A 2LP set, released in the mid 60's as a "Capitol Record Club Exclusive" – and one that compiles some of Baxter's best work for the label. The inside of the cover has some good notes on Baxter's career, and the record contains many nice moments like "Dancing Diamonds", "Lost In Meditation", "Blue Jungle", "Hong Kong Cable Car", "Bustin The Bongos", "Quiet Village", "Enchanted Sea", "Dawn on the City", and "A Distant Star". LP, Vinyl record album

Late sound library grooves from the UK scene – but still pretty darn groovy! First up is Metropolis Now – a 1980 set from arranger Dick Walter, with production from Syd Dale – who clearly keeps things in the same groovy style as his own excellent work for Amphonic! Instrumentation is jazzy, but mixed with a good deal of electric funk – almost making the record sound like one of those great electrified big band albums from the mid 70s that were burning big – a groove that's even more surprising coming from an obscure sound library source at the start of the 80s! Titles include "Times Square", "Greyhound Runaround", "Vegas Venue", "Texas Turnaround", "Metropolis Now", and "Pacific Coast Highway". Otto Keller comes up with some warm grooves for Mix & Match – a set that's got the same sweet jazzy overtones as the best German sound library records from the mid 70s! There's a nice sort of sparkle to most of the tunes – some nice 60s easy and bossa influences in the music – and production and instrumentation that's much more mid 70s than you'd guess from the date of the session. Syd Dale handled production and musical direction – and titles include "Bella Vista", "Spanks", "Walk The Lonely Road", "Blue Monday", "Catwalk", "Sun City", and "East River Mist". (Sound Library, Now Sound) CD

A pretty swinging batch of tracks that are very much in the same vein as Buddy Morrow's crime jazz LPs cut for RCA at the end of the 50s! The album features all TV themes from the time, most of them detective ones – like "Richard Diamond", "Perry Mason", "Naked City", "Sea Hunt", "Peter Gunn", and "Riff Blues" – plus a few others from westerns or other action shows. In all, the set's a very strong one in the style – with a blaring hard sound that must have been great to hear coming out of a tinny little speaker on an old black & white TV! LP, Vinyl record album

A great little collection that's maybe the opposite of the long-running tradition of "desert island discs" – in that the music here is hardly essential, but would be plenty of fun to hear if you were trapped alone with nowhere else to go! Think of the set as the darker side of exotica at the end of the 50s – a spot where tropical sounds mix with Latin rhythms and some rockish touches too – material from the years before surf guitars were really hitting the mainstream, but older modes were being infused with a bit of electricity and new modes of production – all in ways that make for some very cool cuts collected in the set! The package brings together rare singles from a variety of sources – and titles include "Jivaro" by Harvey Anderson, "Babalu" by Phyllis Branch, "The Lonely Sea" by Rick & Trisha, "Strictly Polynesian" by Davy Jones & The Dolphins, "Midnight" by Hank Levine, "Bongo Heat" by Coral & The South Seas, "Martinique" by Ty & Ed, "Atlantis" by Blue Bells, "Rumba Rhapsody" by Hector Cari & The Dancing Strings, "Ho Ba La La" by Dariel Kay, and "Miserlou" by Vitin Aviles Y Su Orquesta. (Rock, Now Sound) LP, Vinyl record album