Scandinavian Funk Experience (Nascente - 2011)

I have already written how much the Nascente worldwide funk bargain price compilations serie is brilliant. It explores with originality and good scene the funk scene of country often ignored and always find a way to exhume pure nuggets. Richard Masip digged deep in the EMI North European 60's and 70's scene and succeed to make one of the best volume so far. Who knew that Finland, Denmark, Norway or Sweden had a  musical scene as hot as their porn flicks. Among the highlights, you can find Charles Williams, an American singer expatriated in Finland, who signs with Standing In The Way a stellar soul song. Doris sultry voice on the psychedelic You never Come Closer or on the deep soul influenced Don't is able to melt the ice while Ralph Lundsten infectious Horroscope breakbeat will infest your mind and deserves definitely its slot in any decent DJ playing list.

Download => Scandinavian Funk Experience

Jack Arel - Les Jeunes Loups (Riviera - 1968)

Marcel Carné is one of French greatest filmmakers. In 1968, he realised Les Jeunes Loups mixing French classic literature (the characters are inspired by the writings of Balzac) and Nouvelle Cinema with the burgeoning flower power and sexual liberation movement. Released just before the revolution of may 1968, it was announcing the events to come. The shooting is known to have been a nightmare and Marcel Carné rejected his film when it was over, even refusing to assist to the preview. Sacked by critics, Les Jeunes Loups were a flop and were even never released as VHS or DVD. In fact, nobody has seen this movie. The soundtrack is much easier to get. It was signed by French library maestro, Jack Arel. He mixed deep soul and British Invasion influences with a cool French pop vibe full of killing hammond organ licks. The vocals are credited to Tuesday Jackson, aka French MOR singer Nicole Croisille.

 Download => Jack Arel - Les Jeunes Loups

The Smoke - ... It's Smoke Time (Metronome - 1967)

With their name and the psyche cover of their sole album, The Smoke have everything to attract the paraphanelia occasional user. Hailing from Yorkshire, they started as a band in 1965 goign by the name of The Shots. After a first 7" released on Columbia failed, they considered going a psychedelic road, starting by changing their moniker. Now you had to call them The Smoke. Their next 7", My Friend Jack b/w We Can Take It got banned on British waves for LSL references but charted quite well throughout Western Europe, especially in Germany where was released ... It's Smoke Time LP. The Smoke then got managed by Chris Blackwell, released tracks under a new name, Chords and never made it. In 1974, they called it quit, taking regular jobs as session musicians. That's more or less the complete story of The Smoke. So what's about their music? Was it any good? The answer is a definitive yes: their freaky psyche beat sound is based on strong songwriting habilities and tight musicianship that make them ahead of the average psyche pack of the time. My Frienf Jack is catchy enough to be whistled under the shower and was even given a cheesy disco treatment by Boney M in 1980. I have posted the 1993 Repertoire repress that comes with not less than 14 bonus tracks and among them the sides released as The Shots and Five Chords.

 Download => The Smoke - ... It's Smoke Time

Moby Grape - Moby Grape (San Francisco Sound - 1967)

The guys of The All Music Guide qualified Moby Grape as "one of the finest (perhaps the finest) album to come out of the San Francisco psychedelic scene, brimming with great songs and fresh ideas while blessedly avoiding the pitfalls that pockmarked the work of their contemporaries." With such a critic, I was consequently pretty happy to find this  album in the sales bin of a French famous cultural goods retailing chain. I have always had a mixed feeling with West Coast albums from the Summer of Love era. The psychedelic scene especially often disappointed me. Much albums just don't live up to their reputation, once you pass their most obvious hits:  for example, would you have believed that listening to a Jefferson Airplane complete album was such a boring experience? So what's about the Moby Grape first album? If their bluesy numbers, based on catch guitar riffs, sounds very 60's and will brings tears in the eyes of grey haired boomers (Hey Grandma, Mr. Blues, Fall On You), the band could teach a trick or two on harmony and melodies  to Fleet Foxes and they never let senseless experimentation overcome their tightly written songs and their happy energy. A masterpiece? I don't know. A pretty good album? Yes indeed.

 Download => Moby Grape - Moby Grape

Janko Nilovic & Dave Sucky - Vocal Impressions (Montparnasse 2000 - 1971)

To start that new season of first choice musical nuggets from my record collection, there's is nothing better than this nice Janko Nilovic library LP, recorded for Montparnasse 2000 in 1971. If you speak French and want to learn more about Janko Nilovic, I advise you to read this interview realised in 2004 for the website Scopia: http://scopia.perso.neuf.fr/portrait_nilovic.html That's where I learned that the vocals on this album were made by Janko himself and Graziella Nadrigal. The overall result, between West Coast pop, jazz and bossa is absolutely nice. I haven't posted the original LP but the Vadim Music 2006 CD reedition.

