FINDERS KEEPERS - Forced Exposure

$28.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 6/24/2022

From deep in the heart of Moomin valley, frozen in time for many midwinters passed, comes a genuine treasure chest of never heard Moomin melodies and instrumental comet songs composed for the continued animated adventures of the fuzzy-felt freak folk friends who disappeared from UK TV pastures in the mid-1980s. From the top of the Hobgoblin's Hat and the bottom of Snufkin's satchel, original Moomin's composer Graeme Miller (The Carrier Frequency) kindly shares this patchwork selection of spellbinding sound poems and percussive peons made using the very same selection of ocarinas, kalimbas, miniature squeak boxes, Wasp-y synths, cornflake box shakers and a seemingly endless array of talent and lo-fi home studio trickery. Regarded as one of the most enigmatic, beguiling and haunting imported children's programs to ever grace UK TV screens, The Moomins was one of the first-ever commissions by Anne Wood (The Teletubbies) who ingeniously replaced the original Polish/Austrian/Finnish soundtrack with homemade music experiments by unknown post-punk theater students Graeme Miller and Steve Shill (aka The Commies From Mars) who after the screening of two unforgettable series in 1983 and 1985 were left in eager anticipation of rescoring further Moomin adventures with new melodies, arrangements and sound designs which then lingered in the ether waiting until the Groke awoke and Snorkmaiden sang once more. With future felt adventures screened exclusively in Poland and Germany for many years (often as feature films) these unheard recordings are the only genuine musical sequel to the bizarre UK version of The Moomins and stand as important inclusions the Graeme Miller's own portfolio of theatrical theme music and sound installations as part of The Impact Theatre Cooperative including collaborations with artists and writers such as Russell Hoban. Witnessed in fragmented form during a short run of incredible rare live screenings at The Barbican Theatre and various film festival this record marks the first time this music has been heard in its original full-length form, free from sound effects, dialogue and whimpers of euphoric joy and nostalgia from those who have continued to crave the company of the Moomin trolls and their mysterious music over the last five decades.

$29.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

COS might not be the first genre defying progressive music group you've heard who share both wordless onomatopoeic vocals and a snappy three letter title (complete with philosophical leanings and alchemic penchants) but on listening to this first ever custom COS compendium you might have just discovered a new favorite! Perhaps it's no coincidence that COS share close spiritual, stylistic or social connections to the aforementioned bands, as one of the few long-withstanding single-syllable ensembles to remain utterly idiosyncratic and incomparable within their hyper-focused and impenetrable creative bubble. But as a 1970s group that effortlessly mix head-nod prog, synth-driven jazz, cinematic sound-designs, dislocated disco, arkestral operatics and high-brow conceptual anti-pop grooves, it's easier to remember the name COS than thumb the vast amount of genre-dividers in your local record shop which COS could occupy. With the crème de la crème of Belgian jazz/prog/psych/funk within their ranks, their combined idea-to-ability ratio litters the Cos-ography with concepts that aficionados, future fans, collaborators and critics still haven't began to unravel. With their earliest roots in the compact jazz group Brussels Art Quintet the group spent their sapling years creating art-school prog under the name Classroom, this flourishing collective, cultivated by multi-instrumentalist mainstay Daniel Schell, would soon shed its leaves, dropping band-members and typographics reducing its moniker to simply COS (a multi-purpose, globally recognized word, with links to alchemy and philosophy, with a hard phonetic delivery to suit the groups heavier rhythmic approach). In it's new skin, COS also shed all forms of orthodox language to find its true exclusive voice. Fronted, in the conventional sense, by the daughter of author and part-time jazz player Jean De Trazegnies, the bands wordless singer changed her name to Pascale SON, to accentuate the French word for "sound". Drawing comparisons with sound poets like Polish jazz legend Urszula Dudziak or Hungarian Katalin Ladik, but retaining the crystalline femininity (and funk) of Flora Purim, while effectively sharing an imaginary lyric book of non-words with Damo Suzuki, Magma or a future Liz Fraser... To use the word "unique" would, by COS academic standards, be lazy journalism.

$28.50 IN STOCK

Back in 1968 a pair of Germanic behind-the-scenes sound librarians called Horst Ackermann and Heribert Thusek left a tiny, but indelible, pinprick on the history of German pop in the misshaped form of a sexy horror cash-in concept album called Dracula's Music Cabinet (FKR 019X-LP). Shelved at a micro-cosmic axis where krautrock meets lesbian vampire Horrortica and easy listening meets psychedelia the delayed reaction of this mutant concoction eventually exploded in the mid-1990s in the hands of a generation of "record diggers" sending currency-crushing tremors through the wallets of mods, rockers, hip-hoppers, psych nuts and kraut kompletists around the plastic-pillaging planet. The vinyl junkies had resurrected a monster, but, like addicts do, they ravenously sucked it dry and moved on looking for the next fix to feed their habit. Luckily for some, Ackermann and Thusek were also creatures of habit. And it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that they were holding the next dose, but by the turn of the millennium the mad scientists had been given a thirty-five-year head start on the pop archeologists and their mythical sequel was literally light-years ahead of their previous Draconian installment... Encouragingly the unclosed cabinet left a shiny white clue in the form of its closing track "Frankenstein Meets Alpha 7"... Perhaps space was the place. Always read the label. The Ackermann and Thusek duo were far from dynamic. They were undercover agents hiding behind user-friendly mock-rock monikers and, like most B-musicians, the only way to sniff them out would be to read the small print. But when an unidentified record on an unknown label with a title like Science Fiction Dance Party crops up in the Eins Deutschmark crates it's not exactly rocket science -- although the track titles might suggest otherwise. "The End Of A Robot", "Monster On Saturn 1", "Galactic Adventures Of The Outer Space Fleet", "The Whistling Astronauts", "Death Rays Out Of The Universe"... The telltale signs are all there and if that vintage psycoplasmodic colored vinyl doesn't clench the deal then what will. When rumors about a space-age follow-up to Dracula's Music Cabinet hit the straße Deutsche-o-phile diggers fingers started twitching nervously.

