Howdy Folks! Welcome to The UnEarthed In The Atomic Attic album blog! Here you will find a wide variety of unusual Space Age Vinyl finds that feature good quality cover scans, jacket notes and audio samples for you to enjoy. I'm here to have fun and hope you will share in my process of discovery!
'Lectric Woods
Sound and Production by: Don Gallese and Don McGinnis
Arranged by Don McGinnis/ Ray Pohlman*
APT ABC Records 2601
This set features a number of quirky arrangements that attempt to blend some degree of 60s light groove pop, pop marimba brass and psych.
I can't decide whether the tunes are complete disasters or conceptual masterpieces!
Aquarius
The Dippers*
The Boxer
Time Of The Season
Bruce Bond
You've Made Me So Very Happy*
Spinning Wheel
Proud Mary
A.L.L.
I Wanne Be Free
Soul Satalite*
Atlantis
Fantasy Of Japan
Ricardo Santos and his Orchestra
Polydor LPPM-100
1964
An article published in Billboard - February 25, 1964 suggests that Santo visited Japan five years before he "etched" this LP in Germany.
The album featured here includes an English language insert that features covers illustrations from the Santos "Holiday Series".
From the insert: This is the third of the collection of Japanese melodies arranged by Ricardo Santos, who formerly handled Japanese Folk songs and children's songs in Holiday in Japan and Holiday in Nippon. Here he takes up Japanese classic music and completes a series of his recordings of Japanese music.
Handling such difficult materials for a foreigner as purely Japanese music, Santos has done a very fine job even more than his previous arrangements of Japanese folksongs and children's songs.
In these arrangements of Japanese music, his idea is so original, fantastic and fresh that we can say he composed fantasies of Japanese classic music rather than he made arrangements for a modern orchestra.
Also found on the insert is a credit for Werner Muller. Muller's name is found in parentheses directly above Ricardo Santos and his Orchestra. When I googled Muller, I found and compared the image return of Muller to the man in the insert photograph. The man featured in the insert is Muller.
The package, including the cover art, seems dated for a mid-60s release. The set is uneven and features some very "conservative" sounding tracks that are barely "pop" as well as at least three great space age flavored tunes including the standout sample above.
Echigojishi
Shinnal-Nagashi
Genroku Hanamiodorl
Azuma Hakkel
Chidori No Kyoku
Rokudan
Sanjusangendo
Etenraku
Aki No Irokusa
Musume Dojoji
Kappore
Kanjincho
Enjoy a sample from an obscure, but excellent contemporary set.
Beast Songs
Texts by Michael McClure
Susan Beiling, soprano; members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic (Paul Dunkel, flutist; John Moses, clarinetist; Kenneth Bowen, pianist; Robert Chausow, violinist; Jerry Grossman, cellist); Conrad Cummings, conductor
Tall Wind (Tall Wind, Sunset, Sonnet)
Poems by e. e. cummings
Joan Heller, soprano; Keith Underwood, flutist; Robert Atherholt, oboist; David Starobin, guitarist; Chris Finckel, cellist; Arthur Wiesberg, conductor
Khse Buon
Marc Johnson, cellist.
Summer Air
The New Music Cosort (Susan Deaver, flutist; Robert Atherholt, oboist; Virgil Blackwell, soprano saxophonist; Curtis Macomber, violinist; Louis Martin, violist; Clarie Heldrich and William A Trigg, percussionists; Barbara Allen, harpist); Conrad Cummings, conductor
Jean
Ray Conniff And Singers
Arranged and Conducted by Ray Conniff
Columbia CS 9920
1969
Love Me Tonight
A Time For Us
Love
The Windmills Of Your Mind
Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In
Jean
A Man Without Love
I'll Never Fall In Love Again
Spinning Wheel
The Power Of Love
Shadow Of The Night
Tony Mottola
Close To You
A Guitar For Lovers
Project 3 Total Sound
PR 5050SD
1970
From Billboard February 20, 1971: The subtile of this LP is music for lovers… and it's precisely that. Lush instrumentals range from Moon River and Autumn Leaves to We've Only Just Begun. Consider this another steady LP sales item in the Mottola fashion.
The jacket notes suggest that Mottola was also the arranger on this project.
