On The Brink: Return Of The Instro-Hipsters

On The Brink: Return Of The Instro-Hipsters

On the Brink is a collection of 20 previously uncomped and absolutely superb UK instrumentals from the '60s and early '70s, assembled by legendary psych musician and Psychic Circle label-head, Nick Saloman (The Bevis Frond). Presenting session men discovering sitars, orchestras getting into the freaky side of things, hip theme tunes, Hammonds, fuzz and brass. Somehow sophisticated and cheesy simultaneously, these acts created their own musical world of Chelsea apartments, mini-mokes, dark velvet bespoke tailoring and the dolliest birds this side of Battersea Bridge. Welcome to the soundtrack of your own unmade Swinging London movie. Artists include: Mike Vickers, the Jim Sullivan Sound, the Shock Absorbers, Wynder K. Frog, Rita, Offside, the Les Reed Orchestra, David Smith, the Keith Mansfield Orchestra, the Dave Davani Four, the Fidd, Ken Woodman's Piccadilly Brass, the John Schroeder Orchestra, Trax Four, the Mike Cotton Sound, Lee Mason and his Orchestra, the Vic Flick Sound, the Chris Barber Soul Band, Brian Bennett and Stanley Myers.

From the mid-'60s to the early '70s, there were quite a few instrumental releases recorded in the U.K. that seemed geared toward the easy listening market. Or, if the intention wasn't quite as gauche, they certainly weren't meant for the average rock fan, who likely wanted something hipper with more vocals and guitars. Still, even if the limited audience for these might have been (at least in part) listeners who wanted to feel a little hip without getting too far out, the musicians nonetheless couldn't help but be influenced by the rock, soul, and jazz trends of the day. On the Brink: Return of the Instro-Hipsters is a 20-track compilation of cuts from obscure 1965-1973 releases in this mold, with Swinging London go-go-like organs and brass being perhaps the most common (though by no means only) ingredients in the arrangements. There are a few names here that will be known to serious British Invasion fans, like Mike Vickers (from Manfred Mann), Jim Sullivan (the numero uno British rock session guitarist before Jimmy Page eclipsed him), Wynder K. Frog, the Mike Cotton Sound, the Dave Davani Four, Vic Flick (famous for playing on "The James Bond Theme"), and British senior jazz statesman Chris Barber; others are known as top cats in the British easy listening arena and have already been honored by reissues of their own (Ken Woodman and John Schroeder).

While any compilation that takes such an unusual angle to such a heavily mined reissue field as British '60s pop is to be applauded, you'd have a hard time pushing all of this as essential listening, even within its narrow subgenre. A good deal of it really is kind of mundane background soul-rock instrumental music – something that could have worked satisfactorily on B-movie soundtracks of the era, but which doesn't stand too well on its own two feet. There are occasional psychedelic echoes on sitar and screeching fuzz guitar, but these sound more like cheesy appropriations to make the cuts seem more "with it" than they sound like outbursts of creativity. It's only occasionally that the tracks let rip with the groovy organ and devious spy guitar licks lots of curious listeners will really want to hear, as the Dave Davani Four's fine cover of the "Top of the Pops" theme and the Vic Flick Sound's "West of Windward" do on both counts. As for other gut-grabbers, Ken Woodman's Piccadilly Brass' "Mexican Flier" would have worked great as a '60s Bond-like thriller theme, and the Chris Barber Soul Band's "Morning Train" (from 1965) has to be the veteran jazzer's most effective stab at the pop/rock market, with some great Brian Auger organ and an edgy jazz-blues fusion that approximates (but doesn't quite match) the sound of the Graham Bond Organisation. Some worthwhile and fun stuff here, then, but there's a significant gap between the best of it and the rest of it.

