S.J.C. Powell - Celestial Madness, Australia 1975

 

Discogged here.

Born in Sydney in 1951. He was guitarist and vocalist in Australian band, "The Mint", who released 4 singles between 1969 and 1971 on the 'Ramrod' label. After securing a major recording contract with an Australian recording company, he recorded his first solo LP entitled: 'Celestial Madness', which was released throughout the world in 1974. Soon after this, Powell went totally deaf and was unable to record again. Since then, and the arrival of state of the art digital hearing aids, he has been able to record again. He was also the manager of a theatre for fifteen years and has written two plays and a musical comedy. He has also written a book, 'FAME OR INFAMY: The true story behind the Jack the Ripper diary', tells the story of just how the infamous diary of Jack the Ripper came to be written and how it has affected the literary world.

Note there is a copy of the vinyl for sale for 347 dollars!

Basically guitar folk, with I think 2 or 3 electric tracks.  The usual over-earnest naive singer songwriter folk stuff, but with interesting spacey, scifi lyrics, so common for the times.  Here and there I've posted some LPs in this genre, which tend to be, as we all know, quite similar. to each other.  An exception was the outstanding Aussie Graham Lowndes, who should've been a star back in the day with those beautiful compositions of his. Here's a rym review that overstates the case a little:

S.J.C. Powell started recording singles in Australia in the late 60s and finally landed a full length record deal in 1974. Celestial Madness was the fantastic result, a solid mix of psych pop and cosmic folk that follows a mellow and hazy pace that changes directions and offers a few dramatic peaks. This is optimistic weed smoking music for positive vibes and summer evenings when the first stars start to appear in the sky.

Highlights include the ultra laid back "When You Make the Other Side," the sunshiny "Green Hills of Earth" and the wicked synth on "Say Hello." There's plenty of nice touches like the brief cosmic interlude "supernova" and quality production that still allows the folk core to hit home alongside a variety of instruments....

For ex., Governor Lane:

Note that the instrumentation actually is quite interesting, not the pared-down basic 'acid folk' style of acoustic guitar plus vocals.  And open chord guitar tuning, with its jangly resonance, is used frequently here (think Led Zep's That's the Way it's Gonna Be).

Or consider the Green Fields of Earth:

A few great songs, quite enjoyable though, all in all.

New Morning Live (Volume 1), VA from Switz. 1978

 

Info for this LP rarity can be found here.  It doesn't look like there was a volume 2, unfortunately.

Live recording from the first birthday party of the club "New Morning" in Genève, Switzerland, 31 march, 1st and 2nd April 1978.

Mixed at Studio Aquarius, Genève, at full moon in April.

Copyright 78: K.B.L. Productions, 1206 Genève.

This album is dedicated to Bob Dylan. Made in France

The uncredited pressing company is derived from the marks of the group AGI / Audio Graphic Industries, we can find on the run-out grooves. Disco France was the pressing plant of this group.

I noticed that track B1 has involvement by Patrick Gauthier, the beloved Magma / Weidorje pianist.  Here it is, by a group called Angle (no releases), called Knock at Your Door:

I really like the closing track called Antica, by the Paolo Radoni Quartet:

It's amazing how only 4 musicians can sound so full and complete by themselves.

Otherwise it's a mixed bag, with folk songs, solo guitar stuff, pop, and a bit of vocal ssw.

Nothing too progressive.

Back to Gianni Marchetti in The Wild Eye OST [FLAC limited time only]

 

The brilliant Marchetti, posted before here and in other places before.  An earlier soundtrack, which is of course more generic in style since it's from the late 1960s (specifically, the 'Summer of Love').  With regards to this movie, I read on imdb that it's a 'movie within a movie' with the director making or attempting to make one of those mondo documentaries:

Paolo is a documentary filmmaker on a mission to see the world and present human nature in its true and raw form, even pushing his crew to the limit to capture the brutality of a world gone mad even at the expense of safety and a moral price.—Robyn Graves

Tagline:

He Used a Camera Like Most Men Use a Woman -- and a woman like something you'd keep in a cage!

Wow.

If you're interested, you can watch the movie on youtube here.  A very basic review from a commenter:

A rather unusual film about a man utterly devoid of scruples, capturing gruesome images of extreme situations. The ending reveals a kind of remorse for his nefarious actions in the face of the unexpected death of the woman he loved.

The cinematography has been beautifully restored.  

Samples,

The Desert:

Meeting with Barbara:

Romolo Grano & Gianni Oddi - Le montagne della luce (OST 1975)

 

Info here.  This is an OST for:

Music composed for the tv documentary Le Montagne Della Luce (1975, Giorgio Moser, prod. Rai)

A1, A2 first released on 7" (SRL 10781, Ricordi, 1975).

A3, B1 and B2 are previously unreleased.

About Africa, of course.  I posted this because I was completely taken away by the otherwordly beauty of the Kilimanjaro track, recalling Morricone at his most ethereally, transcendentally transporting:

Everything about this composition is so beautiful, with the female vocals, the synths, the progression of the elaborate melody, with the usual comments I have to make about why something so gorgeous has been so completely forgotten today...  

I read on discogs too the vocalist is the same one Ennio used for some of his unforgettable soundtracks.

I don't know if there is more Grano out there worth hearing, does anyone else know?

Tom MacDonald Exposed - Music to Activate, 1981 Calif.

 

An insane cover, but totally a sign of those naive times, when nudists expected their nutty trend would one day take over the world...  Why wouldn't it, being 'more natural'?  then again, why would it? 99 percent of humans as I see it would prefer to cover up their imperfections, and leave everything to imagination which is always more beautiful than the real thing, surely.  And in an era where sexual harassment is such a primal issue, why would women want to walk around naked in public and aggravate the problem?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be hard to work at a bank, or go there, if all the tellers were naked?  Insane times those were back then.  And the fact that they named this LP after the same exhibitionistic image / concept! As if the founder was a true believer!

Note the discogged information here:

1980s folk rock/soft rock group from Nevada City, California who released their sole album in December 1981 on the small local label Bennett House Records to little fanfare or success however new interest for the group would emerge when it was revealed that DJ Shadow had sampled their work for the song Bloodstain on 1998's UNKLE - Psyence Fiction.

It's basically soft rock, ssw, entirely.  There is little hint of the fact we entered into the dreaded 80s decade.  Movement featuring a solo piano composition is nice to listen to, but not representative:

The final track called So What reminds me so eerily of my old folk acoustic favourite Gene Hood, the one album in that dept that I adore so profoundly and feel so sad it didn't become better known: