Soundtracks — All Formats  

A great little record that's kind of a prequel for Rubber Soul – filled with short, tuneful tracks that would flower more deeply on that later album – and often served up with a bit more wit and adult consciousness than in any of the group's earlier records! One of those records that we always forget about, until we drop the needle – the revel in its sweet blend of Beatles modes on tracks that include "Help", "The Night Before", "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "I've Just Seen A Face", "Yesterday", "Act Naturally", "It's Only Love", "Ticket To Ride", and "I Need You". Original 14 track UK lineup – much different than the American release!

A pair of weird soundtracks from Italian soundtrack heavy Fabio Fizzi – the stylistically sprawling music for Zombi 2 (released in America as Zombie) and some later compositions for Un Gatto Nel Cervello! The Zombi grooves are wildly unpredictable – from neo Carribbean inflections, to electronics reminiscent of John Carpenter, to African percussion. Wild stuff for a movie about Zombie carnage – and yes, that's the movie with the zombie-shark faceoff! Un Gatto Nel Cervello finds Frizzi working in a more classically soundtracky style – but it's done on synthesizers, which gives it seedy undercurrent! Both soundtracks on a single CD – with each consisting of multiple title theme sequences – and featuring 23 tracks in all.

2 of our favorite action soundtracks from French maestro Georges Garvarentz – the funky mid 70s Killer Force and the groovy late 60s Corrupt One – in one fantastic set! Killer Force is up first – and it's filled with strident grooves that are right up there with some of the best mid 70s cop/thriller soundtracks! We've never seen the film – which starred O.J. Simpson, Peter Fonda, and Telly Savalas – but with a cast like that, you can guess what the sound is like. You probably know George's work from some of the compilations we've stocked – and this soundtrack's right in keeping with the work on those sets. Tracks include "The Chase", "A Diamond Love", "Forget That Time", "Love Theme", and "Diamond Robbery". The Corrupt Ones is another pulpy gem – featuring a totally cool theme song by Dusty Springfield, with a great mix of funk, easy, and soul! The instrumental tracks range from orchestral/dramatic, to more of a crime jazz style – with some John Barry-like touches, and other more serious numbers. Titles include "Torture Room", "The Gambling Den", "The Bar", "Treasure Cave", "Illusion & Escape", "Man Hunt", "Jasmine's Dance", "The Mortuary", and "Suspense In The Sun". Includes 3 bonus tracks: "Riksha Ride", "Casino Fight" and "Finale".

The first James Bond soundtrack – pre-John Barry, but already showing Bond music as a genre unto itself! Monty Norman handles the music – and brings together some cool Caribbean sounds with familiar jazz riffs – a blend that showcases the Jamaican setting of the main narrative, but also paves the way for lots of spy jazz to come! Titles include "James Bond Theme", "Under The Mango Tree", "Jamaica Jazz", "Dr No's Fantasy", "The Boy Chase", "Love At Last", and "The Island Speaks".

Heavy horror from Italian maestro Carlo Savina – two soundtracks back to back on a single CD! Malenka is amazing – a score that's as groovy as it is spooky – thanks first to a haunting vocal theme, then other instrumentation that uses this wonderful watery organ – almost sci-fi in tone at times, mixed with other very moody moments – kind of slow-strained strings, offbeat sounds, and other unusual effects that create a myriad of cobwebbed sounds for the ears! CD features 22 tracks from the film – including some rare bonus cuts in full stereo. I Diabolici Convegni – follows nicely – an equally tense, dark score – one that's redeemed slightly by the groovy mod cut "My Wonderful Day" – but which mostly hangs out in deep, dank territory with variations on the title theme. Great stuff throughout – and as aurally riveting as the movies must have been on the screen!

A surprisingly solid and fairly ambitious score from Patrick Williams – who really seems to work well with director Richard Lester! Butch And Sundance –The Early Days is, you guessed it, a prequel of sorts to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid – which set the bar pretty darn high a decade earlier, both cinematically and musically. We can't speak for the film, but the score works! Film director Richard Lester is most famous for directing The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night and Help – and he seems to welcome quirky and adventurous musical scores. Williams delivers! It's got a great, folksy main theme and an adventurous vibe overall, with playful horns and strings, some sparer moments and more dramatic orchestrations when necessity calls. The CD includes both the final complete film score – and as a bonus, the original/alternate version. 30 tracks in all. Titles include "Rustlers", "The Arrival", "The Parting", "OC Dies", "The Really Big Train Robbery" (Parts 1, 2 and 3), "The Final Victory (End Credits)" and more.