$28.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Finders Keepers presents this uber-rare soundtrack to a film that never existed, performed by an imaginary pop group. Incredible Polanski inspired German hip-hop psychsploitation beats from 1969. You couldn't script it... You are nineteen minutes and twenty-two seconds in to your peak-season cruise around the kraut-schlock peripheries. To say the trip has been an eventful one would be an understatement -- you don't know what to expect next and your 12"x12" Germanic tour guide has proved quite unreliable thus far. As your diamond tipped vessel maneuvers through the grooves of your ninth horrific attraction (entitled The Soaked Body) the soundtrack awkwardly becomes background music and you are overcome with the sound of gushing water... "Help!" you think sarcastically, the music, or is that muzak, is drowning! This is the movie soundtrack to a film that never existed. This is the movie soundtrack by the band that was never requested. These were the sound library musicians who had to invent their own clients and imaginary cast, crew and plot to get their music heard, by a niche audience, before floating deep into the depths of the rare record reservoir gasping for breath. To take a cinematic cue the record in question is the Eurotrash pop equivalent of Jean Renoir's tragic/triumphant Boudu character who as a homeless, confused, and desolate down-and-out plunged to the depths to be unwillingly rescued, resuscitated then after gradually winning the hearts of an entire family becomes respected and revered as royalty. Over twenty years after the mad scientists, Dr. Horst and Ackermann, first breathed life into this short-lived beast, brave and intrepid vinyl explorers have sporadically returned to the doors of Dracula's Music Cabinet to resurrect the sonic spooks and mutated melodies to share with nerds, mods, rockers, hip hoppers, psych nuts, and krautsiders alike. The lifeless corpses of The Vampires Of Dartmoore that lay six feet beneath the belly of the Eins Deutschmark bins has since crept through the record collections of the aforementioned social circles devouring continental currencies and demanding random ransoms of 250 euros plus, not to mention sweat, tears (of laughter) and a lot of blood.

$29.00 IN STOCK

With his ongoing commitment to like-minded archivist label Finders Keepers Records, industrial music pioneer Steven Stapleton further entrusts the label to lift the veil and expose "the right tracks" from his uber-legendary and oft misinterpreted psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List. Following the critically lauded first instalment and it's exclusively French tracklisting both parties now combine their vinyl-vulturous penchants to bring you the next Strain Crack & Break edition which consists of twelve lesser-known German records that played a hugely important part in the initial foundations of the list which began to unfold when Stapleton was just thirteen-years-old. From the perspective of a schoolboy Amon Düül (ONE) victim, at the start of a journey that commenced before phrases like kosmische and the xeno-ignant krautrock tag had become mag hack currency, this compendium is devoid of the tropes that united what many would accurately argue to be the greatest progressive pop bands in Europe (namely CAN, Neu! and Kraftwerk) and rather shatters the ingredients across a ground zero landscape. This record includes the music that skulked behind krautrock and perhaps refused to polish its backhanded name belt. Including lesser-known artists like the late Wolfgang Dauner whose career proceeded and outlived the kosmische movement while consistently informing and outsmarting 'em whenever they got stuck in their metronomic ruts, or Fritz Müller, the man who was to Kraftwerk what Stuart Sutcliffe was to The Beatles but had more in common with Yoko and quite rightly couldn't give a shit about the Fab Four's Hamburg roots. Elsewhere there's a plethora of German bands made for German audiences as they try and shed second hand flower power Americanisms and feel the benefits of much harder drugs and the realizations of difficult second album budgets. Bonzo Cockettes show off their Big Muffs and drummers ask for extra mics while Conny Plank goes for parliamentary office and gives babies good firm handshakes for the camera. Tracks by Mr. and Mrs. Fuchs (aka Anima-Sound) who played their instruments completely naked throughout their anti-career alongside previously unpressed tracks by the scene's leading Detroit-born African American drummer Fred Braceful (Exmagma). Finders Keepers and Nurse With Wound continue to sing from the same hymnal with this ongoing collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from Steve's list, where many overzealous nerds have faltered (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick). Volume Two focuses exclusively on individual tracks of German origin -- the country whose music forged the prototype of the NWW inventory in the form of his secondary school vinyl want-list in the early 1970s. Features Wolfgang Dauner, My Solid Ground, Association PC, Fritz Müller, Exmagma, Anima-Sound, Tomorrow's Gift, Out Of Focus, Brainstorm, Thirsty Moon, Gomorrha, and Brainticket.

$20.00 IN STOCK

Not content with liberating what many consider the rarest soundtrack on both the cut-throat Italian and Japanese collectors' markets (with the repress of the music to Eiichi Yamamoto's erotic-historic Pinky anime psych cinematic feature Belladonna Of Sadness), Finders Keepers Records return to the composer Masahiko Sato's bottomless well in an attempt to retrieve the elixir which enticed us in the first place. From a clutch of thirteen lost cues which never appeared on the mythical Italian-only soundtrack album, this limited 45rpm single finally combines the two elusive freak fuzz tracks aficionados unanimously agree to be the finest themes to feature on the film. Encompassing virtually all of the free jazz and screaming psych signatures found on Masahiko's own albums and collaborations, such as Amalgamation, Yamataifu and Rumour (all recorded around the same era), these two tracks also hear Sato experimenting with hard rock rhythms and Afro rock aesthetics devised to enhance the flamboyant and erratic folkloric storyboard of the film. Not scared to deploy radical 1970s studio devices like guitar fuzz pedals and keyboard ring modulators Masahiko literally pulls out all the stops with his organs, synths and pianos to deeply coat artist Kuni Fukai's most eye-popping scenes with his own sonic equivalent of hallucinogenic face melting mayhem. Complete with rhythm players and soloists from his associated bands The New Herd and The Soundbreakers these two tracks alone draw comparisons with the likes of Wolfgang Dauner and will certainly strike similarities to Miles Davis' Filmore/Bitches Brew period, but never without his own distinct Japanese jazz flavor, thus placing these tracks alongside other rare and unreleased psychedelic recordings such as J. A. Caesars music for the films of Shuji Terayama and Toshi Ichiyanagi and April Fools music for Yoshishige Yoshida's Eros Plus Massacre. Continued comparisons to Alain Goraguer's animation soundtrack for La Planete Sauvage can be attributed to Sato's use of Rhodes electric pianos, but as one of the first three people to import a Moog synthesizer to Japan (a key player on the collectable Electro Keyboard Orchestra), Sato's tracks on this 45 successfully convey his wash of electro enhanced layered noise that illustrates the films pivotal plague scene in which Fukai paints an unforgiving black sea over the world to avenge the honor of the films traumatized leading protagonist.

