Unreleased electronic / jazz / madness from two titans of jazz and experimentation: JOHN SURMAN and KARIN KROG.

I could now write a load of blown up puffery about how amazing this is, but everyone does that, and a lot of the time it’s all a load of bollocks. But basically this was sent to me by Karin / John when I asked if they had anything hanging about that had not been released. This came through and blew my tiny mind. Like something from prime Annette Peacock “Pony” period. Here is what John Surman said…

John Surman writes:
Back in 2012/13 there had been some talk about a big futuristic open air urban dance/theatre production for about 80/100 actors/dancers with lasers and all kinds of lighting effects on different stages. I was invited to get involved and, together with Ben and Karin, we eventually decided to get to work on some ideas. I think that the original plan was that in performance there would be a mixture of live music and electronica.

Not altogether surprisingly, bearing in mind the complexity of the project, it never moved forward and developed into anything more than an interesting idea. It was probably over ambitious & I guess the funding never came through.

The only information I that I can find relating to the production refers to two silent movies made in 1927/1928 by the filmmaker Eugene Deslaw, entitled `La Marche Des Machines´ and `Les Nuits Électriques.These were clearly intended to act as inspiration for the project.

After months turned into years it became obvious that the project was going nowhere, and so the recorded music laid around gathering dust until Johnny Trunk asked Karin if she had any interesting music that he might be interested in releasing. One thing led to another and so, finally, Electric Element found a home!

For anyone interested in the equipment used this will have to be an approximation since the memory might be playing tricks. Karin was probably using a Yamaha Rex50 f/x unit, a Roland VT-3 Voice Transformer and an Oberheim Ring Modulator. I was playing Bass Clarinet and Contrabass Clarinet through various f/x units together with a Yamaha WX5 wind synth. All the instruments and voice were also processed through Ben´s equipment. After writing this I asked Ben for his recollections and he came up with the following:

John, Karin and I created this music in 2 or 3 days in the winter of 2013 at their studio in Oslo, Norway. I followed up with another 2 or 3 days of mixing, editing and post-processing . We kept a collaborative, improvisational and free-form approach to the sessions. I grew up immersed in music such as Cloudline Blue, the 1979 duo album of Krog/Surman, and this felt like a similar approach. I have mixed sound for many of their live duo concerts and I would use effects and electronics as an
accompaniment and counterpoint to the performed music. The relation of organic and artificial sound sources in music has always fascinated. In this case, I used some contemporary digital signal processing to introduce my own aesthetic into the conversation, in particular using granular synthesis to recombine small 'clouds' of sound into alternate forms. Some of the software tools I used included Ableton Live, Max/MSP and Reaktor.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
Mutual Capacitance
R (2)
Electrostatic Couplings
R (1)
Inductive Crosstalk

Side Two:
R (3)
Propagation Delay
R (5)
09 Compression Splice

Recently discovered lost and unissued score by Basil Kirchin to wild surreal freak horror movie from 1974. Plus bonus unissued spooky TV score with groovy Eastern vibes.

So, here we are again, with more super sounds from the Basil Kirchin archive. As usual, it’s a shame Basil is not here to share in our love for his music or to fill us in a bit on who was playing what, when and why.

I can tell you for sure that the music for The Mutations dates from 1974, and was the score to the bizarre Jack Cardiff film starring Donald Pleasence and Tom Baker. It’s a pretty freaky film with Pleasence playing the part of a deranged scientist genetically crossing humans with plants, and ultimately causing all sorts of unpleasant issues for everyone, including the makeup department.

As for Journey Into The Unknown, this is a tape from the archive with just “Journey Into The Unknown” written on it and very little else. This dates from 1968, and is from a series of spooky British TV dramas with supernatural twists and the occasional American guest star, like Barbara Bel Geddes, Stefanie Powers and Roddie McDowell. Seems like a forerunner of Tales Of The Unexpected. There were 17 episodes in all over a year and a half, and Basil scored two - Episode 7 The Madison Equation and Episode 11, The Indian Spirit Guide. Other composers drafted in for scoring duties throughout the run included David Lindup, Bernard Ebbinghouse and the ubiquitous John Scott. There is no theme here as the series used a whistling one written by the Scottish composer Harry Robinson that was used throughout the series. Robinson had previously worked on TV shows such a Six-Five Special and also went on to write the music for Twins Of Evil for Hammer.

