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REVIEW ARCHIVES: 
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Music and Rhythm
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Ubiquity

Versatile indie producer Shawn Lee wears his influences on his sleeve for his latest offering, Music and Rhythm. Although he's worked with such diverse artists as Coldcut, St. Etienne and Jeff Buckley, none of his previous work would prepare a listener for the funky delights found here.

Music and Rhythm is a high octane tribute to the classic library records cut at Music de Wolfe and KPM during the late '60s and early '70s. Lee doesn't merely ape the "cosmic sounds and dope beats" found on those vintage recordings, he re-invents them, giving every electrifying second the attention it deserves.

Although the tracks -- with such evocative titles as "Sexy Beast," "Bongo Fury" and "Spytown" -- are certainly derivative, they are expertly crafted and nearly outshine the legitimate library and cinematic tracks that served as inspiration. Lee accomplishes this by avoiding some of the cheesier tendencies that sometimes compromise original sound library tracks resulting in that dreaded "dated" quality -- think hippy dippy moog melodies.

Lee also provides a brief note for each track, offering some insight into his creative imagination. For "Swamp Samba" he writes "Think 'The Price is Right' meets light-hearted blaxploitation chase -- and congratulations if you can, you're damaged goods."

Get it already!

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"P Walk" (MP3 edit)

Moods and Grooves
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Ubiquity

Shawn Lee's first stab at sound library, 2004's Music and Rhythm, was a critical success and favorite of soundtrack fans and beatheads alike. Naturally, he's capitalizing on its success with the aptly titled follow-up Moods and Grooves.

Like the first album, there are 25 tracks of style-jacking splendor. "P Walk" (the opener) and "Igor's Revenge" are masterful mood pieces in search of a movie. "The Noose" edges toward spaghetti western without aping obvious conventions. "Cha Love," on the other hand, happily embraces kitsch, sounding like an Ursula 1000 track. Even when Lee takes on an obvious theme — like "The Chase" — he manages to bring something unusual to the mix, like the stuttering backward, downshifting drums in the final section of that powerful track.

It's quite obvious that Lee is an ace when it comes to capturing and combining the musical ingredients that make for great soundtrack and library music. Of course, fans of those genres will immediate recognize Lee's influences and maybe even specific elements from vintage tracks, but they should be aware that Lee does not rely on samples to capture the classic sound — he's a one-man Ping Pong Orchestra.

The only weakness here may be the sheer quantity of music. Some of the tracks seem more like sketches than fleshed out creations. While each track offers something distinctive — and all have fantastic rhythm sections — not all boast memorable hooks. Such tracks tend to pop up later in the disc.

For the most part, Moods and Grooves is the hippest new recording since... Harmonic 33's recent Music for Film, Television and Radio, Vol. 1. Like the first Ping Pong CD, this one contains evocative descriptions of each track for your reading pleasure.

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"Seven, Eight" (MP3 edit)

Strings & Things
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Ubiquity

For his third installment in the Ubiquity Studio Sessions, multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee serves up 15 tracks of cinematic psychedelia. When it comes to reinventing the groovy, funky library/soundtrack style of the '60s and '70s Lee has few equals. Chris Joss (You've Been Spiked), David Holmes (Ocean's Eleven/Twelve) and Mark Pritchard (Harmonic 33) come to mind.

On Strings & Things, Lee — with the help of co-producer Andrew Hale and orchestrator Simon Hale — adds a new wrinkle to his sound: an emphasis on stringed instruments (violins, guitars, sitars) and a fuller orchestration on select tracks. Fans of his first two volumes (Music & Rhythm, Moods & Grooves) are likely to wonder if Lee's going soft with the strings, but one listen will put those suspicions to rest. Oh sure, there are quieter tracks here than on the previous volumes ("Ballade De Mela" and "Oslo Morning" come to mind), but they're absolute stunners — drop dead gorgeous cinematic gems. Most of the tracks seemlessly blend Lee's funky rhythms and exotic sonorities with a mind-boggling array of string sounds that take the best ideas of the great library session musicians of the past and put a fresh spin on them.

