Sound Compendium (SC 103)

No rest for the wicked Sound Compendium series. The Library comps are flying off the web like hotcakes.

Where SC 102 took listeners to the frontiers of the universe, SC 103 brings you back to the cold, cold glaciers of the Antarctic.

This volume is inspired by the mysterious, dark place way down under. Below is a very brief, brief snippet (29 seconds to be precise) of what lies beneath the frozen tundra, and you won't need a pick-axe to get to it. You'll only need to find your way to the comments section for a link and a faint bit of praise.

Sound Compendium (SC 102)

While not exactly a tour of the astral traveling kind as suggested by this here album cover, I'm off to Ulaanbaatar tomorrow on business. Perhaps Mongolia could be imagined as the very opposite of outer space. I have no idea, but I'll find out tomorrow.

To celebrate I leave you this nugget, a little Sound Compendium experience that is sure to capture the spaced out Library sounds of former times.

Link in the comments.

Goodbye and Hello

As you can see, the name High Plains Drifter exists no more, replaced by the better-sounding, more appropriate Sound Compendium Home Library. Why? The latter simply sounds much cooler, while the former, for many, conjured the image of Clint Eastwood on a horse high above a blood-red painted western village. Not musical, and not the image I was aiming for.

The blog will be better than ever, more musical, and completely devoted to giving back the wealth of music that I've received over the years. The new theme kicks off with the spectacular share below.

Sound Compendium (SC 101)

In celebration of the blog's name change, but in keeping with the running Library and infectious beats theme, we present you with a fresh, home-sliced mix of Library recordings courtesy of the Sound Compendium Home Library. Not sure of the precise direction I'll be taking the Sound Compendium mixes long term, but you can expect a good 10-20 volumes of the current variety, updated about once a week.

I'm just starting to pick up on the basics of Photoshop. Hope you like the chunes and the artwork.

Here's a sample, an obscure Janko Nilovic tune which is unfortunate only in its rather scratchy recording quality. Alas, it's the only copy I can find.




Get the rest over at MF with the first ever installment, and sure to be collector's item. Link in comments and be sure to say hello while you're there.

MASS TRANSIT 3: MUSIC FOR LEISURELY AFTERNOON TRANSPORT

As the summer temperatures rise, Mass Transit 3 drops the tempo. This volume's beats and infectious grooves accompany your afternoon transit experience.

Here be a sample of thy goods within:



There's more where that came from! Get down with Mass Transit 3: Music for Leisurely Transport.

The one track mix is above. Check the comments if you prefer the individual songs.

mass transit 2: music for evening rush hour

 HPD is back for the attack with another installment of homespun Mass Transit tunes. This time its a spectacular mix of propulsive grooves to aide your evening rush hour transit woes.

The feelin'-like-a-badass factor goes way up when you're slicing through a sea of commuters like Barry Sanders with this baby in your ears. And this time we've even got a frickin playlist and a back cover courtesy of Photoshop, so you can decide rather easily that this album is definitely for you.

This sample could not possibly fail to convince...

MASS TRANIT 2

That's your link to the one track mix. A separate file broken up into individual songs is in the comments, so take the one you want, or both.

MASS TRANSIT 1: MUSIC FOR EARLY MORNING COMMUTES

6 AM. Public transport. Speeding metal. Blurs of steel. Dodging traffic. The knowing rider needs the accompanying soundtrack. This is one groovy mix tape if I do say so myself. Check back in a week or so for volume two.

MASS TRANSIT 1

Bernard Estardy (shared in the post below), Francois de Roubaix, Alan Parker and Bernard Fevre are some of the names that appear on this mix. If you dig '70s Library, waste no time in grabbing this one. Next time you need to drag your tired morning ass across a city, strap your headphones to this beast and ride the groovy train.

I recognize that a single track can be a bit annoying for those who don't like it that way. Count me among those who find themselves supremely disappointed when a completed download reveals a much anticipated  album on a single track. Thus you can go one or both. The single track link with proper crossfades, etc, is above. A link to the album with separate tracks can be found here.