Download =>Janko Nilovic & Dave Sucky - Vocal Impressions

Lee Hazlewood - Poet, Fool Or Bum/Back On The Street Again (EMI - 1973/Maverick - 1977)

Poet, Fool Or Bum and Back On The Street Again are certainly not Lee Hazlewood most revered albums. Poet, Fool Or Bum was greeted by a one word review by the NME ("bum") while Back On The Street Again, recorded in FM hard rock band Scorpions studios in Germany for radio programmer Bobby Bobcine, was just ignored. The album only came out in Sweden, Holland and Germany. Poet, Fool or Bum deserves clearly to be rehabilitated to its real value and is a good Lee Hazlewood record. Eveything we come to like about him is present here. His deep voice from out of grave, his lush arrangements between pop and country. The only things missing are duos with girls. You can find duos with girls on Back On the Street Again but the production work sounds just too cheesy most of the times. It was smelling the end for the great Lee Hazlewood. He never really came back but never gave up nor sold out.

 Download => Lee Hazlewood - Poet, Fool Or Bum/Back On The Street Again

Erotico... Nicaud (Barclay - 1970)

Yes the music sounds like what the cover looks like: erotic gallic pop, in the great Serge Gaisnbourg tradition. Philippe Nicaud was a second rank French actor but was pening texts full of sex and filth when it was about signing. In his case, it's more talkover comedy than actual signing in fact. The symphonic and pop orchestration, influenced by bossa nova and easy listening, was due to Gérard Gustin, a guy you can find behind a lot of French records of the time. Listening to this record is like watching a 70's porn: it's fun, fresh, liberating and makes you believe that something is missing today when it comes about the graphic representation of sexual intercourses between consenting adults. Erotico... Nicaud had the reputation to be a hard to find must-have UFO among record collectors. Vadim Music reedited it in 2009 and it was a brilliant idea. Enjoy, you perverts... It's DSK favorite record, I heard.

 Download => Erotico... Nicaud

Lee Hazlewood - The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides (1968-71) (Light In The Attic - 2012)

LHI stands for Lee Hazlewood Industries. The label was created by the singer in 1967 to support his own releases and a few others. IN 1971, the adventure was over. This compilation focuses on the sides released by Lee during this three years ventures as singles or on the albums The Bed, Cowboy In Sweden, Requiem For An Almost Lady and The Cowboy & The Lady. You can find as well a previously unreleased song, I Just Learn To Run. For those who still doubted, those 17 magnificent songs, between luxuriant country and magnificately crafted and orchestrated pop, prove that Lee Hazlewood was one of the brightest composer and musician of the era. The record cover is brilliant and sums up perfectly what's inside. One of the best new record I bought this year.

 Download => Lee Hazlewood - The LHI Years

Montparnasse 2000 Classics (Pulp Flavor Recordings - 2003)

Guys at Pulp Flavor (aka Dare Dare , aka Vadim Music) gathered 14 nuggets from famous French library label Montparnasse 2000. You probably already know that the term library in the case of Montparnasse 2000 was synonymous of scorching tunes, that give you plenty of occasions to sample a breaks or rock any party. Every single song is a sure winner and make of Montparnasse 2000 Classics a must-have, the time you can find and collect the complete albums. I still have a personnal little preference that goes for the last track, Xenos Cosmos, a psyche jazzy orchestral infectious number by Janko Nilovic.

 Download => Montparnasse 2000 Classics

Resonance - Moto Rock b/w Safari Love (Sirocco - 1974)

I found this Resonance 45 RPM yesterday on a secondhand market for 50 cents and despite the cover was missing, it was definitely a good deal. Both titles are credited to Bacson which is in fact a duo composed of Pierre Bachelet and Mat Camison. They released several singles and one album under the Resonance moniker and all are favorites of any decent eurogroove digger. Moto Rock is a surf track with loud moto engines noises on it, trying to reproduce the atmosphere of a racing field. The real scorcher is the side B, Safari Love, an infectious tribal funk piece, charged with filth and based on percussions, animal samples, African traditional vocals and a funky guitar. 

 Download => Resonance - Moto Rock b/w Safari Love

Dingo! - Sexopolized by DJ BNX (Pulp Flavor - 2001)

Pulp Flavor, Dare Dare and Vadim Music are the different names of the same label. Based in Grenoble, it is (was?) one of the best reedition label I know, the French equivalent to Finders Keepers. They recently destocked all their records and their web site is under  maintenance since one month and I don't know if they didn't go bankrupted, which would be a damn shame. Anyway, Dingo! is a French pop and library music compilation made by DJ BNX from Bordeaux that deserves all due praises. If some big names are present here (Zozoi by France Gall, High Tide by library king Jack Arel, Francis Lai with Number One), all the other titles are rare and were unknown to my ears. They all have in common to be brilliant and original. If you already have exhausted the US, British, Jamaican, Brazilian and African music scenes, try to explore the French one, there are plenty of nice things and scorching breaks (listen to Je Veux Te Dire Une Chanson by Angelillo & Hamel for example) to discover. 

 Download => Dingo!

La Formule Du Baron (CBS - 1969)

 All right all right, this one is not a that much hidden French deviant groove gem. It has been already pretty much blogged about and is famous all around the world among beat diggers, break fanatics, rare groove connoisseurs, euro groove fanatics. Bernard Estardy, to compose it, used his studio as a proper instrument and it's probably while La Formule Du Baron sounds that much unbelievably cool, still up to date and good. Some would still today sell a testicule or a kidney for that sound and that level of inspiration. The funniest thing is that Bernard Estardy, seconded here by Etienne Roda Gil, is well known to have churn out and produced thousands of cheesy pop songs for French worst and most famous singers. Nearly 99% of his work is absolute unlistenable garbage (the guy is well known to be featured on literaly hundreds records) while  the 1% left is pure genius. So enjoy his genius side and let's forget all the rest. In fact, The reputation of La Formule Du Baron is so high that even if it has been often reedited, this record is still complicated to find for a decent price whether on CD or vinyl. 

Download => La Formule Du Baron

This Are Two Tone (2 Tone Records/Chrysalis - 1983)

Jerry Dammers started 2 Tone Records in 1979. With a strong visual identity (the iconic Walt Jabsco logo, created with Horace Panter and designer John "Teflon" Sims, the black-and-white check patern) and an excellent roster consisting mainly of Jerry Dammers own The Specials, Madness, The Selecter, The Beat, 2 Tone strong imprint on British society  of the early 80's cannot be dennied. Its mix of ska with post-punk flashes was at first the soundtrack of the fights against racism, Maggie Thatcher and its reactionary rethoric. The skinhead movement fell then into fascist brutality and hooliganism. This Are Two Tone gives you one of the best insight available on 2 Tone catalog and features absolute classics like The Special's Gangsters, Rudi, A Message To You, Ghost Town, The Selecter's On My Radio and Too Much Pressure, Madness' Madness or The Beat's Tears Of A Clown cover.

Download => This Are Two Tone

Dou Da Dou - The Unlimited French Lostcatalogue (Vadim Music - 2005)

Vadim Music is a nice label located in the French Alps, near Grenoble, and specialized in the reedition of French pop, pysche, library, soundtracks or jazzy nuggets. Dou Da Dou is an excellent compilation of rare singles by the likes of France Gall, Jack Ary, François de Roubaix or Demis Roussos. Some of those names might afraid people familiar with French music, because they quickly fell into mainstream mediocrity but Vadim guys exhumed pretty intersting sides of their work. France Gall song, Zoïzoï, stays her most sought-after recording while Demis Roussos' A Travers Montmartre, penned with Stelios Valvianos, could be featured on any blaxploitation soundtrack. Very catchy, sexy and amazing. One of my favorite compilation.

Download => Dou Da Dou

Those Shocking, Shaking Days - Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock And Funk : 1970 - 1978 (Now Again - 2010)

If you are fed up with my previous Mods posts, you'll find today rarest and more unusual sounds. Egon's one and onely Now Again Records label, explores this time the Indonesian psyche scene of the 70's. American, West European and African scenes have been largely explored, compiled and reedited but the Asian artists stay relatively ignored. Egon associated his digging forces with Jason "Moss" Connoy and Benny Soebardja to release this 20 titles anthology. Those Shocking Shaking Days is your only chance to ear Rollies funkd Bad News, Shark Move's Evil War, already sampled by Madlib, Super Kid slow psyche funk People, a mix between The Temptations produced by Norman Whitfield and Roy Ayers, or The Gang Of Harry Roesli fabulous break at the beginning of Don't Talk About Freedom. All this makes me think to the Tropicalia movement that was happening in Brazil at the same time. In both countries you find artists that were trying to break traditional musical molds and using Western music forms like a breath of fresh air in a harsch political context charaterized by a dictatorship. Like always with Now Again, the reedition work is splendid. You can find a nicely illustrated book accompanying CD with pictures of all the records covers and complete notes on each songs.

