Sun Ride

mix - upbeat; melancholy; dwindling summer

Tracklist:

1. John Leach: Sun Ride
2. Stelvio Cipriani: Wild Steel
3. Atmo (Amedeo Tomassi): Il Personaggio del Giorno
4: Thunderbird 6 Main Title: Barry Gray
5. Chameleon (Simon Park): Dahlia
6. Unknown
7. Luciano Bergonzi: Missoula
8. Giuliano Sorgini: Profumo Della Notte
9. Francoise de Roubaix: La Recherche
10. Chameleon: Crosstalk
11. Alessandro Alessondroni: Dream
12. Piero Piccioni: Richmond Bridge (Party Version)
13. Vic Flick: Gathering
14. Basil Kirchin: Broad Highway

Download to come!

The Arrival

How to Ask Questions of the Dark and Understand the Answers

Tracklist:

Scott Walker - Rawhide
Pram - Little Scars
Henk Badings - Arioso
Dreamies - Program Ten, Part Two
The Focus Group - Skipping Spooks
Broadcast - The Sacred Marriage
The Meteors with Screaming Lord Sutch - My Daddy is a Vampire
Albert Elms - Speedlearn Broadcast (or, Electro-Mind)
Brainticket - Egyptian Kings
The Rotary Connection - Amen
Steve Gray - The Open Door
Arthur Brown - Child of My Kingdom
Barry Adamson - Checkpoint Charlie
Pye Corner Audio - The Narrow Path
Man - Puella! Puella!
Peter Howell and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop - The Magenta Court
Mike Steiphenson - Dreams
Jane Weaver - The Fallen By Watchbird
The Focus Group - Frumious Numinous
The Apartment - Viva la Urano!
Stereolab - Suggestion Diabolique
Howlround - The Resonating Stairwell (excerpt)

Download Here!

Future Shock

(Very interesting bit of business here - a 1972 documentary about man being unprepared for the increasing acceleration of technology, narrated by Orson Welles. It's an interesting watch, but it also contains some pretty great VHS-warbled synths as part of the score that are highly sampleable in my opinion.)

16 Millimeter Earrings

Lovely picture of Stereolab, c2004. Thanks to my ladyfriend - she's apparently kept every music magazine she's ever purchased. She's a bit of a hoarder. This one comes from a Japanese magazine and is one I'd not seen before.

Brigitte and Counting

One of my favorite John Barry compositions ever. One of my favorite pieces of movie score. Certainly my favorite cue from any of the Bond films (of which I have seen them all sans Spectre).

Also one of my favorite Stereolab songs.


I must have watched Diamonds Are Forever a couple dozen times as a kid. (Yes, I know it's not usually considered one of the better Bond efforts, but for some reason we had the middling-to-bad Bond movies on VHS at my house - for which I will blame my father's taste, since they were his tapes - so I have a soft spot for this one. I don't have a soft spot for A View to a Kill, however, which we also had. But, given how abysmal the Brosnan films were as well as a few other egregious turds in the pantheon, I think Diamonds are Forever ends up ranking firmly in the middle. But, I digress.) I had a habit of holding my portable cassette recorder up to the TV speaker if I liked something - I had tapes of Doctor Who, Star Trek, idents - the Themes tune, WGBH's nightmarish ident (which I used to run in reverse for 30% more horror), Showtime's interstitial muzak, the Tri-Star Pegasus tune, the legendary HBO movie theme, etc. are all part of my DNA. It's why one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who serials is the one that features a cactus as the villain - I taped the fantastic BBC RadiophoniC Workshop score by Peter Howell and Paddy Kingsland.

I loved "007 and Counting" so much I taped that cue (I didn't know the name of it at the time, of course) and listened to it quite a lot. When I heard Stereolab's "Brigitte" years later, it was incredibly familiar, and eventually I placed it. I'm not making a dig at Stereolab - it's cliche but Stereolab changed my life more than any other band or artist. When I heard "Locusts" and immediately realized Broadcast had lifted the bassline from Morricone's "Invenzione per John," I was also delighted (Duck You Sucker was the only Western movie I genuinely enjoyed as a child, and it was likely my introduction to Morricone). Somehow this post, which I set out to write simply to post a couple of fantastic pieces of music, turned into a treatise on artists lifting other artists' work. If the artist takes it in their own unique and creative direction, I think it's great. There's a quote attributed to John Lennon, likely incorrectly (it's also attributed to Picasso, based on a quick Google search just now): "Good artists copy; Great artists steal."

