The Other Music Update

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	December 6, 2007


			We hope we can make your holiday shopping just a little bit easier this year. Other Music gift certificates are perfect for that music lover in your life and can be redeemed for purchases made both in the store and off our CD/LP website. You can buy a gift certificate in the shop, or purchase one on-line by going to: www.othermusic.com/giftcertificates.html Coming Soon: Gift Certificates for Download Purchases on Other Music Digital. Stay tuned for details.


	FEATURED NEW RELEASES Daft Punk Discovered (Various) Julianna Barwick Enrico Simonetti w/Goblin Daisies Soundtrack Bim Sherman David Watson Dale Hawkins Jonathan Kane The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (Soundtrack) Ghostface Killah Arp Moondog (Book & CD) Eccentric Soul: Outskirts of Deep City Life Is a Problem (Various) Christina Kubisch Nino Rota Bearded Ladies (Various) Jane Weaver		Paul Metzger The Libertines A Glass Menagerie (Various) Changing of the Guard (Various) Welsh Rare Beat 2 (Various) Galwad Y Mynydd ALSO AVAILABLE Untold Story of Father Yod (Book+CD) Nick Drake (Box Set) Taj Mahal Travellers Marcus Schmickler VINYL PRESSING Magik Markers (Limited Hand-screened) COMPLETE LIST OF THIS WEEK'S NEW ARRIVALS

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WHITE WILLIAMS IN-STORE PERFORMANCE TONIGHT
Thursday, December 6 @ 8:00 p.m.
OTHER MUSIC: 15 East 4th Street NYC
Free admission / Limited Capacity
Other Music closes for shopping an hour before all in-stores

Go to digital.othermusic.com/wp/?p=406 to watch our premiere episode of Live at Other Music, featuring St. Vincent. Look for more videos in the coming weeks from No Age, Tinariwen, the Clean, Vampire Weekend, and more.

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Peter Stampfel & Steve Weber

WIN TICKETS TO THE NYC PREMIERE RUN OF THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS...BOUND TO LOSE
Anthology Film Archives is thrilled to present The Holy Modal Rounders...Bound to Lose, a new documentary on the legendary bad boys of folk, the Holy Modal Rounders, who are currently in their fifth decade of creating surreal American music. Directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas & Paul Lovelace, starring the Holy Modal Rounders, Sam Shepard and Dennis Hopper. Also showing will be a screening of Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (the screenplay is co-written by one time Holy Modal Rounders drummer Sam Shepard). Guests for the opening evening will include Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters, plus a screening of The Godz, directed by Jud Yalkut, with a special intro by Paul Thornton of the Godz! Other Music has two pairs of tickets to give away to the opening on Friday, December 7. To enter, send an email to contest@othermusic.com, and please leave a daytime phone number where you can be reached. The two winners will be notified by 2PM, this Friday, December 7th. For a full schedule of events and more details, please visit www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES: 32 Second Avenue NYC

We also have one pair of tickets to see the Velocity Ramblers (featuring Peter Stampfel, John Cohen, Sam Shepard, Walker Shepard, Pat Conte and Betty Berkin) at Pianos on Sunday, December 9 at 10 PM. To enter, send an email to enter@othermusic.com

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WIN TICKETS TO JOHN ZORN'S CELEBRATION OF LIGHT
The Abrons Arts Center kicks off the holiday season with two special celebrations featuring the music of John Zorn. Marking the first two nights of Hanukkah, John Zorn's Celebration of Light is comprised of two unique concerts of classic and new work, both featuring Bar Kokhba, the most popular band in Zorn's ever-widening Masada Family. A fabulous sextet for strings and percussion, Bar Kokhba takes the Jewish musical tradition into the twenty first century with beautiful, flamboyant melodies touching on exotica, surf, jazz, klezmer and more. Friday's performance will include classic compositions from Zorn's The Circle Maker (Masada Book One). Saturday will feature the world premiere of new compositions from his Book of Angels (Masada Book Two). Both evenings will also feature the virtuosic Masada String Trio of Mark Feldman, Erik Friedlander and Greg Cohen, the guitar wizard Marc Ribot, the gifted Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista, and jazz great Joey Baron on drums. Other Music is giving away two pairs of tickets to each night! To enter, email tickets@othermusic.com, and please specify which evening you'd like to register for. The four winners will be notified on 2PM Friday, December 7th.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7 & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8
ABRONS ARTS CENTER: 466 Grand (at Pitt) NYC
$20 Tix available through www.henrystreet.org/arts and www.theatermania.com

