Recommendations - JULY 2004

THE BAROQUE JAZZ TRIO

Hey, cool. I mean just look at them, all smart, hip and smoking in France. Just add up the period cool points for these guys and they really do score massively. Very nice music they play. Good label, good record!

TIFFANY GLASS

This is a fine record. Originally turned up by the Reverend Martin Green, it's all drifty experimental folk. And then it changes into sort of phased screeching with good plinky plonky bits. A fantastic odd thing.

LA SEDUZIONE - BACALOV

This is a humdinger of an Italian LP. It's a soundtrack to a film obviously called the Seduction. The music is strange, almost making it into bossa novas, and always falling short. And there's a funk track on it called Nago which is long, sinister, creepy and sexy all at the same time. A very subtle and incredible bit of music making. I have waited a long time to get this LP. It should really be about £20, but it isn't. I'd like to officially thanks Cherrystones for telling me all about it. He knows too much.

PITTURAMUSIC - BACALOV

While we're on the subject of Luis Bacalov, here's another weird one I've been listening to a lot. It was the record to an art exhibition - or at least that what it looks like because it comes with lots of mirrored leaflets and posters talking about the art and the music at the same time. It's kind of musique concrete with tits and bums if you know what I mean. It has some dead strange and just plain dirty pictures of fruit and various body parts being fingered and thumbed in secret places on the big shiny brochure. I should really be honest here and just say it's insane. 1971 I think.

THE NAKED BUNYIP

We'll stick with the rudeness and go here. This is great. A strange little soundtrack ep from said film with mad name. By all accounts in was the film that really ignited the whole Australian film industry back in 1969. A documentary style film I believe by the maverick man John B Murray, and it's all about sex. A great little ep, with lots of cut-up sex talk, not rude sex talk like Flexi Sex, no, this is documentary style sex interviews. Hilarious, witty and very entertaining, this is a little diamond. It also has a young Dame Edna on it, mispronouncing Lesbianism and generally talking about responses to her husbands naked form. I have no idea what a Bunyip is. Probably a funny Australian hairy creature.

Derek writes; Mr Google tells us that it's "a fierce creature from Australia. Amphibious by nature, it has the appearance of a giant seal or even a hippopotamus, It is greatly feared, for it enjoys the taste of human flesh, particularly the more tender flesh of women and children. ". So careful swimming in the old billabongs mates eh?

PETER ADAMSON

A few months ago we had Benny from Crossroads. Now we present Len Fairclough from Coronation Street. Here he has signed the single with the words "be good". Well, practice what you preach my old friend. It's a good record believe it or not, the first side is folk where he puts on the voice of a pixie, and the B side is a bizarre funk workout which includes a swift mention of swimming. I'm being serious. How mad is that. Does anyone know if he is dead or not. I'd like to know.

Derek writes: Peter died in 2002, Glad to see you gave his record the "Thumbs Up" though. More info here. Wait... he puts on the voice of a pixie?

GIRL IN THE SUN

This is all in Greek. It's the soundtrack to the film Girl in the Sun and looks pretty groovy. I bought it in Acton because I wanted to hear what a swinging Greek soundtrack would sound like, and all I can say is very interesting, so much so in fact that I am still listening because I haven't quite got it all yet. Oh, and it doesn't swing much for something so swinging. Overall it's a good LP, however the girl on the front seems to be wearing a bikini that's just a touch too big, and I don't find that attractive at all.

LOS JOVENES VIEJOS - SERGO MIHANOVICH

Now this is an Argentinean soundtrack. 1963. The young lovers I think it translates as. It's jazz. And amazing jazz it is too. I mean check some of the titles - Waltz in 16mm, Pick Up, Close Up. This is really amazing music, beautifully played and timeless. It's the kind of LP you find once in a lifetime. It's also quite important because it has Gato Barbieri on it, before he picked up the Gato "cat" monicker. Derek writes: The wife tells me it means 'The young old ones'

LES VOCALISES MODERNES - ALLESSANDRONI

This bloke is the whistler and guitar player for Morricone. He's been mentioned before a lot. This is a library record what he made in the mid 70s. It really is awesome. Modern vocal patterns mixed with bonkers fuzzy guitar and more besides. The man has this prolific melody factory in his head. I have no idea how he did it then and still does it now. Again, cashing in on the death of library, you can pick up amazing records like this now for almost bugger all. Like this one.

