Ennio Morricone – The Thing

CD, Varese Sarabande, 1991 [originally release on LP by MCA in 1982]

Brrrr. Fall is coming in and there’s no better time to reacquaint yourself with Morricone’s icy soundtrack to the frigid bodyshock horror of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Rumours persist, indeed, that Carpenter had a hand in some of this music, and certainly the occasional synth passages sound at least inspired by his and Alan Howarth’s work on electronic scores such as Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween and Prince of Darkness. And check out those track titles – are you sure this isn’t a long-lost SPK album?

(NB, yes, there are a couple of other rips of this out there, but this is a full 320 ftw.)

01. Humanity (pt I) (6:50)
02. Shape (3:18)
03. Contamination (1:02)
04. Bestiality (2:56)
05. Solitude (5:58)
06. Eternity (5:35)
07. Wait (6:22)
08. Humanity (Part II) (7:15)
09. Sterilization (5:12)
10. Despair (4:58)

Link | Discogs

Howard J Davidson – Discoveries Underwater

LP/CD, BBC, 1988

Here’s some sleepy sub-aquatic television soundtrack music, as used in the documentary of the same name made by the BBC. It’s licensed from Ocean Disques, more usually a new age label, of the sort you see with their own little electronic display in craft shops and garden tool stores, but we think this transcends the usual beige dribbling. YMMV.

Incidentally, Discogs suggests this is the same Howard Davidson guy who conducted the orchestra on Gavin Bryars’ orginal Obscure label recording of The Sinking of the Titanic but we’re not totally convinced. Any thoughts?

A1. B’breath (Theme from Discoveries Underwater)
A2. Panarea
A3. (As a Mark of Respect) No one Shall Enter the Ship
B1. Aqua Sub Aqua
B2. Isle Royal
B3. Atocha
B4. Truk Lagoon

Link | Discogs

Man Jumping

After our Regular Music round-up, we charged straight into ripping our collection of similarly minimalist-inspired music by compatriots The Lost Jockey… except that when we did a quick web search for cover images (just to save us photography time, you understand), we noticed the tremendous No Longer Forgotten Music had got there ahead of us (go here and here like, now).

So we turned our attention to another band on our lengthy Rip Me list, formed by several members of Lost Jockey when Andrew Poppy wandered off to sign to ZTT, Man Jumping. And again, despite releases on not-exactly-obscure labels such as EG and Bill Nelson’s Cocteau, their brand of… swampy angular postpunkfunk workouts with a slightly too 80s production but pleasingly an occasional Steve Reich influence buried in the mix … is desperately hard to find these days. Yet another candidate for the Come On, Chaps, This Would Make a Lovely Double CD Set category, also known as the If Random Hold Can Do It, Surely…

Jumpcut, LP, Cocteau, 1984

A1. In the Jungle
A2. World Service
A3. Aerotropics
A4. Belle Dux on the Beach
B1. Walk On, Bye
B2. Squeezi
B3. Down the Locale

Link | Discogs

Aerotropics (Remix), 12″, Cocteau, 1985

A. Aerotropics (Remix) (6:48)
B. In the Jungle (Remix) (8:05)

MF link | MU link | Discogs

World Service, LP/CD, Editions EG, 1987

01. The Perils of Tourism (5:54)
02. The Trouble is Is (5:46)
03. The Big Swing (6:17)
04. Something in the City (6:46)
05. On the Rocks (7:45)
06. It’s Been Fun (7:12)
07. The Wedding (8:30)

Link | Discogs

Regular Music

LP, Rough Trade, 1985

Essential album of Philip Glass- and Steve Reich-inspired minimalism from Jeremy Peyton Jones‘ sadly under-recorded Regular Music. Amongst the ten members you’ll find This Heat drummer Charles Hayward and Jocelyn Pook on the violin. And somewhat bizarrely it’s on Rough Trade? We wonder whether the sheer number of participants is what kept this from ever being reissued on CD – sort it out, somebody!

More recently, his Regular Music II had an album North South East West, on New Tone, which you can get via iTunes, and JPJ continues to compose for other musicians, including Canadian guitar orchestrator Tim Brady. Regular Music and Peyton Jones have also cropped up on a few compilations here and there over the years, notably a pair of Touch tapes, so we’ve added those to this archive too. Why yes, we guess we are good to you… but we’ll happily have it in writing.

A1. Idyllic Rhythms (11:34)
A2. Hyppolyte & Aricie (5:46)
A3. The Fourth Door (Dub) (4:35)
B1. Neapolitan Sixth (Part 1) (5:10)
B2. Neapolitan Sixth (Part 3) (3:21)
B3. The Third Dream (10:35)
B4. The Fourth Door (4:35)
+ Purcell Manoeuvres (3:12) [Touch - Magnetic North 1985]
+ Music for Film (11:12) [Touch – Land's End 1985]
+ Extracts from 18 Guitars (9:45) [Nottinghamshire Live & Direct 1997]

MF Link | MU Link | Discogs

Gil Mellé- Mindscape

LP/CD, Blue Note, 1989

Rippling New Age-y synths meet fusion-inspired soundtrack impressionism, on this atypical (to say the least) late 80s Blue Note release. Mellé is best known for his wonderful electronic score for The Andromeda Strain in 1971, and he provided music for classic 1970s shows like Columbo and Kolchak the Night Stalker. He played everything here, produced the album and painted the sleeve image. He died in 2004.

NB, this is ripped from the vinyl edition; apparently the CD had two more tracks. If you have em, may we direct you to the Comments link… And if you want more of this sort of stuff, may we point you very happily at our fellow flanneurs in sound at The Growing Bin.

A1. Mindscape (3:37)
A2. Message from Mozambique (5:58)
A3. Shadow and Substance (13:51)
Part 1 – Vintage Autumn
Part 2 – Experiment Perilous
Part 3 – Zero in the Universe
B1. Bird of Paradise (3:39)
B2. Double Exposure (2:55)
B3. The Blue Lion (5:43)
B4. Neon Canyons (5:43)
B5. Swamp Girl (4:17)

Link | Discogs

The Osmonds – One Bad Apple (Norman Cook Remix)

12″ promo, Polydor, 1996

Semi-legendary mash-up reworking of the Osmonds’ Jackson 5-alike pop classic by the man who was not yet Fatboy Slim. Watch out for “Oops Upside Your Head” and a guest appearance by Scooby-Doo. Stefan only bought this in a Virgin Megastore back in the day, as a sealed and information-free twelve (just that Donny stamp), cos it was stuffed in the Coco Steel & Lovebomb section – presumably the staff there thought it was a promo of their “Crucifixion of Donny” EP (watch out for that one some day too).

The b-sides are the regular versions, but we ripped them for completeness. Geeks. Meanwhile, who’d have thought “Crazy Horses” was only 2:32?

A. One Bad Apple (Norman Cook Remix) (5:53)
B1. One Bad Apple (2:46)
B2. Crazy Horses (2:32)

Link | Discogs