The score we have here from the two episodes comes as a series of vignettes and longer more experimental cues that dip into Kirchin’s music vocabulary (or bottom drawer) and will be oddly familiar at times to anyone with an ear for his brilliant past work. Thrilling to hear it all now, like staying hello to Basil all over again. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
The Mutations 1 - 10
Side Two:
The Mutations 11 Journey To The Unknown - Unreleased TV Score

Sublime electronic underwater score from 1981 by former member of Black Sabbath. Comes with unique blank seascape sleeve with sticker sheet to make your own underwater scene sleeve. How super fucking cool is that?

SLEEVENOTES
Since I started collecting records I have been slightly obsessed with underwater music. I could analyse this in many ways but the most obvious starting point for me was the weekly dose of Sunday afternoon TV onboard the Calypso with Jacques Cousteau throughout the 1970s.

My collection of underwater LPs and singles is now extensive - in the hundreds I reckon. But in amongst it all is only one underwater soundtrack from the UK. And this is it. It took me an age to track down Jezz, but I did. And now you don’t have to take an age to track down an original super rare copy of the 1981 pressing.

These days when there are so may represses, rediscoveries and reissues, I thought we’d make this stand out a little more, so I decided to take us all back to my childhood 1970’s when I used to get a little “Action Transfer” set on very special occasions, and stick the little transfers of scuba divers, fish and mini subs all over a small paper underwater landscape. Sadly we couldn’t get classic rub down Letraset style transfers but I think Kev (DJ Food) has done a miraculous job in creating a modern version.

So sit back (mess about with the stickers) and wonder at the beautiful, submersive electronic sounds created by Jezz all those years ago. Dive in, the water is lovely.
Jonny Trunk 2023.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
1 Wonderland In The Wilderness
2 Nature On A Knife Edge
Side Two:
3 Sunken Tombs Of The Truk Lagoon
4 Magic Of The Dolphin

Incredible jazz / prog / folk score to groundbreaking tattoo film by maverick filmmaker. Unreleased until now, so don’t go saying it’s a reissue because it isn’t, but I’m sure some people will because they always do.

John Samson (1946 - 2004) was a truly great documentary maker. He must be as I’ve been obsessed with his work for many years. Educated first at Glasgow School Of Art (circa 1963) and then finally in the art of film making at The National Film And Television School in Beaconsfield - he headed there in its opening year of 1971 having made a short film that got him a scholarship. It was at the NFTS that Samson met Mike Wallington, who was to become his right hand man and eventual producer; together as a quite brilliant team they made a handful of inspiring, entertaining and hugely prescient films about important, overlooked, unseen and marginal fringes in society.

Tattoo (1975) Exploring the rather clandestine world of tattooing in the UK.

Dressing For Pleasure (1977) Exploring the rather clandestine world of festish in the UK.

Brittania (1979) A film about railway enthusiasts and a steam train restoration. Arrows (1979) The life of dart player Eric Bristow.

Drag Ball (1981) An unreleased film about the annual Porchester Hall Drag Ball.

The Skin Horse (1983) BAFTA winning film about The Outsiders Club, a dating agency for disabled people.

The subject matter in all films was always unusual for the time, and Samson managed to navigate his way with compassion, interest and subtlety, immersing himself in the chosen scene and producing moving, fascinating and sometimes darkly amusing situations. His documentaries also do not rely on traditional voiceovers, with stories, facts and narrative threads being dictated by the subjects.

I’ve tried for a long time to find the music for a couple of his early films (there was actually an original 7” for Arrows) - so far this is the only unreleased soundtrack I have found. This one was written by Steve Jolliffe, who met Samson at the NFTS. Joliffe was the resident composer and had a room at the college complex where he could work on scores for the fledgling film makers. Jolliffe was and still is a multi-instrumentalist and prolific composer who had met Edgar Froese at the Berlin Konservatorium in the late 1960s and played in an early incarnation of Tangerine Dream. He toured with blues rock outfit Steamhammer, before hanging out at the NFTS, making this recording (and many others) and eventually rejoining Tangerine Dream in the late 1970s. Jolliffe still writes, records and releases today and once i had made contact with him we traced the original Tattoo master tape to a box at his brother’s house. Musically it’s charming, slightly folky, a touch baroque, there’s a whiff of prog too, and it perfectly suited this early documentary about the art and desire of tattoos. I only wish it was longer. But the film is only 16 minutes long. Seek it out if you can. Try and find all the Samson films, they really are a joy.

