A unique western soundtrack – written for a strange early 70s Italian film that featured Ringo Starr! Composer Stelvio Cipriani didn't score as many westerns as some of his Italian contemporaries, and that fact makes for a really unique approach to the genre here – one that breaks past western conventions, and features some very unusual moments! Many tunes have some of the sweeter touches that Cipriani brought to his romantic and crime scoring for other films – modes that don't normally show up in westerns, and which provide a fresh juxtaposition here next to some of the more guitar-based songs. A number of the tracks have wordless vocals – either from Nora Orlandi or Choir 4+4 – and these voices enhance the mood of the soundtrack a lot, often with chanting that has a cool spooky edge! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the first great soundtracks we ever heard from Piero Piccioni – and still one of the best! Colpo Rovente has this really special sort of sound – jazzy, but not really jazz – bassy, but not really funky – and often done with spare, stark sounds – but never in a way that's too atonal or horror-based either! Piccioni brought a really special sort of genius to the record – a way of using each instrument with a very unusual sound or tuning – and isolating each element in just the right way, but with a different style than that used by Morricone at the time. Some tracks get nice and groovy, but lots more hang back in a style that's almost pensive – and titles include "Kintabu", "Colpo Rovente", "Easy Dreamer", "Chinatown Drugs", and "LSD". LP, Vinyl record album

A pretty darn great movie – from what we remember – with a pretty nice soundtrack! The film a madcap portrayal of a bunch of Americans trying to tour Europe in one week – and although it's pretty zany, the music is remarkably sensitive – scored by Walter Scharf in a mixture of easy styles that are sometimes themed with musical references to a specific nation, at other times just groovy and gentle, in a really nice 60s way. A few lame vocal cuts are sung by JP Rags and Hopscotch – but most of the set is instrumental, with titles that include "Driving In Rome", "On To Rome", "Remembering", "Rhine Waltz", "Cycling In Switzerland", "Samantha's Theme", and "Rooftops Of Rome". LP, Vinyl record album

Tangerine Dream delivered a number of famous soundtracks in the late 70s and early 80s – but this set is one of the most obscure, and maybe one of the wildest too! The music was done for an Australian horror film, and has a very dark, moody vibe – still plenty of the Tangerine Dream touches you'd know, but also a bit more noise and murky moments too – and less of the fast-running keyboard lines and electronics that usually grace most of their moments in film! Much of the instrumentation is electronic, but abstracted in all these cool ways – and certainly handled with a lot more depth than some of the younger film composers who were often turning out music like this on a limited budget, with limited instrumentation. Titles include "Murder In The Classroom", "Horror In The Bathroom", "Experiments In Tension", "Tension In The Graveyard", "Kill The Professor/Cleaning Up", and "Pete Goes In For The Kill". (Rock, Soundtracks) LP, Vinyl record album

John Williams come back! All is forgiven! We'll hardly complain anymore about all those overblown top-selling scores after hearing this gem from the early 70s! The record is a treasure – completely unlike any work that Williams did in later years – quite possibly because the film itself is a quirky little love story, starring James Caan and Marsha Mason in the sort of offbeat "when losers meet" sort of film that could have only been made in the early 70s. Some of the tunes on the set are nicely funky – almost in a Lalo Schifrin way – and others are mellow, but nicely moody, in a really understated scene-setting style that's great. Toots Thielemans plays some great harmonica on a few of the mellower cuts, and Paul Williams sings vocals to 3 of the tracks on the set, all contributed by him. Titles include "Wednesday Special", "New Shooter", "Boxing Montage", "The Ferry Ride", "Neptune's Bar", "Nice To Be Around", and "Maggie Shoots Pool". LP, Vinyl record album

A well-remembered soundtrack – and one that's had almost as much appreciation as a record as folks have given the film! If you've seen the movie, you know that the music's a big part of the story – not just the key cuts by Louis Prima, but also the Italian tracks that were less known to American audiences, and which really help give the record some depth! Gary DeMichele composed some original music for the score – but the best tracks here might be the vocal ones – titles that include "Buona Sera", "Five Months Two Weeks Two Days", and "Oh Marie" by Louis Prima – plus "Love Of My Life" by Louis Prima & Keely Smith, "Don't Take Your Love From Me" by Keely Smith, "Mambo Italiano" by Rosemary Clooney, "Stornelli Amorisi" and "Tic Ti Tic Ta" by Claudio Villa, and "Il Pescivendolo" and "Mo Ve'La Bella Mia Da La Muntagna" by Matteo Salvatore. LP, Vinyl record album

The early blues & jazz steeped soundtrack to the classic Terry Zwigoff film based on Daniel Clowes comic – with selections by Skip James, Vince Giordano & The Nighthawks, Robert Wilkins, McGee Bros, Mohammed Rafi, and others. LP, Vinyl record album