Pretty compelling stuff from Brit arranger Ray Martin! Sound Of Sight – a record that's exactly what it's titled at – a very visual set of sounds, made up mostly from music, but also featuring some cool sound effects as well – all laid out over original tunes by Martin, which act almost like these mini-movies in sound! The scoring is quite dramatic, and most numbers go for much longer than usual for the average Phase 4 album – and the 1963 date of the record makes for a handful of groovy touches mixed in with the more traditional cinematic styles. Titles include "Hoodunit", "Tearjerker", "Egyptian Epic", "Westorama", "Flagwaver", and "Cartoonik". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

Great work from one of the best contemporary soundtrack artists going – Cliff Martinez's score for Drive – done at a level that's got a really classic vibe! And by classic, we mean classic 80s electronic – as Cliff has this spare, moody style that's really wonderful – sometimes focused strongly on keyboards, sometimes with these airy orchestrations that still continue this long flow – all used brilliantly in the movie, at a speed you'd never expect, given the title! Tracks include "My Name On A Car", "Tick Of The Clock", "They Broke His Pelvis", "Kick Your Teeth", and "Where's The Deluxe Version". CD

Four full albums from the great Martin Denny – presented here with bonus tracks too! First up is the initial Exotica album – the birth of a sound and the birth of a legend – Martin Denny's first album in the Exotica series, and a record so great it named an entire genre! Denny certainly didn't invent the tropical style of easy listening that came to be known as "exotica" in the 50s – but with a record like this, he delivered the goods better than anyone else – by taking away all the too-sweet styles of Hawaiian music, and serving up a stripped-down, jazzy kind of sound! The album features Denny's classic original quartet – with Arthur Lyman on vibes and Augie Colon on bongos – and titles include "Stone God", "Jungle Flower", "Busy Port", "Lotus Land", and his hit recording of "Quiet Village". Exotica 2 is the second album in Denny's legendary Exotica trilogy – a set of records that provided the extreme definition of the small sub-genre that today has become the stuff of legend! Denny's still working here in his classic format – a small group with heavy piano lines, playful percussion, and some birdcalls sung by the members of the group! The set's a mix of strange songs from strange sources, all given the sublime Denny twist – and titles include "Singing Bamboos", "Escales", "August Bells", "Ebb Tide", "Rush Hour In Hong Kong", and "Soshu Night Serenade". Exotica 3 is sublime late 50s work from Martin Denny – his third album under the Exotica banner, and almost a deeper and weirder album than the other two! The sound here is extremely haunting – even more freed from conventional melody than the rest, and very fixated on the tonal possibilities that could be produced from Denny's unique grouping of percussion, piano, bass, and vibes. There's few tricks or gimmicks on the set – just a spare and other-worldly approach to music that's totally great! Titles include "Manila", "Mama Iti E Papa E", "Bamboo Lullaby", "Ringo Oiwake", "Moon Of Manakoora", "Congo Train", and "Beautiful Kahana". Quiet Village is an undisputed classic in the exotica genre – and the record that yielded Martin Denny his biggest hit! The title track "Quiet Village" was originally written by Les Baxter, but it was Martin Denny's approach that really managed to send the tune over the top – using spare percussion, rhythmic piano, and just the right amount of vibes and bird calls to give the track a really haunting feel. That approach is echoed throughout the set – with shifting instrumentation that includes celeste, bongos, marimbas, and marimbula as well! Titles include "Quiet Village", "Paradise Found", "Sake Rock", "Martinique", "Tune From Rangoon", and "Pagan Love Song". CD features bonus tracks too – "Llama Serenade" and "The Enchanted Sea" and more. CD

An undisputed classic in the exotica genre – and the record that yielded Martin Denny his biggest hit! The title track "Quiet Village" was originally written by Les Baxter, but it was Martin Denny's approach that really managed to send the tune over the top – using spare percussion, rhythmic piano, and just the right amount of vibes and bird calls to give the track a really haunting feel. That approach is echoed throughout the set – with shifting instrumentation that includes celeste, bongos, marimbas, and marimbula as well! Titles include "Quiet Village", "Paradise Found", "Sake Rock", "Martinique", "Tune From Rangoon", and "Pagan Love Song". LP, Vinyl record album

