Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Doo-Wup Doo-Wup Doo-Wup Doo-Wup - John Sangster (1980)

Here's a lesser known release from the later career of Urban Bowerbird patron saint, John Sangster. This is one of a handful of releases on Sangster's own 'Rain Forest Records' imprint, put out in the early eighties - Peaceful being another. Expect more of Sangster's idiosyncratic, mischievous, trad-influenced jazz played by the likes of Tony Gould, Ian Bloxsom, Errol Buddle, Graeme Lyall, Len Barnard and Bob Barnard.  

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The REAL hidden, late-career Libaek treasure: White Midnight - Sven Libaek (1983)

EDIT 11/01/2015: When I posted this a month ago, I uploaded the wrong song. I had accidentally uploaded The Settlement; an original Libaek soundtrack composition which can be found on the I Love Australian Movies LP. A nice track  to be sure, but not of the quality of White Midnight, which has now been uploaded to the player below.

Sven Libaek produced so much wonderful music during his career, but at some point in the late seventies his output suddenly became very schmaltzy and unremarkable. Gone are the exciting, idiosyncratic soundtracks, replaced with easy listening orchestral cheese. I see these late-career records regularly in my travels and sometimes I can’t resist buying them, despite knowing full well they’re going to be terrible, due to my deeply ingrained love of Libaek.

Every now and again, I find that these records harbour a song worth listening to or even, in this case, a flat-out excellent example of the Libaek genre. 1983’s Love Is In The Air is a collection of pedestrian covers played by the Sven Libaek Orchestra and is unlikely to be included in the Libaek classic canon. However, buried in the middle of the second side is White Midnight, a song written by Sven and originally recorded in 1965 by The Saints (not the well-known Australian punk rock band) on their obscure Australian skiing record, Ski With The Saints, which Libaek produced for CBS.

This track, despite bearing sonic hallmarks that make it clear it was recorded in the eighties, is pure golden-era Libaek, sounding like it could be a condensed section from Australian Suite or an excerpt from one of Sven’s soundtracks. Have a listen and be the judge: is this a lost Libaek gem, or what?

Australian Geographonic - tracks from Pat Aulton, Philip Merifield and Barry Hall At The Conn Organ.

The Place I Want To Be - Pat Aulton (1980). Pat Aulton is quite a celebrated musician and producer who was particularly successful in the sixties and seventies, producing hit records for people such as Normie Rowe. I was familiar with Aulton through a fantastic library track called Barrier Reef that he contributed to Standard Music Library ESL 126 alongside John Sangster and Sven Libaek. On The Place I Want To Be he is front of the microphone and singing this somewhat awkward paean to Great Eastland - a chunk of northern New South Wales and south Queensland. Aulton forges ahead with gusto, even (almost) selling artless lines like, ‘We’ve got people peanut picking up in Kingaroy’ or ‘All through the inland and right along the coast, when you look at people’s faces, you can almost see them boast’. I suspect this was the theme song for the regional television network Great Eastland Television as they commissioned the track and the term ‘Great Eastland’ isn’t widely used in a geographical sense. The B-side, Country Nights fares no better lyrically but has some lovely production touches.

It’s Another World - Phillip Merifield (198?). It’s Another World is actually the B-side of this single, but I like it better than the A, so here it is. This is another promotional single either for the Gippsland region in general, or a business called ‘Lakeland Wonderland’ in Lakes Entrance, that rare thing that has basically zero Google presence, so I haven’t the faintest idea. Anyway, the song itself is in the same ‘list as many towns as you can’ school of songwriting as The Place I Want To Be, but feels a little bit more natural. I haven’t found any information at all about Merifield, but the single was produced by John Wallis, a folk muso who has been active since the eighties and is still playing today. (And, to illustrate the incestuousness of the Australian music scene, on his 1984 LP A Singer Of The Bush he was joined on keyboards by Ian Eccles-Smith, whose progressive releases I have previously showcased on Urban Bowerbird.)

