An excellent 70s Italian film score – penned for a political thriller, but handled with a fair bit of sweet and lovely themes! The album's one of the best we've ever heard from Francesco De Masi, and it nicely mixes his usual strong talents for action with a bit more warmth that befits the sexier side of the Italian cinematic spectrum. Sweet strings glide in alongside tighter electric basslines on some tracks – and others feature evocative woodwind bits, haunting piano, and a few more dramatic orchestrations – all wrapped up with really lovely sound throughout, and reissued here in a wonderful new package that really fits the music! There's a few vocal tracks – "Tomorrow Is A Foreign Land" and "Time On My Hands" – sung in English by Melody – and other titles include "The Story Of A Dream", "Running Against The Time", "Cape Town Harbour", "Soldiers Aboard", "Red Clouds", "Ending A Dream", "Suspect & Love", and "You'll Kill Her". LP, Vinyl record album

The great John Barry as a young man – stepping out here on songs that are a lot more rocking than his later fame as a soundtrack composer – served up in a massive 3CD box that collects together singles for Parlophone and Columbia, plus some early rock songs from films! The style here is quite different than the Barry of the James Bond years – as the Parlophone tracks include a number of vocal singles that are clearly trying to challenge the US rock hits of the time, mixed with more instrumentals by the John Barry Seven – and the Columbia years follow with more of the instrumental vibe, often using cool production to bring the most out of the twangy guitars or bright trumpet lines. The set concludes with a CD that features the Beat Girl soundtrack and the Stringbeat instrumental album – both a strong extension of the Columbia years – and the package features 92 tracks in all – with a big booklet of notes – titles that include "Get Lost Jack frost", "Big Fella", "Beat For Beatniks", "Hit & Miss", "Zip Zip", "Little John", "Hideaway", "Farrago", "Big Guitar", "Tit Willow Twist", "Watch Your Step", "The Menace", "Blondie's Strip", "The Challenge", "Moody River", "A Handful Of Songs", "Zapata", and lots lots more. CD

An excellent collection of work from the great John Barry – one that focuses on his famous contributions for the James Bond films – but also includes other soundtrack and instrumental material as well! The set begins with the John Barry Plays 007 record – a brilliant album that not only features some instrumental soundtrack themes, but also includes some great mod Barry instrumentals from the 60s – kind of a nice link to his sophisticated film music, and some of his smaller combo work! Titles include "Kinky", "Fancy Dance", "007", "From Russia With Love", "Big Shield", "Aliki", "Monkey Feathers", and "The London Theme". Next are two tracks from Elizabeth Taylor In London – "Lovers & Browning", with a recitation by Taylor – plus the jazzy instrumental "The London Waltz". Next are two tracks from Zulu – a colonial period film that starred Michael Caine – followed by 15 more groovy instrumentals that include "Tit Willow Twist", "Hit & Miss", "Easy Beat", "Beat Girl", "The Lolly Theme", "Spinnerree", "Roman Spring Of Mrs Stone", "The Sun's Hooray", and "Saturday's Child". CD

A nice little shark-themed soundtrack, but one that comes across with a vibe that's quite different than any of the music used for Jaws – partly because there's a number of vocal tunes in the mix! The set features three standout songs – "Hollywood Big Time" and "You've Changed The World For Me", sung by Yvonne Wilkins – and "Ballad", which is sung by composer Maurizio De Angelis himself – which are then mixed with instrumental numbers that are electric and keyboard-heavy, maybe more in line with Italian slasher/horror work of the period than you might expect! The colder electronics must have given the watery scenes a really great vibe on the screen – and the package features great sound throughout, and a mighty nice graphic appeal. LP, Vinyl record album

A nice little shark-themed soundtrack, but one that comes across with a vibe that's quite different than any of the music used for Jaws – partly because there's a number of vocal tunes in the mix! The set features three standout songs – "Hollywood Big Time" and "You've Changed The World For Me", sung by Yvonne Wilkins – and "Ballad", which is sung by composer Maurizio De Angelis himself – which are then mixed with instrumental numbers that are electric and keyboard-heavy, maybe more in line with Italian slasher/horror work of the period than you might expect! The colder electronics must have given the watery scenes a really great vibe on the screen – and the package features great sound throughout, and a mighty nice graphic appeal. CD features 29 tracks in all – 13 more than the LP version. CD

