Batch of 5

Yes, I've been at it again, compiling. Five new comps up for scrutiny. In fact I spend most of my time these days immersed in library music of high sound quality in order to discover and pick out good tunes for comps. It's rather nice. I get to hear a lot of music I wouldn't otherwise bother with, and have made many major personal discoveries. And on the way, I learn to love and like some music I would have shunned in my days as indiepopper and underground rocker. Some big band jazz, some strange electronica, some easy listening orchestral music… But I'm always on the lookout for the catchy tunes and memorable melodies, so my basic background in pop music will probably always shine through in the selections I do for these comps. Which is a good thing, I suppose.  

Some comments:

Vol 1: Ah, I finally finished that one. It took time to get everything right. It belongs together with "Vol 100 – Crime Pace". I have planned a third crime funk comp, but I'm missing some tunes to get it right. It will probably appear later.

Vol 5: This consists of testcard music mostly from CDs, not vinyl. I'm old enough to remember the days when they played that kind of music on daytime telly, before the evening's broadcasts began. I have memories of my mother (RIP) cleaning the house to this kind of music with the telly on.

Vol 65: I have always loved happy and jolly tunes, and this is a collection of some I found on different albums. It's also a celebration of 70's kitsch. The danger with that type of tunes is that they can so easily sound forced, contrived and embarrassing. I hope I have kept to the worthy stuff.

Vol 93: It seemed appropriate to collect some introvert sadness tunes at the same time as I collected the happy ones, so this one belongs together with vol 65, somehow.

Vol 198: This is 60's soulbeat combined with big and small band jazz. I can't find much instrumental music of this kind. It's usually played with vocals, and vocals is taboo in the sound library series (except for some special scat/wordless comps, see vol 152 and 153 below.)

Check the comments.

Get it on with Studio One!

I find 43 Studio One albums listed on Discogs. I must admit that I haven't heard every single one of them, but I have most of the best ones in my collection and have secured high quality vinyl rips of most of the others. I had initially planned only one "best of Studio One" comp, but there are so many equally good tunes on those LPs that I had to ask the master planner himself to extend it to three volumes. Permission was granted. 

Studio One was more of a catalog series than a real label. It was owned by Sonoton (founded in 1965), who also had several other library labels under their umbrella, managed by Berry Music, most notably the Conroy and Programme Production series. The big boss was Gerhard Narholz, an Austrian all-round conductor and composer. Berry had offices in London, but most of the music on Studio One was recorded in Germany by German or Austrian musicians, probably in Trixi Tonstudio in Munich, where the sound engineer Willi Schmidt was an expert in giving it the "fat German sound", as I call it. 

Gerhard Narholz himself composed many tunes for the Studio One series. He used several pseudonyms: Sammy Burdson, Tony Tape, Otto Sieben, Walt Rockman, Mac Prindy, Norman Candler… Other prominent names on Studio One were Hans Ehrlinger (trombone man, aka Juan Erlando when he went latin), Fritz Maldener (aka Maurice Pop and Shorty Malden) and Hammond man Kai Rautenberg. Almost all the Studio One tunes contain a combination of jazzy elements, much brass, occasionally strings, partly old school and partly new beats and soul or rock-based easy-cheesy listening.   

Get it on with Bruton!

I didn't know how and where to begin when I decided to explore the Bruton label. But as a good point of departure I found a place with links to a heap of ripped mp3 albums. The cache I downloaded contained 115 Bruton albums, and I went through all of them in my everlasting search for good library tunes. I soon discovered that albums with certain letter code prefixes contained rather good, accessible and groovy music that appealed to me. The best tunes were on the BRD, BRG and BRH series. So I started buying these and many other Bruton LPs on Discogs and ripped them. On the back covers Bruton had written some clues to the musical moods. BRD = Leisure, Pastoral, Nature, Tenderness, Romance. BRG = Happy, Bright, Open Air, Sport. BRH = Contemporary, Pop, Rock. With a little experience of the library music field, you'll be more or less able to guess what to expect from these clues. But the old saying "never buy a library album unheard" is just as appropriate here as anywhere else. There were lots of hits and misses, since I couldn't find mp3s to preview them all.

I would say that 90 % of the Bruton stuff is hard to listen to with any pleasure. Much of the music is marred by bad use of the synthesizers they had a available around 1980. It sounded cool then, of course, but not nowadays. (I'm aware that some would disagree.) Of the remaining 10 % there are quite a few outstanding library tracks, especially in the funk department, with driving rhythms and great precision playing. Other stuff is just tiresome jingles and some are boring orchestral easy listening tunes or dull, ambient sounds. But if you search through the "production music" dross, you'll find some real treasure and pearls. That's what I've tried to do with these two collections: to pick out the good tunes.   

Almost all the British library giants composed for Bruton. Steve Gray, Brian Bennett (once the drummer in the Shadows), Alan Hawkshaw, Francis Monkman (better known from the group Sky), Johnny Pearson, David Snell (harpist extraordinaire with a knack for crime funk), Frank Ricotti (vibraphone man and percussionist on countless jazz and pop albums), Dave Gold, Frank McDonald & Chris Rae (usually to be found on the De Wolfe label), David Lindup (big band leader), Keith Mansfield, James Clarke, Chris Gunning (composer of the famous "Poirot Theme"), John Cameron, Sam Sklair, Nick Ingman… All well-known names.

I have planned three more Bruton compilations at the moment. They will contain music from the BRD, BRJ, BRK, BRL and BRS series. I will announce them here whenever they're ready. The BRD will be completely different from the two presented here, which has certain characteristics in common and belong together as a perfect pair. There are still some goodies left from the BRG and BRH series which didn't fit in. They will appear on later comps. The folder also includes some essential information about the Bruton label, culled from a Bruton CD comp on Vocalion from 2015.