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Tim Berne

Dan Weiss

WIN TICKETS TO SEARCH & RESTORE: JAZZ AT THE KNIT

The good folks at Search and Restore: Jazz at the Knit are trying to take back downtown NYC for the downtown sound, and this premier edition of their new monthly jazz event in the tap room of the Knitting Factory (otherwise known as the best space in the sprawling Tribeca club) is a pretty strong coming out party. We have two pairs of tickets to what we hope becomes a legendary first night in a long-running new series, and if you can't make the show (or if you can, and it blows your mind), Other Music Digital will be featuring live recordings from each performance within a few days of the gig. To enter, send an email to giveaway@othermusic.com. Two winners will be notified on Friday, December 7th.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11 @ 8PM

Featuring Dan Weiss/Miles Okazaki Duo & Shank (Ralph Alessi, Tim Berne, Shane Endsley)

KNITTING FACTORY: 74 Leonard Street NYC

$10/students, $13 otherwise


	$17.99 CD		DAFT PUNK Alive 2007 (Virgin) "Touch It" "Prime Time of Your Life" 2007's going to be remembered for a lot of things in the history of music, and a lot of it has to do with the technology by which we consume it -- independent digital music retail, Radiohead breaking the boundaries of how an album can be successfully distributed, and the abandonment of DRM ideology in the sale of digital media. But for those who were able to attend, Daft Punk's Alive 2007 tour will probably be remembered as the touchstone, one of the defining moments for live music, technology, and performance art for the decade. They answered lost sci-fi missives, appropriating the "Wyld Stalyns" ideology of ultimate media spectacle, made one of the most satisfying and momentous mixes of our times, and rolled up about 35 years worth of dance music into 80 minutes of mind-fracturing, computer-aided bliss, even going so far as to reinvent material from their lackluster studio effort Human After All into something not only listenable but life-shaking. You'll have to wait for the eventual DVD release to experience the video pyramid and all of the retina-blazing sights that shot forth from it, but until then, this is the surviving document, and it's impeccable. No promises that the top of your head will pop off and lasers will shoot out of it (again) but the sensations you'll get from checking this out one more time will definitely snap you out of da funk of winter, trigger a flashback or two, and leave you rollin' and scratchin' around the world. [DM]


	$14.99 CD		VARIOUS ARTISTS Discovered: As Sampled by Daft Punk (Rapster) "Cola Bottle Baby" Edwin Birdsong "I Put a Spell on You" Eddie Johns They say great artists steal...or something like that. In any case, the artists who have the most universal impact do generally borrow good ideas and re-contextualize them to make those ideas great. This is especially true in music, everyone from Bo Diddley to Led Zeppelin and yes, Daft Punk. This compilation is a killer collection of great disco and jazz-funk riffs that have served as the basis for many a Daft Punk hit. But not only that, it gives insight into how a DP hit is crafted. One Listen to Chaka Khan's "Fate" or "Cola Bottle Baby" by Edwin Birdsong and you'll have no problem figuring out exactly what they took; while on other tunes, you'll barely be able to tell just what was borrowed. In any case, this would stand up as one of the better disco-funk comps that we've gotten here in a while just on the strength of the tunes. The fact that Daft Punk sampled them proves what great taste they have. [DH]


