Laurie Robertson Murphy - Breezing Along

Breezing Along - Laurie Robertson Murphy (1979)
There was a time sometime in the 00s when library music was pretty much all I listened to. At the start of the sharity blog thing there were a bunch of collectors putting up all manner of impossibly rare and unheard library delights. I reckon I must have downloaded between a thousand and fifteen hundred library LP win-rar files. I've got a hard drive gathering dust in the bureau where all these sounds reside. .... 

The whole thing started in the mid 90s when the exotica and easy listening scene had to go further afield to find deeper cuts and a bunch of great library compilation series cds followed: The Sound Gallery, Blow Up Presents Exclusive Blend, Mo'Plen, Beat At Cinecitta, Music For Dancefloors, Cinemaphonic et al. I should go through my old cobwebby cds, I loved these collections.

Okay I'm off on a tangent. This tune I think I only discovered recently. It's taken from an American Library called Major Records who I know nothing about. Roger Roger did some work for the label apparently though.

Breezing Along is a perfectly apt title for this song that just breezes along like a soundtrack for somebody just breezing along. A sweet low-key funky jam with splendacious strings, it comes from Production Music 6114 LP a 1979 Major Records library. Laurie Robertson Murphy contributed five tracks. The only other credit I can find for Laurie is another Major Records Library from 1978 Untitled 6109 of which she contributed five tracks also. 

Laurie Robertsson Murphy is quite the mysterious figure. I'm guessing it's a woman. If it is a woman she might have been married to soundtrack and library composer Walter Murphy who also worked for Major Records. 

Taana Gardner - Heartbeat

Taana Gardner - Heartbeat (1981)

This 12" Club Version mix on West End Records is by Larry Levan. My God it's t's the jam. Everything here, I'm sure, is intuitively designed for maximum psychedelic dancefloor affect. That funky bass, yes it's a funky sensation. That slowed down disco beat makes this entire monster jam an outstanding anomaly: weird and infectious. The breathtaking hand clap science is also absolutely fascinating. The hook that is the hypnotic swirling funky guitar riff that begins to mutate at 4:12 in on an irresistible groove. The break at 5:57 that just halts everything is so on the money, I mean how could it not be with the alchemy of synergy taking place here, everything seems to be serendipitously falling into the right place. 

Dre surely ripped this off for his G-funk blueprint did he not? This particular version of Heartbeat seems to be a vastly influential track. Don't let that put you off though because it's infinitely better than what it influenced. With regard to the history and aspects of this tune the club version of Heartbeat is the main show. 

Heartbeat like the previous post's Funky Sensation by Gwen McCrae  was written, arranged and produced by Kenton Nix in association with Henry Batts. So they were having a killer 1981. 

GWEN McCRAE - FUNKY SENSATION

Gwen McCrae - Funky Sensation (1981)

This is THE jam!

Get your foots out for some toe tappin...it's is the funky sensation!!!

Funky Sensation's right in that funky post-disco boogie zone and it's a sweet spot innit. Only problem is it's way too short. We need another ten or fifteen minutes of this!

Frankie Valli - Swearin' To God

Frankie Valli - Swearin' To God (1975)

Francesco Castelluccio with Bob Crewe producing and writing, you can't go wrong. Sweet funky disco love song with an ace guest appearance from Patti Austin. The more you listen the more you realise there is a lot going on here. I mean Swearin' To God's got those divine strings, big brass action, that funky wah-wah Shaft scratch guitar and an even funkier bassline. This epic is also a trumpet and saxamophone extravaganza, with an array a saxes including my favourite saxophone, the rarely heard in pop music outside of Pet Sounds, baritone sax. 

For me though it's all about those congas. Conga players never get the credit they deserve and yet they contribute so much to a dance floor number. I mean they are integral just about more than anyone else as to whether your disco track is going to be a toe-tapping success or not. So I'd like to highlight the wonderful Miss Bobbye Hall. I'm assuming this is her as she's the only one credited in the sleeve notes with playing congas although there are also several percussionists with credits too. Hall's credits are vast and many, you've heard her play congas and bongos on a lot of records throughout the years including those by Judee Sill, Boz Scaggs, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, The Doobie Brothers etc. 

Arvo Pärt - Arbos

Arvo Pärt - Arbos (1987)

Another short but sweet bit of 80s Pärt. More bells. This time though they're accompanied by the insanely intense brass from the Brass Ensemble Staatsorchester Stuttgart. This was the title track from his second ECM album. Pärt was on a roll here with his solo ECM albums that continued on with a classic run of five masterpieces from 1984 to 1993: Tabula Rasa, Arbos, Passio, Miserere and Te Deum.

Nolan Porter - If I Could Only Be Sure

Nolan Porter - If I Could Only Be Sure (1972)

Another one from the "wow" playlist. When this came on... just wow. That opening guitar line took took my breath away and my heart went funny. My body had a memory of this song before my mind did. A vibe like this is priceless, it's simply the best. All the elements are in perfect unison to create one of the greatest toe tappers in history. 

My brain's not functioning beyond "ME like" today so it's handy that the fans of this very special tune in the comments are unusually articulate.

- A bass riff to die for...

- My world changes from winter blues to summer sunshine in just a few minutes...

- Absolutely stunning - beautifully understated - sends a shiver down my spine!

- Quietly addictive..and that opening riff! digs real deep!

- Great organ bridge moving to solo guitar...

- Proper music...

- So cool...

- This is faultless...

- Doesn't come any better. Pure 100% class...

- Sublime...