Like his first two efforts, Strings & Things really doesn't have a bum track. That's because Lee isn't prone to melodic redundancy or stale arrangement ideas. Each listen reveals something cool. Over the course of all three volumes Lee has gone from gifted apprentice to master of the sound library aesthetic. Someone, quick! Get this guy a movie to score.

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"Song for David" (MP3 edit)

Voices and Choices
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Ubiquity

Listening to a Ping Pong Orchestra album is like wandering through a psychedelic fun house where cinematic intrigue awaits around every turn. And the latest is no exception.

Shawn Lee's fourth PPO album, Voices and Choices, is the first to feature lead vocals — notably not his, but those of three guests. The soulful "Kiss the Sky" (Nino Moschella), which is the "single of the week" on iTunes, along with the Gainsbourg-esque "Francoise Hardy" (Pierre D.) and The Herbaliser-like rap of "The Hour Glass Effect" (Ohmega Watts).

Each of the vocal tracks is sure to surprise fans who come to every PPO album expecting an exclusive blend of sound library and soundtrack-style instrumentals. One might even suspect that vocal tracks would compromise the evocative landscape of a PPO album, but these tracks blend well with the vocal-free compositions on Voices and Choices.

As on his previous releases (see Imaginary Soundtracks) Lee delivers diverse moods and grooves that steer clear of easy categorization. These tracks aren't clichéd amateur versions of Morricone, Schifrin, Barry, or name your favorite screen legend. They're creative compositions that draw inspiration from cinematic and library greats while rarely resorting to direct imitation.

"Song for David" demonstrates Lee's talent for blending disparate elements (funky drumming, bass solo, 12-string and fuzz guitars, harpsichord, vibes, piano and sound effects) to create a constantly shifting soundscape even as the mood remains consistent.

Another highlight is "Fiendish Fifth," which features a funky bassline and fascinating sound elements such as cymbalom, minor key strings and what sounds like a toy piano. There's even a tasty break.

With its sound effects, sinister synth, vocalisms and rumbling bass line, "Glass Act" manages to sound like a mix of Dario Argento and Alfred Hitchcock film soundtracks where a lurker in the shadows threatens to strike at any moment.

But Voices and Choices isn't all dark. "Perculator" provides some uplift with a high soaring synth line, Latin percussion, vibrating guitar chords and an optimistic hook.

Although it has much to offer, the album has a few weak spots. "Changing Times" relies a bit too much on the hook based on Lalo Schifrin's "Mission: Impossible" theme. And the slower tracks "Mondo Mondo" and "Tired" are a bit too vague and sleepy.

Probably the most satisfying track for this reviewer is "JW," which flows beautifully from "The Hour Glass Effect." Here, "Spanish" and electric guitars and flute lines converge over a crackling beat and rumbling bass line. The piece conveys a potent mix of mood and emotion, and the "Spanish" guitar break is lovely.

Voices and Choices is the most diverse sounding PPO album yet, and while not every track is completely satisfying there is still ample evidence of Lee's unique talent as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer of screen-worthy moods and grooves.

Read an interview with Shawn Lee.

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Music for Film, Television & Radio Vol. 1
Harmonic 33
Warp Records

For Harmonic 33's first full length, Mark Pritchard and Dave Brinkworth depart from the hip-hop exotica charted on their two EPs (compiled on CD by Alphabet Zoo as Extraordinary People).

On Music for Film, Television & Radio Vol. 1, Harmonic 33 morphs into a sound library project that sounds convincingly vintage. Without resorting to easy breakbeat mood music, Pritch and Brink seek out the most authentic sounds for a time-warp trip back to the late '60s. Between the Moogs, Mellotrons and harpsichords (all probably digital samples), the listener would swear he's listening to some long lost Patchwork Orchestra release by Vladimir Cosma or Cecil Leuter.

