Festivity, Revels, and Nocturnal Dalliances
This quartet of releases from Sublime Frequencies explores music from countries that have been traditionally off-limits — Myanmar, Shan Province, North Korea —or struggled with decades of oppression and violence—Cambodia.
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Around these parts, Wyngarde is revered for his role as Jason King, the swingin’ international man of mystery, adventure novel writer, and part-time espionage agent. But…he also recorded an album,
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The Sound of Wonder demonstrates that Pakistani film music from golden era had one foot in the future and, often, the other foot inhabiting territory no less strange to the unaccustomed ear.
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One year for Christmas, my parents got me a bizarre amalgamation of rock opera and radio play, starring Richard Burton: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.
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France Gall might not have had the sophisticated mystique of Francoise Hardy, the it girl “oomph” of Sylvie Vartan, or the continental sensuality of Bardot, but she was nonetheless an integral part of the Yeh Yeh Girl pantheon.
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To trace the origins of Northern Soul, one has to go back to Britain’s Mod subculture of the early to mid sixties, a subculture that drew heavily upon American soul records in the classic Motown vein for its chosen soundtrack.
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Aside from providing grist for adventurists in the pop music realm, Funky Frauleins also has something to offer fans of Euro cinema, as a number of its featured players led a double life in the world of film.
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Dracula’s Music Cabinet was part of a wave of horror-themed novelty albums seemingly inspired by the type of horror films that Europe was producing at the time, as best exemplified by Jess Franco.
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I went through a pretty intense Joe Meek fixation a few years back, with the result that I now own over a dozen CD compilations of Meek rarities which, with a few notable exceptions, are mostly unlistenable. Being a completist in your approach to this eccentric, wildly uneven, and very prolific British pop producer’s work may be as self-punishing an
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Needless to say, if you want to reenact the dance contest scene from >Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-70 is the ideal soundtrack. Or perhaps it’s the swinging, strobe-lit nightclub from your favorite Pinky Violence film you want to recreate — you know, the type where Miki Sugimoto or Reiko Oshida might
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