The eighties were something of a quiet time for Roman Polanski: well, at least in terms of making films. He had ended the decade previous on something of a high with his adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess in 1979 but between that and 1992’s dark comedy/drama Bitter Moon Polanski made just two films: the critically-derided box office bomb Pirates and the somewhat conventional-looking Frantic.

With a mainstream-friendly plot and starring Harrison Ford, hot from the success of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, one would guess that Frantic was the closest thing to a sure-fire winner the exiled filmmaker could have come without hopping on a plane back to Los Angeles. On paper the film sounds very familiar: American doctor Richard Walker (Ford) is sent into a spiral of despair when his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley) disappears shortly after checking into a Parisian hotel. Arriving in Paris for a seminar, the jet-lagged couple discovers that Sondra mistakenly grabbed the wrong suitcase at the airport and when Walker emerges from the bathroom having been in the shower, his wife has vanished. Minutes segue into hours, with very little information to go on and unaided by the sympathetic, but equally stumped local police, Walker soon finds himself drawn into a dark, seamy underbelly of the French capital that’s a million miles away from the romanticism for which the city is synonymous…

While the plot of Frantic has an air of familiarity there’s a lot of depth to the film that sets it apart from the standard thrillers that were a staple during the 80s. It’s probably the mediocrity of the concept that has prevented Frantic from being afforded the level of respect it deserves and how it has subsequently become the most overlooked entry on the great director’s filmography. Everything—bar one thing that I’ll touch upon later—about Frantic oozes class and a willingness on Polanski’s part to make a mainstream film that works without having to sell himself out: had the film been made by one of the journeyman directors of the time—say John Badham or Adrian Lyne—the film’s look would have been borne out of a need to capitalise on Paris’ best-loved landmarks, but Polanski deliberately avoids this pitfall by ignoring all the obvious places—save for the Eiffel Tower which can be glimpsed in a longshot towards the end of the film—preferring instead to observe parts of the city that had remained largely unseen in English language films. Given that the narrative revolves around Walker’s (ahem) frantic search for his wife, the character has no time to check out the city’s most famous tourist traps anyway, so Polanski asks why should the audience be allowed? Even said longshot of the Eiffel Tower is a carefully considered choice that underlines the structure’s significance throughout the film (spoiler: the suitcase that Walker’s wife accidentally picked up contained a secret mcguffin hidden in a souvenir model of the tower. The tower itself appears during the exchange of said item at the film’s climax to emphasize its importance to the story).

Another way Frantic transgresses from obvious mainstream mediocrity is the way in which Polanski and regular collaborator Gérard Brach shy away from the traditional view of the adversary.  The duo prefer instead to focus on Walker’s efforts to locate his wife and his sense of increasing desperation rather than dwell for too long on the villains of the piece or their motives. By concentrating on Walker Polanski and Brach managed to create a fully fleshed-out character that would give Ford an excellent showcase for his abilities. It’s obvious from looking at the Ford’s CV that by the mid eighties he was beginning to distance himself from the heroics for which he had been associated, and came to the film having made two distinctly different films for director Peter Weir: Witness in 1985 and The Mosquito Coast a year later. Frantic continued this trend and Harrison Ford delivers a very layered and fearless performance which, for my money, is the best of his career.

Frantic marked Polanski’s first collaboration with actress Emmanuelle Seigner. The pair would later reteam for Bitter Moon and The Ninth Gate, as well becoming romantically involved and getting married in real life. As Michelle, Walker’s sole ally in the search for his missing wife, Seigner is very affective. The material itself doesn’t require too much range but the actress exudes mystery and sexuality; the audience is never quite sure of her motives or allegiances but she remains alluring throughout.

