy, are people looking for it.

Palmer wrote all the music for the film(s), and there are, as far as we know two private issues of the soundtrack from the same period - 1980. There’s Scarlet Love, which was followed (or it’s possibly the other way around) days or weeks later as he’d decided to change the name of the film again, to Rockey’s Style. Both have the same original catalogue number and subtitle of “Movie Album”, and both have track titles that do not match the albums. You will observe we have kept the original and incorrect tracklisting on the album sleeve, but kept the correct ones on the album and CD labels.

Musically it’s beautifully played and oddly performed, with a bizarre sense of passion and surprising honesty. It’s an unusual album in that once heard it sticks like glue to your brain. You may well find your self getting slightly obsessed by it. We certainly have. Sleevenotes include an intro by Jon Brooks of Ghostbox, who not only remastered the album but also quickly became consumed by the music and the Palmer Rockey story. And now this incredible and unique outsider album is released we have to wonder if anyone will ever find the missing Palmer Rockey movie…

This is a truly fascinating record, the holy grail for any self-respecting horror movie buff; the never-before-released soundtrack music from George Romero's classic 1978 zombie flick. Apart from the original score by Italy's Goblin, the film included many pieces of incidental cues and muzak moments. These were collated by Italian director Dario Argento and culled from various sources, concentrating on European music libraries and passing off some as the muzak of the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh where the movie was shot. Jonny Trunk and Joel Martin have sourced many of these rare pieces and issued them for the first time here. From the quirky march of Herbert Chappell's "The Gonk" to the Kinks-ish beat stylings of "Cause I'm A Man" by Electric Banana (AKA The Pretty Things!), this comp provides all the "Dawn Of The Dead" music you could possibly ask for. The perfect soundtrack for mall roaming, Zombies ice-skating, rednecks a-hunting and motorbike gangs getting eaten!