Bernard Estardy: Electro Sounds Vol. 1 & 2

Prepare to be bombed out of your skull by two fantastic Early Electro albums courtesy of French sound engineer Bernard Estardy. These two are simply must-haves, though I slightly favor Vol. 2. The samples below are indicative of the quality of music throughout these two masterpieces.

Though I've not seen any reference to it, it would be one crazy coincidence if Architecture in Helsinki's "Tiny Paintings" wasn't taken from Vol. 2's "Asiatic Dream".

This first sample is titled "Tic Tac Nocturne". To be lazy with a reference, it's perhaps reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Time".




 ...another brilliant piece:




Get the rest below...

Vol. 1

Vol. 2

NFL Films

I could sit for hours listening to the voice of NFL Films, John Facenda, describe the seemingly banal sweep to the sideline of a running back being pursued by an angry linebacker intent on knocking his block off. No joke, I actually HAVE sat hours upon hours rewinding and rewatching old clips from '60s and '70s NFL Films. Those decades for me were the halcyon days of pro football coverage, an era when commentary, music, poetry and narrative all came together to create a classical period. Many Americans' nostalgia and love for football, consciously or not, is not just for the game itself. Rather it is provided through the dramatic action depicted by NFL Films which sometime in the early '60s helped elevate the professional football drama, a collision of reality and fiction, into a truly unique American art form.

In that classical period, NFL Films relied on Library music labels like DeWolfe and KPM for the soundtracks that accompanied the signature slow-motion shots of man-on-man battles in the trenches, bleeding foreheads, dejected players with chinstraps dangling; closeups of hands, teeth and of tight spirals that seemed to hang in the air forever. A pirouette in the open field by Paul Warfield, the menacing eyes of Dick Butkus, a galloping Gayle Sayers, a man who ran which such beauty and form as to bring a tear to the eye. Those players were all before my time, but they were so much a part of my childhood because, thankfully, those timeless episodes have been aired and re-aired for the last 50 years. Not only will they be re-aired forever, they are already part of an American classical canon that should be allotted their rightful place in serious film or art history study.

In the last year I've been frantically compiling Library music along with any video footage I can get my digital fingers on. Much of the music has a familiar feel precisely because I no doubt heard it as a backdrop to one of those Facenda narrated programs at some point in my life. Names like Alan Hawkshaw, Keith Mansfield, Alan Moorhouse and Sam Spence would be unfamiliar to just about anyone not into the cult of Library music. But anyone who grew up in the last 50 years and a fan of pro football has undoubtedly heard a few of their tracks.

As an adult, my dedication to any particular team or player has waned considerably. I no longer live or die by the wins and losses of my favorite team. However, I appreciate the greatest, most dramatic sport on earth much more. The history, the poetry, the drama of the game often make me very emotional, perhaps similar to the way one might get when reading Shakespeare or listening to Mozart. The NFL, thanks in great part to the work of NFL Films and the Sabol family, is a combination of many arts...it is America's great operatic form.

Dig in to this sample of Facenda describing a Walter Payton run. Facenda refers to Payton as "the leading runner in the history if the NFC", so it must be circa 1982-'84.





The following collection of music (no narration) is primarily from the '70s. Can't remember where I got this excellent album from, so apologies for lack of attribution. Enjoy...

NFL

High Plains Drifter Is Back!

Posts may be sporadic, but back for now...

Sun Ra - Lanquidity (1978) / Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 1 (1965)

Currently sucked into Sun Ra's expansive space jazz universe. Two shares, a pair of mind-benders. It's astounding that Heliocentric Worlds was recorded in 1965. I don't usually buy the phrase 'ahead of its time', but that applies here in a way--at once of another time, the future notably--and timeless. There, you see, I'm even beginning to sound like Sun Ra.

The sample here should motivate you to get both of these masterpieces...

