Tim Stebbing - Orbiter

Tim Stebbing - Orbiter (1985)

Rare and unheard since the 80s this recently uploaded recording from cult synthesist Tim Stebbing is finally getting some exposure.  

When you've heard the entire catalogue of 70s synth LPs but you still want more Radiophonic, cosmic and analogue synth experimentation, fear not, plenty of DIY cosmic synth stragglers were lurking in the shadows during the 80s. These guys were dwelling in the cassette underground and thank God for their stubborn love of all things synth-y.

This British fella from Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast released eight cassettes from 1985 - 1991. Orbiter from 1985 was his second tape. I guess you would describe this as an in-between scenes album. It's post cosmic synth and radiophonic heyday but it's before the new electronica and ambient house of early 90s Britain. 

If you can't get enough of that glinting sweet melancholic synth texture beloved of Paddy Kingsland and later Boards Of Canada you'll find much to like here. An array of cosmic synth, peculiar, minimal, ambient and electro sounds are also assembled here for your listening pleasure. Somewhere between deep space exploration and cosy telly soundtrack quaintness. Today is the day you become enamoured with the sounds of Tim Stebbing. 

John Cameron - Drifting

When you hear a track like this and you know you've heard it before or is it just déjà vu? Who knows you might have heard this on ten different tv shows from the 70s and 80s. I'm surprised there's not a website documenting the historic minutiae of every single library track's film and telly usage. Surely I first heard Drifting in 1981 on a wildlife documentary or perhaps not at all. 

A lot of these early Bruton libraries were used in British and Australian telly of the day. Tunes from Bruton Music BRM4 Fear were used in Southern Television/ITV series The Famous Five (1978/9) and that's about as specific as the information I've found gets. 

The back cover of BRM4 Fear reads Fear: Small Mostly Woodwind Instrumentation. Suitable For Both Drama and Documentary Application. At the bottom it's written BRM4 Suspense, tension. 

The notes for this track state Drifting: Suspended with underlying fear. 

Egisto Macchi - I Futuribili

Egisto Macchi - I Futuribili (1971)

Not just a top library album but one of the greatest albums of all time. Macchi was a master of atmosphere. His strings, scrapes, clanks, throbs and echoes conjure an unsettling ominous beauty all of their own.

Egisto Macchi a shadowy figure from the Italian electro-acoustic/musique concrète/contemporary classical/improv avant-garde also made a stack of music for telly and film. In the 1970s he got involved in making library music LPs where he could bring together and meld these disparate musical forms. Macchi combined outré and popularly conventional elements to create uncanny sound-worlds of the most delicious variety. High and low art were brought together like never before and he had a run of fabulous LPs. 

I futuribili is notable for its irregular tenebrous space.

Chess please. Left to right Morricone, Evangelisti and Macchi. 

Wozo ‎– Hydro-Electric

Wozo - Hydro-Electric (Music De Wolfe DWLP 3412 Power Source) 1980 

Cosmic library music at its best. Although I guess by the title of this track they were going for more of an environmental industrial engineering vibe. I mean it's all about the futuristic science and optimism of mankind so it all works well. 

In the mid/late 00s I thought those early records by neo-kosmische acts like Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds etc. sounded much closer to this kind of gear than say they did with Tangerine Dream.  

This track was used in the NASA documentary Space Shuttle: A Remarkable Flying Machine (1981) at the end when space shuttle Challenger was coming in for landing. Then used in the follow up doc STS-2 The Second Flight (1981) in the opening scene which is a flashback to the first flight's landing. 

Even as a 9 year old I used to think "Sure this is cool and all but it's not better than going to the moon is it? Why aren't they going beyond the moon?"

Anyway getting back to this 1980 Music De Wolfe LP Power Source, it's one of the great cosmic electronic library records. Every track is a little gem and thematically cohesive so it works like a cosmic-synth or sci-fi soundtrack record. You can just imagine all these tunes as part of an early 80s science documentary series or space age exhibit at the planetarium. 

Power Source is a classic instrumental synth album. On the back cover it states Unusual, atmospheric and futuristic moods played on electronic keyboards. I'd place it as one of the top British electronic LPs of 1980, vying for top spot with John Foxx's Metamatic. I don't recall this record being mentioned on that Synth Britannia documentary but perhaps it should have been.

Wozo info (and music uploads) on the interwebs is pretty scarce. The main guy behind this project is English fella John Hynde who also goes by the name of James Harrington and/or John Saunders. Saunders is also the man behind prolific production/library music act Astral Sounds who released over 20 LPs between 1977 & 1986 on labels like Music De Wolfe, Rouge and Hudson Music Company.  

You can listen to DWLP 3412 Power Source here 

David Gold/Gordon Rees - Like Summer

More golden carefree sounds. An ez tropical faux-bossa jam with that little bit of wah-wah puts this in the sweet summer soundz zone. As it's the middle of winter and I'm freezing my bollocks off this seems rather fitting. 

Like Summer was originally from the 1973 KPM 1127 LP Happy Rainbows which also featured compositions from James Clark, Steve Gray and the legendary Alan Hawkshaw. 

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.