	$11.99 CD $9.99 mp3		JULIANNA BARWICK Sanguine (Self-Released) "Unit 2" "Unit 8" I hate to pigeonhole an artist like this, especially one that I actually LIKE, but Julianna Barwick's haunting self-released debut is tailor-made for fans of Animal Collective and Panda Bear's solo stuff. Hey, it might be a cheap shot but there is definitely some truth to it, as Barwick's loopy, layered suite of songs owes much to the AC family. The Brooklyn artist's sound is built on hazy vocal refrains, largely wordless sighs and coos that drift in and out of the picture backed by abstract keyboard washes and clattering rhythms, much like a deep dub album without the defining bass lines. It may not be a wholly original concept, but it is so well executed and lovingly constructed that despite the lack of many actual "songs", the hypnotic sounds and moods make this hard to pass up. [JM]


	$17.99 CD		ENRICO SIMONETTI WITH GOBLIN Gamma OST (Cherry Red) "Gamma" "Amore Mio Non Farmi" Definitely not the evil, haunting prog-rock that one normally associates with Goblin, it's pretty unbelievable that this soundtrack to an Italian sci-fi television series was created by the same players who scored so many of horror movie master Dario Argento's flicks. Nonetheless, it's become one of my favorites in their catalog and having been unavailable for 30 some years, is one of those Holy Grail records for collectors. The story behind the Gamma score is pretty cool too. Enrico Simonetti was a popular TV entertainer, pianist, composer and bandleader in Italy, and also the father of Goblin founder Claudio. While the musical backgrounds of the two were certainly that of different eras, it is fair to assume that both family members influenced each other's craft. So much so, that when asked to score this four-part television series, the elder Simonetti enlisted his son's band for backing. The results of these sessions are more whimsical than you'd ever imagine, with Enrico introducing a traditional sense of melody and a swing that hadn't been heard in Goblin's music, and the group returning the favor with a (then) contemporary jazz-rock accompaniment. Surprisingly, many of the songs have much in common with easy listening composers like Enoch Light and Martin Denny. All in all, it's a mind-blowingly diverse score, from the sweeping, sax-driven title track (which enjoyed an 11-week run at the top of the Italian charts, coincidentally knocking Goblin's theme from Profondo Rosso from the one spot) to the bouncy, Perrey-Kingsley-esque space age exotica of "Paoletta" and "Mascia," not to mention elements of Morricone, Bacharach and bossa nova throughout. This is seriously one of my favorite soundtracks, and though it's completely different, it's right up there with Alain Goraguer's score to Fantastic Planet and yes, Suspiria. [GH]


	$21.99 CD		VARIOUS ARTISTS Daisies OST (Finders Keepers) "Bath of Milk" "Strip-teas" From the same wacky denizens that brought us Valerie and Her Week of Wonders comes this soundtrack to seminal Czech underground film, Daisies. The opening title track "Sedmikrasky" (Daisies in Czech) begins modestly -- a tentative tapping on a tom, subtly heralded by a muted trumpet, the song's rhythm hesitating for a moment, then beginning again. Consider it the wink and batting of eyelashes from the two lead characters, up to no good. From baroque French themes to the Charleston to an ode to musique concrete, Daisies' cut and paste soundtrack fits perfectly with the vivid colors, bedlam plot, and vanguard cinematography that earned this film both its banned status in Eastern Europe and international acclaim. Even the variations of Mozart and Bach, glued together with a choral arrangement and a waltz played with music boxes ("Cuckoos") take the familiar to create something new and delightfully twisted. And just when classical and jazz become the paste in these montages, the album ends with "Strip-teas," an original organ-led '60s beat composition. Like the fanfare that surrounded the recent screening of Valerie, this soundtrack is sure to set fire to the imaginations and inspire even more love for Czech New Wave cinema. [LG]


