One more day before Gregorian Christmas, so we spend it listening to Christmas lounge music, courtesy of Triosone!
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I don’t do year-end lists because of the absolute onslaught of releases I get to hear throughout the year can be overwhelming, but I like when those I admire do it for me. The magnificent Four Flies Records have released a compilation of 15 easy-listening/soundtrack cuts that made a swinging impact. I look forward to hearing much more from these guys!
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Four Flies Records is an Italian label which “rescues golden age soundtracks from oblivion,” and we here are MYNTH are thankful for it! This release is a 7-inch record by Italian saxophonist Gianni Oddi (in Italian) which blends a grimy funk with easy/cheesy/sleazy listening grooves. This will definitely appeal to fans of library music as well as soundtracks.
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Thanks to killer reissue labels like Four Flies Records out of Italy, we can experience the easy/cheesy listening sounds of 1970s Italian movie soundtracks. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Four Flies’ 45s series continues to pay tribute to the golden age of Italian film music, this time with the first 7-inch release ever of two super-groovy themes from Gianni Marchetti’s soundtrack to Milano: Il Clan dei Calabresi (known in English as ‘The Last Desperate Hours’), a 1974 poliziottesco film directed by Giorgio Stegani. “M2”, on side A, is a re-versioning of a timeless classic – Quincy Jones’ “Ironside” theme –…
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I have to say that, until a few days ago, I knew nothing about Jorge López Ruiz, but after reading this writeup and listening to the funky exotic jazz on this album, I’ve become a fan. From the Bandcamp website: “Jazz, funk, and bossa vibes kiss each other, all wrapped up in JLR’s trademark cinematic feel. In his colourful Un Hombre de Buenos Aires, recorded in 1978, JLR puts the political outcry of his early 70s works aside and focuses on his love for the city of Buenos Aires. Jorge López Ruiz gets far less credit than he deserves. His…
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Analog Africa, one of my favorite reissue labels, is going well above its mission of reissuing African treasures and is now delving deep into the music mines of South America – in this case, Ecuador. Polibio Mayorga was a hit-writing machine during the early days of Ecuadorian rock, but he also had an interest in sci-fi, weirdly lounge-influenced music and his native cumbia. From the release’s Bandcamp site: “In the decades after the second world war, outer space was on everyone’s mind and the ‘space race’ of the 1950s and 60s not only produced groundbreaking efforts to launch artificial satellites,…
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Legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach passed away yesterday at the age of 94, leaving behind countless pop hits covered by singers both major and minor. British label Moochin’ About have collected a 146-track compilation covering his earlier material, and it features artists like Dick Van Dyke, Cliff Richard, and perhaps his best interpreter, Dionne Warwick.
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Guitarist and soundtrack composer Bruno Battisti D’Amario was a major contributor and “first guitar” for the legendary Ennio Morricone, and with this album of library and lounge music, it highlights D’Amaro’s ability to mix funk, blues and even touches of psychedelic rock into a brilliant mix. Truly incredible mood music. Thanks to SONOR Music Editions for re-releasing this gem.
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wahorn · The Wahorn Airport live at the Contemporary Wahorn Club Vol. 1. This is quite a peculiar album made by an old friend. András Wahorn had a storied history as the leader of one of Hungary’s most radical progressive rock bands, A.E. Bizottság, who released three albums of what they called disaster music. He also released works for the now-defunct record label Tone Casualties which tended to drift towards more experimental and improvisational music mixed with electronics. Wahorn isn’t making disastrous music these days. In fact, he’s managed to pull an album together informed by easy listening, lounge…
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The ever-brilliant Aloha Got Soul Records is about to release a lost masterpiece of exotica. Arthur Lyman played vibraphone and marimba, and with these tools, nature sounds and some fine musicians backing him up, he managed to conjure up images of life in the South Pacific and Hawaii, which had just become our 50th state in the United States. This album was originally recorded on Broad Records in 1980, but it seems to have been forgotten, which is surprising given the explosion of exotica, easy listening and lounge music which occurred during the 1990s. As of today (July 23, 2021),…