An overlooked score from a time when Riz Ortolani was really making big waves on the international soundtrack scene – doing music both for films in his homeland and overseas – which may be why this gem of a record never issued at the time! The CAM label only put two tracks out as a 45rpm single, which makes the other 17 here a new discovery for the listener – a great suite of sounds that offers plenty of warm, wonderful variations on the theme – a number that has a slight current of sadness and sentiment, but never too much – and which is balanced out by a few cuts that groove in more of a mod 60s-styled way. CD features 19 tracks in all – handled with the usual care we love from Beat Records! CD

The RZA's fine second phase career as a top notch soundtrack maestro continues with Afro Samurai – the music for the anime/blacksploitation hybrid starring Samuel L Jackson – and a varied batch of tracks that's really a lot more than the typical Ghost Dog/early Wu Tang style beats you might be expecting! Naturally, RZA does bring plenty of martial arts style and soul beat instrumentals, but there are also a lot of vocal cuts – which run the gamut from raw freestyle-like bits to atmospheric r&b. GZA drops in, as do pioneers Big Daddy Kane and Q-Tip! Titles include "Afro Theme" with rhymes by RZA, "Certified Samurai" feat Talib Kweli, Lil Free & Suga Bang, "Just A Little Dude" feat Q-Tip & Free Murder, "Oh" and "The Walk" feat Stone Mecca, "Cameo Afro" feat Big Daddy Kane, GZA & Suga Bang, "Take Sword Pt 1" with RZA & Berretta 9 and more vocal tracks, plus the instrumentals "Afro Intro", "Afro's Father Fight", "The Empty 7 Theme", "Afro Samurai Theme (First Part and Second Part)" and more. Several bonus tracks, too, billed as Bobby Digital! (Hip Hop, Soundtracks) CD

A classic to end all classics – and the record that showed the world that the kung fu genre could be every bit as funky as American crime and action films! Lalo Schifrin's at the height of his powers on this set – working in a blend of raw guitars, rolling bass, and choppy rhythms that groove about as fast as Bruce Lee's hands move on the screen in the film – and the album's a real standout in the 70s soundtrack scene, well worth all the hype and attention that's been given to it over the years! The record's one you'll dig if you're a fan of funk, or a student of Schifrin – and even after the passage of decades, it's still a tough soundtrack to beat. Titles include the classic "Theme From Enter The Dragon", plus "Bamboo Bird Cage", "The Monk", "Han's Island", "The Big Battle", and "The Human Fly". LP, Vinyl record album

Easily one of the funkiest albums that James Brown ever recorded – and one of his few entries into the blacksploitation genre of the 70s! James really outdid himself for this one – working at a hard burning pace that had the JBs cooking up some killer funk for just about every number in the set – and which also has James himself stepping out vocally for a few key tracks. The album features the massive groover "People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul" – a slamming track that beats nearly every number in the JB 70s catalog – plus other cuts that include "To My Brother", "Brother Rapp", "Sexy Sexy Sexy", "Slaughter Theme", "Transmogrification", "King Slaughter", and "How Long Can I Keep It Up". (Soul, Soundtracks) CD

The continuing lost legacy of Patrick Cowley – the San Francisco 80s club maestro who made some famous records with Sylvester – but who also did a huge amount of underground sounds for porno films at the time! This set digs deep into that legacy – by featuring music that Cowley did for the 1982 film Afternooners, as well as a few other tracks from the time – material that's a great 80s extrapolation of the sorts of slinky funk you'd know from 70s porn! The sounds here are heavy on beats and keyboards – a much more slowed-down take on territory that Cowley explored on his club singles of the period – and the basslines are plenty heavy, and very seductive – as you might imagine, given the images they were used with on the screen. We should tell you that the package does include a few nude images inside – so be warned if you're offended by that sort of thing. Titles include "Love Come Set Me Free", "Big Shot", "Surfside Sex", "Hot Beach", "The Runner", "One Hot Afternoon", "Leather Bound", and "Bore & Stroke". CD