	$15.99 CD $9.99 mp3		BIM SHERMAN Tribulation: Down In Jamdown 1974-1979 (Pressure Sounds) "Ital West aka Dispensation" "Natty Cale" Like the great singers Horace Andy and Burning Spear, Bim Sherman's powerful words and golden voice were keystones in the musical bridge spanning from Jamaica to England, connecting reggae with punk. This excellent collection from Pressure Sounds celebrates the roots of Sherman's melodic legacy, showcasing the singer's releases between 1974 and 1979, the years before he left Kingston for the UK, without looking back. Having grown frustrated with the producers in Jamaica, Sherman began to produce, arrange and release his own records, often creating new songs by recycling his rhythm tracks and adding new lyrics and melodies. There's a stellar line-up of players on these tunes, this collection including the original versions of songs that he would later redevelop with Adrian Sherwood and ON-U Sound collective -- classics like "Lover's Leap," "My Woman," "Just Can't Stand It" and "Golden Locks" are all here without the industrial dub stylings of the '80s. Twenty tracks in all, including vocal and dub mixes, Tribulation is one of the best reggae collections of the year. [DG]


	$13.99 CDx2 $9.99 mp3		DAVID WATSON Fingering an Idea (XI) "Dexter, Music for Highland Bagpipe" "Sinister, Music for Acoustic and Electric Guitars" Despite the obvious differences between the two discs of David Watson's Fingering an Idea -- the first is devoted entirely to Watson's ensemble music for Highland bagpipes, while the second is all overdubbed guitar music performed by the composer himself -- what both sets share is an eccentric and highly developed approach to tuning. Though one could certainly call it "microtonal", it isn't just intonation or anything quite so theoretical. It seems to have more to do with a sheer interest in hearing sounds rub up against each other in unusual ways, whether it's the long sustained tones of the bagpipes or the complex pulsating chords of Watson's guitars. In the former case, the resulting music often belies the means of its facture. That is, the bagpipes often do not sound like bagpipes -- there are moments of rapid, unmistakable highland flourish to be sure, but for much of the first disc's 70 minutes, Watson's bagpipe ensembles sound more akin to the dense clustered drones of fellow downtown composer (and XI label head) Phil Niblock. The effect of these long form tonal explorations can be so otherworldly and engrossing that the slight wheeze of the windbag that comes at the end of each piece can be a startling and oddly necessary reminder that these sounds were created by human breath. In contrast, the human hand is always prevalent in the guitar pieces, and Watson's idiosyncratic approach to the instrument is truly original -- electric and acoustic guitars are oddly tuned and layered to great effect, sounding at times like mistuned bells, gongs or strummed fields of beating chords. A rich record with a rewarding, two-pronged vision. [CC]


	$15.99 CD		DALE HAWKINS L.A., Memphis & Tyler, Texas (Rev-Ola) "Joe" "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" You may know Dale as the man who wrote and performed "Suzie Q" but that knowledge will in no way prepare you for L.A., Memphis & Tyler, Texas. Recorded on his travels in 1969, in three different studios, this is essentially, and move over Elvis and Dusty, his own In Memphis. With help from Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, Mouse and the Traps, horn man Wayne Jackson, and legendary Elvis session wiz Joe Osborne, Dale Hawkins rips through ten swamp rock/country-got-soul classics, including the ridiculously funky title track, a suitably seedy version of "Candy Man," and the one-note Hound Dog Taylor-informed blues stomp of "Little Rain Cloud." One of my favorite discoveries of the year, this is a must for anyone who've been digging the recent Jim Ford, Terry Manning, and Link Wray reissues. [AK]