Review by Richie Unterberger, Allmusic.com

 

 Tracklist:

01. Mike Vickers - On The Brink (02:23)
02. The Jim Sullivan Sound - She Walks Through The Fair (02:44)
03. The Shock Absorbers - It's Your Thing (02:40)
04. Wynder K. Frog - I'm A Man (03:20)
05. Rita - Sexologie (03:17)
06. Offside - Small Deal (02:08)
07. The Les Reed Orchestra - Big Drum (01:58)
08. David Smith - See Me (02:32)
09. The Keith Mansfield Orchestra - Soul Thing (02:59)
10. The Dave Davani Four - Top Of The Pops (02:12)
11. The Fidd - Happy Walk (02:30)
12. Ken Woodman's Piccadilly Brass - Mexican Flier (02:35)
13. The John Schroeder Orchestra - Nightrider (02:55)
14. Trax Four - Moanin' (02:01)
15. The Mike Cotton Sound - Soul Serenade (02:42)
16. Lee Mason And His Orchestra - Deadly Nightshade (03:03)
17. The Vic Flick Sound - West Of Windward (02:59)
18. The Chris Barber Soul Band - Morning Train (02:28)
19. Brian Bennet - Tricycle (02:50)
20. Stanley Myers - Organ Fantasia in D Major (05:49)

 

hipsville dudes

VA - Kan-Gu-Wa and Chop Chop

Trick and Treat - - enjoy the madness.

First time on CD! The third and fourth volumes in the Exotic Blues & Rhythm series were released on limited edition 10" vinyl (500 copies per volume) and sold out in next to no time! Enjoy amazing and danceable tunes from the late 50s and early 60s - a handful of Popcorn dancefloor smashs, a few grinding Tittyshakers, awesome Rhythm & Blues - most of them with an exotic twist! 24 songs.

TRACKLIST

01. Ubangi Rock - Chaino
02. Kan-Gu-Wa - The Scholars
03. Man From Utopia - Donald Woods & The Vel-Aires
04. Haunted Lover - Carole Bennett
05. Little Doe-Doe - Curtis Knight
06. Ghost Train - The Electro-Tones
07. Big Foot - Googie Rene
08. Twistin' Fever - The Marcels
09. I Want Her Back - Dick Jordan
10. Rise Up And Walk - Troy Dodds
11. Voodoo Drums - Les Elgart
12. Volcano - The Three Suns
13. Chop Chop - Sandy Nelson
14. Don't Go - Vince Everett
15. Ali Ben Ghazi - Jack Hammer
16. Monkey See, Monkey Do - The Sherwoods
17. Johnny Lee - Faye Adams
18. I've Been True - Jannie Williams
19. Baltimore Jones - Chuck Miller
20. I Go (King-Kong) - The Go-Rillas
21. She's Mine - John Lee Hooker
22. Red Lips - Marty Hill
23. Little Indian Girl - Billy & The Moonlighters
24. Bullfrog - Johnnie Moore & His New Blazers

bongoz

Happy New Year with some Incredibly Strange Music - sort of...

This is a compilation of oddball songs from some mostly rare albums from the '50s and '60s. All the songs come from the same person's record collection, and they have been transferred directly from the albums to CD. Some of the albums are rather worn out, so you can hear scratches on most of the songs here. But somehow that just adds to the charm, like someone invited you to their house to listen to their old records. All the songs here are pretty strange, with 9 of the 13 tracks being instrumentals. The songs with lyrics are comedy songs, with the exception of Kali Bahlu's "A Cosmic Telephone Call", which a bizarre 11 minute recounting of a telephone conversation she had with Buddha(!). The instrumentals include guitar instrumentals, sound effects instrumentals, xylophone instrumentals, sitar instrumentals, percussion instrumentals, Moog instrumentals, accordian instrumentals and whistling instrumentals. This CD is a lot of fun, and it should appeal to fans of "cool and strange" music.

1. Busy Bee Buddy Merrill
2. Sweet 16 Bob Peck
3. Lonesome Road Dean Elliot
4. Will to Fail Katie Lee
5. Minute Merengue Harry Breuer
6. Up, Up and Away Rajput & the Sepoy
7. Mister Hot Rod The Scramblers
8. Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals Dave Harris
9. Swan's Splashdown Perrey and Kingsley
10. Tico-Tico Jo Ann Castle
11. Hawaiian War Chant Billy Mure
12. Wiliam Tell Overture Fred Lowrey
13. Cosmic Telephone Kali Bahlu

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Incredibly Strange Music v2

More fun funky stuff from the 50's and 60's to start your new year.

