A beautiful Mancini piece from one of his best-known soundtracks that I had somehow managed to neglect completely. The Pink Panther was never at the top of my wish-list, but after picking up the CD last week for a mere 50p, I was very impressed. The score utilizes the accordian slightly more than I would have liked, but has some fantastic textured tracks, such as this one.

The track opens with a 'Blues in the night' style riff on the piano. The lead is then taken by a blistering muted trumpet sound. I've always thought of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks work as being heavily Mancini-influenced, but that link has never been more clear to me than on this track, which has a similar moody tone to some of the best tracks on the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me soundtrack. The classic Mancini string sound is also in evidence, as well as a gentle wordless chorus. About half-way through, legendary tenor saxophonist Plas Johnson takes up the melody. The dreaded accordian gets a brief look-in before the track concludes with some more riffing on the trumpet. Fantastic stuff; Mancini really was an inspirational arranger.

It's Enoch Light, you know what to expect! Kooky orchestral arrangement of the Yardbirds' classic with a...get this...simulated bagpipe intro! I have no idea why anybody would want to hear real bagpipes, let alone simulated ones, but there you have it. Features blistering work by Project 3 regulars like Tony Mottola and Dick Hyman. Excellent stuff. The same album also yields a terrific version of Lee Dorsey's "Workin' in a Coalmine"!

This is a blistering version of this Joe South song which was a hit in America for The Osmonds. It was originally on Cilla's 1968 album 'Sheroo'. You can hear it on on CD on Cilla's 'Cilla In The 60's'. Cilla's version of this is brilliant, she really gets going and gives it everything.

This 1974, 12-minute electric-jazz masterpiece starts with an attractively sexy, slinky soprano melody and sneakily mutates into blistering solo sections played at a blinding tempo. Recorded before the word "fusion" became a tag for a tired genre this track comes from the seminal album, Headhunters. If you have ears for Hancock's cool Fender-Rhodes shadings and the Headhunter's blazing rhythmic kinetics this could be the very strongest music of this period. Harvey Mason drums brilliantly, forging new rhythms that are peculiarly unique to this recording. I don't know where he comes up with this shit; brilliantly inventive, his energy is unflagging set amidst ascending levels of white hot, mercurial tempo. Paul Jackson plays electric bass with concentrate funk phrasing, his coolly repeated ostinato line is a satisfying compliment to the hyperactivity of the chattering drums and clavinet. The track builds and as it sheds its skins each level is slightly more intense. This is a great record, ignore all the amateur web critics and get this track now!
Note: Many people seem to prefer the sequel album THRUST with the decent Mike Clark on drums. I wish it was as good or better than HEADHUNTERS but it is not.

A great track from a truly great LP that I fear might have slipped through the cracks in the floorboards in the decade or so since it's release. TWP's "Queer" remains the band masterpiece, an ungodly amalgam of Can, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, King Tubby and De La Soul. This song perfectly highlights the record's/band's strengths - Mark Cox's cut and paste/dub programming, Andrew Gray's blistering guitar, Mick Allen's brilliant "Tom Waits sings the Mark E. Smith Songbook" voice/words, aided by then Throwing Muses Leslie Langston's sexy bass/backgrounds vocals. The song is both seductive and sinister - the spoonful of sugar being the its' "The Fall Plays The Burt Bacharach Songbook" shambling groove that helps down the medicine that is Mick Allen's venomous lyrics in re: America's inaction/indifference in the face of the AIDS crisis. Rarely has subject matter so heavy, been dealt with in such light/deft manner. I recommend the whole "Queer" LP - particularly the British edition , which differs in tracklisting and uses of samples. (It is likewise available on the band's fine - if somewhat short - best of "Everything is Beautiful 1983-1995"

Killer surf guitar from the undisputed King of the Surf Guitar.

Billie Ray Martin under a briefly fashionable electroclash pseudonym. Our Germanic techno-soul diva sonically revisits and updates her underrated Electribe 101 days for a foray into what almost becomes disco metal. This quirky 12" is on lurid pink vinyl, and features a blistering remix by her old mate Mark Moore (of S-Express fame) on the B-side.