As well as featuring intimate footage of tattooed people, the film also includes a rare and very early interview with Alan Oversby (better known as Mr Sebastian), a seminal character in the development of tattoos and body modifications worldwide - it was he who eventually was to tattoo and pierce Genesis P-Orridge.

The images for this vinyl release were all found in Mike Wallington’s Tattoo documentary research folder from 1974, and were photos sent in to Mike and John by people who wanted to feature in the film. Most answered an advert in Time Out, and others included people from my home town of Aldershot where tattooist Bill Skuse and his wife, Rusty (the most tattooed woman in Britain at the time, and featured in the film) were based. His parlour was situated at the back of the arcade where we all used to lose all our pocket money in the slot machines.

The Musicians:
Steve Jolliffe - keyboards, flute, sax Geoff Jolliffe - bass guitar Julian Furniss - guitar Mick Kirby – drums.

Sublime unreleased soundtrack by Ron Geesin, to one of the most important and controversial films in British cinema history.

Standard black vinyl (750 Copies) with sleeve art taken from the 1971 film poster. Cool as fuck.

Side One is the score for Sunday Bloody Sunday, the controversial 1971 drama directed by John Schlesinger. Starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson and Murray Head, it tells the story of an open love triangle between a gay Jewish doctor, a divorced woman and a bisexual young male artist who makes glass fountains. Daniel Day Lewis also makes his uncredited screen debut as a yobbo scratching up posh cars. The films significance at the time of release lay in the depiction of a mature gay man who was both successful, well adjusted and at peace with his sexuality.

The music on Side Two comes from two different sources: tracks one to four are from the 1985 Channel Four documentary about Viv Richards. Simply called “Viv” it was directed by Greg Lanning, with words and narration by Darcus Howe. It was (and still is) a fascinating film recounting Richards’ rise from young talented Antiguan to global cricket superstar. It also explored the long history of West Indian players through the English game. Howe later recalled how seeing Viv Richards walking out to bat at the Oval (just down the road from where Howe lived in Brixton) without a helmet on no matter how fast the bowler was - and wearing his Rasta sweatbands of gold, green and red, was inspirational. The documentary was later re-titled ‘Viv Richards - King Of Cricket’ for the video market, and let’s face it, that’s a more commercial title. I’d strongly recommend trying to track it down to spend an hour or so in the company of Viv and Darcus. As I write this it’s still up on a popular online streaming site for free.

The last six cues of Side Two are from a 1970 BBC Omnibus film ‘Shapes In A Wilderness’. Directed by Tristram Powell this was a documentary about the importance and influence of art therapy in mental hospitals, tracing its origins from a painting hut in a wartime military hospital to its successful and widespread incorporation in institutions. It featured fascinating medical insights, disturbing imagery and Ron’s finely tuned accompaniment. On its original transmission John Schlesinger saw it and was heard to say “I must have that composer for my new film!”. And he got his way.

I could spend another paragraph analysing the music and stuff like that but you can listen and work all that out for yourself. But I will say that all the music just confirms the fact that Ron Geesin is one of the most underrated, inventive and versatile composers (and musicians) we have.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1: Sky HIgh Balloons
2: Intriguing Cables
3: Bittersweet Reflections
4: Affections For String Quartet (unknown Studio String Quartet)
5: Chemical Dreams (voice Bridget St. John)
6: Blitzful Memories
7: Piccadilly Bustle
8: Motoring Sparkle (Second Gtr: Bridget St. John)
9: Wayward Balloons
SIDE TWO
Tracks 1 - 4 From The Soundtrack Of ‘Viv’
1: War Of The Willow
2: Slo-Mo Bowl
3: Through Loud Bamboo
4: Antiguan Stroll Tracks
5 -10 From The Soundtrack Of ‘Shapes In A Wilderness’
5: Mad Picture Gallery
6: Sculptural Drift
7: Muttering Mini Monsters
8: Cranial Cathedral
9: Ghostly Wasps
10: Hope And Misery

Legendary privately pressed 1979 LP from Scotland. This illusive, super rare and sublimely wonderful percussion album is like no other. Hypnotic, celestial, even cosmic and ambient in parts and totally unique in all ways, it was played by a group of 11 girls with an average age of 14. The group included Evelyn Glennie, who was destined to become one of the world’s greatest percussionists. This is her first ever record.

The Cults Percussion Ensemble was a group formed by percussion teaching legend Ron Forbes in the mid 1970s. The ensemble must have one of the best group names of all time. To many it will immediately come across as something sinister, a touch spooky and possibly a bit dramatic too. They are certainly two of those but the use of the word “Cults” here is easily misinterpreted. Cults, in this case, is the suburb of Aberdeen.
The average age of the students was just 14. They came from a few of the schools in the area, including the Cults Academy, Ellon Academy, Aboyne Academy, Inverurie Academy and Powis.

My original copy of the album came from Spitalfields market in London. I loved the music the second it started, because it reminded me of Carl Orff and peculiar library. So I started to investigate it further, and eventually, thanks to the highly tuned world of percussion, was given the address of Ron Forbes. I got in touch with him and now we have this, a formal release of something quite lovely that was only previously available very briefly in 1979 at concerts when the young girls performed.

The music here is really quite unique, with a celestial swirling hypnotic quality. The blend of glockenspiels, xylophones, vibraphones, marimba and timpani drums is quite intoxicating and can recall the shimmering warmth of the desert sun one minute (“Baia”) or freezing glacial ice caps the next (“Circles”). The Ensemble perform with an effortless tightness and deftness of touch, building textured layers with recurring percussive motives which appear simultaneously dense and yet sparse, almost sounding like modern sampling. In fact, while struggling to find a musical comparison, during the pulsating introduction to "Percussion Suite" I found myself recalling "Gamma Player", a piece of soulful Detroit techno minimalism from Jeff Mills (Millsart - “Humana” EP 1995) with its rhythmic percussion layered with complex emotion. Weirdly enough, other tracks on that EP also prominently feature xylophone and tuned percussion, although obviously synthesised and programmed, a good 20 years after the CPE first recorded.
Sleevenotes also include a letter from Ron Forbes:

“I decided to form a percussion group to provide an outlet for my percussion pupils to play music specially written for them. The group soon became well known in the region and as a result of winning the outstanding award at the National Festival of Music for youth on three occasions, they were invited to play at other festivals within Europe, one being in Erlangen in Germany - hence the Erlangen Polka - and Autun in France - hence the Autun Carillon. During these visits we were often asked if we had any recordings and so it was decided to make an LP”.

Thanks to Ron Forbes and Trunk Records, more people can now enjoy the simple hypnotic musical charms of the Cults Percussion Ensemble 

TRACK LISTING

Autun Carillon
Baia
My Love She’s But A Lassie Yet
Circles
Percussion Suite (3rd Movement)
The Little Dancer
Two Jubilee Pieces
Erlangen Polka
Dream Angus
Surrey With The Fringe On Top
Irish Washerwoman
Polymers

The unreleased soundtrack from the 1970 film. Black vinyl with a random sprinkling of “office door” clear ones ie randomly packed.

OVERVIEW:
Oh my God. This is mindblowing. Like Wow. Incredible. Amazing. Breathtaking. Super wow. And wow again. And another wow. Jesus Christ wow. Like bloody hell wow. I really cannot believe it wow. 

THE MUSIC:
Unreleased until now and super duper wow. Like British pastoral jam with killer drums, bass and percussion. Just dying for some huge hip hop producer to come and piss all over it, in a good way. This record is the hidden monster, the one killer OST no one saw or heard.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
Bartleby 1
Bartleby 2
Bartleby 3
Bartleby 4
Bartleby 5
Bartleby 6

Side Two:
Bartleby 7
Bartleby 8
Bartleby 9
Bartleby 10
Bartleby 11

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.

TRACK LISTING

Side One
Pastures Of Plenty

Side Two
Notte Infinita

Another superb adventure in the Britxotica! series, looking into rare and amazing exotic British recordings. For this exciting installment we waltz to the British ballrooms for charismatic Cha Cha Chas, magical mambos and a whole set of floor filling fun!

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 Four of our planned Britxotica! series we head to the now defunct British ballrooms for a set of dynamic and often extraordinary dance numbers - charming cha cha chas (including “Cha Cha Pop Pop”), lively latin and some fabulously freaky footappers including a classic version of “Cerveza”. Composers and artists include ballroom band legends such as Edmundo Ros, Ted heath and Stanley Black, but also we have found work by lost geniuses such as John Graven and John Warren who are very much worthy or reappraisal.

In short, this is another crazy and charismatic compilation of British music so obscure and rare that only Trunk Records could find and package it so superbly and with such effortless and comedic style.