Beyond the novelty, Pritch and Brink deliver gently pulsating and utterly entrancing melodies that, by turns, suggest unreleased tracks from John Barry's The Ipcress File or outtakes from Raymond Scott's Manhattan Research.

Very strange, and very satisfying. Can't wait for Vol. 2.

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Mis Balas Lleven tu Nombre
Carlo Coupe
Subterfuge

Opening with machine gun fire, Carlo Coupe's soundtrack for an imaginary crime film called Bite the Bullet immediately immerses the listener in a world of intrigue and danger. In fact, Coupe and company go to great lengths to develop the imaginary film by using snippets of Spanish dialogue in between tracks that range from funk to Latin lounge to moody cinematic passages. Coupe's love of Burt Bacharach's sophisticated easy listening also is apparent in some of the arrangements.

Coupe is clearly adept at jumping from style to style. His organ playing never overwhelms his arrangements, which are always imaginative without calling attention to themselves. A knowledge of Spanish will prove handy in understanding the dialogue from this "1969 movie about a hired assassin," but the music alone should entertain anyone with good taste.

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Moss Side Story
Barry Adamson
Mute

Barry Adamson's debut must have been the first imaginary soundtrack when it was released in '88. It's not clearly described as such on the cover, but it doesn't need to -- it fairly screams "soundtrack."

The cover alone suggests something cinematic: the distraught look on Adamson's face, the evocative title ("North Side Story" probably didn't sound very interesting, so Moss Side Story provided a shadier alternative). The back cover divides the tracks not by side one and side two, but into three "acts," with titles "The Ring's The Thing," "Real Deep Cool" and "The Final Irony."

Nick Cave's former bass player truly steps out on his first solo album by steering clear of traditional songs, opting instead for crime jazz instrumentals and a suspenseful film noir feeling in general. (The CD version also includes Adamson's impressive take on Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Man with the Golden Arm and "Alfred Hitchcock presents...")

Each track flows into the next, often connected with found sound, radio transmissions, voices and the like -- all brilliant amalgamated to hypnotic effect. On first listen, it can all be a bit intimidating, but second listen you're sure to be impressed.

* I bring this review to you shortly after the release of Adamson's new album The King of Nothing Hill, which is quite fine in its own right, but is less cinematic than his first and still finest album. Just about anything by Adamson is worth hearing, this one -- and the collection The Murky Works of Barry Adamson -- are absolutely worth owning.

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The Money Spyder / Mission: Impossible
The James Taylor Quartet
Acid Jazz

James Taylor (the acid jazz Hammond organist from the U.K., not the singer-songwriter from the U.S.) has been on the seen a long while, and his quartet has recorded a ton a music, but there are a couple of early discs worth mentioning here: Mission Impossible and The Money Spyder.

Recorded in '93, Mission Impossible is a high energy mostly movie theme cover album. Music by Lalo Schifrin, John Barry, Herbie Hancock and others get the small combo makeover. Tracks include "Blow Up" "Goldfinger" "Mrs. Robinson" "Alfie" "The Cat" and several others, including a couple by Taylor himself.

If another movie theme cover album sounds too old hat, check out JT's imaginary soundtrack for The Money Spyder. This hard-driving "score" has elements reminiscent from a dozen legitimate crime jazz soundtracks for the big screen and small screen -- still, it seems to be missing something. The band is tight and the grooves are catchy, but it's short on atmosphere. Pick it up used -- I sure did.

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Plays Lost TV Themes
Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited
Dionysus Records

Surf guitar and Hammond B-3 meet at a space age bachelor drive-in. Yeah, that's right, rockin' instrumental themes for bogus TV shows with titles such as: The Bossa Nova Squad, Korla Rides Again, Space Mission Number 12. Unlike other Imaginary Soundtracks, this one makes no effort to back-up the claim (like The Man with the Suitcase) in the liner notes. No problem, since the music carries the day.

And it's cracking good stuff, convincingly composed and confidently played. Better yet, the group diverges from surf rock to explore complementary genres like Euro-flavored go-go groove and crime jazz. The sound quality is excellent and the cover art is swank.