$20.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

Transparent bumper blue 7". Greg Kmiec's Xenon pinball machine was released in 1980 and marked a significant milestone in pinball technology and design. The expansion of microchip technology would provide new opportunities for sound designer and synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani, allowing for basic oscillator control and a wider scope for sampling capacity which could facilitate the higher frequencies of a female human voice and entirely reshape the concept of the machine in the process. By using state of the art Synclavier synthesizer technology and an invaluable experience in film scoring and record production Suzanne would devise a complete minimal music score for the machine, then dissect the piece into separate fragments that would be triggered throughout the game play adding an extra creative dimension in player inter-activity (potentially turning the participant into their own musical arranger). By incorporating her own infamous voice box (which had been the focus of a seminal David Letterman Show feature) Suzanne's combination of a harmonizer and a vocoder also provided the first-ever female identity to a pinball machine which in conjunction with the games ergonomic design and Paul Faris' figurative graphics (echoing the aesthetic of Rene Laloux and Roland Topor's La Planète Sauvage) Xenon was able to add a degree of subconscious sensuality to its performance, a feature previously unchartered in arcade development. This disc presents the full extent of Suzanne Ciani's groundbreaking musical effects for Xenon, in their isolated form, for the first time ever heard outside of the confines of the machine which recently earned the composer her own induction to the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame.

$25.00 NOT IN STOCK

The entire unreleased soundtrack for Jean Rollins 1971 ultimate French vampire hippy flick, Le Frisson Des Vampires. Embryonic psych funk recordings from Parisian teenage psych combo (including members of French No-No mod rockers Unity). Imagine an early Gong/Ame Son/Soft Machine session fueled by a 1000-year old, acid-infused blood transfusion. With origins in the Parisian underground, the free press revolution, new wave cinema, the Letterist movement, French surrealism, sexual liberation and the European progressive rock explosion Jean Rollin's 1972 film Le Frisson De Vampires still stands up as one of the most original European poetic erotic horror films after almost 40 since it's cosmic inauguration. Finders Keepers release the complete freak-rock soundtrack to the most phantasmagoric celluloid moment from "The First French Vampire Director" which has been shrouded in mystery, secrecy and red wine addled memories for four decades. Originally rumored to be played by a disbanded group of teenagers and lost in the edit suite the unabridged soundtrack of improvised freak-funk, commune rock and acidik folk could have easily been recorded by an early line-up of Gong or Ame Son and released on a label like BYG or ESP. The true origins of this rare psychedelic score and its unspoken legacy via private pressed free jazz albums and collectible mod rock 45s adds to the twisted tails that unfolds via our extensive liner notes making this release yet another counter-cultural pop milestone courtesy of Finders Keepers Records. Made on a shoestring in rural Northern France with a cast and crew that draws a blood red line between the avant-garde and the pre-cert video cassette the behind the scenes story of Les Frisson De Vampires engulfs a rampant river of cultural phenomenon such as Japanese Pinky films, X-rated comic books, The Mai 68 riots, and the forward-thinking no-no generation. Complete with classic and highly collectible artwork by French illustrator Phillipe Druliet and music that will appeal to fans of J.P.Massiera, Amon Düül 1, Jean-Claude Vannier, Igor Whakevitch, Fifty Foot Hose, early Pink Floyd, and Acid Mothers Temple. Originally released in 2010 as the inaugural release in Finders Keepers' dedicated Rollinade series, the release is presented here on black vinyl.

$14.00 LOW STOCK LEVEL

From the same continental cosmic egg that hatched Marc Moulin, Marc Hollander, and Belgian synth fusion combo Placebo comes your favorite new Franco-Flemmish pop discovery. COS, where have you been all my life? Compact in name but wide-eyed in nature, it's understandable how the '70s band known simply as COS has remained trapped in the tight cracks between pop stardom and prog indulgence where other like-minded names like CAN, Zao, Neu!, and Egg have managed to squeeze into gaps of your record collection. In presenting one of the band's most infectious and potentially crossover legible tracks on this exclusive user-friendly 45, COS mastermind Daniel Schell not only breaks an unlikely new format for this lesser-known femme-fronted, electro/jazz fusion/prog pop opera/would-be disco cinematic six-piece but also sends a sonic telegram to a new generation of futurist pop aficionados ready to explore the deep realms of his band's dense, expansive and consistently rewarding catalogue. Placing the microscope over the central motif of the band's onomatopoeic 1978 triptych known as Mein Maschine Ist Schön (My Machine Is Beautiful) this very rare proposed single edit from the group's third album combines the type of warm, brooding, discoid funk and nymphish Morse code vocals that unite fans of Stereolab, Curved Air, Jan Hammer, Emerald Web, and Ursula Dudziak not to mention Schell's own close friends, the aforementioned, Hollander, Moulin, and Placebo. A prog rock 45 might sound like a contradiction in terms but with a band like COS you can only expect them to defy convention. Backed here with another deeply conceptual sliced of deep orchestral symphonic psych from Schell's short-lived FF Boom project from the previous year this suitably compact introduction to your new favorite COSmonauts provide digestible versions of some of Schell's finest moments and clears the decks for future explorations of a wider musical universe waiting to be explored. Turn on this beautiful machine and let yourself melt into the COSmix.