The film was also Polanski’s first–and to date only—collaboration with renowned Italian composer Ennio Morricone. The score to the film will seem familiar to anyone who’s seen Henri Verneuil’s Peur Sur La Ville (a film that was also scored by Morricone), another Paris-set thriller made a decade before. It’s a great score and with a large helping of accordion, it has a distinctly Gallic flavour. Polanski also utilises various other pieces of music, some to great effect (Grace Jones’s ‘Libertango’, for example) and some less so, such as Mick Hucknall’s ‘I’m Gonna Lose You’ – hey, you should try losing yourself, buddy…

Frantic is a great film that’s aged particularly well for one that was made in the 1980s. If you’ve not seen it, check it out, especially if you’ve ever wanted to see Harrison Ford act. It’s certainly one of the actor’s best films, even if only a minor footnote on Polanski’s list of work. Rumour has it that the studio—Warner Bros.—were less than impressed with Polasnki’s original cut of the film and ordered him to remove twenty minutes of footage seen as surplus to requirement, along with an ending that was replaced with something a little more crowd-pleasing. These rumours are at time of writing unsubstantiated and as the film stands, it’s still a sombre, languidly-paced, character-driven film, which is probably why the film failed to connect with audiences and has subsequently disappeared. Given the prominence of ‘director’s cuts’ and ’special editions’, one would have thought we’d have seen Polanski’s original vision by now, if it’s exists. I guess we’ll probably never know.

Big thanks to Paul for a truly fantastic piece. Be sure to check out Lovelockandload for more movie goodness.

*Paul’s previous pieces for us are here and here. They’re dead good.

So, here are some sublime posters for you to cast your lucky eyes over. If you want to see the full exhibition, get yourself down to the Barbican Foyer! Prompt!

CUL-DE-SAC

FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS

KNIFE IN THE WATER

ROSEMARY’S BABY

Once again, a big thank you to the Barbican for the posters. Make sure you try and get down to the Barbican to see these wonderful pieces in person!

This month: Roman Polanski

Nationality: French/Polish

D.O.B: 18/08/1933

Years active: 1955 – present

Number of films (as director): 18

Do say: “With your beady eye for the macabre, and your cackling delight in the absurd, you are certainly one of the most distinctive directors of the latter half of the last century.”

Don’t say: “So, why didn’t you to go to America to pick up your Oscar that time?”

Who Hell He? Roman Polanski is one of a surprisingly small handful of living film directors whose name and persona are both widely known to the public at large. Of course, the more controversial aspects of his personal life are probably as much a reason for this fame as his actual films, but let’s not deny him his due as an auteur who has enjoyed both commercial and critical success on an almost equal level. Witness Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, for example; more than 40 years on, few films have managed to be quite so dark and cerebral whilst simultenously scoring so big at the box-office.

Influenced himself by some of cinema’s greatest cryptic visionairies, including  Hitchcock, Bunuel, and his fellow Pole and mentor Andrzej Wadja, Polanski has come to cast as large a shadow on cinema as almost anyone before or since. Few directors could claim to have inspired talents as seemingly disperate as family-friendly fantasist Tim Burton, and troubled, left-field dramatist Lars Von Trier, to name but two. Still, Polanski’s style remains resolutely his own, and while he hasn’t really performed anywhere near the peak of his powers since the late 70s, the cream of his filmography will always make for strange, intense and truly unique viewing.

Six of the best:

Knife in the Water (1962)

One of the great debuts in world cinema, Knife in the Water’s reputation has only been diminished by the strength of the work that immediately followed it. Setting out his stall with confidence, Polanski brings us a tale soaked through with the same queasy sense of threat and paranoia that would prevade all of his best work, as an unhappy couple invite a potentially dangerous stranger to join them on a boating trip. A nomination for Best Foreign Film at the 1963 Academy Awards would pave the young director’s way out of communist Poland.

Repulsion (1965)

Relocating to London, Polanski made an even greater splash with this entrancing, psycho-sexual chamber piece. Catherine Deneuve stars as a terrified young woman tormented by grotesque nightmares which slowly seep into reality after her jet-setting sister leaves her alone in their shared flat. A truly striking sequence in which pallid, deathly hands tear through a stone wall and grasp our heroine has become a much copied staple of the horror genre.

Cul-de-Sac (1966)

My own personal favourite Polanski film, and the one I think best displays his bizarre, beguilling style, with plenty of nods to literary influences such as Beckett and Pinter. Lionel Stander plays a thuggish, wounded criminal on-the-run, who hides out in the home of warring couple Donald Pleasance and Francoise Dorleac, before deciding to hold them hostage. Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda contributed four impeccable scores for Polanski before his untimely death in 1969, and the fuzzy, melancholy jazz in Cul-de-Sac represents the peak of their collaboration.