LANQUIDITY


HELIOCENTRIC I
Apologies. The folder you're about to snatch says Vol. III. It is most certainly Vol. I. Please fix this after you grab... I'll fix when I get a minute.

Pax Nicholas & the Nettey Family - Na Teef Know de Road of Teef (1973)

Here's some insanely grooving and pure-as-the-black-Nigerian-night Afrobeat. Nicholas Nettey was part of the Fela Kuti entourage throughout the 1970s. Apparently Fela was blown away by the record and hence had some issues with Nettey, ordering him to stay out of the studio, and the album was lost for 30-odd years until its recent release. Lovers of Fela and classic Afrobeat should waste no time in grabbing this.

Test run:





Link removed

OFEGE - TRY AND LOVE (1973)

Apologies for the gap between posts. I've been making the requisite tagging of all my music to facilitate the great migration over to iTunes and, truthfully, not listening to much Afro even though that's the running theme of the blog for the time being. I'm presently wrapped up and swimming through copious amounts of Library... De Wolfe, KPM, TeleMusic and the like. Perhaps a switch in High Plains Drifter's theme will lean that direction shortly. Though I've tended to keep the theme congruent with what I'm currently listening to, it's difficult to predict the cycle of musical events that lead to genre hopping.

Today I bring you one of the great Afro Rock albums. Once again, not much info out there on Ofege despite their being one of the biggest Afro Rock acts of the '70s. I've run into a couple middle-aged Africans who know Ofege, but its disturbing how these bands fell into oblivion until the recent internet phenomenon which has revived this great music. Sadly, this is all threatened by the most recent attack in the bogus piracy war which should not be aimed at responsible file sharing. If seizures of file sharing sites gets as Draconian as the powers that be would like it to and resembles anything like the unlawful Megaupload seizure, we risk the the curtailment of further buried treasures ever seeing the light of day, or at the very least risk a return to where the opportunity to hear such obscurities becomes impossible. If the allegations are true, I'm not in any way defending Megaupload's freak of a boss, only the unlawful tactics employed in its seizure. But seeing as how businessmen and women cannot make a buck off music like the stuff posted here and on other great blogs, it's unlikely, due to its relative obscurity, it will ever surface as long as there's no tangible way to share it.

To all responsible music bloggers out there I say, keep up the good fight.

So, Ofege. Great album. Several songs which, if they weren't, should have been rock n' roll anthems. Here's one that definitely is.







TRY & LOVE

African Brothers Dance Band International - Led by Paa Steel Ampadu (197x)

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This is the first album where Highlife music really clicked with me... and the rest is history. I was initially attracted by the album art which gives the appearance of a guitar attack about to be unleashed. The record plays like a best of...so many great songs on this one. Download and allow Ghana's Highlife to seep in.


First a Sample... The guitars on this are simply a MUST LISTEN!




AFRICAN BROS. INT.



















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Bembeya Jazz National - Authenticite 73: Parade Africaine (1973)

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After Guinea won independence in 1958, President Sekou Toure launched a cultural revolution he called Authenticite, which after more than 70 years of colonial rule and suppression of all things African, aimed to promote and celebrate authentic African culture. A primary area of focus was the arts, particularly music. Bands like Bembeya Jazz and Balla et Ses Balladins were subsidized by the government and Guinea saw an unparalleled flowering of creativity. Music and art festivals abounded...concerts--the nation was for the first time filled with hope and possibility.

The Authenticite movement began to fade along with Sekou Toure's descent into paranoia as his regime became increasingly violent and oppressive. But the music created in Guinea from the mid '60s to the late '70s is some of the greatest, most groundbreaking ever made. Most was recorded at the famed Syliphone recording studios. The songs recorded there have an entirely unique sound, an echoey, haunting down-the-hallway type feel. Gorgeous horns, floating electric guitars and ridiculously complex drum patterns weave sounds in and out of your head. Bembeye Jazz's N'Gnamakoro with "Diamond Finger" Diabate's magical guitar nicely demonstrates this feel:






AUTHENTICITE



















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