$25.00 IN STOCK

Within the elusive confines of this film awaits an unreleased album that defies categorization by a musician who in a different time and space would be revered amongst some of the most important exponents of progressive rock, dark ambient, krautrock, and pioneering synthesizer composition -- not to mention sound design and art-house film scores. As a protégé of François Bayle and Luc Ferrari who had studied classical music before immersing himself in found-sound manipulation and oscillators, Alain Pierre quickly became an enthusiastic go-to man for sound sculpture and technical studio proficiency in Belgium's small film industry. To the many generations of dedicated fans of the visual work of Philippe Druillet it might seem virtually impossible to adequately "score" the alien, futurist landscapes of the man who many called the "space architect", but once you have heard the sonic reactions of Alain Pierre on this the first-ever dedicated Druillet documentary, Ô Sidarta. Despite Druillet's large number of collaborations, it is fair to say that this criminally unreleased album by Alain Pierre would conjure up the closest synergy between sound and vision that either artist would come close to. The almost twelve of continuous music that Alain Pierre supplied for Ô Sidarta in 1974 fortunately appears in its entirety, unedited, as it does here for the first time ever away from its original broadcasts. Broadcast on Belgian and French TV that autumn, the film received a warm reception from Druillet fans, prospective film producers and space rock fans lucky enough to catch the short feature. Alain was a serious "live" performer, and his lesser-documented performances resemble the sound of Ô Sidarta most closely, proving that the Druillet collaboration was naturalistic and conceptually close to Alain's personal stylistic agenda. A rare recording of a one-off concert at the Université libre de Bruxelles in October 1976 reveals a very similar set of movements and soundscapes found on Ô Sidarta. This rare artifact has been included on the second side of this record under its original title "Notions de physique intérieure" (Notions Of Interior Physics) and stands as a perfect companion piece to Ô Sidarta -- complete with a very similar "kit list" including the welcome addition of an Arp Sequencer, a Korg Vocoder, and a Theremin. With Ô Sidarta, Alain successfully combines more unlikely musical influences, experimental techniques, and previously unheard soundscapes and studio tricks in to one twelve-minute score. Licensed with the full cooperation of composer Alain Pierre and remastered from the original master tapes.

$25.00 IN STOCK

Back in the latter half of the 1960s the burgeoning idiosyncratic group of alternative filmmakers coming out of (then) Czechoslovakia known as the Czech new wave were taking art house cinemas in western Europe and America by storm. The hour-long films that came out of the infamous Barrandov Studio production house played a competitive rival to that of the French and Italian new waves with their very own immaculate and spellbinding takes on cinema verité, film noir, surrealism and cinema concrète. But after the Soviet Union invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970. It is not until recent years that the genre has become widely recognized as a veritable and virtually untapped source of inspiration for fans of experimental cinema, psychedelic cinematography, baroque costumes and scenery, music and graphic design. Daisies pulls together what you might call the "Holy Trinity" of the Czech new wave -- director Vera Chytilová, costume and set designer Esther Krumbachová, and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera -- arguably the three most forward thinking and truly experimental minds in the whole of the CNW collective. Witness Les Petites Margeurites (original French theatrical title) as they mischievously flutter through Prague's finest restaurants accompanying middle-aged men on flamboyant double dates in gastronomic ménage à trois -- "If the world spoils itself, then we shall be spoiled as well" decide the two bikini clad button-cute Maries in the film's opening scenes. The radical and experimental nature of Daisies is further enhanced by its erratic score which consists of the juxtaposition of various non-melodic elements and sound effects, laden with a broad palette of samples and snippets of choral and classical vintage recordings spliced with concréte effects, traditional brass band music, Disney style exotica, Charleston dance standards, and token '60s beat tracks. Originally prepared for public consumption by Finders Keepers in 2007 and available once again this immaculate release was taken from the original reels and compiled in close accordance to the original storyline and comes complete with unseen archive images, original international poster designs and new and extensive sleeve notes. Compositions by Jiri Sust & Jiri Slitr, Eva Pilerova, Jan Klusák, and Marie Cesková. Available on standard black vinyl and a strictly limited edition white and yellow yolk vinyl pressing (edition of 500).

$26.50 IN STOCK

LP version. White vinyl with yellow yolk. Back in the latter half of the 1960s the burgeoning idiosyncratic group of alternative filmmakers coming out of (then) Czechoslovakia known as the Czech new wave were taking art house cinemas in western Europe and America by storm. The hour-long films that came out of the infamous Barrandov Studio production house played a competitive rival to that of the French and Italian new waves with their very own immaculate and spellbinding takes on cinema verité, film noir, surrealism and cinema concrète. But after the Soviet Union invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970. It is not until recent years that the genre has become widely recognized as a veritable and virtually untapped source of inspiration for fans of experimental cinema, psychedelic cinematography, baroque costumes and scenery, music and graphic design. Daisies pulls together what you might call the "Holy Trinity" of the Czech new wave -- director Vera Chytilová, costume and set designer Esther Krumbachová, and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera -- arguably the three most forward thinking and truly experimental minds in the whole of the CNW collective. Witness Les Petites Margeurites (original French theatrical title) as they mischievously flutter through Prague's finest restaurants accompanying middle-aged men on flamboyant double dates in gastronomic ménage à trois -- "If the world spoils itself, then we shall be spoiled as well" decide the two bikini clad button-cute Maries in the film's opening scenes. The radical and experimental nature of Daisies is further enhanced by its erratic score which consists of the juxtaposition of various non-melodic elements and sound effects, laden with a broad palette of samples and snippets of choral and classical vintage recordings spliced with concréte effects, traditional brass band music, Disney style exotica, Charleston dance standards, and token '60s beat tracks. Originally prepared for public consumption by Finders Keepers in 2007 and available once again this immaculate release was taken from the original reels and compiled in close accordance to the original storyline and comes complete with unseen archive images, original international poster designs and new and extensive sleeve notes. Compositions by Jiri Sust & Jiri Slitr, Eva Pilerova, Jan Klusák, and Marie Cesková.

