Library composer Brian Bennett, 11 albums

I can't believe how lazy those KPM covers were.  They didn't even change the colors the way international postage stamps did in my stamp collection I treasured so much as a child, which my mom kept and threw away a few years ago to my utter and total chagrin.  Or maybe it's still sitting in our basement somewhere next to all our kids' rock collections, which I expect to toss out too.  Who cares, anyways.  We don't use stamps anymore, right, now that we have amazon, youtube, tiktok, snapchat, whatsapp and instagram????  Hey--what's a stamp?  You actually had to lick those things?  Yeah, you millenials know all about licking.  OK boomer.  Yes, let's not go there, take it to twitter, if you want WWII-like raging arguments.

Some of these have the great Alan Hawkshaw, my favourite library composer, included.  On the other hand, I had never heard of Brian Bennett until looking through the Hawkshaw discography for stuff I missed I came across his name.  And unbelievably, there are still libraries by Hawkshaw that haven't been 'digitized' yet for us all.

From discogs:

Born 1940 in London. Percussionist since the 1950s. Joined Cliff Richard & The Shadows in 1961.
Since the mid 1970s arranger, conductor and record producer, composer for film and TV.

In this instance, definitely the LPDP applies, after 1978-1979 in which he made quite a great deal of nice funky energetic music alternating with lovely gentle symphonic music along the lines of the great John Fiddy, the slow decline begins.

Nonetheless I think we can all agree that in the immortal 1974 track called Nuplex there is just about everything we can and do love about the great library music of the 1970s, the funky beat, the synths, the horn section, the lovely rhodes piano curlicues, the very tasteful string section touches:





I love how all the instruments meld together so absolutely perfectly.
On the wonderful 1978 Bruton album Drama Montage the track Fast and Furious is just that:





And that album has numerous delights in it.
In the same year, Tone Poems has a delicatesse that recalls all the best of A.R. Luciani's work (did I ever post a lot of his stuff in the past).  Unfortunately the guy who ripped it, and I won't swear here, did it in mono.  I might just buy the vinyl and redo the rip, bring you back a lossless, because I think it deserves better.  Consider the Migration track, demonstrating his quasi-miraculous ease with classical composition:





That track alone later appears on a different library album.
Special mention for this album, called Voyage into Discoid Funk (1978). which was his attempt at crafting a fusion concept album along the lines of Lenny White's Venusian Summer which in fact is quite similar.  A number of high energy standard fusion tracks in there, overall really a solid album that came as quite a surprise to me (because I never heard it before, despite it being right up my alley).

In this package there are a couple of albums he made in conjunction with the great Alan Hawkshaw.
I didn't check too closely who wrote which songs, but there's one thing I can say for certain: the closer for 1974's KPM Synthesis, which is called Mermaid, is 100 percent from Hawkshaw, and you will agree too when you hear that unmistakable synthesizer:

Back to Veronika Fischer & Band with Aufstehn, 1978 & Goldene Brucken, 1980

In these 2 later releases, from 1978 and 1980, last out of this outfit and their wonderful hairstyles, Veronika veers into a poppy soft rock style that to my ears is a little bit more successful than the previous funk-rock.  Compositions are by different band members than the prior 2 I guess.  For ex., the lovely song called Silver in Hair:





For the 1980 note how the overture attempts to play some progressive symphonic moves along Stern Combo lines:

Veronika Fischer & Band, 1976 and 1977

 

On the verso of the top album, their first ST from 1976, I think we can all enjoy the bearded, glassesed dude on the far right who still missed the hippie days of the sixties.  Meantime, on the second ST album from 1977, the verso is just as classically seventies in its own wonderful, inimitable way.  The curvature of her eyebrows in particular is just so-- uh-- pencilly.

The music here is a mix of funky rock songs and ordinary sentimental pop music of the period from Germany which is sometimes referred to derogatorily as schlager.  On the other hand some of the music shines through quite brightly with clever hooks or melodies, perhaps not as impressive overall as my old favourite point of comparison, Uschi Bruning.  Note that Veronika made a couple more albums with this band (not sure if the members changed or not) which I'll get to shortly, since I don't think anyone ripped them heretofore.

From the first ST, Halt An:




From the second ST, Klar, etc., a not so bad hook but at least quite original:




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And the other missing & rare Michel Gonet, Guitar Players (1979)

Dual acoustic guitars throughout, occasionally plugged in, playing very benign and innocuous music here.  What's odd is that the theme seems to be a trip through Canada with Fort Nelson (in BC), Chicoutimi (in Quebec), Je me souviens the somewhat neurotic or passive-aggressive theme of the Quebec motor vehicle licence plate, etc.
Info is here.  Thus the first track, which is ST:





Again, a long long way off from the progressive insanity of Cecil Wary's Pop Incidence.

The rare Michel Gonet library Fireworks (1977)

https://www.discogs.com/Michel-GonetBasket-Jazz-Quintet-Fireworks-/release/4056032

I bought the vinyl seeing it was missing from his digitized oeuvre.  This is one of the more generic library titles unfortunately, with relatively little progressive composition.  The title called Catherine Wheel gives an oddly romantic sound to what originally of course was an instrument of torture (wikipedia description here) but then was applied to a type of firework:

And I guess instrument of torture is a good description of some library LPs I've encountered and had to sit through beside the turntable.

Bonus, the rare Suggestions for Title Music, also quite good, though more generic in the typical library style.