Download => Those Shocking Shaking Days

The Mark Four - The Creation (EVA Records - 1992)

If you like my Decca post a couple of weeks ago, then you'll appreciate this german pressing compilation of the sides recorded by The Mark Four/The Creation between 1964 and 1967. The Mark Four switched their name for The Creation in 1966 and had already changed two of their original line-up members (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_%28band%29). When Alan McGee decided to create his label in 1983, Creation records, he borrowed the name of his favorite band, The Creation. This is probably one of the biggest legacy of The Creation, a band that is still vowed by garage aficionados. When you here the raw energy of the tracks of this nice little compilation, you easily understand why.

Download => The Mark Four - The Creation

The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird (Garrett Records - 1963)

If you want to learn everything about The Trashmen, just hit the internet or read the nice line note of this excellent Charly 2011 reedition. Surfin' Bird has acquired a cult status amon punk and garage collectors and when you hear their raw take on rock'n'roll, you easily understand why. Surfin' Bird, their only hit single, is a combination of two R&B hits by The Rivingtons, Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and The Bird's the Word and probably the first single to chart with a sick punk voice on it. The Trashmen gained a new popularity in the mid 90's when Quentin Tarentino made of Misirlou the opening theme of Pulp Fiction.

The Beat Scene (Decca Record - 1998)

Decca released a serie of 8 compilations at the end of the 90's, gathering their 45 rpm released in the 60's in the wake of The Beatles early success. Decca A&Rs were looking for the next Beatles, a band they declined to sign,  and the label started to churn out 7" made by bands with a name starting with "the". Most were just one hit wonders, giving up everything they had on two sides and then vanishing into showbiz obscurity, even if people like Joe Cocker, The Knack or Andrew Oldam had a nice career afterwards.  It's  good old fashioned rock'n'roll with a nice poppy garage british swag. 

Download => The Beat Scene

Pachuco-Soul! - A Collection Of Vintage East-L.A. Grooves From The Vaults Of Rampart Records (Vampisoul - 2004)

Fourth post in a row on a label compilation. This time, it's the Eastside sound of Rampart Records. Eastside goes for the Eastside part of Los Angeles and its Mexican American community and musicians. The entire Eastside scene success was due largely to one man, Eddie Davis, that produced and pushed hundreds of records from 1958 to the early nineties. His biggest selling record was Land Of 1000 Dances by Cannibal And the Headhunters, the kind of garage anthemic sound the Eastside bands were famous for. They followed all the musical trends, from rock'n'roll, doo-wop, funk, soul and even disco, spicing it up from times to times with traditional Mexican instrumentation like a mariachi trumpet on The Majestics' (I Love Her So Much) It Hurts Me, the Santana sound alike latin rock of Tocayo (Con Safos) or on Mickey & The Mex-Tex's Borracho. The Frog by The Village Callers is the real curiosity on Pachuco-Soul! because it saw this latin soul band venturing into bossa territories. Another massive song is Skylite's Boogie Butt and its infectious bassline. Break diggers will go directly to One G Plus Three's Poquito Soul. You won't find only songs released on Rampart Records here but others as well released on labels like Faro Records, Linda Records or Valhalla Records. The legacy of the Eastside sound is still well alive today inside the Mexican American community, especially thanks to the lowriders fans who made of doo-wop and sweet soul their official soundtrack (cf. the excellent article on this scene published in the number 49 of Waxpoetics).

Download => Pachuco-Soul!

La Onda Vampi (Vampisoul - 2011)

With La Onda Vampi, Spanish reedition label Vampisoul offers a quick look on its recent releases. The menu is written on the cover: 60s R&B, Spanish ye-yé, highlife, latin soul, tropicalia, psych intrumentals, boogaloo, afrobeat, flamenco rumba, iranian rare groove. My personnal favorites are the Czech psyche beat of Marta Kubisova's Ja Tu S Tvari Nemennou, the dubbed cumbia of Frente Cumbiero and Mad Professor's La Bocachico and of course Joe Bataan's Latin Soul Square Dance. This compilation can be acquired for a bargain price and is a perfect sonic antidote to the every economic crisis in the old world.

Download => La Onda Vampi