Browsing Category Reissues

Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante – Tenebrae Soundtrack

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Waxwork has undertaken the task of bringing the definitive version of the soundtrack to Dario Argento’s Tenebrae. The film marked a return to Giallo horror following his two classic supernatural thrillers Susperia and Inferno. Notably the soundtrack too takes a shift from his previous films. Whereas Susperia (as well as ‘75’s Deep Red) was set against the frantic prog backdrop of Goblin, and Inferno utilized Keth Emerson’s over the top organ/opera insanity, Tenebrae drew on an amended form of Goblin, who began to update their ‘70s sound. The Italian auteurs made a name associated with Argento’s films but they’d disbanded in 1980. At Argento’s request he employed a three-piece version of the band, who, given the film’s “not too distant future” setting, embraced elements of disco and early electronic pop, then set them into their driving prog impulses. The soundtrack is credited to Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante, owing to their drummer owning the Goblin name, but its pure Goblin in its construction, leaning on synths in brilliant ways and opening itself up as a slinking and slick addition to the film’s suspense.

The band’s earlier soundtracks often get the glory, and in Susperia’s case its well-deserved, but to discount Tenebrae’s score is to do the band a disservice. Critically it has been noted that the score ties so well into the movie it almost becomes another character rather than a passive bedrock. The soundtrack’s embrace of dance elements lead to tracks popping up in clubs and enjoying remixes. Waxwork has gone all out to embrace this, giving it lush packaging designed by Nikita Kaun that features a die cut sleeve. While the composers felt it was overshadowed by the success of their earlier works, this most recent reissue proves that it had as lasting an impact as Argento’s own innovations with film.



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Dave Evans – The Words In Between

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Earth Records pick up a folk classic from the often-overlooked Dave Evans. While the British songwriter came to prominence on his status as a fingerpicked impresario, on his debut album he employs mournful vocals that strike a chord not unlike Bert Jansch or Roy Harper. Its in that same lonesome, man at the end of a long night weariness that he settles, but he stands apart from both of his contemporaries and more technical players like Renbourn or Basho with his hugely harmonic style of playing. Evans constructed his own instrument and those modifications emphasized his prowess on the strings.

The record was a humble affair, recorded in the home studio of fellow folk singer Ian Anderson and the warmth and intimacy of the setting seeps through the speakers, unfettered and embracing the listener with Evans’ tangles of strings and amber-hued delivery. He adds further charms to the homespun album with the yearning background vocals from Adrienne Weber whose presence in a song is always welcome. The Words In Between has long been cited as a lost classic and inspiration for many who tumble over the strings rather than see fit to strum. Earth does the record well with their reissue that reimagines the cover art slightly and gives this LP another shot for the uninitiated. If you count among those ranks, get familiar.



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Action Painting! – Trial Cuts 1989-1995

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Emotional Response is stepping up and doing the universe a solid by rounding up the corners of the Sarah Records catalog and issuing them as much-needed archival compilations. There are full plans to get works by Secret Shine, Even As We Speak, Boyracer and Action Painting! together. For now, though, they’ve got the latter two pressed and dressed for your consumption. Action Painting! found their way to the seminal label late in the game. The Gosport band still operated within Sarah’s system of jangles and sighs, but they updated the sound with a harder edge than many of their labelmates, roping in a love for The Jam and The Go-Betweens then mashing them into an apparent swooning for The Buzzcocks.

Sadly, the band would only issue four singles in their tenure, three for Sarah and one for Damaged Goods, all of which rear their head on Trial Cuts 1980-1995, as do a fair number of demos that speak to what could have been had the band gotten ‘round to getting that LP together proper. This collection will have to stand in the stead of a real album, and while it’s a bit sprawling given that the band likely hat a taught ten or twelve piece they could have hacked out, it does cull together all the material collectors could ever whimper about in one convenient package. For jangle fans, new wave nuts, punk hangers-on and the like this is a pretty solid set that puts straight the history on a band lost to the fringes. Recommended you get into this one as soon as possible.



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Taj Mahal Travellers – August 1974

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It’s been a hell of year for out of print Japanese psych classics. With Black Editions firing on all cylinders there’s plenty to love from the depths of the PSF empire but Aguirre’s creeping in with a classic of their own. The Belgian imprint has rounded up the cosmic float of Taj Mahal Travellers’ definitive album, August 1974, in all its double-wide glory. The band, known for their eclectic live performances and outdoor improvisations, took to the studios at Columbia Japan for four pieces stretched over four sides, each a deeper dive into electronic quaver, echoplexed violin, growled drones, and charring feedback. The record stands at the apex of Japanese improv and its tendrils wrap deep into the following decades’ younger players as one of the main influences of the new psychedelic front. Though it’s clear that the band had a heavy link to their German Progressive counterparts around the same time, effectively taking up the far east version of Kosmiche on this record, they give the proceedings a distinctly Japanese bent, taking what they’d acquired from a few EU tours and bending it to their will in the studio setting.