The continuing lost legacy of Patrick Cowley – the San Francisco 80s club maestro who made some famous records with Sylvester – but who also did a huge amount of underground sounds for porno films at the time! This set digs deep into that legacy – by featuring music that Cowley did for the 1982 film Afternooners, as well as a few other tracks from the time – material that's a great 80s extrapolation of the sorts of slinky funk you'd know from 70s porn! The sounds here are heavy on beats and keyboards – a much more slowed-down take on territory that Cowley explored on his club singles of the period – and the basslines are plenty heavy, and very seductive – as you might imagine, given the images they were used with on the screen. We should tell you that the package does include a few nude images inside – so be warned if you're offended by that sort of thing. Titles include "Love Come Set Me Free", "Big Shot", "Surfside Sex", "Hot Beach", "The Runner", "One Hot Afternoon", "Leather Bound", and "Bore & Stroke". LP, Vinyl record album

A biker soundtrack to end all biker soundtracks – one that shares plenty of elements with better-known entries in the genre, but which also has some really wild and offbeat moments! As with most of the short-lived motorcycle soundtrack era, the vibe here is much more rock than other film scores of the time – written and performed by Don Gere, with a variety of styles that echo some of the fake groups that were often thrown together for bigger biker films – but sometimes with looser, weirder elements that really deliver the kind of sounds that we always expected on other biker soundtracks, but which were instead buried under piles of b and c-grade psych. Instead, Don really serves up the goods here – especially on some of the more fuzzy Satanic ritual tracks, which also have some great sound effects – and which then have you embracing some of the straighter rock tracks, almost as a relief. Titles include "Werewolves On Wheels (Main Theme)", "Mount Shasta Home", "Ritual", "Ritual 2", "The Devil's Advocates", "One Foot In Heaven", "Burning Grass", "Tarot", "Tarot Trail", "Dust Bowl", "Ritual 3", and "Werewolves On Wheels (End Theme)". LP, Vinyl record album

A demonic possession soundtrack, and one that's put together with just the right sort of sounds – music that's so creepy and eerie, we keep looking over our shoulders when we're giving it a listen – and which hardly sounds like any other similar soundtracks from the time! Marcello Giombini didn't try to copy some of the bigger satanic possession films of the period – and instead just revels in his own unique combination of instruments – which sometimes includes keyboard passages acting larger orchestrations, which have this weird way of refracting the real so that things really sound unusual and offbeat. There's a bit of wordless vocals from I Cantori Moderni, and a few darker electronic moments – although this isn't really an electronic score overall – and titles include "Tema Ossessa", "Tema Agitato", "Suspence Diabolica", "Esorcismo Ex Abea", "Tema Drammatico", and "Messa Nera". CD

A delightfully offbeat soundtrack from the glory days of the biker film – put together by Harley Hatcher, but featuring performances by a whole host of different artists! Hatcher approaches the record with the same sort of vibe that Mike Curb was using for similar projects – working with a bunch of short vocal numbers, most of which are performed by lesser-known groups, in styles that are almost a Sunshine Pop take on biker rock! The big star here is Bill Medley – who sings "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" – and other titles include "The Hard Ride" and "Victorville Blues" by The Sounds Of Harley; "Shannon's Hook Shop" and "Let The Music Play" by Bluewater; "I Came A Long Way To Be With You" and "Carry Me Home" by Thelma Camacho; and "Fallin In Love with Baby" by Junction. LP, Vinyl record album

One of the coolest, grooviest soundtracks we've ever heard from Riz Ortolani – an artist who did bigger, more mainstream film scores in the 60s – but who really developed a more electric vibe in the 70s! This soundtrack has Riz working at the top of his powers – bringing in keyboards and guitars to really spice things up, and make for a few key funky moments – but also still handling some larger charts with the professional flair he always brought to his music – showing that the best horror work of this time still came from composers who had deeper skills than just a few slick keyboard lines. Titles include "Love With Fun", "Massacre Of The Troupe", "Cameraman's Recreation", "Adulteress' Punishment", "Savage Rite", and "Drinking Coco". CD version has a huge amount of bonus tracks – 10 more tunes added to the original soundtrack! CD

Wonderfully groovy stuff – and one of the best soundtracks ever by the great Italian composer Armando Trovajoli! The record has a very similar feel to his legendary Seven Golden Men soundtrack – with a groovy swinging jazz vocal group (I Cantori Moderni) over jazzy riffing and groovin – on upbeat tunes that are very cool, with a mod 60s style throughout! The whole thing swings mightily – and kind of feels like what might have happened if the Swingle Singers ever recorded with Lalo Schifrin – his best jazz-infused instrumentation, and their wonderfully dynamic vocal approach. Titles include "The Getaway", "Seven Times Blues", "The Big Brain", "Jail", and "Seven Times Seven". LP, Vinyl record album