A masterpiece of moody keyboards – two killer 70s scores from the great Dave Grusin! First up is The Friends of Eddie Coyle – wonderful music for a superb late Robert Mitchum film – never available on record, at least that we know of – and filled with the kind of groovy, funky, keyboard-heavy lines that make some of Grusin's early 70s scoring so great! The tunes are wonderful – often a bit short, but very enigmatic – and the package features stunning sound on tracks that include "Mr Connection", "Clean Cut", "Baylis Robbery", "The Stakeout", "Shopping Center", "Partridge Robbery/Take A Walk", "Jackie Meets Pete & Andrea", and "Eddie Is Hit". Three Days Of The Condor is an incredible soundtrack – one of the all-time greats of the 70s! Dave Grusin really outdid himself with this one – and created a sublime mix of sound, space, and spare funky beats that holds up wonderfully all the way through! The main theme steps around in a haunting mix of electric piano, basslines, and muted trumpets over strings – and lots of other tunes on the set follow the same format – taking the best of funky Morricone and Francis Lai, and giving it an even hipper American twist! Plus, most of Grusin's soundtrack work of this nature was never properly issued (like his great tunes for Barretta!) – and this rare album is one of the few that ever made it, however briefly, to the record racks! Titles include "Condor", "Yellow Panic", "Out To Lunch", "Flight Of The Condor", and "Flashback To Terror". Loads of great keyboards! CD also features 8 more bonus tracks added to the original record – more great Grusin nuggets from the Condor soundtrack – packaged here with great notes, on a CD that's over 70 minutes in length.

A really amazing soundtrack from Ennio Morricone – presented here with the full range of tracks for the first time ever! The music uses some wonderful vocals – sung in a style that's pop, but very creepy too – that way that Morricone vocals can have of being almost chant-like, and sort of satanic! Biance Di Renata Cortiglioni is the singer, and she's much more word-based than Edda Dell'Orso – and it appears that her vocals are overdubbed to create this cool sort of chorus effect – one that only makes the whole thing sound even creepier! In addition to the snapping rhythms of the vocal tunes, there's also some nice sprightly elements on the instrumental cuts too – not upbeat or funky, but an offbeat way that's got a jaunty snare for propulsion. Titles include "Fratello Biondo", "Guerra E Pace Polle E Brace", "Amore Col Cuore", and "Grazie Zia". 14 tracks – with images from the film too.

Amazing work from the legendary Vince Guaraldi – some of his funkiest tunes ever recorded, all issued here commercially for the first time ever! These sides are studio recordings that Vince did for the Charlie Brown cartoons during the hippest years of the series – and the music here is often a fair bit more soulful than Guaraldi's Peanuts recordings from the previous decade – which is saying a lot, considering how great most of that already was! Most numbers here feature Vince on electric piano, working in trio format – all with a beautiful sound that's as crystal-clear, open, and laidback as some of the best keyboard work on CTI at the time. The main difference here, though, is that many of these tunes are quite short – just a couple of minutes, as the music was used as cues in the cartoons – often cut down even more to accompany a short scene. The brevity hardly gets in the way of the tunes, though – as Vince packs more ideas into a few short minutes than most players can get into a single album side – and the set also features one slightly longer track from another 70s recording session apart from the cartoons. Titles include "Cops & Robbers", "Sally's Blues", "It's A Mystery Charlie Brown", "Snoopy & Woodstock", "Woodstock's Dream", "Bus Me", "Little Birdie (inst)", "Joe Cool (inst)", "Linus & Lucy", "Nobody Else", and "Is It James Or Charlie".

Wonderful lost work from Michel Legrand – a fantastic, and fantastically overlooked, 70s soundtrack – completely essential to have in a CD version like this, since most of the music hardly appeared in the film at all! The score takes off nicely from some of Legrand's more famous work of the 60s and early 70s – with a mixture of warm themes, jazzy elements, and some of the funkier touches you'd expect from a cop/crime film – all at a level that's a bit less sentimental than some of his French film work, with just the right qualities to fit the offbeat story of the movie. There's a real Dave Grusin sort of approach going on at times – although with a bit more acoustic piano than electric keyboards – but Legrand also throws in a few softer bits to round things out nicely, and create a lot more depth in the music than you might expect for a low-budget film. Really great stuff overall – the kind of soundtrack that should have gotten proper release at the time, as it easily matches any of Legrand's bigger LP hits – and presented with great notes on both the film and music. Titles include "Papa Joe The Padrone", "Downtown", "Wall Street", "The Chase", "The Sleep Song", "The Sellers", and "Uptown".