Saturday, 17 December 2011

Lawrence Welk - The Christmas Song (Pickwick SPC 1019, LP, US, 197-)




A01 The Christmas Song
A02 Jingle Bells
A03 Let's Have An Old-Fashioned Christmas
A04 Sleigh Ride
A05 The Christmas Waltz
A06 Santa From Santa Fe
A07 Ring Those Santa Bells
B01 Santa Clause Is Here Again
B02 Silver Bells
B03 Christmas Carols
B04 Merry Christmas From Our House To Your House

Purchased (yes I did even pay money for it) from a store in Oxford Street in Lyttelton a few days before the Feb 2011 earthquake.  None of these buildings survive.  But the music lives on!  Lawrence Welk appears to have been quote a popular guy.

Discogs (3 For Sale from €1.53 Bargain!!)

The Living Planet - A Portrait Of The Earth [Elizabeth Parker] (BBC Records 823 338-1, LP, UK, 1984)




A01 The Living Earth (Theme)
A02 The Building Of The Earth
A03 The Frozen World
A04 The Northern Forests
A05 Jungle
A06 Seas Of Grass
B01 The Baking Deserts
B02 The Sky Above
B03 Sweet Fresh Water
B04 The Margins Of The Land
B05 Worlds Apart
B06 The Open Ocean
B07 New Worlds (Closing Theme)

I realise now this has been available from the Spiral 2 blog for some months, but for those of you (like me) who find cryptic download trails too difficult to process on a Sunday afternoon, a simple link follows.

[UDPATE: I believe this file has been frozen and is no longer available]

Saturday, 10 December 2011

VA - Music from South India (Not On Label, LP, 2004)



I didn't encode this with the intention of putting here because it's still available, but I've played it now on three successive nights, and enjoyed it so much I felt the need to share.  The images aren't mine either, so there you go, two rules broken in one post.  Too bad.

This is a magical collection of recordings by the mysterious sounding 'Dr. Temiz' in India during 2004.

The discogs entry notes it isn't on a label.  My hazy recollection from the description when I purchased was that it was released via an independent European label - could have been Sub Rosa (not to be incriminating), but certainly one of those 'grey area' releases, stick on cover art and the like.

Wonderful recordings that capture the intimacy of the performances with hearty impromptu clapping!

Snap up the last very reasonably priced copies while you can.  

[From the cover notes:]

Music from South India

From the land of a thousand Gods and Godesses
From the land of raga and talas...
ancient mystical music, 
to jump start the spirit, to hot wire the soul [heh, moving on..]

Side 1

1. Varnum - Raga Intha
 A varnum is an opening piece in praise of the half human half elephant god, Ganesh, asking him to remove all obstacles.
Peformed by Mandolin viruoso, U Srinivas.


2. Thyagaranja Kriti Kalavati.   
A piece composed by 17th century Saint Thyagaraja. performed by the brother/sister duo of Krishnan and Vijaylakshmi Lagudi.

3. Jaya Jaya - Padmabha Nabha
Performed by one [of] the great vocalists, Sanjay Subramanium

Side 2

1. Vapati - Hamsa Dhvani (Song of the Swan)
Performed by the elder statesman of flute Dr. Ramani

2. Saraswati Namasthuthe composed by G.N. Balasubramaniam.
A song in praise of the Goddess Saraswati (goddess of learning and music) Nadaswaram is a large oboe like instrument used in wedding celebrations.

recorded in India 2004 by Dr. Temiz


Saturday, 26 November 2011

Nicolas Rossolimo - Russian Songs (Kismet Hi-Fi Recordings Vol. KR-5, LP, Russia, 196?)




International Grandmaster of Chess and Chess Artist Nicolas Rossolimo sings Russian Songs.  More remarkable for having a cover designed by Marcel Duchamp.


There isn't much to dig up on Kismet Records - can anyone offer more information, and a date for this record?  It's probably early 70s aligning with the period Rossolimo was in NYC, but the cover and vinyl quality and waxy sleeve look older (Soviet stock?!).