$25.00 IN STOCK

The original orchestral/electronic score from Karel Kachyna's 1976 Czech film adaptation of Hans C. Anderson's The Little Mermaid, composed by Zdenek Liska (The Cremator/Fruits of Paradise) featuring Lenka Korinkova. Liska's legacy in the history of European cinema is huge in volume but relatively modest in its celebrity having already composed nine scores for Kachyna's films to add to his 1976 filmography of 150 completed soundtracks. Back in 2005, five years before Finders Keepers Records released Zdenek Liska's soundtrack to Malá Morská Víla for the first time, folklore and fairy tale fanatics around the globe celebrated the 200-year anniversary of the birth of one of the world's most celebrated children's authors of the published era. This Danish born writer's stories have been translated into over 150 languages and have continued to enchant and inspire children and adults, arts and crafts, film and theatre, providing a creative binding substance in modern society's social fiber. With a life story that entwines equal measures of tragedy, mystery, intensity and majesty to that of his own written work, Hans Christian Andersen's early years balancing contradictory roles as a weaver's apprentice, a soprano singer, a fledgling poet and an abused grammar school pupil with speculative links to the monarchy, manifested themselves in his written world of fantasy and fiction. His running themes of mutation, metamorphosis, rebirth, prejudice and class distinction are none more prevalent than in what are perhaps his two best known tales The Ugly Duckling, first published November 11th, 1843, and the bittersweet surrealist tale of The Little Mermaid, printed in the third booklet of the first volume of Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn (Tales, Told For Children) in 1837. One of the most idiosyncratic and haunting undiscovered scores in the annals of European cinematic history, Liska's forward thinking score has all the hallmarks of a Broadcast record, some 20 years before the band first committed sound to vinyl. Beautifully remastered from the original mastertapes with the full cooperation of the seminal Barrandov Studios in Prague.

$26.50 IN STOCK

LP version. Splatter vinyl (edition of 500). The original orchestral/electronic score from Karel Kachyna's 1976 Czech film adaptation of Hans C. Anderson's The Little Mermaid, composed by Zdenek Liska (The Cremator/Fruits of Paradise) featuring Lenka Korinkova. Liska's legacy in the history of European cinema is huge in volume but relatively modest in its celebrity having already composed nine scores for Kachyna's films to add to his 1976 filmography of 150 completed soundtracks. Back in 2005, five years before Finders Keepers Records released Zdenek Liska's soundtrack to Malá Morská Víla for the first time, folklore and fairy tale fanatics around the globe celebrated the 200-year anniversary of the birth of one of the world's most celebrated children's authors of the published era. This Danish born writer's stories have been translated into over 150 languages and have continued to enchant and inspire children and adults, arts and crafts, film and theatre, providing a creative binding substance in modern society's social fiber. With a life story that entwines equal measures of tragedy, mystery, intensity and majesty to that of his own written work, Hans Christian Andersen's early years balancing contradictory roles as a weaver's apprentice, a soprano singer, a fledgling poet and an abused grammar school pupil with speculative links to the monarchy, manifested themselves in his written world of fantasy and fiction. His running themes of mutation, metamorphosis, rebirth, prejudice and class distinction are none more prevalent than in what are perhaps his two best known tales The Ugly Duckling, first published November 11th, 1843, and the bittersweet surrealist tale of The Little Mermaid, printed in the third booklet of the first volume of Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn (Tales, Told For Children) in 1837. One of the most idiosyncratic and haunting undiscovered scores in the annals of European cinematic history, Liska's forward thinking score has all the hallmarks of a Broadcast record, some 20 years before the band first committed sound to vinyl. Beautifully remastered from the original mastertapes with the full cooperation of the seminal Barrandov Studios in Prague.

$26.50 IN STOCK

Frozen in time over four decades this 1984 "cyclic incantation" combines electroacoustics, grazed euphoria, industrial aesthetics, sampled salvage, and recycled mechanic folk to score a widely revered dystopian physical theatre performance from the UK's hugely influential Impact Theatre Co-Operative. From a seminal post-punk art-action faction (formed in a Leeds warehouse space alongside Gang Of Four and The Mekons), this apocalyptic prophecy not only cracked avant-garde stage boundaries but provided a captive audience with stunning set design and an incredible broken-music soundtrack before its swan song amidst Poland's 1986 power plant panic. From the sonic workbench of the very same bedsit-situationists that created the haunting 1983 music to The Moomins TV animation comes the eventual isolated music release to this pioneering theatrical spectacle of truly mythical status. The Carrier Frequency (1984) was a legendary stage work that emerged from the collaboration between the influential performance company Impact Theatre Co-operative and cult novelist Russel Hoban. The incantation of Hoban's text voiced in the broken verbiage of a post-apocalyptic broken language and the entranced physicality of Impact's ritualistic performance in a pool of cold dark water printed deeply on those who witnessed it. It reached an impassioned crescendo on the rising score by Graeme Miller and Steve Shill who also performed in the work. The music exploited samples from Hoban's own recordings of the shortwave radio broadcasts which he tuned in as he wrote, helping him order the green phosphorescent letters on the screen of his Apple computer. Shill and Miller mirrored Hoban's channeling in their approach to making the score, following the notion that this was the broadcast of some Central Eurasian radio station doomed forever to circulate fragments of static interlaced with desultory public information broadcasts and "The Record", its only surviving fragment of a lost culture. The score was forged on an 8-track tape recorder sandwiching harmonium and accordion with the output of a digital delay machine that could trap and fragments of audio to be triggered and manually pitched. It is a knowingly crude montage where samples denote fragmentation itself and their reassembly, like Frankenstein's monster, shows the stitches that join the stolen body parts.

