Jean-Claude Vannier - Electro Rapide (Finders Keepers - 2011)

You lucky people: I just have decided to post another Jean-Claude Vannier hidden gem. Finders Keepers connoisseurs gathered 14 nuggets made for library records, French TV (kids programs mainly) or even previously unreleased in the 60's and 70's. Beyond pop, classical music or jazz, Vannier finds here often his inspiration in traditional Northern Africa music as well. Brilliant work from the beginning to the end and I really regret it's only 25 minutes long, with the majority of the tracks lasting less than 2 minutes. This record is not that much avalaible on the internet so nuff' said, just listen to it and if you like it, buy it, Finders Keepers, a label going through hard times since the loss of its stock since last summer PIAS warehouse fire, largely deserves it.

Download => Jean-Claude Vannier - Electro Rapide

Jean-Claude Vannier - L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (Suzelle - 1972)

In an april 1972 morning, Jean-Claude Vannier was listening with his friend Serge Gainsbourg the instrumental album he had just written and that still had no name. He had already used a track for a Yves Saint Laurent fashion show in 1971 but didn't really know what to do with the rest. He let the tapes to Gainsbourg for the night and in the morning Serge had imagined a fantastic story upon his music: L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, which can be translated as the flies murderer child. The project didn't go any further and, despite an LP was released in 1972, Jean-Claude Vannier fans had to wait 20 years to see those tracks at least get a proper release. It was really worth the wait: Jean-Claude Vannier composed 11 little trippy psychedelic masterpieces that easily stands next to his best collaborations with Serge gainsbourg (L'Histoire De Melody Nelson).

Download => Jean-Claude Vannier - L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches

Buster Williams - Crystal Reflections (Muse - 1976)

Buckwild used twice the Vibrations sample: on Artifact's What Goes On ? and on Big L Put It On. Even if is featured on Buster Williams album, Crystal Reflections, Vibrations has Roy Ayers written all over it. Roy Ayers actually composed it and played vibes and arp string ensemble on it.  Roy Ayers holds the vibes as well on the album first track, Prism. Those two songs are the highlights of this album, otherwise rather minimalist. All the other tracks are duo between bassist Buster Williams and Roy Ayers, Kenny Barron or Jimmy Rowles on vibes or piano. The ugly cover is not the album original cover but the one used for the 32 Jazz 1998 CD reissue.

Download => Buster Williams - Crystal Reflections

The Jungle Band - Jungle Groove (Charly Records - 1988)

I wonder why the cover of this CD reissue is so ugly. Jungle Groove dates back to 1988 when a bunch of James Brown tour musicians hooked up with local talent in Augusta, Georgia, get locked up in a studio, The Hut, for furious nights of jam session and decided to produce a real old school funk album in a time when American R&B was a field of ruins. Even if a few keyboards lines or drum beats here and there sounds a bit cheesy and dated, the overall result is a piece of furious deep and p funk with fabulous breaks. The Jungle Band released only one album and then its members went back to their separate ways. It took almost 20 years and the actual old school soul revival to take funk where The Jungle Band let it. This 1994 reissue holds all 1988 original tracks plus 3 bonus tracks.

Download => The Jungle Band - Jungle Groove

Quincy Jones - Walking In Space (CTI - 1969)

Walking In Space is considered like one of Quincy Jones best albums. When he moved into studio in june the 18th and 19th of 1969, he was surounded by killers: Ray Brown on bass, Eric Gale on guitar, Grady Tate on drums, Bob James on electric piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jimmy Cleveland on trombone, Toots Thielemans on harmonica, Hubert Maws on flute and tenor sax, Jerome Richardson on soprano sax, Roland Kirk on tenor sax and reeds. Hilda Harris, Marilyn Jackson, Valerie Simpson and Maretha Stewart were used for vocals. Rudy Van Gelder served like engineer while Quincy shared the arrangement duties with Bob James. Quincy had already back then completed his solid jazz reputation by a Hollywood stint that made him one of the go to Hollywood musician when it was about making a soundtrack. You mix those jazz masters with soundtracks like melodies, blues and gospel influences and you have Walking In Space.