An undisputed classic in the exotica genre – and the record that yielded Martin Denny his biggest hit! The title track "Quiet Village" was originally written by Les Baxter, but it was Martin Denny's approach that really managed to send the tune over the top – using spare percussion, rhythmic piano, and just the right amount of vibes and bird calls to give the track a really haunting feel. That approach is echoed throughout the set – with shifting instrumentation that includes celeste, bongos, marimbas, and marimbula as well! Titles include "Quiet Village", "Paradise Found", "Sake Rock", "Martinique", "Tune From Rangoon", and "Pagan Love Song". LP, Vinyl record album

Donald Rubenstein's great soundtrack to George A.Romero's underrated, original riff on vampirism – and the score is a distinctive work, too! Kind of like the film, Donald Rubenstein's score both recalls and subverts genre expectations, with stripped down and eerie piano and string pieces, but also strange bits of percussion and woozy, dreamlike passages. It's impressive work, and probably pretty influential to some of the stranger, but still compositionally accomplished soundtracks to come later on down the road! Includes "The Calling (Main Title)", "Martin At The Butcher Shop", "Christina Leaves", "Back To Me", "Crawling Sequence", "Fly By Night", "Exorcism/Classical Funk", "Stake, Well Done!", and more. CD

Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees recreate the magic of the Beatles – on a set that also features performances by Steve Martin, Dianne Steinberg, George Burns, Donald Pleasence, Stargard, Earth Wind & Fire, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and Billy Preston. LP, Vinyl record album

Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees attempt to recreate the magic of the late Beatles – on a set that also features performances by Steve Martin, Dianne Steinberg, Donald Pleasence, Stargard, Earth Wind & Fire, and Billy Preston! CD

A great illustration of the way that Martin Denny expanded his groove in the 60s – on some sweetly inventive records like this! On Latin Village, Martin Denny changes the rhythms from tropical to Latin – but the overall groove is still highly in his best exotica mode, and nicely augmented by some additional instrumentation! There's some traces here of the shift in production for instrumental music from the time – a bit of electric bass echoing out at the bottom of some cuts, more echo than usual on the piano lines, and a floating quality that's almost even more sublime than the original Liberty sessions. But the core Denny elements are also still in place – tinkling piano, island percussion, and a playful approach to familiar rhythms that never fails to please. The Latin is more of a nod to harder Latin modes than anything else, but it does make for a nice, if subtle change – one that works especially well when Denny's piano is out front, but compressed a bit in the mix. Titles include "Flying Down To Rio", "Ho Ba La La", "Something Latin", "Girl From Ipanema", and "Latin Village". The Versatile Martin Denny definitely lives up to the versatile in the title – working through a whole host of different 50s and 60s easy tunes – played in ways that are much wider-ranging than usual! Some are percussive and slightly exotic, some have more strings and tinkling piano, and some get slightly playful instrumentation – in a very nice way. Titles include "Little Bird", "Theme From Mondo Cane", "Exotique Bossa Nova", "Quiet Village Bossa Nova", and "Strawberry Tree". CD

Includes tracks by Walker Brothers, Glass Candy, Pet Shop Boys, Giuseppe Verdi, New Order, Ray Martin, Peter Radcliff & Eva Abraham, Richard Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. LP, Vinyl record album

Great work from the glory days of the Brazilian TV soundtrack – with cuts from Agepe, Vanusa, Jards Macale, Bandits Of Love, Guilherme Arantes, Martinho Da Vila, Paulinho Da Viola, Beth Carvalo, and Mario Gomes! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the most obscure albums ever issued by exotica king Chaino – a set that was originally only released as a reel to reel tape, and which maybe shows an even wider sonic palette that was designed for that format! All the percussion we love on other Chaino records is firmly in place, but the orchestrations and arrangements are also richer and jazzier – almost more in an RCA Living Stereo mode, and we mean that in the best way possible – as the whole thing is really a top-shelf instrumental exotica album from the bachelor pad generation! There's a few Martin Denny elements here and there, but again the sound is wider and fuller overall – on titles that include "Mambo Italiano", "Mambo Inn", "Cuban Caper", "Caravan", "Cool Mambo", "Temptation", "Eso Es El Amor", and "An Occasional Man". CD

One of the most obscure albums ever issued by exotica king Chaino – a set that was originally only released as a reel to reel tape, and which maybe shows an even wider sonic palette that was designed for that format! All the percussion we love on other Chaino records is firmly in place, but the orchestrations and arrangements are also richer and jazzier – almost more in an RCA Living Stereo mode, and we mean that in the best way possible – as the whole thing is really a top-shelf instrumental exotica album from the bachelor pad generation! There's a few Martin Denny elements here and there, but again the sound is wider and fuller overall – on titles that include "Mambo Italiano", "Mambo Inn", "Cuban Caper", "Caravan", "Cool Mambo", "Temptation", "Eso Es El Amor", and "An Occasional Man". LP, Vinyl record album