$25.00 IN STOCK

Finders Keepers' continued and unwaning commitment to preserving the archives of composer Suzanne Ciani pays off in an avalanche of dividends with this latest master tape discovery, placing further markers in the historical development of electronic music and cinematic composition. Developed at a lesser-documented axis combining Ciani's key disciplines as a revolutionary synthesist and an accomplished pianist, these early works from 1973 capture a rare glimpse of one of the world's most important electronic music figures embarking on the early throes of a fruitful career as a film composer and sound designer with this rare and previously unheard documentary music illustrating the first-ever skiers' decent from the peak of the tallest mountain in Alaska. Capturing innocence and optimism in its composition, but never less than masterful in its realization, Denali takes what would later become the yin and yang in Ciani's versatile musical personality and provides unrivalled vistas from both side of the mountain, scaling a treacherous and fine creative line. The music on this record was also commissioned two years before Suzanne's first Buchla concerts in 1974 and 1975, which were accompanied by her seminal National Endowment Paper, and would reveal Suzanne's proud commitment to the developed Buchla instrument. After hearing this record, it will come as little surprise that the track known as "Ski Song" would later be re-appropriated (and rerecorded) on Ciani's globally critically acclaimed debut album Seven Waves (EGGS 015CD). It stands as testimony to the composer's determination and inventive nature that this single track, which would later make its way on to every future music best-seller list in the country, was originally composed on just piano and the modular synth model which she had helped to assemble on Buchla's production line ten years before her Tokyo debut. "Denali was composed using just Buchla and piano," explains Suzanne in 2020. "It was recorded at Rainbow Recording, which is the studio I found and shared with recording engineer Richard Beggs, who then sold it to Francis Ford Coppola after I fell in love and quickly moved to LA," she laments. Instead, Suzanne would in a short time find her filmic feet in Hollywood (providing sound design for Michael Small's aforementioned The Stepford Wives soundtrack) which would later lead to her winning the accolade of first female film composer to single-handedly record a major motion picture with The Incredible Shrinking Woman in 1982. But it was ten years earlier with Denali that the ball had started rolling alongside the film reel sprockets at Rainbow Recordings.

$25.00 IN STOCK

From the cosmic creative musical mind of Swiss/Catalan studio whizz, Zeleste Nightclub engineer, Video Nasty film composer, occasional Jaume Sisa (Música Dispersa) collaborator and future electronic music therapy pioneer comes the synth-ridden vocoder-loaded 1984 sci-funk soundtrack to Barcelona's daytime TV response to the universal E.T. phenomena. Get ready to meet your new alienígena amic and the unidentified flying object of thousands of Catalonian kids' affections through the 1980s as Finders Keepers present J. M. Pagan's lost lunar modular synth score to Kiu I Els Seus Amics (Kiu And Friends aka Kiu Is Your Friend). From the same intergalactic phenomenon that brought such delights as Turkey's exploito cash-in "Badi" or South Africa's lo-rent homage "Nukie", and the same craze which filled international airwaves with the likes of Extra T's electro smash single "E.T. Boogie" or the million selling Columbian "Cumbia De E.T. El Extraterrestre" smash hit. In 1982, the diaspora from Steven Spielberg's small fictional mid-American neighborhood that played host to everyone's favorite torch-fingered, three-toed, Skittle-scoffing space goblin touched virtually every family home in every major city resulting in one of the biggest cinematic merchandise phenomenas of the 21st century, resulting in an unexpected high-demand/short-supply play-off in which bootleggers, copyists, and counterfeiters rose to the challenge like never before. When Spielberg regrettably told interviewers that he had no intention of making a sequel to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, it instantly became open-season for the imitators... but way before somebody squeezed-out, Mac & Me, ALF, and The Purple People Eater a team of kid's TV executives in Catalunya were ready to fill the widening gap in the market without haste. Created in 1983 by Luna Films and Televisió de Catalunya (TV3) and screened exclusively in Catalunya, Kiu I Els Seus Amics was one of the first E.T. "tributes" to make it out of the gate, and with a crew of five individual directors and writers to ensure that the five episode, one-off series hit the wave of phone-home-fever, Kiu has since remained a short but sweet micro-memory in the hearts of an entire generation of Catalonian cosmonauts. The bulk of this LP is made up of tracks taken from the rare full-length album which was released after the TV program had aired, coinciding with sales of jigsaws and rubberized play figures in an attempt to catch-up with the unexpected mega-success of the show. Needless to say, with a short promotional window, the LP (and cassette edition) did not benefit a repress and most copies were unfortunately sold to children.

$14.00 IN STOCK

This long-lost Parisian skin flick Jeunes Filles Impudiques (aka, Schoolgirl Hitchhikers) marks a particularly vulnerable period in the career of one of the most underrated and misunderstood directors to emerge from the rising smoke of the 1968 Parisian social explosion. From a director with early links with the Paris underground, the Letterists, the surrealists, improv theatre, and the free-press comes the reclaimed audio tracks from one of his rarest celluloid moments -- but let's not confuse this for high-art. Finders Keepers make no bones, this is Jean Rollin's maiden voyage into adult entertainment, Directed under the pseudonym of Miche Gentil with a flimsy plot, questionable acting skills and an awesome little schizophrenic soundtrack. The Brutus Drums percussion workout, the acidic folk pastoral movements, the Cul-De-Sac-esque jazz theme and the UK library sound-alike tile-tune all make up this five track veritable banquet of Gallic sleaze and second-class sound providing fans of cult cinema and b-music with an unexpected glimpse into the No-No generation at its most candid. The interests of good taste have ensured that this long-lost movie has been buried for some 40 odd years with a musical score bursting to jump out of the can and down your tone arm which has now been made possible by a recently renovated negative print and new source material. These original Pierre-Raph (of Requiem For A Vampire infamy) compositions from the publishing Library of Paris' Musicale Editions Dellamarre (of Acanthus/Unity fame) come straight from Rollin himself as an introduction to Finders Keepers' new Rollinade series documenting some of the finest musical moments of the director's career as an avant-gardener, counter-culture vulture and Gallic vamp-tramp all housed in their original hand-painted promotional artwork for the first time ever on vinyl.

