FINDERS KEEPERS - Forced Exposure

$25.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 12/4/2020

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invaded Czech in August 1968 the clampdown on non-conformist creative arts saw over seventy films either banned or withdrawn from production in a mass culling of film reels until 1970.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 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 12/4/2020

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 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 12/4/2020

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 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 12/4/2020

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 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 11/20/2020

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 now presented on transparent blood red vinyl.

$26.50 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 10/30/2020

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

Repressed! 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 IN STOCK

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)

$26.50 IN STOCK

2019 edition. A mythical and misplaced masterpiece of lost soft rock and acidic folk funk by a one-hit wonderer lost in the wilderness for four decades. From the producer of Margo Guryan, writer behind Wool, Gerry Mulligan collaborator, Tarantino sound tracker, and Wendy & Bonnie confidant, Paint A Lady now emerges from folkloric obscurity. Within certain record collecting circles, especially those who gather under the umbrella that covers fragile niches like "acid folk" and "soft rock", it's difficult to imagine a time when the legendary Susan Christie album didn't exist. As Finders Keepers' lucky seventh release, Paint A Lady has slowly become one of the label's most requested re-releases, and with this 2019 edition, it is technically accurate to say that this pressing is the first-ever reissue of this elusive and essential LP. The oft overused term "mythical" applies to this album on many levels. Perhaps it's the woozy nostalgia found within the pop craft of Paint A Lady that has led to false rumors that original 1960s copies used to exist on the collectors market, or the bizarre claim that songs like the head-nodding title track, and the acid-drenched sound effects on "Yesterday, Where's My Mind" were just a product of a contemporary studio band trying to create a fake folk funk red herring. As a result, Christie and her producer and husband of 40 years, John Hill have happily taken the repeat phrase "unbelievable" as a compliment to their songwriting skills and foresight. The original 1969 song titles alone do seem custom-built for the nostalgia market: "No One Can Hear You Cry" might lament the unrequited yearning for a record deal which never quite followed Susan's won one-hit wonder novelty hit "I Love Onions"; similarly, "When Love Comes" might allude to the subsequent 35-year wait for the right label to eventually come along. "Echoes In Your Mind" and the aforementioned "Yesterday" could easily allude to the haunting melodies that sat in the can on John Hill's studio shelf while his projects for Margo Guryan, Wool, and Pacific Gas & Electric sat proudly in record racks before benefitting successful French cover versions or making their way on to Quentin Tarantino soundtracks. The track "Paint A Lady" itself, complete with its future-proofed sample-worthy rhythm section, seems like the perfect title for a mock rock pseudo psych contender. Remastered from the original source material; Features both updated and original liner notes.

$26.50 IN STOCK

With this previously unreleased 1963 score for Jindlich Polák's Ikarie XB-1, Finders Keepers present an "elusive" musical artifact by Zdeněk Liska, the label's third soundtrack by the composer. Fettered by the hampers of communism, this lifelong resident of Czechoslovakia would never quite find his seat at the same table as the likes of John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Michael Nyman, and Stanley Myers. But having waited patiently behind the borders of the wider landscapes of international cinema, Liska's musical brood, spanning multiple stylistic decades and generations, has now started to walk proudly amongst his would-be, latter-day compeers. In an era where music lovers have almost become immune to adjectives like "lost", "rare", and "unreleased" in a climate where previously lesser-known off-kilter master composers such as Vannier, Kirchin, and Axelrod have become widely revered, it is perhaps the perfect time for discerning listeners to advance above the feeding trough and seek out this truly pioneering and revolutionary Eastern European composer. Rivaled only by the likes of Krzysztof Komeda and Andrzej Korzynski in Poland, alongside Alexandr Gradsky in Russia, and often splitting workloads with fellow Czech composers like Lubos Fiser, Zdeněk Liska's filmography of over almost 300 fully formed movie scores virtually eclipses the achievements of these socialist era luminaries. Respected unanimously in both Czech and Slovakian by studio bosses, producers, directors and actors alike Liska is widely known for his ability to take the existing energy in a reel of film and literally change the polarity to suit his own interpretation while maintaining the full support from his "client" who would in-turn end up working under this composer's creative direction. Not only was Liska a genius of emotive orchestral and coral composition, his grasp on small group arrangements and intimate, minimal scores set him above the competition. By utilizing primitive sample techniques by "looping" a film's existing ambient noise, or rearranging found sounds and dialog into subtle melodic arrangements, Liska would independently develop his own techniques which had simultaneously become known in Paris as musique concrète. It is a direct extension of these experiments that saw Liska also draw parallels with Walter Branchi (Ennio Morricone's main electronic sidekick) in Italy as well as Daphne Oram in the UK, making Liska a relatively untraveled pioneer of early electronic composition and sound design due to his unlikely global environment. Remastered from the original tapes with the full cooperation of the National Film Archive in the Czech Republic.