Download => Quincy Jones - Walking In Space

Ennio Morricone - A L'Aube Du 5ème Jour b/w Le Carnaval Des Truands (RCA - 1974)

A L'Aube Du 5ème Jour (aka Dio è Con Noi aka Gott Mit Uns) is a spaghetti war film made in 1969 by Giuliano Montaldo. All I can say is that it didn't aged very well. It's not the case of the soundtrack, made by Ennio Morricone. The title theme was largely used by French radio and television at the beginning of the 70's and was consequently edited in France on a 7" with the theme of another movie, the 1967 made Le Carnaval Des Truands (aka Ad Ogni Costo), as a B side. This latest song sounds closer to the work of Burt Baccarcah or Herb Alpert than what you can expect usually from Morricone. Good stuff, cheap and easy to find.

Download => Ennio Morricone - A L'Aube du 5ème Jour b/w Le Carnaval Des Truands

Women In Lounge (Cinedelic - 2002)

You lucky people: as Christmas gift, I have just decided to post the first volume of Women In Lounge, a compilation that just becomes pretty hard to find these days. You'll find here 20 rare vocal gems, composed by Italian brightest soundtracks composers and made for movies now largely forgotten, except if you're into late 60's/early 70's Italian bis cinema: Alessandroni, Pisano, Piccioni, Morricone, Trovaioli, Orlandi, Ortolani, Bongusto, Nascimbene. A brilliant collection.

Download => Women In Lounge

Raymond Lefèvre - Jo (1971)/Les Grandes Vacances (1967) (Play-Time/FGL - 2011)

Raymond Lefèvre is probably not the best known of French soundtracks composers but when you consider the work he did for this two comedies, Jo and Les Grandes Vacances, he clearly deserves his place among the greatest composers, the Lai, Goraguer, Jarre, Magne, or de Roubaix. We can clearly thank Play-Time/FGL for this excellent reedition. Jo and Les Grandes Vacances soundtracks never got a proper release even if both movies have often been played on French television channels. Jo is a dark comedy but the music could have easily been made by Lalo Schiffrin for a thriller. Les Grandes Vacances music is largely influenced by British Invasion pop music of the time and each track is a reorchestration of the same melody in various styles, between Burt Bacharach and Henri Mancini. As bonus track, you can find the themes of two other movies made by Raymond Lefèvre for the same director, Jean Girault, La Maison De Campagne and Un Drôle De Colonel.

Download => Raymond Lefèvre - Jo/Les Grandes Vacances

Quincy Jones - In The Heat Of The Night/They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (MGM - 1997)

This long CD allows you to possess Quincy Jones two best soundtracks both featuring the character of detective Virgil Tibbs played by Sidney Poitier. Composed in respectively 1967 and 1970, In The Heat Of The Night and They Me Mister Tibbs! are heavy on jazz, blues and soul and don't have all the nervous tic of later blaxploitation soundtracks. Purists will certainly disdain this CD, because tracks are melted with dialogue snippets that are not on both original records. But what the hell, purists certainly already have those records on vinyl.

Download =>Quincy Jones - In The Heat Of The Night/They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

François Valéry - Joy (Instrumental) b/w Joy (Vocal) (WEA - 1983)

When producers saw the money Just Jaeckin racked with Emmanuelle and Histoire d'O, they started to produce erotic movies that could be distributed in theaters without being rated X. Joy is the cinematographic adaptation of the novel of the same name and made the rich hours of French late night TV programs in the 90's. At that time, there was no You Porn and those late night diffusions were the closest thing you could get your eyes on explicit sex scenes. This time, the music was not made by Pierre Bachelet but by François Valéry, who is as well an awfull French singer but succeded to make a nice little erotic soundtrack. The Joy instrumental title theme is a synthetic ballad with heavy drums and strings. The vocal version tries its best to sound erotic. Defintely not a masterpiece but a good try.

Download => François Valéry - Joy (Instrumental) b/w Joy (Vocal)

Michel Bernholc - Les Bronzés (Trinacra - 1978)/Pierre Bachelet - Les Bronzés Font Du Ski (Trinacra - 1979)

This double CD holds the soundtrack to two of the most popular French comedies of the 70's. Every French people you will meet anywhere in the world knows by heart the text of those two really funny films. Making fun of French people in vacations (in Africa in the first movie and in the Alps in the second ones), spectators found they represented them very well and the characters featured are now part of French popular culture. The music of Les Bronzés was composed by Michel Bernholc and is  mixing exotica, folk, disco funk and melancolic electronica. The theme music, Sea, Sex And Sun was allegedly composed in five minutes by French master Serge Gaisnbourg himself. Pierre Bachelet was trying to make a living with erotic soundtracks (Emmanuelle, Histoire D'O) when he was called to make the music of the second adventures of Les Bronzés, Les Bronzés Font Du Ski. You will go for track number 5, a nice little piece of electronic funk clearly inspired by Moroder.