The Lights Of Adelaide - Barry Hall At The Conn Organ (1969). Barry Hall is a bit of a star organ player who released a number of LPs in the sixties and seventies and at 77 years old still has new CDs for sale on his website today. This track is off his Choose Your Own LP which was the name of Barry’s radio show on Adelaide’s 5DN. On this show, Barry would ‘spin records, give cheerio calls to listeners, handle competitions and play the organ’. Little wonder that Barry remained a ‘firm favourite with housewives over the years’. One competition that 5DN held in 1968 was an Australia wide songwriting contest for a song about Adelaide. The winner, The Lights Of Adelaide written by Mr. Cliff Johns of Belair, is given Barry’s organ-driven treatment with accompaniment from Kevin Roper on drums and Roy Wooding on guitar. Sure, it’s a daggy and antiquated tune (have you ever been to Adelaide?) but it’s pretty charming and the addition of live guitar lifts it above the general standard of op-shop organ music. All in all, it perfectly sums up Adelaide, or ‘Radelaide’ as it is regularly, sarcastically referred to by Melbournians and Sydneysiders alike.

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The Living Soil - CSIRO, Tony Gould (1982)

My never-ending quest for documentary soundtracks, particularly from Australia, continues. Here is a gorgeous short film, The Living Soil, produced by the CSIRO (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) in 1982 and scored by Melbourne jazz pianist Tony Gould. You can find the music from the film on Chronicle: Orchestral Music of Tony Gould, available on CD from the excellent local label Move Records or on iTunes.

Grand Canyon Suite triple post - Ferde Grofé, Eugene Ormandy, Tomita (19??, 1958, 1982)

And from Antarctica, we conclude our geographonic tour in the northern hemisphere, specifically, America’s Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon Suite composed by Ferde Grofé from 1929 to 1931, is a majestic, colourful and above all accessible piece of music which to a modern listener evokes elements from soundtracks, classical music and jazz. The Grand Canyon Suite covers a huge amount of dynamic range, transitioning from quiet shimmerings of celesta, strings and reeds depicting the canyon sunset to galloping trumpets so manic they intersect somewhere near Gershwin at his liveliest and Carl Stalling. This piece is probably the most well-known of the symphonic works I’ve looked at over the last few posts and has been played by many, many ensembles over the years. I’d like to look at three such LPs that I have happened upon in op-shops and a record fair.

Ferde Grofé and The Capital Orchestra. This is an old, scratched Capital 10” record I found in an op-shop in Northcote. I haven’t been able to find any information on this particular release in any of the usual places. Although the sound quality is pretty bad due to the condition of the record, I include it for historical relevance of this version being conducted by the composer.

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Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra. This is a beautifully recorded performance of the suite released sometime in the sixties (I think - the recording has no date anywhere on it*). This is the LP I probably listen to the most of these three as it is very faithful to Grofé’s own interpretation but with a far superior sound quality (and the disc is in much better condition, which doesn’t hurt). This LP was my first exposure to this piece - I was going through a phase of obsessively consuming nature documentary soundtracks and found this in an op-shop in Healesville. I saw the title and the lovely photo of the Grand Canyon on the front and thought it might give me a similar buzz.

*EDIT 4/05/2016 - According to Discogs it's probably 1958. 

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Tomita. Finally we have Japanese electronic artist Isao Tomita translating this piece with the Plasma Symphony Orchestra ie. numerous Rolands, Moogs, Synclaviers, Yamahas and a Mellotron. The electronic approach works well in the hands of Tomita and his “orchestra” and this 1982 version is surprisingly faithful to Grofé’s original composition. Tomita does bring in some interesting new interpretations of particular instruments from the traditional orchestra however and introduces some great vintage synth tones in their place. The incongruity of an all electronic version of the Grand Canyon Suite was obviously not lost on the cover artist who attempts to naturalise the concept by depicting a canyon on a distant planet in space! Which planet this is supposed to be is unclear, but it is somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn (or a Saturn-like planet) and has some sort of high-tech transparent pyramid in the canyon which appears to be topped by the disembodied head of Strong Bad. This LP is concluded with an electronic rendition of Syncopated Clock, a playful jazzy tune composed by Leroy Anderson.

