Back catalogue: Library/Archive

Review: Cult beat writer, famous drug taker and frankly rather impenetrable mind William S Burroughs is a favourite of Will Self and hung out with Francis Bacon in Tangiers where many outsiders of that time would convene. Break Through In Grey Room is an album released back in 2012 that collects totters his cut-up speeches and recordings of performances between the years of 1960 and 1975. Some are pieces, some are discussions of pieces, all jump back and forth between the conscious to the subconscious are make for challenging but rewarding listening.

Review: The Globeflower Masters Vol 1 is a new Mr Bongo release that has been put together with classic soundtracks, 70s library music and cinematic compositions in mind. It was assembled in summer 2020 by Brightonian musicians Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel who drew on their arsenal of vintage synths, pianos, 'other fun toys' and all manner of drums, guitars and bass. The result is a soothing album that will work in the dead of winter as well as the light of the summer thanks to its warm sounds, lush productions and luxuriant arrangements. A worth CD for any collection.

Review: Canadian composer, arranger, songwriter, and electronic music pioneer Mort Garson just keeps on giving, even now, 15 years after his death. Archival releases since have come not-so-thick-and-fast, but occasional and well thought through, with Journey to the Moon & Beyond the latest example of this. Not, as the cover and title might suggest, the score to some forgotten 1970s animated classic, but instead a collection of stuff very few will have heard before, let alone had opportunity to buy, it's really something special. On the track list, then, you'll find the soundtrack to 1974 Blaxploitation movie Black Eye, or at least part of it. Similarly splendid, but in a very different way, are the grand tones of 'Zoos of the World', originally made to accompany a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. Then there's the music he wrote for the 1969 moon landings, as used by CBS News at the time. History bottled, or rather pressed, get it while it's fresh (and in stock).

Review: The first fruits of Be With Records' recently announced partnership with Tele Music is a reissue of one of the legendary library music label's most far-sighted and sought-after releases: Tonio Rubio's 1972 collection 'Rhythms'. Offering the best in deep disco-breaks, laidback Blaxploitation funk and killer groove-based instrumentals, the album now comes accompanied by extensive new liner notes from Rubio and many of the crate-digging DJs who have been inspired by the album. Highlights include - but are in no way limited to - the wonderfully cosmic and otherworldly 'Dead Slow', the low-slung delights of 'Bass In Action' parts one and two, and the Pierre Henry-esque brilliance of 'Latin Leitmotiv'.

Review: Born in Algeria, when it was still among France's colonies, to French parents who themselves claimed Italian heritage, it makes perfect sense that Edouard Joseph Scotto Di Suoccio would wind up making music that seemed born out of a very different place to the one you're looking at. No matter what, or where, you're gazing upon. Strange tunes that take some describing, let's start at the beginning. Following his series of chanson singles released in the late-1960s under the pseudonym Ted Scotto, by the middle of the next decade he'd adopted the Tregger alias and was dipping toes into tones along the lines of what Space Oddities is packed with. First laidback jazz funk, things became more and more exploratory, sci-fi, disco, and kosmische influenced as the years went by. That legacy is remembered and honoured today on some of the world's finest groove-soaked dancefloors and the DJs that dominate them, with this collection giving an insight into the more experimental end of that oeuvre.