Nobody mentioned that insistent rhythm which makes If I Could Only Be Sure so joyously infectious.

Play it again Sam.

Mickey Moonshine - Name It You Got It

Mickey Moonshine - Name It You Got It (1974)

A fabulous toe tappin' symphonic-soul number that sounds like a Curtis Mayfield production but is actually some dude from Scotland. Everything here is just pop perfection. I was going through a mysterious playlist I'd created on youtube a while ago called "wow" and this popped up. So it was actually a "wow what a great tune" moment so I thanked my past self for compiling this list. I imagine this is some kind of northern soul classic. 

Name It You Got It will put a smile on your face, a spring in your step and make you feel glad to be alive!...well for the duration of the track at least but hey that vibe just may stick with you for the rest of the day.

Rewind.

[Later research] 

Reveals the music director here is none-other than producer, arranger and guitarist Pip Williams. His prolific production and arrangement credits include Sweet, Walker Brothers, Status Quo, The Moody Blues, Shirley Bassey, Richard O'Brien, Dr. Feelgood, Barclay James Harvest, Geordie, Mud, Uriah Heep, Colin Blunstone, Carl Douglas, Ringo Starr, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, The Kinks and many more. 

Arvo Pärt - Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten

Arvo Pärt - Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten (1984)
Because sometimes the best music is the most obvious music cf. The Rolling Sones. Bells bells bells. Listening to this just makes me want more bells. I kinda wish some mental improv group would do like an hour long interpretation of this with way more bells. Also why didn't Arvo write way more suff for bells?

There's a shitload of versions of this on youtube but it's a case of the original is best. This was the recording most of us first heard Cantus In Memorium...  as it featured on Pärt's breakthrough album Tabula Rasa on ECM in 1984. I can't find an earlier version but one must exist because, if I recall correctly, the head honcho of ECM heard it on his car radio years before he ever tracked Arvo down and organised the Tabula Rasa recording project. Perhaps it was a live radio only concert version... who knows?

Five of the best minutes in recorded music history.

Shizuka - 孤独を図る

Shizuka - 孤独を図る(1994)

Geez this Shizuka tune is fucking devastating. If you don't know but you love yer Velvets, Paisley Underground, Galaxie 500, Mazzy Star etc. this is for you but it's way more emotionally cathartic.

The core of Shizuka were singer-songwriter guitarist Shizuka Miura and her husband ex-Les Rallizes Dénudés/Fushitsusha guitarist Maki Miura. 

In the 90s they appeared on volumes two and three of PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series and Virgin's Cosmic Kurushi Monsters double cd. This nine minute epic comes from Shizuka's one and only studio LP Heavenly Persona released on the legendary PSF label in 1994.  

Similar to Les Rallizes Dénudés, Shizuka were mainly a live concern. They also had a bunch of live records and several live vhs video tapes issued during their 18 year existence. Shizuka have become near mythical since the rumoured suicide death of Shizuka Miura in 2010. 

Vajra - ふるゆきのまえにちるはのいみもしらず

Vajra - ふるゆきのまえにちるはのいみもしらず (1995)

This was Vajra's opening salvo and it was infernal to its psychedelic core. 

We've got both Keiji Haino and Kan Makami sharing insane vocal and guitar duties while Toshiaki Ishizuka takes care of percussion in this trio.

I think it was Keiji Haino who said in the pre-Napster/pre-Spotify 90s that he'd listened to something like thirty three thousand LPs so it's no surprise that this instrumental odyssey could be claimed by at least ten different genres: Psychedelic, avantgarde, cosmic, no-wave-y post-punk, improv, goth, shoegaze, folk, noise rock, black metal, post rock, drone etc. In a way I feel like it's closest to Swans in spirit and sound than anything else though.

I guess I'm talking about the song up until the 5:16 point where it then proceeds to become another song entirely. I still don't know what this second stage is exactly...some kind of absurd avant folk blues.

Haino and Makami are very rarely about comforting the listener with musical compositions similar to what you've heard before so whilst the first five minutes here seem to have a past within their present and future the remaining 27 minutes of Vajra's debut LP doesn't have such easily navigable coordinates. You need to be a fearless psychonaut to venture beyond this track which has the English translation Before The Snow Falls, Falling Leaves Have No Meaning as it was included on that Virgin comp Cosmic Kurushi Monsters sans the second part if I recall correctly.  

Vajra - Tsugaru (1995)

In the 90s I used to wonder; why isn't Keiji Haino (and his myriad of projects) a massive indie star on the same sort of level as Sonic Youth or at least as popular as Boredoms. After listening back to Vajra's brilliant 1995 cd Tsugaru today I can understand why. Maybe his other outfits Fushitsusha or Nijiuma could have been big though as they had more accessible potential whilst still being immensely dark in tone. 

I finally caught Haino live sometime in the early 00s in Melbourne and I have to say it was the least fun show I think I've ever been to. I honestly don't know how he did it. I can listen to the most unlistenable rackets at the best of times but on this bleak winter's evening on a week night he improvised the most discomforting dysphoric music possibly ever created. Haino assembled the most aesthetically displeasing sequence of sounds these ears have heard. He made Neubauten and Masonna sound like Herb Alpert but hang on perhaps that's a misnomer as noise artists actually often create music that's incredibly pleasing as it might have psychedelic or cathartic properties. No the music on this night while not sounding like a cross between Polka and Celine Dion style pop had a similar revolting aesthetic affect on me and my mate. Then again maybe we'd just smoked too much pot, drank the wrong amount of beer and were a bit grumpy.