Eros Plus Melody Vol. 20 (SC 129)

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 19 (SC 128)

Last week the nation, nay, the world mourned as the EPM series took a week off without warning and replaced it with [gasp!] Chinese rock???

However, I'm glad to report that today we're back with still many come!, and likely without further interruption.

EPM 19 is an eclectic mix, and exactly what you've come to expect from these volumes.

Goodbye, Beijing

Goodbye, Beijing. Goodbye, China. What will I miss about you? In a word, it's hard to imagine having more complicated feelings about the people and place I've called home for the last 10 years. When I return Stateside, I'll understandably be endlessly bombarded by the question, "What did you think of China?" And just as I am unable or unwilling to pen my thoughts here, I'll be incapable of relating a satisfactory answer to a question that has no tangible answer in my own head.

The best way to answer it, though, is (of course!!) with an album. This week we hit the pause button on the Eros Plus Melody series and say farewell to the Middle Kingdom by featuring the best Chinese rock album ever made. The Godfather of Chinese rock, the rebel, occasional dissident, and perennial thorn-in-the-government's-side, Cui Jian released Balls Under the Red Flag in 1994. I must admit that outside of random forays into Peking Opera and attending a few underground shows, I never much cared to explore the musical side of China. But Balls Under the Red Flag has been the major exception, an album that I will frequently return to for the rest of my life.

Not without its blemishes, Balls... features fantastic progressive songwriting and some of Cui's best ever guitar jamming (Of the eight songs, six clock in at over seven minutes long; the other two are over five). The title track (Track 3) and The Last Complaint (Track 6) come most highly recommended for their edginess and unique take on "western-influenced" rock. To me at least, they rival anything produced anywhere in the rock world. If you don't listen to anything else, listen to those and tell me I'm wrong.

Whether or not you care about Chinese rock, head over to the comments give this one a spin, even if only as a curiosity piece...

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 18 (SC 127)

Just when you thought it was safe to return to the erotically warmed waters of the Sound Compendium Home Library...Eros Plus Melody is back!

Another Friday, another gem, this one with touches of synthi-sounds and some tracks that straddle the '70s-'80s decades...No worries, just when you're becoming concerned this volume is headed into the unwanted, masturabatory '80s-sounding self-absorbtion of synth, you are pulled back in, resting arousedly in the classy grooves you have come to expect in the EPM series...always tasteful, always hot!

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 17 (SC 126)

I missed Friday by 9 minutes! That's Beijing time, though. I still made it farther west!

Don't be angry... just listen.

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 16 (SC125)

A deeply romantic album this one. Many achingly beautiful piano pieces here. Heavily Italian as usual, but a few French and other European composers thrown in.

I'd love to write more, but I'm currently involved in the most stressful period of my life as I'm preparing to uproot my family and move roughly half way around the globe. I suppose words are not as necessary with music as gorgeous as this.

Enjoy.

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 15 (SC 124)

This one with a breezier, occasionally bossa feel.

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 14 (SC 123)

Ya'll know what to expect. Get it!

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 13 (SC 122)

Full disclosure. The EPM series was first conceived with twenty-odd volumes of album art. I then compiled tracks that I felt fit with their respective image, grouped and finally sequenced them into a final mix. An easy process mind you, but indeed I agonized over a number of songs. They were tracks that I love and wanted to include in a volume somewhere, but was unable to match them to any concept or image.

Thus was conceived Eros Plus Melody 13, the pot-luck album of all the stuff that didn't fit on any of the other volumes. A bit more uneven? Perhaps. That's for you to judge, though I reckon a great number of downloaders won't care one way or another as long as the music keeps flowing.

Enjoy.

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 12 (SC 121)

Eros Plus Melody 12 consists of many of the first tracks I fell in love with in the Italian/Euro OSTs genre. If not the tracks themselves, it is the style of theses songs that drew me to this great music by some unstoppable force. Track 2, Franco Micalizzi's Sospetto (Titoli di Testa) very much represents the feeling I wish to describe.

For me, while maybe not the album that would surprise or top the list of the most memorable in the EPM series, nor with a particular number of rare songs, this is the album which perfectly represents the balance between Eros and Melody in the classical sense. Hope you feel the same.

p.s. Thanks a lot for the comments. I enjoy them immensely and they serve as great motivators to keep the series going!

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 11 (SC 120)

The twentieth Sound Compendium release is in the books with the share of Eros Plus Melody #11!

This one, as the cover hints at, goes extremely deep into the Italian sound.

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 10 (SC 119)

Another Friday, another smokin' set of erotic songs to keep you warm this chilly winter!

Long ago on this site I upped a custom comp titled Erotic Italia... If you downloaded that one, this is basically the same comp. I wanted to include it into the Eros Plus Melody series for continuity of my comps, so apologies if this is nothing new to you this week.

EPM 10 is stacked full of Italian-only cinetrax (my buddy Easy Wind will aprreciate!)

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 9 (SC 118)

A souled-out, blaxploitation-style funk session busts out with Eros Plus Melody 9! The bulk of this installment exhibits a circa mid-'70s Euro take on soul and blax-leaning tracks, with American artists thrown in, from the likes of the New Sounds, Christian Bruhn, Freedom Power, Eddie Senay, Roy Ayers, and Ricardo Tubbs.

The single track mix is very, very highly recommended in this case as you will find the flow even more super groovy than the multi-tracks share. But by all means, take them both!

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 8 (SC 117)

Imagine a château in Lacoste, a libertine evening at the Marquis de Sade's.

This uniquely erotic installment with a sinister twist kicks off with Charles Bernstein's dark, swamp tune, Erotica, before slipping into Armando Sciascia's evil, dancing electrons in Assonanza in Mi, giving way to Sandro Brugnolini's Roxy, which sounds like a prelude to this "romantic" evening at the Marquis'.

Alberto Baldan Bembo's Cantata in Re commences the pageantry as the "victims" are paraded before the hungry inquisotors. Lesiman's Via Nel Autunno tastefully leads the performers into the evening's festivities...

Imagine the wonderfully sadistic Eros Plus Melody 8...

*LINK FIXED*

Eros Plus Melody Vol. 7 (SC 116)

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for!!! Or not. Well here it is anyway! Eros Plus Melody 7 carries the deepest grooves in the series so far. Very tight this one. You shan't be disappointed. Either way, shout me in the Comments!

Peace out.