Download => Michel Bernholc - Les Bronzés 
Download => Pierre Bachelet - Les Bronzés Font Du Ski

Women In Lounge - Volume 2 (Cinedelic - 2005)

Don't run away with disgust: this compilation has nothing to do with an awful lounge restaurant compilation. Instead it gathers 20 vocal gems issued from various Italian soundtracks of the 60's and 70's. All the usual suspects are here (Morricone, Bacalov, Cipriani, Nicolai, Umiliani) but other less known composers are also featured. If specialists won't find anything new here, the casual listener will find everything he needs: dreamy, jazzy, catchy and brilliant music. If the movies featured are only half good than their brilliant soundracks then they are definitely must see.

Download => Women In Lounge - Volume 2

Janko Nilovic - Soul Impressions (Editions Montparnasse 2000 - 1975)

Soul Impressions is a very good library funk record made by library maestro Janko Nilovic who proves that French could funk as well. Janko Nilovic add just his personnal touch, mixing what you can expect from a funk library record (plenty of wah-wah riffs, flutes, nices breaks) with easy-listening or jazz. We can be thankful to Vadim Music for having reeissued this year this hidden gem. It was just impossible to buy it on vinyl without saling an eye or a kidney to Chinese if you were lucky enough to find an original version in good conditions. Soul Impressions has probably been posted already on a lot of blogs but it's just the kind of record difficult to keep for yourself.

Download => Janko Nilovic - Soul Impressions

Viva La Muerte OST - Ekkoleg b/w Siesta (Barclay - 1970)

Viva La Muerte (Long Live Death in English) is a movie made by Spanish director Fernando Arrabal. Then exiled in France, fleeing dictator Franco’s fascist regime. Arrabal tried to exorcice his demons and its bad memories of the Spanish Civil War, counting the story of a young kid, Fando, that discovers that his missing father has been turned down by his mother to the fascists. Fando then tries to find his father. I never saw this movie but he is quite famous for being disturbing and closed to the surrealist movement with the graphic representation of the dark fantasies of the young boy.

This 7” is apparently the only soundtrack to this film and sums it up very well. Side A, Ekkolag, is  an innocuous singalong song made by a child until you realize that the song is in fact (supposedly) in Danish and sang by adult singer, Grethe Agatz. Side B, Siesta, sounds like an insane Henri Mancini song. It was composed by Edouard Ruault (the real name of now deceased French music mogul and stunner Eddie Barclay)and Raymond Le Sénéchal. Curiously neither sides has been apparently sampled but Ekkoleg was featured in a French advertising a few years ago. For you, fanatic digger, this record can be find easily in France for a modic price but the inflation quickly increases when you cross the French border or try buy it on the internet. A good record worth having anyway.

01 Ekkoleg
  02 Siesta
Download =>Viva La Muerte OST - Ekkoleg b/w Siesta

Neil Norman - Star Wars b/w Re-Entry (Vogue - 1977)

 Neil Norman and easy listening master Les Baxter produced several records under the name of Greatest Science Fiction Hits at the end of the 70's and the begining of the 80's. Thoses records were melting sci-fi soundtracks covers and original material, all made in a disco synth pop style. Star Wars was released on Greatest Science Fiction Hits Vol. 1 LP and as a 7" in France with on the B side Re-Entry. Re-Entry is the strongest track a little groovy gem. Starting with a traditional sci-fi synth sound, it then explodes in a blaxploitation style track with funky breaks, a massive bassline, a wah wah guitar and then morphs again into jazz rock. Warning: the sound on the version I got and I have posted is not very good.