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Rainforest - Andrew Richardson (1985)

Here is another recording from Victorian flautist Andrew Richardson, the man responsible for Expanse and the Sally/Dive single. Rainforest is an ambient, fairly free-form piece which couples solo flute performances with Australian field recordings and a few other accompaniments. It’s a very sparse record and I must admit that I would like to have heard more structure and rhythmic flow. On the few occasions on Rainforest where Richardson does augment his solo flute playing it lifts the material considerably, such as the distant rhythmic rumbling percussion on Dense and the unexpected and brief appearance of a choir section in Shady Rill.

I am always interested in Australian recordings which incorporate field recordings and Rainforest uses this technique well - the fusion between these sounds and the flute playing feels very natural. The recordings are predominantly birds calling, the most obvious species being Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris), White-throated Treecreeper (Cormobates leucophaea), Grey Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa) and the Australian Magpie (Cracticus tibicen). This particular combination of species suggests that these recordings were made in dry temperate woodland in the southeast of Australia - which is actually a very different habitat type to the tropical rainforests that Richardson alludes to on the LP cover.

On the back of the sleeve Andrew writes: Australia is blessed with some of the world’s most magnificent rainforests. This recording represents a journey through one of these beautiful rainforests; and an attempt to make people conscious of these areas of rare and fragile beauty. As mankind is propelled into the Twenty-first Century these regions are unique, and must be saved in their entirety - not destroyed for short-term profit. One of Australia’s dedicated rainforest ecologists, CAROLE HELMAN, describes the Daintree Rainforest in north east Queensland as “one of the world’s most important tropical rainforests, because it is the home of the world’s most primitive tropical rainforest plant families.” The distinguished naturalist, DAVID ATTENBOROUGH, described Queensland’s rainforests as “one of the most breathtaking wild areas in the world, unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably interesting. There are birds, mammals and plants there that are unique. Beyond any dispute it is a treasure.”

Label: A.R.M. Digital

Released: 1985

Players: Andrew Richardson - flutes

Tapes - Jim Moginie

Tapes - Michael Gissing

Bells - Adrienne Overall

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Peaceful - John Sangster (1980)

This is the sort of music that ideally should be listened to while sitting on a pristine Australian beach with a beer, maybe enjoying a cheeky Winnie blue (or some of Australia's other well-loved herbal produce) while listening to the native birds calling in the coastal scrub. I'm a little surprised, in fact, that Sangster didn't incorporate field recordings of birdsong or other native bioacoustics into this LP as he has with so many of his others. (Especially with titles like 'Reed-warbler Song').

This set is quite consistent in its instrumentation, comprising acoustic guitar, vibes and other melodic percussion instruments, smooth sax and flute. Overall the LP is reminiscent of the quieter sections of Sangster's fantastic Australia And All That Jazz records. The relatively straightforward arrangements and breezy exotica feel also evoke the vibe of John Zorn pieces like The Gift.

This record is an artefact of late 20th century Oz exotica which evolved from an appreciation of Australia as something of a tropical paradise. (See Sangster's own aptly titled Paradise for an excellent example of this cultural phenomenon). And unlike the unobtainable island fantasies of the original American exotica wave of the late fifties, this was a paradise that was easily accessible to any Australian with a bit of time, a serviceable caravan and a desire to seek out their own Antipodean Eden. Sangster clearly loved to view Australia in this way. In a country that is often ashamed of celebrating it's own 'Australianess', Sangster's music stands out as an unabashed statement of what makes it worth celebrating.

Label: Rain-Forest

Released: 1980

Players: Errol Buddle - tenor saxophone

Mal Cunningham - flutes

Terry Walker - acoustic guitar

Tony Ansell - electric piano

John Sangster - vibraphone, marimba and percussion

Ian Bloxsom - percussion

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Expanse - Andrew Richardson (1984)

Let me be succinct - this album is awesome. Picture this: a synth-heavy, flute-heavy, proggy concept album "inspired by the vast Australian Outback and Aboriginal Dreamtime stories that originated there". The musician responsible for this 'ballet' as it is described on the back cover is flautist Andrew Richardson, who seems to have been active in Melbourne in the eighties, but on whom I can find little information or context. I found a single of his called Sally/Dive a while ago at the same op-shop as I found this LP, but it didn't even hint at the greatness of which this man was capable.