$26.50 IN STOCK

Mesmerizing minority language acid folk and wayfaring world music forges a river of revolution between langue doc and Côte d'Azur with this stunning seldom spoken 1978 intimate community pressing. Weaving a fragile thread through collectible outsider genres such as acid folk, French jazz, Braziliana, and world music it is virtually incomprehensible that this incredible one-off solo album by mononymous Occitan language singer, songwriter, and activist Miquela has managed to evade notoriety and wider affection over five decades. Captured via a humble makeshift studio set-up in a classroom in 1977, this startlingly crystalline recording is one of the best examples you are likely to hear, not shying from ambitious small string arrangements and intimate Gallic jazz infusions this LP represents the quiet storm erupting from the pride and protection of the ancient "Romance" language known as Occitan, as spoken by less than 1.5 million people in Southern France (as well as parts of Italy and Spain). Naturally combining a wide range of influences, and fueled by the same impassioned fervor found in privately pressed minority language records from Britanny, Catalonia, and Wales, Miquela's first and only solo record was recorded by request of poet Ives Roqueta for his exclusively Occitan language label Ventadorn. Including players from Miquela's surrounding area of Toulon the album also enlisted arrangements from important musicians such as co-author Jean-Michel Mariou, jazz contrabass player Didier Capeille (later affiliate of Marseilles' Etron Fou Leloublan), and guitarist Gilles Cardon, who would regularly play for Britanny-based label Nevenoe (knotting the ties between both French language rehabilitation movements). Released and well-received by a supportive and emotional Occitan fan base, this would be Miquela's only ever solo LP (preceded by a 7" picture sleeve EP, drawing similarities to Welsh label Sain) and laid the foundations for future releases with her folk rock girl group Lei Chapacans (The Vagabonds) which led to tours as far as Sardinia, Yemen, and Moscow. As a vital forerunner of a maligned genre of Occitan femme-folk singers such as Estela, Nicòla, Jacmelina, Rosina De Peira E Martina, and Claudia Galibert, this LP marks the start of a journey that would eventually find its beloved protagonist at the heart of the galvanized Occitan language media.

$20.00 IN STOCK

Graeme Miller and Steve Shill's Woodland Band (Parade) consists of homemade electronic and mechanical music heard exclusively via British TV speakers as an eerie backdrop for the Polish-made stop-motion adaptation of the Finnish comic strip. Custom-composed for radically reedited daily five-minute episodes (alongside reconstituted storylines and the narrations/impersonations of comedy actor Richard Murdoch), the short cues written and played by the two Leeds-based post-punk avant-theater composers helped exacerbate the program's bizarre spectral storylines and characters, earning a firm fixture of fear, intrigue and infatuation in the hearts and memories of a slightly confused electro-fed generation. Ticking all the boxes that attract freak-folk enthusiasts and "synthusiasts" alike, the combined efforts of Shill and Miller deployed thumb pianos, backwards tape effects, wooden pipes, and a Wasp synthesizer (the almost-affordable post-punk synth of choice) to replace the original '70s German jazz soundtrack, thus dramatically mutating the tonality of the hundred episode-long saga. Miller and Shill's unique DIY approach follows characters like Moomintroll, Sniff, Snuffkin and the Snork Maiden as they encounter hobgoblins, sand lions, and the mysterious Groke, complete with their individual detuned electronic voices and theremin-esque whimpers. Based on the original sprites invented by Tove Jansson, the modified fuzzy felt figurines were designed by animator Lucjan Debinski at the legendary Se Ma For studios in Poland for German syndication resulting in what many regard as the definitive and most enigmatic version of the story, succeeding further animated adaptations form Japan and Russia. Sharing the same nostalgia and oblique exoticism as The Singing Ringing Tree, The Little Mole, The Magic Roundabout, and other reconstituted imports seen on programs like Granada TV's Picturebox, The Moomins and its synonymous theme tune and sound effects render this limited 7" vinyl release an essential addition to the record shelves of soundtrack collectors, domestic electronic fans and absent bygone tele-addicts as well as animation and design enthusiasts on account of its unique imagery and packaging. Includes an extended take of "Woodland Band" and a never-before-heard cue from the forthcoming Lost Tapes. Like the running lengths of the original episodes, these rare specimens won't stick around for long -- act fast, relax, regress, and rejoice for the return of the Moomin trolls. Custom-made felt backed 7" sleeve depicting original production stills.

$27.50 IN STOCK

2021 repress. After years of mythology, misinterpretation, and procrastination Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton finally chooses Finders Keepers as the ideal collaborators to release "the right tracks" from his über-legendary psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List, commencing with a French specific Volume One of this authentically titled Strain Crack Break series. Featuring some Finders Keepers' regulars amongst galactic Gallic rarities, this double-vinyl dossier demystifies some of the essential French free jazz and Parisian prog inclusions from the alphabetical "dedication" inventory as printed the anti-bands 1979 industrial milestone debut. When Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak, and John Fothergill's anti-band Nurse With Wound decided to include an alphabetical dedication to all their favorite bands on the back of their inaugural LP the notion of creating a future record dealers' trophy list couldn't have been further from their minds. By adding a list of untraveled European mythical musicians and noise makers to their own debut release of unchartered industrial art rock they were merely providing a suggestive support system of existing potential like-minded bands. Many of the rare, obscure and unpronounceable genre-free records on The Nurse With Wound List have slowly found their own feet and stumbled in to the homes of open-minded outer-national vinyl junkies, mostly without consultation of the enigmatic NWW map. Via vinyl vacations, on cheap flights and interrail tickets, buying bargain bin LPs on a shoestring while oblivious to the pending pension worthy price tags after their 40-year vintage, Stapleton and Fothergill, even if you've never heard of them, were at the bottom of the pit before "digging" became pay dirt. The List has been mythologized, misunderstood, and misconstrued. It's also been overlooked, overestimated, and under-appreciated in equal measures. Bolstered by the sub-title "Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden," all bands on the inventory (many chosen on the strength of just one track alone) were chosen for their genre-defying qualities. Forty years after Nurse With Wound's first record, Finders Keepers, in close collaboration with Steve Stapleton remind fans of this kind of "lost" music, that there once existed a feint path which was worn away decades before major label pop property developers built over this psychedelic underground. A collaborative attempt to officially, authentically, and legally compile the best tracks from the list, succeeding where many overzealous nerds have deferred. The first volume of the series focuses exclusively on individual tracks of French origin, the country that unsurprisingly hosted the highest content of bands on the list. Comprising of musique concrète, free jazz, Rock In Opposition, Zeuhl School space rock, macabre ballet music, lo-fi sci-fi, and classic horror literature inspired prog.