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Betty Page - Danger Girl, Jungle Girl, Private Girl
Various Artists
QDK Media

Athough she never made a Hollywood feature, Betty Page (or Bettie, if you prefer) was a rarity among pin up girls: She offered more than tawdry looks and voluptous curves. She offered dark obsession. Betty in lace. Betty in sequins. Betty in nothing at all. Her raven mane, Brooksian bangs, Betty alternated between innocence and knowing, between Lolita and Lulu.

QDK's three compilations -- each with a different mood and a new collection of photos -- are worth having, but not all they could be. Each disc offers a collection of undoubtedly rare jazz and swing tracks. The featured artists consist of a few long-running composers like John Barry, Johnny Hawksworth and Nino Nardini and the rest are less familiar. Names like Mel Young, Roger Roger and Johnny Burt.

Danger Girl is naturally the crime jazz set. "Mood One" by John Barry and Johnny Hawksworth's "Sweet and Sour" are lean, muscular outings. John Cacavas' "Agent Who" is proto trip hop, and is used along with a few other tracks, on QDK's Betty Page cd-rom "The World of a Pin-Up Queen". It's 22 tracks of rain-soaked streets, a creeping fog on the street corner. It's 22 tracks of mysterious phone calls and late nights in dingy bars. You get the picture.

Jungle Girl is naturally the exotica set. But if you're looking for Les Baxter and Martin Denny, look to the Ultra Lounge discs. Here, the mood ranges from high spirited latin numbers (Roses Roses' "Rubanita") to moog exotica (Nino Nardini's "Jungle Jazz") to psycho pop swing ("X cest" by Hawksworth. Like Danger Girl, this compilation features few marquee names, but still offers cool tracks. It's 24 tracks of leopard skin bathing suits, beach and boudoir. It's not Baxter and Denny, but it will fill out your exotica collection nicely.

Private Girl offers the sub-title/description "Spicy Music". If you hear the first track expecting something really randy, you'll be disappointed. You simply here passable mid-50s jazz dance called "Gramercy Swing". So Betty is now a "private girl". Judging from the photos enclosed, this means you the listener may enjoy a private moment with Betty. So, what type of must best accompanies the mood. Burlesque music? Perhaps Van Doren's "Low Down and Mean" fits the bill. Easy going rock 'n' roll like "Sandwich Bar" by Frank Barcley doesn't fit the bill as a Betty Page fantasy theme, and neither does "Uncle Fred" by Malcom Lockyer. There's some great acid rock guitar on Jack Arel's "De Paris A Liverpool", but that's as hard as it gets. Instead you get Nino Nardini's swank "Trouser Suit". Nino's always a killer.

Nutshell: All three discs have their peaks and valleys, but each is a must have for the packaging itself.

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Cinematique: Themes for Unknown Films Vol. 1
Paul Haig
Les Temps Moderne


This 1991 recording, which sometimes sounds very 80s with its synth washes and beat box rhythms, scores three imaginary films: City of Fun, Lagondola and Flashback. The City of Fun tracks have an ersatz noir/trip hop feel, sounding like outtakes from a Barry Adamson album. I don't mean to undercut Haig's accomplishment, though, since these are the best tracks on the disc. The tracks for Lagondola, on the other hand, sound like reheated outtakes from the Harold Budd/Brian Eno sessions that I used as makeout music in college (too personal? sorry...) The music for Flashback is stranger, making use of bizarre crowd noise on the title track, but sounds like a cheesy Hong Kong genre soundtrack or other 80s techno pop elsewhere. Although Cinematique isn't all bad, it's also dated in a way that may send you running for your better OSTs. It goes to show that there's "good" dated and "bad" dated, most of this disc falling in the latter camp.