DELIRIUS MUSIC - ROBERT / GUISE

This is a big wow too. A bugger to get hold of, but now dead cheap. This is incredible music making without boundaries. Some of the music on this LP was used in a Jess Franco movie, and do you know, I can't remember which one. It moves from strange waltzy pop to, well I don't even know how to describe what it does. There are also two tracks on this all about sex, which both involve the same bird groaning and moaning for ages and obviously about nothing at all. The Japanese would love this. Do you think they say Library like "Ribery"?

THE BUGALOOS

Yes, and the Japanese love this too. It's a funny TV album from a series created by Sid and Marty Croft. They were dead good at making surreal Kiddies TV, you know like Puf n Stuf where live action is mixed with animation. Think The Phantom Toll Booth, that kind of thing. Well these kids are bugs and how cool is that. Very hippy, and on the first track they open with the line bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger buggerloo. Better still is the fabulous soft psychedelic thing called, shit I can't remember but it's track two side one. Again, thanks to the weakish dollar, this is less money than a new shit album by a boy band at the moment, and much more fun.

Derek writes: Speaking of Pufnstuf, how do you fancy a Witchiepoo Signature Amulet?

SWING LIKE A BASTARD - STAN BUTCHER

This is a legendary easy listening record. I think it came out and sold nothing, and it's really hard to get. It has taken me years to get my grubby mitts on it, and now I have all I can do is look at her big and pinchy nose on the front cover. This is class swinging British jazz with soft wordless vocals over the top. Well they're more down the bottom, but I think you get what I'm on about.

TROPPO - MIKE GARRICK

This came to me like the last Garrick LP. I had been after this for donkeys, and all of a sudden a fan of this website (Andrew Symington - all hail you) emailed me saying he'd found it in Scotland and would I like it. I mean the world is a good place all of a sudden. This is a fusionee kind of LP, with the usual Garrick intellectual time sequences, hardcore sleevnotes, mental bits and this time he tickles a Rhodes. There's also this dead strange bit where it goes all hip hop chanty, which is not what I expected at all. In fact it's so freakishly modern sounding I dropped it on my XFM session recently when they told everyone I was DJ Skitz. However Mr Garrick is not in my good books (and I'm not in his I reckon). I phoned him up recently and I get the distinct impression that the jazz world has been unkind to him in terms of financial reward and he is possibly annoyed - maybe even a touch bitter - that people pay a lot of money for his record now but never even looked at them when they came out. Sad but true. I still love his music though and his new big band is superb live, which means he has no excuse for being a miserable old jazz sod. Did you know he drove a Reliant Robin three wheeler in the sixties? Maybe that was the start of it all, I mean have you ever driven one? Exactly.

FLAME IN THE WIND - DWIGHT GUSTAFSON

More funny soundtrack musak, this time from a two hour production by Unusual Films in about 1966. All about the Spanish Inquisition, this is a great piece of forgotten soundtrack work, and extremely listenable. Great barbecue cover, but on the back sleeve Dwight Gustafson looks a bit odd and possibly a little constipated.

SPIN SPIDER SPIN

Horrah! It's a real kiddies LP. An educational Kiddies LP all about insects. These are, yes, folky songs all about bugs n that. The way of the bees, I love lizards, the little bird is dead etc etc. Yes it's a bit twisted too, and was only a pound from the bargain bin at Record and Tape. It was pressed by a proper education foundation, just in case you are interested. Well I was at the time.

NANCY PRIDDY - YOU'VE COME THIS WAY BEFORE

Seems like this is flavour of the month, well certainly in the iddy biddy circles I inhabit. I think kids are after the beats, which are groovy, but it's a great piece of psychey folk that touches all bases, and even has a bit of spooky kid singing thrown in. Nice record, one for the lady that is in all of us and Nancy looks pretty good too. I have scanned a photo of her eating a banana. This LP was first played to me about 6 years ago by a bloke called Richard. He wouldn't stop banging on about it. He used to play it out at funk nights and clear the floor. A man close to my heart, obviously. It's also on Dot records which is a label I fell in love with many years ago, mainly because of their logo.

2000 WEEKS - DON BURROWS

I love the internet. You can't find an Australian LP anywhere in Australia and then up it pops in Islington. I mean what happened and like how did it get there. This is dead good, lots of waltzes, superb flute from John hairy Sangster and more besides. A great and unusual Australian soundtrack, that sounds rather like a British jazz record but with slightly less pretension and a bit more sweat. Well I know what I mean.

THE INSIDE OUTSIDE

You bet I'm still listening to my own album. I read a review of it in a magazine and it sounded really interesting. It got played on Classic FM last night which is something I shall be telling my children when I have them.

DAWN OF THE DEAD

Yep, still going strong after all these years. Buy it now, loser.