An obscure later album from Lesley Gore – and a set that's far more mature and adult than you might know from her 60s girl pop hits! The album's cut for Motown's MoWest subsidiary, and has the same hip style as other albums on the label at the time – kind of a California singer/songwriter style, which fits well with all the original material penned by Gore for the album – arranged with kind of a gentle, glowing sound by Artie Butler and the team of Michael Omartin and Jimmie Haskell. The approach is laidback and warm on most numbers, with compressed orchestrations that would be right at home behind Dionne Warwick – and titles include "She Said That", "Out Of Love", "For Me", "The Road I Walk", "Someplace Else Now", "Mine", and "Be My Life". CD

An expanded version of an album that was originally issued as Hank Jones' Piano as a 10" LP on Mercury – one that adds some trio tracks to the original solo piano performances! Jones is working solo on most numbers – really getting a chance to stretch out and try new ideas – in ways that have him balancing between sweeter sounds and some sharper modern moments that seem to come in and stir things up, but often in very subtle ways. Additional tunes feature Johnny Smith on guitar and Ray Brown in bass – still pretty laidback overall. Titles include "Blues For Lady Day", "Tea For Two", "You're Blase", "Thad's Pad", "The Night We Called It A Day", and "Blue Room". David Stone Martin cover, too! CD

A great Junior Mance album from the 70s – one of those dates that was originally only intended for the Japanese market, but eventually got wider release because it sounded so great! Junior's a bit different here than on his Atlantic or Polydor work from a few years before – warm and soulful, with a way of really laying into the keys of the piano gently – never going too far, or getting too funky – but finding a great space in sound with help from Martin Rivera on bass and Salvatore LaRocca on drums. Tracks include a few strong originals – like "The Good Old Days", "Holy Mama", "That Mellow Feeling", and "Blues For The Schnug" – plus versions of "God Bless The Child" and "Miss Otis Regrets". CD

One of Oliver Nelson's hippest albums – a bold statement of righteous energy, and a fantastic summation of all the genius he'd created during the 60s as an arranger for other people's records! The record is almost at a Duke Ellington level – a complex yet soulful suite of tracks for the post-60s years – complete with some sound effects of rioting and urban strife at the beginning, and a mix of modern, modal, and compositional styles that bursts out with pride and power that we wouldn't have heard in Nelson's music a decade before! The soloists are great – and the album features wonderful read work from John Klemmer, Frank Strozier, and Nelson himself – on great original titles that include "Self Help Is Needed", "I Hope In Time A Change Will Come", "Requiem Afterthoughts", "Lamb Of God", and "Martin Was A Man A Real Man". LP, Vinyl record album

A very groovy set of tracks – and one that comes packaged with its own roulette wheel in the cover! The package goes for an all-Vegas style of vocal tracks – swinging and upbeat numbers that make you feel like you're in the set of the original Oceans Eleven, or following Fredo around in Godfather 2. There's a total of 20 tracks in all, and titles include "Games People Play" by Mel Torme, "Who's Got The Action" by Dean Martin, "Lucky Day" by Judy Garland, "I'm Shooting High" by Nat King Cole, "Something's Comin" by Vic Damone, "With Plenty Of Money & You" by Count Basie & Tony Bennett, "Shangri La" by Wayne Newton, "Big Spender" by Peggy Lee, "Night & Day" by Steve Lawrence, "Ain't That A Kick In the Head" by Sammy Davis Jr, and "This Could Be The Start Of Something" by Jack Jones. Packaging has a great roulette wheel with moving ball surrounded by green velvet. CD

The third album from Seatrain – a record with a title that refers to their move to Marblehead, Massachusetts from their original home in Marin County, California! That geographic shift maybe signals a bit of a musical shift too – some slightly stronger bluesy currents mixed in with their roots rock elements – fleshed out with songwriting that feels a bit more complicated and personal too! As with the previous album, George Martin produced – and has a sense of compression that really helps the sound of the set – and titles include "Gramercy", "The State Of Georgia's Mind", "Marblehead Messenger", "London Song", "Losing All The Years", "Despair Tire", and "Lonely's Not The Only Way To Go". LP, Vinyl record album