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L'Anonima Roylcott
Tango Fernandez
Plastic


This "thriller psychedelic sexy funky cosmic wicked soundtrack" for an imaginary film-cum-graphic novel is one of Plastic's best offerings to date. Mixing old and new influences like drum 'n' bass, trip hop, psycho beat and crime jazz, Tango Fernandez (a group, not a person) succeeds in crafting a beat intensive, endlessly groovy soundtrack. The disc comes with a mini-graphic novel, comprised of black and white photographs with dialogue captions. While pictures certainly tell some of the story, the dialogue itself is in Italian, making comprehension a problem. According to a label rep, the title comes from an Italian mystery novel of the ’50s. And while the lyrics on the disc's few vocal cuts are in English, they don't clarify the story very much. Nevertheless, it's a kickin' disc, guaranteed to stay in your soundtrack rotation for a long time.

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Logan's Sanctuary
Roger Joseph Manning Jr. & Brian Reitzell
Emperor Norton

Ah, analog! It's amazing how ’70s a millennial record can sound when all (or at least most) of the instruments are relics from the decade that gave us synth-enhanced soundtracks like... Logan's Run, for instance (see Found Wax for a review of Jerry Goldsmith's classic score). As the second in Emperor Norton's series of "fake soundtracks", this score -- to the make believe sequel to Logan's Run -- strives to set back the clock to 1978. The music was created more recently, however, by Roger Manning Jr. (Jellyfish, Moog Cookbook, Beck) and Brian Reitzell (Redd Kross, Air), who do an admirable job in creating a retro futuristic score. Even the cover art -- complete with stills from this supposed sequel and a plot synopsis -- lives up to the challenge. Having done an equally convincing job with its first fake soundtrack Soul Ecstasy (reviewed below), it wll be fun to see what Emperor Norton has in store for the announced third project: Mexican Planet of the Apes! (Due out early next year.)

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The Manacoa Experience
Jess Franco & His B-Band
Crippled Dick Hot Wax

Subtitled "a dazzling lesson in cinematic b-film jazz", cult film auteur Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos, Succubus, Venus in Furs, etc.) heads up this bizarro soundtrack-inspired excursion. The mad Spaniard acted as co-arranger and keyboardist, and he's joined by 14 other musicians, including guitarist Carlos Benavent and trumpeter Clark Terry. The tracks are mostly "inspired by" Franco's movies, rather than direct remakes of their original soundtracks. Stylistically, they sound like film noir themes played by a Miami Vice session band. It appears that Crippled Dick Hot Wax commissioned the album from Franco, who is nowhere near as prolific as a musician than he is as a trash film maker (he's made at least 150 movies in 40-odd years, most of them in the Õ60s and Õ70s). For a man whose movies are notoriously perverse, this disc is relatively straight forward. Despite the prominent use of synthesizer, the instrumentation and arrangements are fairly traditional. Not bad at all, but not CripDick's most satisfying release.

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The Man with a Suitcase
Chris Joss & His Orchestra
Pulp Flavor


Remember that great TV show "The Man with the Suitcase" (1966-1978), that conquered all of the western world? No? Well, it's no wonder, since it never existed. And listening to this groovy faux soundtrack isn't likely to convince you otherwise. I say that, not because it's bad (actually it's quite a bit of fun) -- it's just a little too apparent that it wasn't recorded during the aforementioned period.

Stylistically, some of Chris Joss' music is true to the period, often sounding like prime Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible, Mannix), particularly on early tracks. But the sound production is clearly of the late '90s, not the '60s or '70s. Part of the difference lay in it being digital and not analog. And then there is an ample use of samples, sequencers and hip hop beats. Some tracks show a concerted effort to sound retro (the theme, "The Wait" and "Frisky Frisco"), but others are downright contemporary in sound and instrumentation ("The Fly", "By Night" and "Geo's Party"), showing the influence of techno.

The liner notes make a great effort to sell the idea that The Man in the Suitcase was a legitimate phenomena, but the soundtrack itself doesn't back it up. Still, if you can turn a blind eye to the concept, chances are you'll enjoy the music a whole lot more. Even when Joss abandons the groovy sound introduced on the first few tracks, in favor of the dubby drum and bass of later tracks, the quality remains high.

