We can find it out!

Ba-da-pa do da da-ba-pa do da da...

Two minutes precisely.

De Wolfe Music are the oldest of the production music libraries still in existence today. Founded in 1927, this is an organisation which has published and produced more music than you and I know and more than likely any other know what to do with--and it's famous music, too, themes to films, tunes from commercials, quirky incidental cues, despite the anonymity of the process of studio and session musicians. Kung Fu Super Sounds takes the library sources from various 70s and 80s martial arts flicks produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong and puts them together on one forty-three track cd. A mammoth collection of sounds, of English jazz and session musicians creating music for Chinese action flicks. Breaks and beats abound, naturally, so don't hold back.

Reg Tilsley - Counterspy
Pierre Arvay - Spin Out
Jack Trombey - Counter Kill
Derek Scott - Two Minutes Precisely

Far out.

Brazilika!

What I know about Joyce (aka Joycé Silveira Palhano de Jesus) is limited to the few details from the back cover of this cd release and what her voice makes obvious once the music starts playing. Previously unreleased, Visions of Dawn (1976) is a smooth and understated gem of post-Tropicalia acoustic pleasantness. I could write some keywords like samba, bossanova or folk, but these would be misleading, especially since there's a trippiness to this album as well. Did I mention summer days? This fits right in, and perhaps goes some way towards explaining where I'm coming from with these recent posts.

London-based Far Out Recordings specialise in Brazilian releases and re-releases, and they're to thank for handsome design and the rediscovery of a group of songs we all should have heard long ago.

I want to walk around with you.

In two minutes you will be dead!

Meanwhile, in the heart of West Germany, something stirred jazz session player Heribert Thusek and songwriter and radio comedian Horst Ackermann into taking up the torch of horrotica soundtrack creation and waving it in slumbering Dracula's pale, widow's-peaked face. The result was more obscure than heroic, and yet...and yet that something is a reward in itself:

"This is the movie soundtrack to a film that never existed. This is the movie soundtrack by the band that was never requested. These were the sound library musicians who had to invent their own clients and imaginary cast, crew and plot to get their music heard, by a niche audience, before floating deep into the depths of the rare record reservoir gasping for breath."

I'm going to spend my day this way, wondering where the time will go while these goofy, groovy tunes beat, pulse, shout and scream bloody murder to no one in particular (save perhaps the mysterious Mr. Hitchcock himself). This won't last long, I know, but in the meantime let's praise the lost craze.

The Vampires of Dartmoore - Tanz der Vampires
The Vampires of Dartmoore - Hallo, Mr. Hitchcock
The Vampires of Dartmoore - Dr. Caligaris Gruselkabinett