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

Originally entitled Dance of the Vampires, this somewhat light and frothy Hammer spoof rarely sees the light of day (no pun intended!) under that title, despite it’s director’s wishes to the contrary. I emphasise the somewhat when it comes to the light and frothy, as this is still a Polanski film, and for all the slapstick shenanigans featured therein, The Fearless Vampire Killers is still a typically offbeat effort complete with a memorably sour finale. Also, has there ever been another spoof that you could describe as truly haunting, visually dazzling, and masterfully orchestrated? Certainly not Hot Shots Part Deux, anyway.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

For his American debut, Polanski turned in this bona fide horror classic, which remains quite posibly his most famous film to this day. Mia Farrow stars as the New York apartment-dwelling mum-to-be, who wakes up to a living nightmare when she discovers her unscrupulous actor husband has sold both her womb and unborn babe to some local satanists! Ruth “Harold and Maude” Gordon brilliantly supplies the standard gallow’s humour as a doting, interfering and possibly demonic old lady next door.

Chinatown (1974)

Forever billed as the writer of “The Greatest Screenplay of All Time” as a result of Chinatown, Robert Towne in fact lobbied long and hard for this seminal neo-noir tragedy to have a happy ending! A mere five years after the notorious murder of his actress wife Sharon Tate, Polanski wouldn’t hear of it, and it was he who dreamt up the gloomy and nihilistic finale for this legendary film. Not to do Towne too much of a disservice, and his tale of a private investigator uncovering untold corruption in depression-era LA is a work of genius, but by refusing to compromise his enduringly dark world view Roman Polanski seized ownership of this film first and foremost.

What about the rest?: Macbeth (1971) is a handsome, if not quite brilliant, literary adaptation which may or may not refer to tragic events in Polanski’s real life (the Sharon Tate murders)… What? (1973) is the least acknowledged effort in the Polanski canon, a surreal, meandering sex comedy, starring Fellini’s onscreen alter-ego, Marcello Mastroianni… The Tenant (1976) is a fine, if slightly below-standard, film which forms a loose trilogy with Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, as Polanski himself stars as a psychologically tormented flat-dweller… Tess (1979) is a handsome, if not quite brilliant, literary adaptation which may or may not refer to unfortunate events in Polanski’s real life (the sexual assault case brought against him in America)… Pirates (1986) is a fun, historical romp that recalls aspects of The Fearless Vampire Killers without being anywhere near as good… Frantic (1988) is a not-bad-at-all mainstream thriller, written with long-time collaborator Gerard Brach and boasting a Morricone score… Bitter Moon (1992) is not to be confused with Button Moon, while to many it should be called Boring Moon, but this pre-Four Weddings Hugh Grant-starring drama ain’t all that bad… Death and the Maiden (1994) is another rather staid and heavy drama, this time with even less to recommend it… The Ninth Gate (1999) is a competent occult thriller, and a bit of a curate’s egg, being neither full return to form nor embarrassing attempt to relive former glories… The Pianist (2002) is Polanski’s most famous recent film, and sees him revisiting the occupied Poland of his youth via the best-selling autobiography of Wladyslaw Szpilman… Oliver Twist (2005) is yet another handsome, if this time rather far from brilliant, literary adaptation which presumably has little to do with any events in Polanski’s real life… and finally, The Ghost Writer (2010) is an upcoming adaptation of Robert Harris’ Blair-spearing political novel, The Ghost.

Pssst… Now you know all about Roman Polanski, why don’t you check out his Directorspective at the brilliant Barbican this month? Go on!

Hello everyone! A couple of weeks ago I recorded a mix for the wonderful New York internet radio station, Breakthru Radio. I think it went up today on Thompson’s fantastic show Anatomy of A Blogger. Check that out if you want to listen to me talking absolute nonsense about music and stuff. But if, like me, you don’t want to hear me blabbering on how ‘dubstep blew up last year’ (I know, I know), check out the mix in it’s unadulterated form below. Still wanna have a listen? Well, alright then, here you go. Enjoy!