$26.50 IN STOCK

From Guy Skornik, the composer and arranger behind Popera Cosmic and Pour Pauwels (1971), comes the enigmatic instrumental cues that provided fellow existentialist and notorious auteur director Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain, 1973) with the soundtrack music to what is now considered his rarest and most overlooked feature film, Tusk (1980). As part as Finders Keepers' ongoing dedicated Jodorowsky soundtrack series, the label present the original film edits from the 1979 studio sessions featuring Steve Hillage (Gong) and members of Cossi Anatz. Following his mind-melting masterpieces Fando & Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), and The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky's "disowned" attempt at a family film retains the director's ongoing demand for intense, experimental film music resulting in what is undeniably one the best kept sonic secrets from the darker corners of this coveted filmography. Cherry-picked from pre-recorded synthesizer-fueled, cosmic pop sessions by Skornik, these compositions provided Tusk with arabesque new age synthesis alongside full-blown ambitious electro rock, as well as classic French Fender Rhodes-driven romanticism during some of this lesser-spotted movie's most memorable moments. Presented here in isolation, Guy Skornik's multifarious futurist-pop evokes worthy comparisons to Ash Ra Tempel, Eno's Bowie and Suzanne Ciani, mapping an unlikely journey between Magma and 10cc in the process. Don't ignore Jodorowsky's "elephant in the room" -- you never know what is hidden in the trunk. Tusk not only unearths a lesser-known Jodorowsky gem, but forms another spiritual circle in the label's alternative pop universe, forming new twines in the Finders Keepers family tree.

$26.50 IN STOCK

Finders Keepers presents Denis Wise's Wize Music, one of the most unique and unlikely exponents of the highly collectible genres of ambient electronics, experimental tape-music and PINA (Private Issue New Age). This English-born Jamaican-raised sound designer, artist and existentialist furrowed his own unblinkered path through lesser-charted electronic fields for many moons before eventually teaming up with Bill Laswell (with Material) and Daevid Allen in New York to bring self-taught synthesis to Gong during their most oblique periods. Creating two impossibly rare self-pressed vinyl LPs of conceptual inner-visionary outer-galactic angular tonal-dronal alien-art soundscapes in the process, the man known under figure shifting guises such as Dennis Wise/Denis Weise/Dr. Wise combined a culture of sound system circuitry and radiophonic trickery adding teapot poetry and sci-fidelity future-folk to his magnetic mesh. Presented here as the first ever dedicated Wize Music collection, this record combines compositions spanning 1979-1984 in both a solo capacity as well as small-group projects featuring members of the Emerald Web band. Imagine a comic book where a Funkenstein monster called "Laraaji-Scratch Perry" invaded your record shelf while Komendarek and Holger Czukay kept lookout. Dr. Dennis might be the only one Wise enough to outsmart all of them with his powerful amorphous anesthetic.

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Finders Keepers present a reissue of Popera Cosmic's Les Esclaves, originally released in 1969. For the few people lucky enough to have heard the entire album in the five decades since its release, the mythical Popera Cosmic album is now considered to be France's first dedicated psychedelic album and the shrouded blueprint for the hugely influential Gallic concept album phenomenon that followed -- including Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson (1971) and Gérard Manset's La Mort D'Orion (1970). Spearheaded by François Wertheimer (songwriter for Vangelis, Barbara, and BYG Records), composed with future Jodorowsky soundtracker and genius all-rounder, Guy Skornik, and based on an embryonic concept co-conspired by a teenage Jean-Michel Jarre, this instantly deleted 1969 recording is a true essential for any outer-national-radicalized record collection. With credentials that mark the birth of the cosmic funk (later disco) that helped shape the influential sound of France today, this LP also includes the first pressed instrumentals by members of Space Art, some of the best orchestra rock arrangements by William Sheller -- Lux Aeterna (1972), Erotissimo (1969) -- and orchestrator Paul Piot (Jean Rollin), as well as sitar psych benchmarks courtesy of uber legend Serge Franklin -- all pinned down by the rhythm section that would later be known to prog aficionados as Alice. Subtitled Les Esclaves ("The Slaves"), this street theater/rock opera (influenced by the work of Julien Beck's Living Theatre) now celebrates its 50th birthday standing firmly as a sonic tome to the birth of the no-no era (that rebuked France's yé-yé hamster wheel) leading directly to the thematic progressive network of Wakhévitch, Manset, and Magma while comprising an inter-Gallic intergalactic super group from the early annals of France's pop psych revolution. Imagine a rock opera where the cast of Mister Freedom perform Clash Of The Titans at the foot of The Holy Mountain -- then pinch yourself...

$26.50 IN STOCK

2018 repress. Sharing social circles and spiritual ideologies with artists such as Iasos, Connie Demby and Deuter, whilst splitting label release schedules with Laraaji, Laurie Spiegel and Wendy Carlos, the unique Florida-raised soul mate duo known as Emerald Web released their privately pressed debut LP at an axis where post-prog rock met proto-new age and ambient electronic music. At the turn of the 1980s, Bob Stohl and Kat Epple embarked on a ten-year spiritual journey playing at planetariums and laser shows above the same Californian silicon city that devised the early computer music software, unifying their state-of-the-art modular synth soundscapes and organic compositions of flutes, bells and field recordings and furnishing a self-pressed cassette tapeography of inimitable Emerald Web music for their self-funded Stargate label. Having first communicated via the medium of music as flute players at a South Florida jam session, the future space music luminaries would be instrumental in assisting synthesizer companies via feedback and consultancy in developing instruments such as the Lyricon wind synth (favored by Suzanne Ciani and Bruno Spoerri) and various sponsored machines for Arp, Buchla, EML, Computone and Orchestron. Named after a laser show formation and combining influences from science fiction films, fantasy novels and a broad musical spectrum including Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, It's A Beautiful Day and Goro Yamaguchi, Bob and Kat would balance day jobs as synth programmers as well as TV and film soundtrackers under the moniker BobKat Productions (counting microscope nature documentarian Carl Sagan amongst their clients) with evening synthesizer shows at galleries, spiritual centers and even punk clubs. This compilation album comprises early tracks from Emerald Web's debut vinyl release and the four rare cassette-only albums on Stargate Records from 1979-1982. Taken from original master tapes and recorded using revolutionary and prototypal music technology.