	$10.99 CD-EP $6.99 mp3		JONATHAN KANE The Little Drummer Boy (Radium) "The Little Drummer Boy" My neighbors two houses down have a thing for decorating the front of their place for the holidays, mainly Halloween, with skulls and coffins and screaming ghouls, and Christmas, which as we all know starts before Thanksgiving these days. The whole block is treated to more than a month of these trees and lights and presents and in addition, they have some sort of all-weather stereo set up with an endless loop of synthesizer versions of all your Yuletide favorites, and as I drift off to sleep with that infernal racket blaring it's not sugar-plums I see but visions of a crowded mall, and all the worst parts of what ought to be a lovely season. Anyway, Christmas music. I have mixed feelings about the season as well as the soundtrack, but I do actually love a nice holiday song done right. And Jonathan Kane...he does it right! A fifteen-minute version of the holiday classic "Little Drummer Boy" might sound daunting, but when it's done you just want to start it all over again. It's a typical Kane production, blending minimalism and melody, repetition and movement, and with a sweet simple riff like this, what you get is a truly great performance. The track starts with tight military snare drumming, and adds layers of guitar and "snow-drift deep" bass, warm and inviting but I promise it is anything but cloying... do you know what I mean unnamed owners of 475 Waverly Avenue? DO YOU! I digress... this record is as good as Kane's wonderful I Looked at the Sun, and I think even your mom might like it. It provides the aural equivalent of staring into a blizzard from the warmth of your front window, cup of hot buttered rum in hand -- hazy, hallucinogenic, disorienting, but embracing and warm. [JM]


	$15.99 CD		THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T Soundtrack (El / Cherry Red) "Dungeon Ballet" "Oh! We Are the Guards" I'm sure you've noticed that we're reviewing more than our usual share of soundtracks this week, but all of this diverse bunch is pretty great. The music here is the score to 1953's The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, a movie based on the story by Theodor Seuss Geisel (yes, THE Dr. Seuss), who also had a hand in writing the screenplay. It's definitely his spookiest work, and way stranger than, say, Cat in the Hat, but still unmistakably Seuss. If you haven't seen the film yet, you'll want to add it to your Netflix queue. The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T is a surreal musical (and certainly not your formulaic, McCarthy-era Hollywood production) based upon a young boy's extravagant dream of an oppressive music institute where he and 500 other young lads are forced to follow the tyrannical Dr. Terwilliker's 24-hour-a-day practice techniques, all seated around a giant piano. Between the colorful set, bizarrely costumed characters and strange props, had it come out a decade and a half later, the visuals probably would have been branded as psychedelic. In spite of being a box office flop, the score -- by German composer Frederick Hollander (who also wrote songs for Marlene Dietrich) -- was nominated for an Oscar. Beautifully orchestrated and almost cartoonish at times (a Carl Stalling comparison wouldn't be too off base), Hollander's arrangements perfectly complement Seuss' head-scratching prose during the vocal numbers like "Dressing Song Do-Me-Do Duds" (I want my undulating undies with the maribou frills! / I want my beautiful bolero with the porcupine quills! / I want my purple nylon girdle with the orange blossom buds / 'Cause I'm going do-me-do-ing in my do-me-do duds!"). The CD also includes 11 additional recordings not used in the movie. [GH]


	$14.99 CD		GHOSTFACE KILLAH Big Doe Rehab (Def Jam) "Yolanda's House" "Paisely Darts" The sharp humor and quick wit continues to flow from one of the hardest working members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface Killah brings us another slice of Staten Island life with his eighth solo album, Big Doe Rehab. Though it seems like it could be hard to keep up with his excellent debut, Ironman, or 2006's acclaimed Fishscale, GFK is still holding things down, with Wu members like Raekwon, Method Man, Sun God, Masta Killa, and Cappadonna (alas, no RZA) along for the ride. With most of the production handled by LV and Sean C. (the team behind Jay Z's latest), Ghostface's trademark mixture of drug talk, street life, and soul samples still sounds as fresh as before. He's also absorbed elements of Rare Earth, Al Wilson, El Michels Affair, Johnny Guitar Watson, and Soul Generation, and enlisted the help of some live musicians to take him further back to the old school. Though it doesn't quite achieve the masterpiece status of his aforementioned efforts, Big Doe Rehab is still a rich, dense and soulful outing. [DG]