1 Hot Butter - Skokian (2:14)
2 Bob McFadden & Dor - The Mummy (2:01)
3 The Nirvana Sitar & String Group - The Letter (1:51)
4 Lucia Pamela - Walking On The Moon (3:07)
5 Ken Nordine - Flesh (1:32)
6 Billy Mure - Chopsticks Guitar (2:28)
7 Myrtle K. Hilo - Lover's Prayer (2:37)
8 Russ Garcia & His Orchestra - Delicado (3:28)
9 Del Close & John Brent - Introduction (1:15)
10 Jean-Jacques Perrey - Gossipo Perpetuo (2:08)
11 Ken Nordine - Green (1:32)
12 Eden Ahbez - Full Moon (2:55)
13 Harry Breuer - Bumble Bee Bolero (2:11)
14 Marcy Join - The Gospel Express (1:27)
15 Les Baxter - Terror (3:17)
16 Ken Nordine - Yellow (1:32)
17 Rusty Warren - 1rst Song / Opening Monologue (3:02)

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Amanda Palmer - Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele

Amazing fun and wacky. 

1. Fake Plastic Trees
2. High And Dry
3. No Surprises
4. Idioteque
5. Creep (Hungover at Soundcheck in Berlin)
6. Exit Music (For A Film) [Feat. Zoë Keating, Lyndon Chester, Jenny Khafagi, and Lucy Warren]
7. Creep (Live in Prague)

aprads

Albert Kuvezin And Kat-Kha - Re-Covers

In the WTF department – this is the STRANGEST stuff I have heard in decades – I kid you not. Throat-singing - what the hell is that all about? If you've never seen one mouth singing two or three separate simultaneous melodies, you really need to get out more. Go to Tuva, for example, a remote republic in Siberia surrounded by mountains and filled with moonshiners, miners and cows. There you will find shamanic folk songs played on unpronounceable instruments by bearded men with grizzly, guttural voices that will give you goosebumps forever.

And if you're really lucky, you'll stumble across Albert Kuvezin and his band Yat-Kha. Fighting against Communist musical censorship that tried to tell him what styles he could and couldn't play, Kuvezin has forged a near-impossible international reputation for his music. And with Yat-Kha, he combines Tuva's traditional music with the Western heavy rock he loves, chugging an electric guitar as he goes "Oh yeeeeah" in his filthy double-bass vocal.

After several albums of this punk-folk mish-mash, the logical next step is a covers record; and what a beast this is. From the opening strum of Led Zeppelin's 'When The Levee Breaks', 'Re-Covers' sets its stall as a reverent but unapologetic album. Simmering the song to its bones, Kuvezin rebuilds it as a Siberian folk masterpiece, his unnervingly deep growl spinning a magical, mesmeric tale over the delicate instrumentation.

And so they are all reworked. Kraftwerk's 'The Man Machine' becomes a haunting canvass of guitar effects and acoustic play-about, with overtone chanting roaming for carrion. These eerie high-frequency melodies knock against the rich deep-throat bass vocal. Quite how they could come out of the same larynx - simultaneously or not - is a miracle.
Captain Beefheart's 'Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles' takes on a dreamy Celtic quality; Motorhead's 'Orgasmatron' swirls with black magic; and 'Play With Fire' is a fair old walk from anything The Rolling Stones ever meant to write.

But it's not just rock stuff that gets the folk-me-up treatment. Hank Williams' 'Ramblin' Man' takes that age-old tale of a man whose heart belongs to the train tracks and gives it a darkly wistful edge, with minimal rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat. Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' falls slightly flat, its beautiful acoustic guitar lines marred by slightly off-key bear-growl vocals. And a Bob Marley track joins People's Music from Russia, Ireland and France, bobbing joyously with sweet percussion and a voice that sounds like a million cigarettes but is actually the product of one too many homemade vodkas.

Great for Halloween. Probably too much for one sitting. Go on – I dare ya!!!!

1. When the Levee Breaks 2. Man Machine 3. Ramblin' Man 4. In a Gadda Da Vida 5. Love Will Tear Us Apart 6. Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles 7. Pesnya O Giraffe (A Song About a Giraffe) 8. Orgasmatron 9. Wild Mountain Thyme (Will Ye Go, Lassie Go?) 10. Toccata 11. Black Magic Woman 12. Exodus 13. Play with Fire 14. Pesnya Mergena (The Song of Mergen)

throat

songs