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The Murky World of Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson
Mute

Nick Cave's longtime Bad Seeds bassist Barry Adamson has a great knack for creating (and recreating) soundtracks. This disc compiles a strong, yet varied selection of Adamson's solo efforts. There's the confident cover of Elmer Bernstein's film noir theme "The Man with the Golden Arm". And there's a unique take on "The James Bond Theme". Best of all are Adamson originals like "Jazz Devil", "The Big Bamboozle" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". Whether it's crime jazz, downtempo vibes, house or lounge, Adamson does it with professional polish, humor and style.

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Music for Imaginary Films
Arling & Cameron
Emperor Norton


As the title suggests, Gerry Arling and Richard Cameron of The Netherlands have created a varied and convincing collection of movie themes for flicks that don't exist. The disc is a well-realized package, complete with miniature reproductions of movie posters (each created by a differant party for stylistic variety), complete with evocative liner notes, written by Steve Korver, author of Imaginairy Life (sic), "a user's manual". These "movies" are even dated! The musical styles range from Bacharach-ian pop to Moroder-esque disco to Schifrin-esque action funk. There are even two faux Bollywood tracks. Usually, the musical impersonations are convincing enough to pass for long lost recordings, though occasionally contemporary studio gimmickry reminds one that Arling & Cameron are of the DJ culture. But that's no slam. In fact, I'd call this a pretty groovy score. Be sure to check it out.

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Pop Fiction
Various Artists
Quango

This compilation of "new crime jazz" is a fine place to start when looking for "imaginary soundtracks". Featuring such artists as Portishead, Strange Cargo and Barry Adamson, the selection is rich in atmosphere and highly evocative of cinematic scenerios. Many of the cuts are downright haunting and bear repeated listening very well. Check out Grantby's "Timber", which uses John Barry's James Bond music to good effect. And when it comes to new crime jazz, who better than Barry Adamson to get it just right, with "Dead Heat". The disc also features Alex Reece, Patrick Pulsinger, Folk Implosion and Manna.

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The Revenge of Mister Mopoji
Mike Jackson & the Soul Providers
Desco


Coming on like James Brown's backing band, Mike Jackson and the Soul Providers deliver fatback beats, raunchy ass horns and organ vamps for "a tight, rough heaviness" too rare in today's soundtracks. Actually, the liner notes clearly indicate that James Brown's soundtracks for Slaughter's Big Rip-Off and Black Caesar were inspirational. As the score for a flick about a kung-fu restauranteur in L.A.'s Chinatown who must fend off the mob, this disc can't be beat. Can't say that I've actually seen the movie -- and I doubt that it actually exists -- but the score makes me want to find it. Tracks like "Unstoppable Oldsmobile" and "Disco Party" are funky fun. And "The Wisdom of Master Shen" -- with its hokie philosophical narration -- is just waiting to be sampled by some savvy DJ.

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Soul Ecstasy
The Inner Thumb
Emperor Norton

When it first came out, Soul Ecstasy was not announced as a fake soundtrack. Anyone who knows their blaxploitation cinema, however, probably wasn't fooled. What looks on paper to be the sleaziest, baddest b-movie of ’72 is just a hoax. But it has a bitchin' score! Half the fun are the track titles: "Soul Submarine", "Citroens 'n' Sitars", "Fly Trap" and "Club Kidnap" just to name a few. Attributed to "the late Ricardo Tubbs", the music really by Craig Borrell and Ross Harris of DJ Me DJ You (with the exception of the title track). It's a tight batch of funk, complete with a soul theme worthy of Curtis Mayfield (hell, it sounds like Mayfield). Partially inspired by the reissue of the psycho beat soundtrack Vampyros Lesbos, Emperor Norton set out to create its own cult score. After several listens, I can say with no hesitation that they succeeded. With its phat tracks, "movie stills" and fabricated legend, Soul Ecstasy has all the right moves. And as Emperor Norton's first in a series of bogus scores, it sets an appropriately "bad" example.

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