	$16.99 CD		ARP In Light (Smalltown Supersound) "St. Tropez" "Potentialities" Arp's new album sports nice Kraut-inspired synth workouts that have that sweet indie inflection to keep it charming. Imagine early B. Fleischmann jamming with Schlammpeitziger in a Cluster tribute competition versus Delia & Gavin. Arp gets the formula dead on and then some by tempering the psychedelic loops with a melancholic atmosphere and melody. Droning, phasing, climbing, and pulsating analog keys are layered and then grow at their own pace. It's a really nice mix of the old earthy Krautrock vibe and a new, more song-oriented quality, with a few starker, slightly more experimental tracks thrown in at the end for good measure. This album will appeal to fans ranging from slow-mo analog disco heads and bearded Kraut fiends, to the discerning IDM fan and the curious indie bloke. A nice surprise and a perfect record to bring some warmth into the apartment this winter. [SM]


	$24.95 Book w/CD		MOONDOG The Viking of Sixth Avenue (Process) Moondog: The Viking of Sixth Avenue is Robert Scotto's biography of the iconoclastic, blind American composer. A curious and fiercely independent figure in modern American music, Moondog could be found on the streets of 1950s and '60s New York, playing his spellbinding rhythmic compositions on instruments of his own design, espousing poetry, talking to passersby, and yes, dressed in full Viking regalia. While this persona may strike some -- as it indeed has in the past -- as an affectation, Moondog's vision belongs to that great American tradition of outsider composers that includes the likes of Harry Partch (a fellow "Hobo" composer) and Sun Ra (who dressed funnier than Sun Ra?), two other mavericks uncompromisingly devoted to their unique musical worlds. Moondog's percussive, contrapuntal music was an inspiration to many younger composers who found what would eventually be called "minimalism", Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, and Philip Glass (with whom Moondog lived with for more than a year) among them. Scotto's text is well-written, meticulously researched but not tedious as some bios can be, tracing Moondog's development from Midwest preacher's son to internationally renowned (at least in some circles) composer, recounting the accident that resulted in his blindness at 16, his various marriages and children, his musical development and the gradual formation of his Viking persona along the way. A good read about a truly mystifying figure. Comes with a 28-track CD. [CC]


	$17.99 CD $9.99 mp3		VARIOUS ARTISTS Eccentric Soul: Outskirts of Deep City (Numero) "Mr. Lucky" Betty Wright "One Night Affair" The Rising Sun Slide the jewel case out of Numero Group's telltale cardboard slip and you'll see a box of decrepit tape reels on the front. You can almost smell the mildew, but the grooves themselves are germane and evergreen. Between Numero Group's first Deep City comp and Soul Jazz's Miami Sound investigations, you would think that the pre-TK Disco scene had been thoroughly excavated and examined. Not so, especially when dealing with the handiwork of Clarence Reid (a/k/a Blowfly) who was nothing if not funky and prolific. Twenty new cuts here (featuring Reid, Helene Smith, and barely legal Betty Wright) showcase the endemic soul, funk and -- most crucial to that Miami sound -- the drum battery of the FLA marching bands to great effect. [AB]


	$12.99 LP+45		VARIOUS ARTISTS Life is a Problem (Mississippi) Writer Mike McGonigal goes back a minute. He put out the well-regarded Chemical Imbalance 'zine back in the day and in the early '90s, he was an early champion of little bands like Stereolab and Pavement. When he started up his next mag project, Yeti, he wrote about unknown beardos like Iron and Wine and Devendra Banhart. Yeti also has its own book imprint, releasing tomes this year from the likes of Tara Jane O'Neil and the collected writings of Luc Sante, both of which we can't recommend enough. For all his being ahead of the curve, there's little doubt that McGonigal's lasting contribution to culture will be his unabashed love of sanctified blues and gospel. A champion of the raw stuff, McGonigal curates Life Is a Problem, which compiles a few prime cuts of post-war sides from preachers and players like Rev. Lonnie Farris and Bishop Perry Tills. Come for the testifying or for the shouted vocals, but man, if this doesn't feature some of the gnarliest guitar tones I've ever heard. Fans of Rev. Charlie Jackson, the Revenant imprint, Goodbye Babylon, and Jesus will dig this deeply. [AB]


