- PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED -
STUDIO UMILIANI is a collection of sunken treasures and hidden beauties yet to be re-released, and of stunning unpublished works surprisingly unknown for quite some time. The project, born from the initial effort of Andrea Fabrizii, who has far and wide been exploring Umiliani's soundtracks before anyone else, led Four Flies research to seek for new unreleased recordings at the Maestro's archive. 
A challenge that Pierpaolo De Sanctis from Four Flies Records accepted without hesitation – with the help of the Umiliani family. His two daughters Alessandra and Elisabetta Umiliani, true keepers of their father's memory, together with their husbands Francesco Argento and John Linkowski, and of course, Piero's wife Stefania Baffa, have been pivotal in compiling this exciting project. 
The result is a cross-cutting portrait of Umiliani's activity during the golden years of his Sound Work Shop, the studio- laboratory where he has been playing, creating and experimenting with total freedom from 1969 to 1983.

Studio Umiliani

Piero Umiliani | STUDIO UMILIANI ▶ B3 Il Burattinaio (1974)

- Limited Edition 500 copies
- LP 180gr. + CD bonus included
- inner sleeve with extended liner notes by PIERPAOLO DE SANCTIS
- artwork by LUCA BARCELLONA
- cover photo: M. COURTNEY-CLARKE & ALESSANDRONI family archive

• Four Flies Records keep on researching Alessandro Alessandroni’s limitless archive, compiling this time an LP of tracks composed between 1972-1978 

• All the tracks were previously unreleased and are presented here for the first time - a truly ‘Lost & Found’ treasure that sees the light for the first time! 

• After the incredible success of Afro Discoteca (Four Flies Records, 2017), Pierpaolo De Sanctis compiles a 15-tracks LP of forgotten soundtracks and library music treasures from the Italian Maestro 

• Jazz, Disco, Electronic music – there’s no genre Alessandroni hasn’t explored – this compilation testifying the incredible diversity of his production and immense musical mind


TRACKLIST: 

A1 – Sea Breeze 
A2 – Sweet Emotions 
A3 – Underground Disco 
A4 – Soul Meeting 
A5 – After Crime 
A6 – Night Fly 
A7 – Flirt n° 2 

B1 – Memento 
B2 – Saltiness 
B3 – Shot Undercover 
B4 – Homecoming 
B5 – Pipe Dream 
B6 – Obstinate Pop 
B7 – Strip-Tease 
B8 – Synthetic Rendezvous

Alessandro Alessandroni LOST & FOUND ▶ B3 Shot Undercover

Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins
All Sorts Of Heroes
Finders Keepers Records (FKSP014)



From the shrapnel of the unlikely collision point where Mancunian post-punk royalty collides with sci- cinema and art house animation, this obscure diamond in the rough shines a new light on the Northern DIY era providing disc detectives with a whole new punk funk perspective. Recorded in 1976 by Invisible Girls’ Steve Hopkins and Martin Hannett for a truly bizarre stop-motion animation called All Sorts OF Heroes, this hard edged funk instrumental theme reveals another side to this versatile production team joining the hidden dots between Hannett’s own discoid experiments with ESG, Gyro, A Certain Ratio and the mythical Afro Express recordings from the same year.

Embodying as much in common with 1970’s bass heavy European funk soundtracks by bands like Goblin and Placebo, as the expected parallels with John-Cooper Clarke’s backing tracks or early Happy Mondays, this early 1976 session is the perfect example of Hannett and Hopkins’ under-the-radar artistic commissions working to a storyboard brief in what has now become recognised as a fertile arena for lost lmic funk.

Drawing historic parallels with Leeds-based Graeme Miller and Steve Shill’s home recorded DIY soundtracks for The Moomins animation and accentuating the connection between Manchester based animation house Cosgrove Hall (Dangermouse/Chorlton And The Wheelies) and its employees Bernard Sumner, John Squire and members of Gerry And The Holograms, this lost recording adds kudos to a quirky micro-niche and reveals another dimension to Northern anti- pop’s snarky personality.

Pressed here by Finders Keepers for the first time on vinyl, in close accordance with the wishes of Steve Hopkins himself, this custom-composed track originally appeared on the short lm by Rick Megginson and Steve Hughes which was shown at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 1976 where it might have otherwise remained, preserved in an 8mm lm box up until now. As relevant today as it was then, this closely recorded, cosmic cartoon, slappy funk theme provided the films backdrop for a workshop montage scene where an aardvarkian spaceman constructs a giant metal face robot which might well leave fans of Madlib and MF Doom fans pondering time travel?! Like much of the lost and unreleased projects that stalled on the peripheries of early proto-Madchester, including the disco-pogo music of Spider King, Gerry And The Holograms, The 48 Chairs, Naf and The Mothmen, this record has been frozen in time waiting for the wider marathon of independent pop to catch up!