Jonny Trunk presents “Funny Old Shit”, a 17 track compilation of funny old shit from the Trunk archive. From calypsos sung by Bernard Cribbins and Robert Mitchum to avant-garde French concrete, with stops at post punk, killer vocal jazz, BBC Radiophonics, music from 'Les Vacances de M. Hulot', early African fusion, Argentinian film music and even some twitchy classical from Glenn Gould, this groundbreaking compilation flies in the face of the current trend for issuing records that to be honest are actually quite average and really very expensive indeed for what they are. This is a total bargain, an education and a right bloody laugh. Although some people will actually think it’s shit - but not us here at Piccadilly. We love ecclectic and we love oddball.

The Tracks: Bernard Cribbins is a god, so Bernard was a great place to start, and can you name any other song apart from “Gossip Calypso” featured here that manages to squeeze in the words “Oxy Acetylene welder”? No, I can’t either. This is followed by modern classical music played on strange sculptures by the prolific team of Jacques Lasry and Bernard Baschet, Their sound is reminiscent of film music by Cliff Martinez, and that’s maybe because Cliff has a Crystal Baschet sculptural instrument too. If you look on-line you can see him play it. Next we travel to Argentina for some lovely film music and then to an early fusion of Africa and America with Guy Warren and Red Garland getting all hip and proto rap. This is followed by a classic chunk of minimal modern music from 1981 by The Jellies. I’ve put this on the sampler as the record I made of it sold out ages ago and it’s expensive now and loads of people who missed it need to hear just how good it is. Next up is the B side from the first ever BBC Radiophonic Workshop record, which, incidentally was produced by George Martin. After this we can absorb some high culture with Noel Coward reciting Ogden Nash’s words written in 1949 to accompany the romantic classic masterpiece The Carnival Of The Animals, composed way back in 1886. We then move to a high point in low culture and to the world’s best worst singer, Leoni Anderson. She starred with Laurel And Hardy in one of their many films, and her one and only album is a terrifying delight. “Rats in My Room” also featured on Desert Island Disks in August 2013 when award winning film production designer Eve Stewart chose it as one her fave eight tracks.

As a lover of very fine vocal jazz too I had to throw in “Naima”, a staggering version of Coltrane’s classic. During a talk by Robert Wyatt a few years ago he revealed that he though this was one of the best bits of music ever made, and I agree with him. A small piece of educational electronics by Terry Dwyer (more about him in a forthcoming Trunk LP) makes quite a good little plugged-in interlude, which leads us nicely to the main theme for the Jacques Tati classic, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Eccentric pianist Glenn Gould then appears with the beginning of his legendary Goldberg Variations recording, and then I realized I seem to be nudging towards interesting classical recording a bit, which I think is no bad thing. And before you know it, we’re back enjoying some proper experimental concrete tape larks.

Never one to resist a film star singing, I found it almost impossible to not stick in Robert Mitchum singing, and then I realized when I was writing these notes that that this was the second calypso-based record on this very small sampler, and then I thought that very fact might enhance the idea of the whole thing really being a bit “shit”. After Bob we can all enjoy a super rare recording issued to accompany the 1962 kitchen sink drama A Taste Of Honey. It’s a song that repeats throughout the film, amplifying the fact that Jimmy, Jo’s lover, has buggered off to sea. We finish with Yusef Lateef’s version of Alex North’s sublime “Love Theme” from the film Spartacus. It’s a perfect musical spot where an incredible film melody has met one of the great experimental jazzmen of all time. The results are quite exceptional. It’s also a cue that I often use at end of a long set, so for me it was the obvious choice for the last cue here.

So chums, that’s Funny Old Shit. The idea is to put together more of these samplers with friends, guest and other groovy collectors and to draw you in further to the funny old shit musical world that is Trunk Records. Thanks for listening.

Jonny Trunk 2014

TRACK LISTING

1. Gossip Calypso - Bernard Cribbins
2. Rapsodie De Budapest - Lasry Baschet
3. Waltz In 16mm - Sergio Mihanovic
4. The High Life - Guy Warren Of Ghana With Red Garland
5. Jive Baby On A Saturday Night (Radio Edit) - The Jellies
6. Waltz In Orbit - Ray Cathode (Radiophonic Workshop)
7. Aquarium - Camille Saint-Saëns, Ogden Nash, Noel Coward
8. Rats In My Room - Leoni Anderson
9. Naima - The Double Six Of Paris
10. Material 1 Bubbles - Terry Dwyer
11. How Is The Weather In Paris - Alain Romans
12. Goldberg Variations BWV 988
I3. Aria - Glenn Gould
14. Classique: Bidule Et Un - Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer
15. Tic Tic Tic - Robert Mitchum
16. Big Ship Sails On The Alley-Alley-O - John Addison, From The Film A Taste Of Honey
17. Love Theme From Spartacus - Yusef Lateef

Privately pressed in Scotland in 1979, this elusive and quite wonderful percussion / jazz album is like no other. Played by a group of 11 girls with an average age of 14, the group included Evelyn Glennie, who was destined to become one of the world’s greatest percussionist. This is her first ever record.