John Barry always brought his best, no matter the film or how mediocre (or bad) the film, just like Morricone, Lalo, Jerry Goldsmith (one of his most beautiful scores is for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, usually considered by Trek fans as one of the worst of the lot - I actually quite like the film, but again, digressions), etc.


Edited to add this:

The World is a Circus

Fiona Richmond.
A beautiful brunette who became a sex symbol in a generally risque fashion. A preacher's daughter. Starred in several X-rated films with titles like Hardcore and Let's Get Laid. Wrote a handful of books about her sexcapades. Was the moll of Paul Richmond, who is known for opening the UK's first strip club.

With that background, it's not surprising that she would put out a novelty album. It is, of course, quite risque and explicit. It's also a lot of fun. I discovered the album when I was going through a phase of looking for strange novelty albums, and after finding Picking Up Girls Made Easy!, which is an album I love for reasons I will perhaps get into another time - I may post my copy of it (I even got the accompanying book; the prologue includes a rape joke, so you know what you're getting into there). That album relies on a sort of Are You Being Served? sort of double entendre method - nothing is explicitly stated. I found a few more sex-oriented novelty LPs, including Tortura, which is a pretty explicit bondage LP. Fiona's album sticks out, however, because though the cover says it is presented by her boyfriend Paul Richmond, the man behind the music on the album just happens to be Anthony Newley. I went through a bit of a Newley obsession many years ago, so I sought this out. Then I forgot about it (I can only take so much - I'm really a bit of a prude.) Hidden in the album is a real gem of a song titled "The World is a Circus." It, of course, has the circus motif musically, but it's impeccably done and still sounds like a pop song of the time (and actually sounds more late 60s to my ears, even though it was done in 1973). The Newley influence is very apparent on this track.



I love this song - it's a go-to track fairly often as I'm starting off on my morning commute - and considering that the album is nearly impossible to find at the moment (I see one for sale on Discogs for nearly $60 USD, and do not see it listed on eBay), I thought I'd share it. I have to say that the album is probably not safe for listening to at work, and the album art is very definitely not safe for work. It's a fun listen, it would certainly make for a bit of weird and awkward in a group situation, and the musical passages are actually quite good. I put The World is a Circus on a mix once between The Free Design's Ellen Dedrick's bonkers Settlement Boy and If I Had a Ribbon Bow by Fairport Convention and you wouldn't know it was off of a pornographic novelty album.

I hope you enjoy!
Download

I Reach

Temporal

Here is a fantastic video from my favorite new band (e.g. currently active, recently discovered), The Galaxy Electric.

They have an album just out, which you can listen to and purchase on Bandcamp here, as well as a Soundcloud page here. They're also on Facebook here.

I've no affiliation with them (though they are lovely people), I just think they're fabulous and I'm glad there are bands making music like this. No comparisons here - plenty to listen to. I'll only say I hear a lot of great influences and would enjoy pursuing their LP collection I'm sure.

We Built Our Own World

Seal and Main Title (Robinson Crusoe on Mars) - Nathan van Cleave
Main Title (The Black Hole) - John Barry
The Sun is but a Morning Star - Shane Carruth
Is That What Everybody Wants? - Cliff Martinez
Opening Sequence (Doppelganger) - Barry Gray
Prelude (Vertigo) - Bernard Herrmann
The Mountain - Jerry Goldsmith
Clara - Murray Gold
We Built Our Own World - Hans Zimmer
Total Logic - Jerry Goldsmith
Total Recall - Jerry Goldsmith
Prelude / Outer Space - Bernard Herrmann
Will She Come Back? - Cliff Martinez
Sleeping Astronauts / Strange Planet - Barry Gray
Mr Spock / Contrary Order - Gerald Fried
The Dark Side of the Moon - Barry Gray
End Credits Cue (2010: The Year We Make Contact) - David Shire
The Barrier - Jerry Goldsmith
The Hair Color - Bernard Herrmann
A Young Forest Growing Up Under Your Meadows - Shane Carruth
Unquestioned Answers - Johnny Mandel
Episode Titles (Where No Man Has Gone Before) - Alexander Courage
Into The Hole - John Barry
Finale - Bernard Herrmann
We Don't Have to Think Like That Anymore - Cliff Martinez
A Sullen Rush and Roar - Shane Carruth
Time - Hans Zimmer
007 and Counting - John Barry
Stardate - Alexander Courage


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Lovely.
http://spikedcandy.com/pages/broadcast/tributes/

Crest

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Welcome!

I have a Mixcloud page here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/elevatoresque/

I also maintain a Tumblr page here:
http://diagonalist.tumblr.com/

You may reach me at temadidiagonals(at)gmail(dot)com

The blog is still "under construction," but actual posts to follow!