Many thanks to the guy (Frank?) who runs Mojo Records in Sydney for agreeing with me that this record 'looked like shit' and giving it to me on top of an order for nothing, yeh!  

Seriously hats off to him for his new move to the basement over the road in York St, currently setting up with a bar at one end and a record store at the other.  I really hope he pulls it off - he deserves it, and the world needs more great reinvented records stores that would otherwise gather dust and end up in the great second hand bin in the sky.

Monday, 24 October 2011

Jeff Newmann - Satellite Images 1 (Sonoton SON 308, LP, Germany, 1988)




A couple of future galactic themed Sonotons.  Don't expect them to knock your socks off, but they have their moments.  I left the intro to Track 1 so you know what you're missing with all the other intros.


Jeff Newmann - Technospheres Underscores "Nature And Technology" (Sonoton SON 266, LP, Germany, 1986)




Thursday, 13 October 2011

No Clapping - Pie And A Pint (Ode Records SODE 167, 12" EP, NZ, 1982)




One of those mythical records you totally doubt the existence of for half your life.  It's another level of obscurity again from the T.V. Eye I posted a few days back.  Good catchy DIY pop tunes too, that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Object Records.  I'm looking forward to someone providing more information in the comments because Google doesn't want to tell me.

I just noticed when adding the Discogs entry that Julian Hanson played drums on the great Spelling Mistakes 7"


Tuesday, 11 October 2011

R. D. Burman – Shalimar (Polydor 2392 147, LP, India 1978)

You can find this LP elsewhere, so I won't post the music, but my good friend Long Boss just returned from Mumbai today having apparently discarded his clothes to find luggage space for vinyl, and while I didn't manage to high-jack the shipment, I did manage to take some photos of this monumental fold-out artwork. Sadly due to the updated and 'improved' Mac OS save-function I managed to overwrite half the high-res images, and I don't want to unleash a half completed archive on the world.  But you get the (lo-res) picture:








Sunday, 9 October 2011

Cheikh Abdel Bassed Abdel-Samad - The Holy Koran Volume II (Voice of Lebanon VLMX 66, LP, Lebanon, 1976)




Took the editor's lead and swapped the names of Side A and B.  There's a good chance they know better.

Cheikh Abdel Baset Abdel Samad - Le Coran "Sourat Taha" (Duniaphon LPD 310, LP, Lebanon, 1976)




No information on this one sorry.  High res pics of the covers.  According to 'Ken' who sells his stuff out the back of a bookshop in Sydney (more to come from recent grab), this and the other record I'm posting have both seen heavy service to audiences in Sydney for some decades.  Their resting place is in the grubby hands of a cultural magpie, and now you.

Saturday, 8 October 2011

Say Yes To Apes - Who's That (T.V. Eye APES-001, LP, NZ, 1983)





Here's a follow up to the Builders offering from a few weeks back.  Less pop influence, slightly less Velvets infused, and definitely wilder and more shambolic, these three also followed their own singular and inspired direction, tracking a skewed path to the more well known 'southern' acts of the day.  The lazy slacker delivery on the last self-titled track says Malkmus (and although that particular supergroup are self-confessed Clean fans, I can't say if there's a direct connection here, who knows).

Kevin Smith was known to me (and many others) during the 90s as the cheesy chisel jawed guy whose smile and alpha force turned up on every prime time NZ TV production of the day, and he went on to almost star with Bruce Willis, if it weren't for his untimely death after some bad footing on a film studio prop tower.  Patrick Faigan continued to be a more understated hero (aka Duane Zarakov), and I just noticed there is nothing from his band Spacedust on discogs (or probably in the blog world if I bothered to look), so I may try to fix that.

I'm very much after everything else on the TV Eye label, which isn't much, but then I've never come across copies to purchase, and probably never will after letting the cat out of the bag about the brilliance, ah well.  If you can help, please put up your hand.