Johnny Trunk says:

The Cults Percussion Ensemble was a group formed by percussion teaching legend Ron Forbes in the mid 1970s. The ensemble must have one of the best group names of all time. To many it will immediately come across as something sinister, a touch spooky and possibly a bit dramatic too. They are certainly two of those but the use of the word “Cults” here is easily misinterpreted. Cults, in this case, is the suburb of Aberdeen.

The average age of the students was just 14. They came from a few of the schools in the area, including the Cults Academy, Ellon Academy, Aboyne Academy, Inverurie Academy and Powis.

My original copy of the album came from Spitalfields market in London. I loved the music the second it started, because it reminded me of Carl Orff and peculiar library. So I started to investigate it further, and eventually, thanks to the highly tuned world of percussion, was given the address of Ron Forbes. I got in touch with him and now we have this, a formal release of something quite lovely that was only previously available very briefly in 1979 at concerts when the young girls performed.

The music here is really quite unique, with a celestial swirling hypnotic quality. The blend of glockenspiels, xylophones, vibraphones, marimba and timpani drums is quite intoxicating and can recall the shimmering warmth of the desert sun one minute (“Baia”) or freezing glacial icecaps the next (“Circles”). The Ensemble perform with an effortless tightness and deftness of touch, building textured layers with recurring percussive motives which appear simultaneously dense and yet sparse, almost sounding like modern sampling. In fact, while struggling to find a musical comparison, during the pulsating introduction to "Percussion Suite" I found myself recalling "Gamma Player", a piece of soulful Detroit techno minimalism from Jeff Mills (Millsart - “Humana” EP 1995) with its rhythmic percussion layered with complex emotion. Weirdly enough, other tracks on that EP also prominently feature xylophone and tuned percussion, although obviously synthesised and programmed, a good 20 years after the CPE first recorded.

The LP comes with a new sleeve and the CD has a 6 page fold out booklet, which includes biographies and rare shots of the ensemble

STAFF COMMENTS

Philippa says: Not what you'd expect a privately pressed album by a group of 14 year old girls from late 70s Scotland to sound like. Forget preconceived ideas about scratchy, poorly recorded school bands, this is an impressive percussive jazz album with great sound.

At last! The classic music from this important TV series is now available! Yes, to many people who grew up near a television in the 1970s and 1980s, Fingerbobs was a curious, formative and hugely inspiring series. Only 13 episode were made but were often repeated. It starred the audacious Fingermouse, a host of his paper friends (Scampi, Gulliver, Flash), and was fronted by folk musician, actor and former Play School presenter Rick Jones as “Yoffy”. Each episode involved simple craft, music and a story or fable based on that week’s theme (such as sound, wood, shapes and shadows). The whole series was conceived, created and modelled in a briliant home made style by the legendary husband and wife team Joanne and Michael Cole, the minds behind much of Playschool, the books and TV series Bod, and Ragtime.

The Fingerbobs album has been quite hard to put together; there are no masters and very little paper based archive to speak of, so no set stills, no paper puppets. All that really remains are a few scraps of paper in the Cole’s very small archive and the Fingerbobs annual, which contains nothing but pecualir drawings, none that really relate to the show. But, as the album was going to print Lo Cole found an exceptionally rare promotional flyer for the series in 1973 when it was first aired, and this wonderful little gem is what has been used to make the fabulous artwork.

In order to produce a musical album worthy of release, Jonny Trunk entrusted the ears and musical abilities of Jon Brooks (AKA The Advisory Circle) to pull together a musical collage of the whole series. So, we have all the themes, all the songs, all the instrumentals, a scattering of stories too. The music is a touch folky, a little whimsical, classically nostalgic, humble, hip, witty and occasionally camp (Gulliver’s song). Fingerbobs was possibly the last remaining unreleased score from TVs golden era, and finally, thanks to this first ever release, we can now enjoy it whenever or wherever we want. Like in the car with the kids. Which is a very good thing indeed.