TRACKLISTING

1.    FOUR  TET – OUR BELLS /BROADCAST & THE FOCUS GROUP – SÉANCING SONG

2.    THE FREE POP ELECTRONIC CONCEPT – PISH! PSHAW!

3.    MALACHAI – SHITKICKER

4.    WILD BEASTS – ALL THE KING’S MEN (BANJO OR FREAK OUT REMIX)

5.    BROADCAST – MICROTRONICS NO.6

6.    YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS – CHOCI LONI

7.    CABARET VOLTAIRE – SILENT COMMAND

8.    THE ANDROID SISTERS – LIVIN’ IN THE 50’S

9.    JUNIOR BYRON – DANCE TO THE MUSIC

10.  TO ROCOCO ROT – FORWARDNESS

11.  TUFF LITTLE UNIT – JOIN THE FUTURE

12.  ARTHUR RUSSELL – TREEHOUSE/SCHOOLBELL

Breakthru Radio Mix

Blast your mid-week blues away with the lovely Ray Barretto, who is our wonderful provider of today’s SOTD! Aw, thanks Ray!

Taken from his 1963 album On Fire Again (Encendido otra vez), ‘Mr. Blah Blah’ finds the Puerto Rican Latin-Jazz (or Jazz-Latin) legend in a playful and silly mood.  Often dismissed as a nonsense novelty tune alongside Barretto’s 1962 breakthrough pop hit ‘El Watusi’ as well as the track ‘El Bantu’, this is actually a funny and light Latin number that always cheers me up when I’m down in the dumps. It’s wacky and loveable charm is too darn cute to resist.

I love you Mr. Blah Blah!

Ray Barretto – Mr. Blah Blah

Taken from the 1984 Vanguard album ‘Songs Of Electronic Despair’, the crazy Android Sisters was the bizarre musical creation of producers Tim Clark and Tom Lopez.

The duo took their inspiration for The Android Sisters from the Phillip K. Dick novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ‘, which we all know was the basis for the Rutger Hauer-starred sci-fi film ‘Blade Runner’.  As well as being a daft in-joke about the Andrews Sisters being androids (you starting to get it now, aren’t you?), this barmy idea turns out to be one excellent electronic experiment.

Despite sounding utterly peculiar, this is actually a bold, avant-garde electro record that recalls the mind-bending works of musicians such as Laurie Anderson and Ann Magnusson – except with added madness and hilarity. Many find the Android Sisters hard work (well, all the people I know seem to freak out every time I play ‘em. The softies) but the genre-hopping, dual-femme robots provide witty and surreal  social commentary, with plenty of midi/synclavier noises to keep you occupied. With their metallic tongues-firmly-in-their-cheeks, come and let the Sisters take you on a wacky intergalactic space ride!! Woo!!

The Android Sisters – Robots Are Coming

Released in 1984 on the legendary Sleeping Bag Records, Felix was the brainchild of Arthur Russell and Gallery DJ Nicky Siano. ‘You Can’t Hold Me Down’ was the b-side to their classic tune ‘Tiger Stripes’ (Russell refused to take any recording credit for Felix, due to his immense dislike for the song – the crazy fool, it’s an absolute belter!).

With it’s snappy yet druggy grooves and jagged keyboards, it shows off the incredible talent of Russell and the dance savvy of Siano. A disjointed and soulful downtown disco track, it’s one of the many gems that can be found lurching in Sleeping Bag’s glorious back catalogue.

It’s a ‘bad little kitten’!

Felix – You Cant Hold Me Down (extended version)

Part of the allure of the Big Apple is that it’s such a cinematic city. I really can’t think of another place that has been so frequently and so lovingly captured on celluloid. Walking around the place you often feel like you’ve wandered onto a humongous film set!

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the 15 greatest NYC films. I’ve decided to judge these films as much for their “New Yorkieness” as for their overall quality, so grab a Nathan’s hot dog and enjoy!

Why 15? Who wants to know, buddy?

15. The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979)

I’ll be straight with you, kids. I’ve got a bit of a love/hate thing going on with The Warriors. On the one hand, I can’t help but find it ever-so-slightly tiresome (it’s just one protracted fight sequence after another, is it not?) and as knuckle-headed as anything else this side of Star Wars. On the other hand, however, it’s vision of a semi-futuristic NYC overrun by tribalistic street gangs is occassionally enthralling; the foreboding opening shot of a subway train snaking past Coney Island’s famous Wonder Wheel, being a case in point.

14. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984)

Quite possibly most 80s kids’ first introduction to New York on screen, and a real treat from a time when mainstream films still managed to be both witty and spectaculor (see also Gremlins and Raiders of the Lost Ark). King Kong atop the Empire State Building may be more famous, but for folk of my generation the only monster on the rampage through Downtown Manhattan that matters is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

13. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)

Again, another film I can’t claim to be the BIGGEST fan of, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t a few other people out there who find Woodsy’s in-film relationship with a 17-year-old schoolgirl a little bit, well, ewww. The famous opening montage of Manhattan itself, however, accompanied by George Gershwin’s evocative ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, is Allen’s finest moment as a “pure” filmmaker, and an unforgettable tribute to his beloved hometown.

12. The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948)

Rather unsurprisingly, the city known to many as “Gotham” always made a great location for Film Noir, and while The Naked City is far from the genre’s finest hour, it’s the one in which New York looms largest, near-title character as it is. While the plot is a little muddled and limp, the pulp verite shooting-style still looks electric, and a thrilling climax on the Williamsburg Bridge is well worth hanging around for.

11. Q: The Winged Serpent (Larry Cohen, 1982)

An unfairly overlooked film from an unfairly overlooked director, Q is a brilliantly written, tautly directed mini-horror-masterpiece which sees a deadly, ancient dragon picking off New Yorkers for it’s dinner. Imagine Jaws remoulded with the Manhattan skyline doubling for the deep blue sea, throw in a pair of fine performances from Michael Moriarty (jive-talking crim) and the late David Carradine (tough-talking cop), and off you fly!

10. Permanent Vacation (Jim Jarmusch, 1980)

The once near-immpossible to get hold of debut feature from Jim Jarmusch, this is scuzzy and meandering even by his standards. But then, if you don’t like that sort of thing, what are you doing watching a Jim Jarmusch film? A big noise on the NYC hipster scene at the turn of the 70s, this is a vivid snapshot of those times from a truly unique director.

9. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)

What stay in New York would be complete without a trip to the Dakota Building? A breathtaking, neo-gothic apartment complex, the Dakota served both as the setting for Rosemary’s Baby, and the scene of John Lennon’s murder… Erm. Golly, Rosemary’s Baby is a great film, and the New York high-life has never been rendered in quite such a terrifying fashion as fashionable fawn Mia Farrow finds herself impregnated by the bloody devil himself! Imagine that as a storyline on Sex and The City!

8. Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)

Next time you find yourself being harassed by the parping horn of an in-coming NYC taxi, please don’t forget to smack both hands down on it’s bonnet and bellow “HEY! I’M WALKING HERE!” a la Dustin Hoffman’s would-be pimp Ratso Rizzo in a famous (improvised!) scene from Midnight Cowboy. Furthermore, should you happen across a happening party with various members of the Warhol Factory crew, as Rizzo and his naive charge Joe Buck (Jon Voight) do here, then award yourself some extra NYC brownie points.

7. Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

While not quite as fully Film Noir-y as The Naked City (there is a distinct lack of “broads” and guns, for starters), Sweet Smell of Success nevertheless does a better job of capturing post-war New York at it’s jazzy, smokey, dangerous best. Burt Lancaster is at the top of his game as the unscrupulous press columnist out to ruin his sister’s beau, and Tony Curtis is equally impressive as the conniving talent agent who hits the seedy clubs and dive-bars to dig up the dirt.

6. Smithereens (Susan Seidelman, 1982)

While Jim Jarmusch’s post-punk New York was a low-key, comic, and existential playground, future Desperately Seeking Susan director Seidelman had a more wary view of the same scene. That’s not to say Smithereens isn’t charming or witty (it’s both!), but it definitely bears the mark of a cautionary tale as a directionless punkette finds herself in a pickle following an attempt to piggyback to fame via a low-rent rock star played by original punk Richard Hell.

5. Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)

In which Al Pacino plays a bank robber, engaged in an fastly unravelling hold-up on a sweltering Brooklyn afternoon in the hope of being able to raise enough funds to finance his gay lover’s sex change operation. It’s certainly a synopsis that makes you go “uh?”, and Dog Day Afternoon is a sassy, oddball delight from start to finish. Sure, most of the action is bank-bound and we don’t get to see too much of the city outside, but this corking ensemble piece is charged with enough electric Noo Yoik dialogue to light up Shea Stadium.