01 Star Wars

02 Re-Entry

Download => Neil Norman - Star Wars b/w Re-Entry

The Voodou Juju Drug - Part 1 b/w Part 2 (Barclay - 1970)

I just found this gem in a Easy Cash shop near my place for 50 cents. I didn't have a clue how was this record when I digged it. I just found the title pretty cool: The Voodou Juju Drug. Back home I googled the name and realised that this 7" had already been posted on a very good blog (http://dj-alfonso.blogspot.com/) and was worth around 50 euros !!!! The first side, called The Voodou Juju Drug is a freaky breakbeat number with a nice sitar sound. Side 2, Killersteen's Voodou Juju is nice slice of pop afrobeat. According to DJ Alfonso, this record can be credited to library music composer Janko Nilovic.

Download => The Voodou Juju Drug - Part 1 b/w Part 2

The Small Faces - Me You And Us Too - Best Of The Immediate Years (Repertoire - 2007)

Created in 1965 and signed to Decca, The Small Faces were at first just another Mods bands among other ones. In 1967, Andrew Loog Oldham, The Rolling Stones manager, created his own label, Immediate, and signed The Small Faces after the band got into several arguments with its label and its management. The band, led by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, found in Immediate a place to express its creativity and signed its best songs, churning out hits after hits. If they were clearly influenced by the psychedelic air of the time, they are the best when they stay closed to what made their strength: raw pop clearly influenced by deep soul. In that sense, the last two instrumentals of this compilation, The War Of The Worlds and Wide Eyed Girl On The Wall are outstanding work.

The Small Faces were not an album band but a 7" band so this best of is the best way to discover and appreciate their music.

Download => The Small Faces - Me You And Us - Best Of The Immediate Years

Booker T. & The M.G.'s - McLemore Avenue (Stax - 1970)

Booker T liked so much The Beatles Abbey Road album that he decided to cover it entirely in Memphis with his M.G.'s pals (Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn and Al Jackson), giving to the resulting album the name of the street were Stax studios were, McLemore Avenue. Of course, those guys were so talented that they completely appropriated the Fab Four songs to make them their own, mixing them in a 3 instrumental funky as hell medleys and a single track, Something. Only a tight band like Booker T. & The M.G.'s could mix Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, Here Comes The Sun and Come Together in a single song without sounding strange. The other medleys gathers Because/You Never Give Me Your Money and Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam/She Came In Through The Bathroom Window/I Want You (She's So Heavy) with the same success. It's deep funk going pop with major success. Even the record cover is a cool pastiche of the Abbey Road original cover.

Download => Booker T. & The M.G.'s - McLemore Avenue

Traffic Sound - Yellow Sea Years - Peruvian Psych-Rock-Soul 1968-71 (Vampisoul - 2005)

When you think about Peru, you don't necessarily associate that country musical scene with psychedelic rock. But there is no reason that can explain that this small country would have not been touched by the 70's psychedelic wave. Traffic Sound was at first a covers band created in 1968 by Manuel Sanguinetti (vocals), Freddy Rizo-Patrón (rhythm guitar), Jean Pierre Magnet (sax), Willy "Wilito" Barclay (lead guitar), Willy Thorne (bass) and Luis "Lucho" Nevares (drums). They recorded their first album, A Bailar Go Go, in 1968. They then recorded three more albums but this time with original material: Virgin in 1969, Traffic Sound in 1971 and Lux in 1971. Traffic Sound music easily suffer comparison with its American or European counterparts of the times. They are not an exotic fade but a  strong band with tight songs shaped for worlwide acceptance and success. Even if they used English in their songs, their latin roots can be heard all over their music but in a subtle way especially in the percussion work or the use of the Afro fused saxophone. There isn't any real psychedelic band without their drug hymn. For Traffic Sound, it's the infamous Meskhalina, released in 1969. Making the music of this band available was necessary and we can thank Vampisoul to have selected the best tracks of their albums for this wonderful compilation.

Download => Traffic Sound - Yellow Sea Years

Hedzoleh Soundz - Hedzoleh Soundz (EMI - 1973?)

Another African gem reissued by Soundway. Hedzoleh Soundz were ailing from Ghana were they became quite famous as the Napoleon nighclub resident band. This were they met Masekela which used four tracks of their first LP, Hedzoleh Soundz, for his own record, Masekela Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz. Hedzoleh Soundz is characterized by its emphasis on traditional hypnotic percussions, catchy flute and guitar parts with a strong bluesy flavour. Truly original and never boring.

Download => Hedzoleh Soundz