Presented here faithful the 45 format of choice, this 7” might well be another missing link between your Rabid, Absurd and Factory records, backed with another lesser- known Invisible girls recording Scandinavian Wastes which has also been begging for its first vinyl outing since its recording in the early 1980’s. Another historical bucket list release for Finders Keepers Records outernational discography, leaving zero stones unturned, even the ones under our own doorstep.

www.finderskeepersrecords.com

Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins - All Kinds Of Heroes

Bonus Disc

The Lightmen Plus One - All Praises To Allah (Alternate Version) - Energy Control Center

Folklore of Plants Vol.II - Venefic Garden

Planetarium - Hidden Leaves (Ian MacFarlane)

FLIES DJ-02 
THE PAWNSHOP | EP
(Braen / Raskovich / Kema)
The finest Italian stuff exclusively for DJs, producers & worldwide music lovers

excerpts:
A2 - Telegraph is Calling
A1 - Please, Don't Say No!
A3 - My Shade

Warped guitars, screams and voices gone berserk; furious drums, tenacious bass guitars, frenzied Hammonds, avalanches of sitars, dramatic inflections, and hypnotics breaks. All these things together and many more are THE PAWNSHOP. A moniker for an obscure supergroup behind which three truly unforgettable heroes of the Italian library music used to conceal themselves and experiment without any musical boundaries whatsoever. They were the celebrated Giuliano Sorgini (Raskovich), Alessandro Alessandroni (Braen) and Giulia De Mutiis (Kema), the latter’s wife. To this day, the only proof of their existence was a handful of 7” – wildly sought after today by collectors and DJs who worship mod music, prog and funk – recorded in the November months of 1970 and 1971 at Piero Umiliani’s legendary Sound Work Shop, the greatest, the best equipped and totally over the top studio of its era among all those working with or for RAI television. Later on, the moniker completely disappeared from the musicians' discographies, but the sound of those tracks bore vital fruits in library gems such as INCHIESTA GIUDIZIARIA, DRAMMATICO or QUARTA PAGINA (poliziesco) through which Braen & Raskovich were to contaminate and transform the b-movie sound, newscasts and radioshows at a time when Italy was shaken to its core by the occult and shady dealings of secret agencies, bombings in public squares, kidnappings, and the so-called proletarian expropriation carried out by the left wing movement. Having miraculously recovered the sessions’ original master tapes recorded for both 7”, we were also able to retrieve the group’s whole output, comprehensive of three instrumental versions of the four tracks released on 45rpm between February 1971 and March 1972. Furthermore, we were able to hunt down Please, don’t say no!, a true hidden gem, a track that has never been released before in any form. Recorded during the group’s first session, it was sacrificed – and completely forgotten afterwards – to make room for the iconic tracks Telegraph is Callin’ e My Shade on the A and B sides. This one is perhaps the most surprising piece of music of the whole bunch. The most innovative and ground-breaking track. The impossible melting point between freakbeat, garage-punk and psychedelic pop! With the precious help of Maestro Giuliano Sorgini and the Alessandroni family, who have actively helped put the project on its feet by opening their most secret vaults for us, Four Flies Records is honoured and proud to present and bring out in the open another hidden masterpiece of the secret history of Italian music. Presented in a limited edition of 600 copies with two different covers with complementary colours.

full tracklist:
A1 - Please, Don't Say No! *
A2 - Telegraph is Calling
A3 - My Shade
A4 - Laura
B1 - Carol
B2 - Telegraph is Calling (instrumental) *
B3 - My Shade (instrumental) *
B4 - Laura (instrumental) *

* previously unreleased

THE PAWNSHOP (Braen / Raskovich / Kema)

FLIES 45-04
BRAEN & RASKOVICH Afro Beat / Afro Flower
7’’ Limited Edition | 400 copies