4. Johnny Suede (Tom DiCillo, 1991)

It’s those New York hipsters again, and although this lot are of an early-90s vintage, we soon see that they’ve not really tidied the place up much since the days of Siedelman and Jarmusch. Around the run-down environs of Williamsburg stalks 50s throwback Johnny Suede, searching in vain for fame and fortune, but forced to work by day as a painter and decorator in trendy local art galleries. DiCillo’s film is possibly the best film made yet about NYC trendies, thanks in no small part to the obvious glee it takes in pin-pricking their painfully affected personas, while still retaining enough heart to hope for their ultimate happiness.

3. Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)

“You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets.” And not just any old streets, but the Mean Streets of New York. Look, you know it and I know it, Martin Scorsese (not Woody Allen, not Spike Lee) is NYC’s greatest celluloid poet. I could have put almost every one of the great man’s films on here (barring such non-Big Apple-based efforts as Casino, naturally), but it wouldn’t have been fair on everyone else. Mean Streets does deserve an extra-special mention, however, set as it is in the Little Italy locales of Scorsese’s own childhood.

2. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

The story of a band of robber’s audacious attempt to “steal” a subway train, this is similar to Dog Day Afternoon in that it’s a New York film in which we get to see very little of the city’s streets. But since we get to spend most of our time down in the subway, kinda quite literally the “core” of the Big Apple, this white-knuckle thrill-ride of a film more than makes up for what we don’t get to see above ground. Also like Dog Day Afternoon, the authentic New York dialogue is hilarious and highly quotable, with practically every conversation an argument. “Put your pants on, Al. We’re goin’ Downtown!”

1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Ok, so it’s that man Scorsese again, but how could it not be? The first time I ever went to New York, I watched Taxi Driver mere hours before my flight to get me in the mood. And although it is admittedly a rather sour view of the city, Taxi Driver is the ultimate New York film. I can’t think of the city without picture Travis Bickle’s taxi gliding through a cloud of steam. Then there’s Bernard Hermann’s eerie, dreamy score, which is in turn both unsettlingly relentless and moodily romantic… Very much like New York itself.

Daysarenumbers are the lucky recipients of an exclusive mix from one of most exciting UK bands around, Gyratory System. Wowing audiences and critics alike with their hallucinatory brand of post-punk and electronics, we were over the moon when Andrew kindly agreed to do a special mix for us during our Downtown Week. He also wrote us a lovely introduction.

Here’s Andrew, with a few words…

Here’s a selection of music that has influenced the Gyratory System sound. In keeping with this week’s theme we have included some downtown-type stuff, by Konk, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Laurie Anderson; and Material. It is certainly a unique period in music and its juxtaposition of repetition and chaos is something we emulate. There is also a selection of other things – British music from Joe Meek, Loop and Nightmares on Wax; Afrobeat from Fela Kuti; Miles Davis playing jazz fanfares; and something by the French modernist composer Olivier Messiaen. People sometimes ask us where our sound comes from, hopefully listening to this mix will help answer that question. Andrew GS.

Gyratory Systemm – Influences Mix

TRACKLISTING

Konk – Baby Dee

Joe Meek – Disc Dance of the Globbots

Kid Creole and the Coconuts – Lili Marlene

Loop – Head On

Miles Davis – Saeta

Laurie Anderson – From The Air

Fela Kuti – ODOO

Material – Reduction

Olivier Messiaen – Louange a l’immortalite de Jesus

Nightmares On Wax – I’m For Real

Find out more about the wonderful Gyratory System, with the links below!

Gyratory System Official Site

GS Twitter

GS Facebook

Angular Records

Shep Pettibone’s monstrous remix of the definitive Salsoul track, Love Break (as it’s more commonly known), became a staple of the early NYC rap/breakdancing scene, as well as being the ultimate ‘voguing’ song at the Harlem Drag Balls during the late eighties. The Orchestra’s finest has been sampled to death, from Madonna to Eric B & Rakim all helped themselves to the track’s best bits (actually, i will give away my 12” copy to anyone who can name all the artists who sampled it. Honestly, I will! Look, I’ve given you a head start).

A stone-cold, freakin’ classic.

The Salsoul Orchestra – Ooh I Love It (Love Break)