	Five Electrical Walks $13.99 CD Night Flights $13.99 CD		CHRISTINA KUBISCH Invisible/Inaudible: Five Electrical Walks (Important) "Security" CHRISTINA KUBISCH Night Flights (Important) "The Cat's Dream" While established galleries and museums have only begun to embrace the notion of "sound art" over the last few years, pioneers such as Christina Kubisch have been creating sound-based works for more than two decades. Five Electrical Walks began as an interactive piece in 1981 where the listener wears specially designed headphones which reveal electro-magnetic radiation emanating from the technological world around us. Five Electrical Walks is the first collection of compositions created by Kubisch which utilize the sound material recorded during that time, and sonically speaking, the pieces would fit in quite well with the more minimal side of the Raster-Noton catalog. From the rhythmic-based "Homage with Minimal Disinformation" to the more drone-based "Atocha" and in the buzz and crackle of "Night Shift," it's easy to hear how Kubisch's work would inspire many of the younger generation of sound manipulators. Also available from Important is a newly re-mastered version of Kubisch's fantastic 1987 album, Night Flights, originally issued on Auf Dem Nil. It's an album of carefully constructed and heavily layered sound sources. Less clinical than Five Electrical Walks, Night Flights combines field recordings, synth, various wind instruments (flute, tubular glass horns, eagle bone), electronics, voice and other unidentifiable instrumentation in a purposeful and sometimes playful way that shows an artist truly engaged in their materials. The focus here is on warmth and breath as each sound color brings out new shades in the overall sound. Recorded in Milan while Kubisch was overseeing the release of Giancarlo Scelsi's recordings and during regular meetings with Alvin Curran, one can hear the influence of these two giants in the beautifully stretched overtones of the cosmic voices of the final piece, "Circles III." Additionally, both releases contain extensive photo documentation and insightful liner notes written by Kubisch. [KH]


	$15.99 CD		NINO ROTA LA Strada / Nights of Cabiria OST (El / Cherry Red) "E Arrivato Zampano" "Il Trasloco" Nino Rota's 28-year association with Frederico Fellini was a legendary pairing. The Italian composer's arrangements were the very glue that held the director's fragmented style of cinema together. The liner notes expound upon their unique relationship, describing how Fellini would shoot his scenes to the accompaniment of records in order to establish the mood and pace for the actors. (The dialogue and actual soundtrack would be dubbed over later.) Afterwards, Rota would come in and improvise themes on the piano, based on Fellini's description of the characters, and wait for the director to stand-up and shout, "Yes, this is it!" Fellini is quoted in the liners as saying, "That was how the new motifs of the film came to life. I was immediately captivated and I forgot what the old songs I used on the shooting had suggested to me." This CD culls together the music from two of the Italian director's classics, both starring Fellini's wife Giuletta Masini. In La Strada (1954), Masini plays a young woman sold to a Gypsy carnival by her mother, and naturally, the music moves from bombastic circus-like themes to dramatic, sweeping orchestration. Released three years later, Le Notti Di Cabiria finds Masini playing the role of a prostitute searching for true love in a seedy section of Rome. The arrangements here are fuller and stylistically more diverse, the main theme even receives a few mambo re-workings. While nothing can beat the magnificent experience of listening to the music as it was meant to be heard -- as a backdrop to Fellini's characters and images -- Rota's arrangements are thoroughly enjoyable on their own. Like the films of the great director, Nino Rota's music is distinctly European, amazingly expressive, and truly singular. [GH]