Features Jacques Thollot, Philippe Besombes, Igor Wakhévitch, Mahjun, Lard Free, Etron Fou Leloublan, Jean Cohen-Solal, Z. N. R., Red Noise, Pierre Henry, Horrific Child, Dashiell Hedayat, and Jean Guérin.

$14.00 IN STOCK

A spontaneous Turkish-Norwegian-Dutch expedition makes the story of Durul Gence's Asia Minor Mission group the stuff of lost-rock legend and remains one of Turkish music's great "what ifs?". Durul Gence assembled the underground fusion group known as Asia Minor Mission (AMM) in early 1972 (with Irfan Sumer, Oguz Durukan, and Ugur Dikmen). Unintended for commercial release, Finders Keepers present these previously unheard tracks sourced directly from original tapes. A testament to the inimitable talent of Gence and the only studio document of the mythical AMM Turk jazz funk troubadours -- a pop-psych Hollandaise holiday postcard which has taken five decades to be delivered.

$26.50 IN STOCK

As a genuine vanguard of electronic music composition at the forefront of the modular synthesizer revolution in the late 1960s, Suzanne Ciani's forward-thinking approach to new music would rarely look to the past for inspiration, which makes this unheard composition from 1969 a rare exception to the collective futurist vision of Ciani and synthesizer designer Don Buchla. In choosing to adapt the controversial prose of French poet Charles Baudelaire, Suzanne would join the ranks of ongoing generations of pioneering musicians like Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Serge Gainsbourg, Etron Fou Leloublan, Celtic Frost, and Marc Almond (not forgetting Star Trek's William Shatner!), all equally inspired by the 19th century writer's works of "modernité" (modernity), a self-coined term dedicated to capturing the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, best exemplified in Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers Of Evil). In her varied career that would combine art gallery installations, major film soundtrackings, and commissions for Atari, Suzanne Ciani's earliest experiments remain some of her most challenging, beguiling, and timeless. Flowers Of Evil ticks all the above boxes and flicks switches that would power-up a new uncharted universe of her own musical modernité. For the many enthusiasts that have already drawn the parallels between Baudelaire's writings and experimental/electronic music (a relationship rivalled only by the likes of J. G. Ballard and Aldous Huxley) some might instantly recognize an unconscious sistership between this recording and another 1969 electronic adaptation of Flowers Of Evil by celebrated female electronic composer Ruth White. An interesting distinction of White's excellent version of Flowers Of Evil (released via Limelight records) is that its dark tone generation and vocal manipulation was created with a Moog synthesizer, the commercially triumphant rival to Suzanne and Don's Buchla Systems. The fact that Ciani's version was never intended for commercial release is also poetically reflective of the nature of Ciani and Buchla's alternative perspective. The choice to present this extract from Flowers Of Evil in its intended French language further distances Ciani's faithful reaction from some of its better-known variations. Having attempted to voice the poem herself, the multilingual Italian-American composer's French accent did not meet her own standards, resulting in the request for a fellow unnamed French student who lived on campus at Mills College in Oakland to accurately verbalize the section of Baudelaire's collection entitled Élévation.

$14.00 IN STOCK

RSD 2019 release. When braving the oblique corners of Jean-Claude Vannier's vault, few lost souls cast a darker silhouette than the cinematic obscurity known only as La Bête Noire ("The Black Beast"). Lost and presumed missing for decades the soundtrack tapes to this lesser-known 1983 French thriller, captures the revered composer and arranger of Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson embarking on a darker exploration of free jazz, frenzied batucadas, and cyclic carousel psychedelia. Counting key players of the French jazz scene within its ranks, The Insolitudes group comprises a crack team of Palm/Futura/Actuel/Saravah regulars such as saxophonist Philippe Maté alongside drummer Bernard Labat (Mad Ducks), and legendary Arpadys/Voyage rhythm masters Marc Chantereau and Pierre-Alain Dahan (Brutus Drums) all of whom alongside Michel Zanlonghi (Ensemble De Percussion De Paris) make up this thunderous, tumultuous, four-headed rhythm machine bridging an authentic gap between the Jef Gilson groups and France's signature "cosmic" revolution.

$26.50 NOT IN STOCK

2021 restock. B-movie junkies, gather round and prepare yourselves for what could only be described as a cinematic speedball. Take a combined hit of two of the most potent strains of toxic cinema, dress it up in ritualistic robes, and make it dance to the beat of a stoned, motoric, country commune soundtrack. Like an exploit-o double-bill where both films merge into a single feature, this directorial debut by an ex-Roger Corman protégé and future Russ Meyer art director (another heady cocktail) is the product of one writing duo's fleeting time in the driving seat as the moviedrome marathon approached its dwindling finish line. Werewolves On Wheels emerged in 1971 in a climate where the B-movie genre of the previous two decades began to make way for the early glimpses of imported slasher films and video nasties. Entirely out of popular context in 1971, the soundtrack music of Don Gere (Curt Boettcher, Kid Dynamite, Don & Stevie) would perhaps reveal him as the most versatile actor involved in the whole production. Until this point, Don Gere had been a pop folk songwriter and a country music devotee, but while riding with the werewolves, Don Gere became a disjointed psych rock stoner making ritualistic commune country with more coincidentally in common with Germany's emerging krautrock scene or the more localized stoner psych of Skip Spence (whose radically ahead of its time LP OAR (1969) was recognized by Columbia Records as their lowest selling record in the company's history). Imagine guitarist Sandy Bull jamming with Munich's Amon Düül or some Swedish prog outfits like Träd, Gräs Och Stenar or a sedated Kebnekaise. In comparison to the Curb Records/Davie Allan scores, for films like Wild Angels (1966), Devil's Angels (1967), Thunder Alley (1967), and Born Losers (1967) (often released on Curb's own Sidewalk or Tower Records), the new music made by Don Gere, only three years down the line, sounds like it's from an entirely different generation... "Pre-certified biker psych from the hillbilly Haxan. Amazing!" --Sean Canty (Demdike Stare)