WOEBOT

Harmonic 33
Music For Film, Television and Radio Vol.1
WARP

The growth of interest in Library Recordings, copyright-free music designed for Television companies, has been as slow as it is now undeniable. Original interest came from dance music producers seeking breaks to feed samplers, however exploration further into the field has lead many producers to become deeply affectionate for the genre. Whilst the original music may never (by definition) be politically energised or culturally vibrant, through a recontextualisation effected the passing of time it can enchant qua music. Its "abandoned atmospheres" ooze compellingly with the zeit of epochs passed.

Harmonic 33 is the brainchild of Mark Pritchard (formerly of Reload and Global Communication) and the project might be grouped with Johnny Trunk and outfits like The Focus Group and The Cinematic Orchestra within a makeshift movement "New Library." Rather than pimping the borrowed glamour of classic soundtracks (though the influence of them is practically indivisible), these artists seem to relish in the scruffy bucket-shop jazz aura that characterises Library Music. Somewhat surprisingly, for an artist with roots in Techno, "Music For Film, Television and Radio Vol.1" is closer in spirit to The Cinematic Orchestras big band Axelrod revival, eschewing sampling for a score played with real instruments. Pritchard and his collaborator Dave Brinkworth aren't blessed with the musicianship that characterises the archly sophisiticate scores that Morricone penned for the Italian Arthouse movies, one or two tracks might be slightly lead-footed (more period detail!) but in terms of the fidelity of the sonic envelope they forge, their interpretations are outstanding.

As much as anything this rests upon their choice of instruments: the amplified harpsichord of "Marionette" (a stock in trade of Bruno Nicolai), the overcast flute of "Shadow" (signalling every post-Shiffrin spy-movie trope), the chugging bossa nova and sitar of "Bossa Nova Supernova", and the fullsome analogue bleeps of "Space Interval." The time span covered is resolutely that of the sixties and seventies, veering ever so slightly from aping the catalogues of KPM and Chappell towards those of Bruton on the early eighties-sounding "Funky Duck" with its lazy vintage Fairlight synth lines.

Easily critiqued as merely being an exercise in "The History of Ideas" and lacking substance a record such as "Music For Film, Television and Radio Vol.1" may end up serving as a mirror for times when public resistance appears futile, and peaceful regenerative self-absorbtion, in the manner of a quiet personal politics is the order of the day.