A ▸ Afro Beat 03:21
B ▸ Afro Flower 03:24

Four Flies Records continues its 7” line-up with another de rigueur repechage that will have your dancefloor jump frantically up and down. Two freaky afro-flavoured tracks, written by Giuliano Sorgini and his partner in musical delices Alessandro Alessandroni. Recorded during a non-specified session which may be traced back to the recording of Sorgini’s UNDER POMPELMO and PAWNSHOP's first 7”. The sound and the ideas behind the music are exactly the same, even though there’s more rhythmic and percussive emphasis on both tracks. Two little precious gems, unreleased to this day, brought back to light and finally available for DJs and fans all over the world. Afrodelic breaks for your pleasure!

drums, percussions, hammond C3: GIULIANO SORGINI
guitar, bass: ALESSANDRO ALESSANDRONI

© & ℗ Four Flies Srls 2018

Afro Beat / Afro Flower

Braen & Raskovich AFRO BEAT / AFRO FLOWER

Stepping out of a six month hibernation with our best foot forward, Finders Keepers Records Radio Show returns from our beauty sleep to a breakfast of French toast, croissants, strong coffee and a refreshing pint of petrol with-a-rag-stuffed-in-the-top! Marking 50 years exactly since the Mai 68 riots in Paris, your faithful hosts take you on a two hour journey in recognition of the huge and immediate cultural shift in French art, literature and music including  the rise of forward-thinking, philosophical, thematic pop music which made France the forerunners and undisputed maverick masters of the concept album. Discussing a genre that arguably peaked with Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier's notorious Histoire De Melody Nelson, your faithful FKRR hosts,  Andy Votel, Doug Shipton and Pete Mitchell dig much much deeper into their vintage vinyl vaults to trace the sonic origins of feature-length French Psychedelia while they attempt to authenticate the first French concept album and trace a bloodline of existential spoken word French Funk and gritty fuzz-fuelled symphonic rock which would go-on to shape the future sound of all French pop and its inimitable sprawling legacy. Punctuated with tracks from the insanely rare Popera Cosmic LP (an LP devised by teenagers Francois Wertheimer and Jean-Michel Jarre) which formed the foundations of the Gallic galactic narrative psychpop phenomena, this two hour special hopes to open your eyes and ears to a world you always wanted to explore, but perhaps never knew existed, with an interchangeable cast and family tree that eventually branched out to the start of French cosmic disco and synth pop while influencing the sampled sound of progressive European pop music for almost a semi-century. 

From science fiction to malediction... From astrology to astronomy... From hypnosis to psychosis... via stone faces to cabbage heads...this show hears a fine return to form for Finders Keepers, celebrating controversial lost-pop and a bygone political hotbeds which they might call their perfect comfort zone. It's gonna be hard to cram it all in into one show but "The Revolution Will Not Be Sequelised". Ceci n'est pas une POP.

Finders Keepers Radio -  French Concept Album Special

Suvi 7" repress (FRO006)
A Heidy Tamme „Suvi ei jää” 3:59
B Tiit Paulus „Suvi ei jää“ 3:25

Estonian archival label Frotee’s 6th release “Suvi ei jää” by Heidy Tamme is available again as 7” single with new B-side. While “Suvi ei jää” is a cover version of Roberta Flack’s song “What a Woman Really Means”, it was given new Estonian lyrics which eloquently describe the summer season and its brevity (title translates as ‘Summer Doesn’t Stay’). It’s sung by popular Estonian singer Heidy Tamme, recorded in 1982, and arranged by Tiit Paulus, one of the best Estonian jazz guitarists. After original release of 7” in 2015, Frotee has discovered another version of the title track. Tiit Paulus had played guitar over instrumental version of “Suvi ei jää” and this version is now essential for our Balearic summers.

Distributed by Rush Hour Distribution

Suvi

Tiit Paulus - Suvi ei jää FRO006 repress sample

"Mirage" is the third and final LP of the Boomerang ensemble. It completes the imaginary musical trilogy of the band, when the mood had been originally set and themes created by musicians in their self-titled debut. This approach was further developed on "Ornament" record.

We present to you three lengthy instrumental pieces, which constitute a stand alone chapter in the musical journey across the splendor of Central Asian ethnic vastitudes. Courtesy of crafty and skillful meditative musicianship, tuneful and rhythmical soundscapes shape up images of a bird's epic and proud-spirited soaring high up in the mounainous sky, a bustling and multicolored Oriental bazaar, a weary caravan beaten by the sun and thirst, which (not without hope and daydreaming) humbly continues with its long and exhausting journey. The harmony of electronic and Estern musical instruments, masterful percussions and dizzying keyboards create some kind of an apogee, where the band reaches its climax.

B1 - Boomerang Ensemble "Mirage" (SG014)

Soviet Grail

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