$26.50 LOW STOCK LEVEL

New 2018 edition. 2018 marks ten years since Finders Keepers Records first liberated Lubos Fiser's immaculate soundtrack music for Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders ("Valerie A Týden Divu") from the vaults of the Barrandov Studio in Prague. As the inaugural release of an ongoing discography of previously unreleased scores from the hugely creative "Film Miracle" that occurred during and after the Czech New Wave (CNW), this score will always retain a special place in the heart of the label. Having grown in status from an obscure and misunderstood socialist-era art house oddity, via the hands of risqué foreign fluff merchants, to finally find its rightful audience as a bona fide surrealist cinematic masterpiece of world class standards, this 1970 film adaptation of Vítezslav Nezval's 1935 avant-garde novella -- a film that literally cross-pollinated Max Ernst's A Week Of Kindness (1934) and Lewis Carol's Alice In Wonderland (1865) -- has garnered widespread critical acclaim. Inspiring ongoing generations of visual artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers, Valerie continues to impregnate their daily artistic referential fabric. Commonly considered to be the swansong of the CNW, following a huge paranoia-fueled government film cull in 1969, owing to the fact it is last government approved feature film of the post-Prague Spring era to combine the efforts of controversial filmmakers from the FAMU (Filmová A Televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzických Umení) film school, Valerie would also be the first of an exciting and essential new fertile strain of Czech made cinema fantastic. Successfully condensing the final drops of CNW lifeblood through a series of presumed apolitical scary/fairy tales, directors like Jaromil Jires and Juraj Herz used surrealism, traditionalism, and fantasy to rejuvenate the creative energy of apathetic filmmakers evading government scrutiny via creatively coded artistic allegories. By strategically choosing to adapt a pre-war surrealist melodrama written by a communist convert author called Vítezslav Nezval and based in a non-specific traditional era, the previously censored filmmaker Jaromil Jires was able to craft what many consider his finest filmic hour and what would later become his most universally received achievement. Jires managed to unintentionally establish a new genre format that was both stylistically and sonically tuned to the trends of the impending decade. Remastered from the original studio tapes with updated liner notes. This new edition is available in two sleeve designs, both based on the original theatrical posters.

$26.50 IN STOCK

New 2018 edition. Second of two sleeve designs based on the original theatrical posters. 2018 marks ten years since Finders Keepers Records first liberated Lubos Fiser's immaculate soundtrack music for Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders ("Valerie A Týden Divu") from the vaults of the Barrandov Studio in Prague. As the inaugural release of an ongoing discography of previously unreleased scores from the hugely creative "Film Miracle" that occurred during and after the Czech New Wave (CNW), this score will always retain a special place in the heart of the label. Having grown in status from an obscure and misunderstood socialist-era art house oddity, via the hands of risqué foreign fluff merchants, to finally find its rightful audience as a bona fide surrealist cinematic masterpiece of world class standards, this 1970 film adaptation of Vítezslav Nezval's 1935 avant-garde novella -- a film that literally cross-pollinated Max Ernst's A Week Of Kindness (1934) and Lewis Carol's Alice In Wonderland (1865) -- has garnered widespread critical acclaim. Inspiring ongoing generations of visual artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers, Valerie continues to impregnate their daily artistic referential fabric. Commonly considered to be the swansong of the CNW, following a huge paranoia-fueled government film cull in 1969, owing to the fact it is last government approved feature film of the post-Prague Spring era to combine the efforts of controversial filmmakers from the FAMU (Filmová A Televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzických Umení) film school, Valerie would also be the first of an exciting and essential new fertile strain of Czech made cinema fantastic. Successfully condensing the final drops of CNW lifeblood through a series of presumed apolitical scary/fairy tales, directors like Jaromil Jires and Juraj Herz used surrealism, traditionalism, and fantasy to rejuvenate the creative energy of apathetic filmmakers evading government scrutiny via creatively coded artistic allegories. By strategically choosing to adapt a pre-war surrealist melodrama written by a communist convert author called Vítezslav Nezval and based in a non-specific traditional era, the previously censored filmmaker Jaromil Jires was able to craft what many consider his finest filmic hour and what would later become his most universally received achievement. Jires managed to unintentionally establish a new genre format that was both stylistically and sonically tuned to the trends of the impending decade. Remastered from the original studio tapes with updated liner notes. This new edition is available in two sleeve designs, both based on the original theatrical posters.

$14.00 IN STOCK

From the shrapnel of the unlikely collision point where Mancunian post-punk royalty collides with sci-fi cinema and art house animation, this obscurity shines a new light on the Northern DIY era providing disc detectives with a whole new punk funk perspective. Recorded in 1976 by Invisible Girls' Steve Hopkins and Martin Hannett for a stop-motion animation called All Sorts Of Heroes, this hard-edged funk instrumental theme reveals another side to this versatile production team joining the hidden dots between Hannett's own discoid experiments with ESG, Gyro, A Certain Ratio, and the mythical Afro Express recordings from the same year.