Close To You
Always
Medley
What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?
Autumn Leaves
Here's That Rainy Day
A Time For Love
We've Only Just Begun
Yesterday When I Was Young
Wave
The Christmas Song
Didn't We
Jennifer Ann
Dynamite!!
Supersax
P.A.U.S.A.
7082
MPS International
All arrangements except II/2 by Med Flory
Produced by Hans George Brunner-Schwer
Recorded 1978 - Published 1980
Supersax… and super tight. Enjoy the terrific cover of Gloomy Sunday!
From the back cover: Supersax plays "orchestrated Charlie Parker." That's how the group has become known all over the (jazz) world. This is their trade mark. Nevertheless, one of the more prominent American record companies wanted them to play Beatles songs with strings. Imagine, this was their condition to keep Supersax under contract! Med Flory and his musicians, of course, declined – which does not necessarily mean that they are not willing to expand their music. But they are expanding from musical, not commercial viewpoints.
The Fruit
Bamboo
Blues For Alice
Tempus Fugit
Parisian Thoroughfare
Gloomy Sunday
Wave
Dance Of The Road Dogs
Parker's Mood
New Music Ensemble
The San Francisco Conservatory
Wergo WER 60057
1971
From the back cover: Moran himself writes in connection with L'apres'-midi du Dracula: I first met the painter Robert Doxat in Vienna in 1963… I visited his flat in the 2nd District with friends. We walked up a stone stairway… while it rained outside. As I entered I knew that a magical event was talking place inside me. Robert showed me his wonderful drawings and pictures, scenes from the world of XamiXan. When I saw his drawing "The Afternoon of Dracula" I tried to reproduce the impression made by the drawing in musical terms.
Alan Hovhaness Koke No Niwa, Op. 181 "Moss Garden" 1960
Composed By, Conductor – Alan Hovhaness
English Horn – Melvin Kaplan
Harp – Ruth Negri
Percussion – Elden Bailey*, Walter Rosenberger
Ezra Sims Chamber Cantata On Chinese Poems 1954
Cello – Judith Davidoff
Clarinet, Bass Clarinet – Felix Viscuglia
Composed By – Ezra Sims
Conductor – Daniel PinkhamFlute – Elinor Preble
Harpsichord – Helen Keany
Tenor Vocals – Richard Conrad
Viola – William Hibbard
Lawrence Moss Four Scenes For Piano 1961
Composed By – Lawrence MossPiano – Seymour Fink
Lawrence Moss Sonata For Violin And PianoComposed By – Lawrence MossPiano – Yehudi WynerViolin – Matthew Raimondi
CRI SD 186
To my ears, here is the most entertaning piece from an obscure 1964 CRI contemporary music set.
From the back cover: The Chamber Cantata on Chinese Poems is a cycle of the year, beginning with New Year's Day (early Spring, in China) and continuing through to the end of Winter, with the first buds showing on the still snowy tree branches – which explains the somewhat anti-dramatic character of the music, this in line with the Chinese preoccupation with the youth-middle life-old age – and rebirth progression. The Cantata was to have been much larger, with a more rigorously patterned apportionment for the four tone-rows. Good sense won out of pretty planning, however.
This is a obscure album that I enjoyed. The musicians create, to my ear, a fluid "gamelan/fusion jazz" tonal journey on side one and the first half of side two, followed by an "old-school" avant grade piece, Stockhausen's Set Sail For The Sun, a track that plays "differently" comparatively speaking, but seems like just the right piece to finish to the set.
From the back cover: Zeitgeist was formed in April of 1977 to discover and realize in a musical language the concepts and perceptions of ourselves and our contemporaries. We work together to increase our vocabulary in order to express ideas in many varied forms.
James DeMars - piano
Joseph Holmqiist - marimba, cymbals, gongs and tam tam
Jay Johnson - vibes, piano (Stockhausen), cymbals, gongs, tabla and siren
Thomas Hubbard - electric bass
C Lee Humphries - piano (DeMars)
Homer Lambrecht - trombone
Patrick Moriarty - alto sax
Thomas Toscano - conductor (DeMars)
Pattern Study #2 - Stacey Bowers
Premonitions Of Christopher Columbus - James DeMar
Premiered by Zeitgeist at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in October of 1979.