Although the album only features two musicians, Richardson on flutes and Ian Eccles-Smith on keyboards, this is a full-sounding album with plenty of variation and dynamic range. Falling stylistically somewhere between Vangelis's eighties albums and a documentary soundtrack of a similar age, there are lots of ephemeral flutes, noisy synths and the occasional field recording of indigenous singing and percussion. Although it could be a little ambient (or god forbid "new age-y") for some listeners, there are some very strong, melodically driven tracks which are the definite highlights for me. The first such track is Tiddalik - The Frog which opens with the synth laying down a whimsical motif in 4/4 and then segues into a gorgeous, baroque waltz section lead by Richardson's flute - all the while augmented by deep, synth "croaks" representing the titular amphibian. The album closes with Brolga which is another lush waltz allowing Richardson to harmonise multiple haunting flute lines over some very effective synth bass.

This may just be due to my idiosyncratic musical tastes, but this LP represents a real lost gem to me and I urge you to have a listen if this sounds like your kind of thing.

EDIT: You may notice that keyboardist Ian Eccles-Smith says hello in the comments of this post and recommends his album Apsilene. I have just written a post on this piece and also conducted an email interview with Ian which you can read here. 

EDIT, 29/08/2019: I've just seen that Richardson, who now goes by 'Howlin' Wind', has uploaded a bunch of his stuff to Bandcamp. Including Expanse. I have removed the download link from this post, and encourage you to purchase this album from Howlin' directly.



Label: A.R.M.
Released: 1984
Players: Andrew Richardson - flutes
Ian Eccles-Smith - keyboards
(Richardson and Smith also arranged, produced and engineered the album.)

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Incredible Penguins (1985)

Here's a concept: I'm going to share a piece of music which I really don't like. Think of it as an act of vigilance on my part, as I don't want to ever be doomed to repeat the kind of history which is represented by this release by the Incredible Penguins. This is a benefit single released in '85 by a number of actual and semi Aussie musical celebrities in the aid of the Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor). Allow me to outline the crimes committed by this single:

1. The abysmal artwork and title of the band. What the hell were they thinking? Is that snow in the background? Little Penguins are native to the southern coast of Australia and coastal New Zealand - they live on beaches, not snow. Then again, it does perfectly compliment the slap-dash attitude exuded by the single as a whole.

2. And speaking of slap-dash, what's with the choice of song? They've taken a very well known cover (which was rereleased after Lennon's murder only five years earlier), which was probably good for sales, but what has the song got to do with penguins? What's worse is that in order to create some kind of relevance from the song choice, they play samples over the outro of politicians talking about the Falklands War! What the hell does that have to do with the plight of this native Australian penguin species?

3. The musicians involved in making this record were frankly, pretty uninspiring. This single was the brainchild of Aussie music industry legend Molly Meldrum, who I would have thought could have assembled a pretty impressive mob of musos, particularly during his heyday in the eighties. Instead we get Angry Anderson and Brian Mannix! Granted, Meldrum also got Colin Hay, John Farnham and Bob Geldoff (who during this era evidently got involved with absolutely any charity single that would have him) but they are swamped by a chorus of no name Aussie singers and the Hare Krishna Chorus(?).

4. After you've handed over your hard-earned cash to help out the penguins, what sort of value do you get with this single? An extended version, a radio mix and an instrumental mix of the same song which was already done ten times better on the original - the listenability potential is just overwhelming.

5. Maybe this is going to sound like a weird complaint, but the Little Penguin isn't even endangered (and as far as I'm aware, wasn't categorised as such when this was recorded). Don't get me wrong, any money going towards the conservation of native species is great, but there are loads of other less well-known bird species in this country that could have done with the sort of financial boost that this recording would have brought in - such as the insanely endangered Orange-bellied Parrot. One can't help but think that the Little Penguin was chosen as an easy animal to identify with regardless of other potentially more pressing conservation issues at the time.

Basically, this recording feels like a soulless, vapid enterprise entered into by people who may well have had their hearts in the right place but ended up creating something so pointless and tacky, that it's no wonder that no one (and I mean no one) plays or has even heard of this recording today. It's hard to avoid being reminded of the brilliance of the Simpsons and their own vapid celebrity benefit single We're Sending Our Love Down The Well.

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Discoveries Underwater - Howard J. Davidson (1988)

Everybody loves underwater soundtracks. This obscure, but well-loved genre has become very popular amongst record collectors, culminating in the veneration of records like Sven Libaek's Inner Space which was reissued in 2008. This album is from a different era from most of the popular underwater soundtracks, but it's an interesting and atmospheric listen nonetheless. The soundtrack is scored for an eighties documentary series on underwater archaeology, so ambient synths and slowly layered soundscapes are the natural choice for the subject matter. Where this sort of approach could so easily turn into a snooze-fest of glacial synthesiser, Davidson's material seems to more aligned with the Vangelis school of awesome synth soundtracks. Many of the themes are written in unconventional time signatures, but the composer's ability to make electronic music sound organic means that the listener barely perceives this deviation to the norm. Davidson is also able to incorporate live instruments into his electronic soundscapes to great effect such as cello in 'Aqua Sub Aqua' and guitar in 'Atocha'. The subtlety and depth that Davidson achieves with only synthesisers allows the live instruments to join in without jarring or sounding out of place. Overall, this album feels to me more like an ambient concept album than a television soundtrack and it is a piece that I find myself listening to a lot.

Label: BBC Records

Released: 1988

Players: Howard J. Davidson - synthesisers etc.

Hugh McDowell - cello

Phil Palmer - guitar

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Film And Television Themes - Bruce Smeaton (1987)

I hadn't heard anything about Bruce Smeaton when I picked up this album at the Salvos with a bunch of other Australian soundtrack LPs. But this combination of movie and television soundtrack pieces is actually a very nice set from an interesting and talented composer. As seems to be the case for anyone who wants to do this sort of work in Australia, Smeaton has an eclectic resume. My favourites from this LP tend to be tracks that are clearly written in an established genre, but which Smeaton has added an extra, idiosyncratic edge. '1915' for example, a track from an ABC miniseries about ANZACS in the first world war, is played as an old-style military march - but Smeaton uses chord progressions and arrangements which give it far more emotional depth than its source material ever really achieves. On the film soundtrack excerpt 'Eleni I And II', Smeaton attempts to evoke the film's setting of Greece with the use of soprano sax, accordion and strings in the first movement and in the second, a 7/8 motif that starts out quite starkly but then is joined by the full orchestra and turns into something incredibly compelling. This second movement sounds quite unique due to Smeaton's use of the Akai EWI - an electronic wind instrument which he also uses to great effect on the track 'Iceman' - which produces a synth sound that could easily sound dated, but in this context blends nicely with the other instruments to create a very distinct sound. The liner notes on the back describe the theme from 'The Great McCarthy' as 'a cross between early ragtime and Nino Rota' which sounded pretty bloody appealing to me - and the liner notes were spot on. Once again this track sees Smeaton taking a familiar style but giving it a fresh approach and creating something truly interesting. Although some tracks on this LP are a little more pedestrian than the favourites I've mentioned (the less said about the soprano sax-laden, cheesy, eighties rom-com theme to 'Roxanne' the better) this is a predominantly enjoyable album of some very well composed and produced soundtrack material.

Label: ABC Records

Released: 1988

Players: All pieces played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bruce Smeaton.

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Sally/Dive - Andrew Richardson (1982)

I'm really into the flute these days. The presence of a flute on a record will pretty much tip me over into buying it if I'm otherwise unable to decide. This independent release by Andrew Richardson features a lovely picture of him playing the flute on the front and on the back has a disembodied arm defiantly grasping a flute - naturally I bought it and the Salvos made an easy $1. When deciding on a genre tag on this post, I wasn't quite sure what to call this instrumental record. Prog? Pop? 'Flute' seemed most appropriate. Sally is a slow, soundtrackesque piece with quite a simple melody that builds to a nice dramatic plateau which then gets washed over by some very eighties synth sounds. Dive is a strange, upbeat pop track with Richardsons doubled flute accompanied by synth bass and drums. Andrew is still actively playing, but now goes under the name Howlin' Wind.

Label: Private? Andrew Richardson Music, produced by Andrew Richardson.

Released: 1982

Players: Andrew Richardson - flute

Mike Toddhunter - keyboards

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