Aside from this record the only other official document from the band while active was July 15, 1972 a live recording from Sohgetsu Hall in Tokyo that got the official treatment as their debut. Following August 1974 the band would break ties, with most of the younger members dropping away from the scene and violinist Takehisa Kosugi continuing his journeys through experimental circles, even winding up with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as musical director for a while. The spectral howl of the band’s heavy hitter rears its head as an influence in psychedelic circles to this day, so its great to have this back in an official capacity on the table. Highly recommended for fans from Ash Ra to Acid Mother’s and everything in between.




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V/A – Electroconvulsive Therapy Volume 4: The Art Of Survival

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Still sifting through the dust of Record Store Day for the worthwhile bits that inevitably get stranded and trampled underfoot. This compilation from Medical Records that rounds up singles from UK minimal synth label Survival Records is just such a gem. This is the label’s third collection of older Survival material, but they’re still uncovering some propulsive, twisted tunes from a time when offbeat electronica was relegated to underground club nights and sifting through mail order addresses was the only way to slot a few of these onto your shelf. The collection’s notable for highlighting Survival’s disco fallout paired with scotch-taped synth-pop for crossovers that are equally as danceable as they are stuck in the pre-Devo dominance, post Heldon prog-punk hybrid pocket.

The dichotomy is evident on excellent b-sides from The Limit, whose “OK Go” and “Do It” pack both spacey atmospherics and hard-edged funk breakdowns. This collection also highlights a few tracks from Richard Bone, a soundtrack composer moonlighting as a synthpop overlord who wound up being regarded as a founder of the NYC electronic boom in his time. The label also gave new life to Bone’s Brave Tales as part of RSD, a treasure in its own right. The comp probably isn’t tops on the list of essential rundowns wrapping up this type of sound, but for collectors of Survival or general synth-pop archival explorers, this is a worthwhile pickup for sure.




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End of Data – Sahrah

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B.F.E. recs digs out another synth gem, this time from French slingers End of Data. Their first album is fairly compact but packs a pretty great punch despite its brevity. The band shared members with the similarly fawned over Charles De Goal but skewed even more frantic than that unit’s mash of synth and post-punk boasted. The record is anchored by the fevered track “If I’m Not A Killer,” a cyber punk dash through enough dystopian tropes that it feels like it had to have popped up on the Hackers soundtrack at some point. The rest of the album revels in Kraftwerk washes and shades of Ultravox!, Tubeway Army and other similarly minded techno-pop heads.

The original found its way to market via Divine Records, home to other edge of reality acts like Tuxedomoon and Fra Lippo Lippi, and the band would follow on their debut with the more expansive Dans Votre Monde a year later. A planned third alubm would never materialize and the band would wind their way into the collector’s corner until an uptick of interest around blogs made it a name among cold wave freaks. It stands as a highlight of the cold wave genre and B.F.E. gives it a worthy place among the stacks again.




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Bend Sinister – Tape 2

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One of the great, ink-black holes of interest in the pervasive Seattle music culture is A-Frames. The dirge-worthy noise punks were a black hole of chaos, tearing up S-S records and Dragnet before even they got themselves a Sub Pop deal and subsequently either delighted or deflated listeners looking for a certain Northwest sound. Long before there was The Intelligence and slightly before there was the idea of an A-Frames proper, there was Bend Sinister – the incubator of sorts for what would grow into a sprawling, narcotic entity. The band was built around Erin Sullivan, Min Yee and Josh Turgeon but later added in Steve Kaplan, who in turn left to make way for Lars Finberg. Lars, Erin and Min would go on to form A-Frames but it was in Bend Sinister that their love of noise punk produced some of the heaviest din associated with the region.

Named after a Fall song and professing love for The Electric Eels, Scratch Acid, Feedtime and Country Teasers, there’s no doubt that the band was about to gouge a few holes in the linoleum when they let loose. Homeless culls up a good chunk of the band’s ‘90s recordings on Tape 2, and it’s a must for fans of the A-Frames trajectory, but more than just a curio for Northwest collectors. Despite the relatively low-profile release status of a lot of the material here, it hammers pretty hard, not going for pristine power like some of their contemporaries but exchanging scrubbed audio for pure power in the end equation. Having missed out on Bend Sinister in its day, but loving everything that came as a result, this is a great primer and a peek at the seeds of what was to come.



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Nocturnal Projections – Complete Studio Recordings

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Somewhere near the roots of New Zealand post-punk lie the early singles of Nocturnal Projections, eking life into a scene that would blossom within Island’s small scene. Brothers Peter and Graeme Jefferies formed the band in 1981, years before they’d lay down acerbic tracks as This Kind of Punishment. After they parted ways, Graeme would fulfill his destiny in The Cakekitchen and Peter would skew solo, but this was where they began in earnest. After a smattering of bands like Plastic Bags that didn’t catch hold the brothers found a fanbase with Nocturnal Projections’ driving, anthemic sound. Hardly celebrated in their tenure, except by locals who were lucky enough to catch them on stage at their favored haunt, The Lion Tavern, or opening for The Fall and New Order in hometown gigs. They came to further prominence in the ‘90s when European label Raffmond issued much of their collection on CD under the title of their incendiary b-side, “Nerve Ends In The Power Lines.”

That comp, along with the legacy of both This Kind of Punishment and The Cakekitchen, served to bolster the band as a touchpoint for younger post-punk bands, and with good reason. Though the band is often compared to Joy Division, they’re cut from a slightly sunnier cloth, strapping on vocals that touch into Ian McCulloch territory. Their output revels in dark overtones, and an admittedly grimier production than their UK counterparts, while sparring widescreen hooks with propulsive bass. Now, Dais has finally put the band’s three official releases – the Another Year 7” + a S/T 7” and S/T 12” – together onto a collection of complete studio recordings. The collection marks the first time that all three are back on LP since 1983, giving collectors of the rather pricey singles a handy primer on the band’s most lasting works.

In addition, the label has also issued a collection of studio rarities and bonus tracks as a separate LP, which works well, rather than bloating out a release with diehard fodder the two LPs serve as both a toe into the band’s world and a definitive pairing for those who have long sought out the band’s discography. Fans of any of the Jefferies’ projects would do well to jump in here and those with a soft spot for UK post-punk of the same era will find a welcome kinship in the band’s complete works.



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Tim Blake – Crystal Machine

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Those of you reminiscent for a bit of laser Floyd might want to thank stynth wizard Tim Blake. Following a tenure in Gong and just preceding one in Hawkwind, the artist ventured out to dip into solo synth float and struck up a collaboration with French lighting designer Patrice Warrener, adding lasers and lighting effects to his live show as psychedelic spectacle. The two dubbed their working symbiosis Crystal Machine, and the name doubles as the title for Blake’s first solo album, now remastered and expanded with live bonus cuts by Esoteric Recordings.

There’s definitely a burble of the old German Progressives foaming underneath Blake’s work, but you’d unearth more clues looking to his time with Gong. On albums like You or Angel’s Egg Blake created a heady heatwave of synth that’s never stuck on its own ingenuity. He continues that tradition here, riding psych opuses for optimum enjoyment rather than mere Rick Wakeman levels of tech wizardry. The album winds up a bit uneven given that portions of it are live, but considering that was how this particular portion of Blake’s career was inspired, it makes sense that he’d capture himself in the element with Warrener’s light show fueling his direction. He’d follow this up with a proper studio album, New Jerusalem, before heading on to his run in Hawkwind. It’s an artifact of its time, but well worth checking out for fans of Tangerine Dream and their ilk.




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The Night Crawlers – The Biophonic Boombox Recordings

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Entrance into The Nightcrawlers’ world is foreboding at best and the currency at the gate is time. Considering the Philadelphia collective recorded over thirty-five cassettes of home recorded material between 1980 and 1991, the true barrier to figuring out their Kosmiche wonderland is finding the time and patience to sift through their extensive improvisational float. Thankfully, Anthology have cut out a lot of the work for you, boiling down their boombox experiments to a hefty collection that weighs in at over two hours, but tackles some of their best psychedelic fodder.

The band released a handful of LPs along the same arc but would become consumed by their studio improvisations that they recorded down to simple boombox room recordings. This gives the works here a rough quality, pocked with hiss and dotted with coughs and clicks, but it doesn’t detract from the band’s commitment to the German Progressive lineage. They churned out some high quality special float that spurned their contemporaries’ dive down dance paths, opting instead for the hypnotic comfort of Tangerine Dream, Goblin and Klauz Schulze LPs as their talismans. As such they also bridge the gap between those early German synth weavers and more contemporary resurgence that have arisen through Emeralds, Oneotrix Point Never and The Belbury Circle. A definite recommendation for the heads out there and the Kosmiche surfers looking to expand their library.




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