Jean-Bernard Raiteux “Les Demons” 1973 France Soundrack,Psych,Avant Garde,Folk,Pop

Jean-Bernard Raiteux “Les Demons” 1973 France Soundrack,Psych,Avant Garde,Folk,Pop

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https://vk.com/wall312142499_10753

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https://www.mixcloud.com/Sequencesonore/s%C3%A9quence-sonore-e19-les-d%C3%A9mons-jean-bernard-raiteux-1973/

full youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOhZSCTNCu0

In 1973, legendary Spanish independent filmmaker Jess Franco made an X-rated version of The Devils meets The Witchfinder General, spawning this as-yet-unreleased masterpiece of funked up, wah-driven pornadelica. Ominous piano chords and funereal organs (The Inquisition) give way to wig-out jazz funk of the title and then it’s into the fluid groove of Kathleen Writhing. Taking in psychedelia, folk and pop on the way, Les Demons is the motherlode of vintage Euro-porn soundtracks. ….~

If that creepy cover image alone isn’t more than enough to make you want this record, the magical music within will certainly tip the balance! Jean-Bernard Raiteux may be best known for his French funk sounds in the Harlem Pop Trotters, but he’s even more weird and wonderful here – turning in a wickedly groovy score for Jess Franco’s film Les Demons (aka The Devils), with trippy sounds that are every bat as great as the music used in Franco’s classic Vampyros Lesbos! The music has currents of jazz, funk, and psych – often all operating at once, with cool keyboards, fuzzy guitar, and lots of these fluttering flute lines that almost sound like Harold McNair or Roland Kirk on acid – blowing their minds, as they blow their minds out through their reed instruments too….Dusty Groove…~

The unreleased Euro pysch score to the French/Portuguese X-rated version of The Devils meets The Witchfinder General! Synchronised by Spanish anti-establishmentarian, sexual liberator, die-hard independent filmmaker and unrepentant voyeur Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos/De Sade). Composed entirely by French composer Jean-Bernard Raiteux aka Jean-Michel Lorgere (Sinner/Harlem Pop Trotters) and presented here in full soundtrack form for the first time. 

Proudly claiming the dubious accolade of the Spanish sexploitation version of The Devils as the distributor’s most bankable asset, this previously banned 1973 European witch flick would rip the art house facade from Ken Russell’s well polished box office smash and push the envelope way beyond the closet titillation of the gentrified new wave controversy seekers. 

Delivered on a comparable shoestring budget as the 55th feature in Jess Franco’s filmography of approximately 203 completed movies, The Demons (Les Démons), directed under the Anglicised pseudonym Clifford Brown, took many of the Franco’s sexually stylistic watermarks (epitomised in his Vampyros Lesbos trilogy) adding witchcraft, possession and nunsploitation against a rural Mediterranean backdrop before disappearing into the woods. 

Whilst clearly taking inspirational plot cues from Michael Reeve’s The Witchfinder General (UK 1968) and drawing comparisons with scenes from Eiichi Yamamoto’s Belladonna Of Sadness (Japan 1973) this B-Movie reduction of Franco’s wide palette of colourful ingredients has in recent years provided enthusiasts/champions/defenders of the workaholic horrotica bastion with a rare and treasured addition. 

Future-proofed by an essential component, omnipresent in Franco’s films, it is the mysterious commercially unobtainable soundtrack music that cements the unwaning interest in his risqué brand of unconventional shock/schlock sinema (not hindered my the enigmatic title card misinformation that often surrounds the original composers) and the music herein that has given Franco’s harshest critics a second chance/reason to reevaluate this man’s unapologetic art. 

Following on from Finders Keepers previous expanded release of Bruno Nicolai’s score for Franco’s 1970 adaptation of De Sade (FKR069) this record stands as another tribute to Franco’s life which he lived through the mechanisms of a camera with relentless zeal and a passion to challenge every aspect of movie making along the way. 

UNDERground, OVERambitious, RIGHT on, LEFTfield, BELOW the radar but ABOVE criticism. INdulgent and OUTrageous, but never middle of the road, Jess Franco was many things but he wasn’t pretentious and never delivered art for art’s sake and I feel honoured to have spent time with him. Franco was in fact a realist, he kept both feet firmly on the ground and a keen eye behind the right side of the lens and if Jess did have any demons his films were his exorcisms, the critics were the bloody judges and his legacy (through the medium of X-rated cinema of variable quality) is immortal……~

Following on from Finders Keepers previous expanded release of Bruno Nicolai’s score for Franco’s 1970 adaptation of ‘De Sade’, this record stands as another tribute to Franco’s life which he lived through the mechanisms of a camera with relentless zeal and a passion to challenge every aspect of movie making along the way. 
“Proudly claiming the dubious accolade of the Spanish sexploitation version of The Devils as the distributor’s most bankable asset, this previously banned 1973 European witch flick would rip the art house facade from Ken Russell’s well polished box office smash and push the envelope way beyond the closet titillation of the gentrified new wave controversy seekers. Delivered on a comparable shoestring budget as the 55th feature in Jess Franco’s filmography of approximately 203 completed movies, The Demons (Les Démons), directed under the Anglicised pseudonym Clifford Brown, took many of the Franco’s sexually stylistic watermarks (epitomised in his Vampyros Lesbos trilogy) adding witchcraft, possession and nunsploitation against a rural Mediterranean backdrop before disappearing into the woods. 
Whilst clearly taking inspirational plot cues from Michael Reeve’s The Witchfinder General (UK 1968) and drawing comparisons with scenes from Eiichi Yamamoto’s Belladonna Of Sadness (Japan 1973) this B-Movie reduction of Franco’s wide palette of colourful ingredients has in recent years provided enthusiasts/champions/defenders of the workaholic horrotica bastion with a rare and treasured addition. Future-proofed by an essential component, omnipresent in Franco’s films, it is the mysterious commercially unobtainable soundtrack music that cements the unwaning interest in his risqué brand of unconventional shock/schlock sinema (not hindered my the enigmatic title card misinformation that often surrounds the original composers) and the music herein that has given Franco’s harshest critics a second chance/reason to reevaluate this man’s unapologetic art.”

Tracklist 
A1 The Inquisition
A2 Les Démons
A3 Kathleen Writhing “Kathleen”
A4 The Weakness Of Rosalinda “Melodious Modulation”
A5 The Visit / Margaret’s Hallucination
A6 Three Serpents To Karen’s Dwelling
B1 The Second Inquisition
B2 A Witch’s Daughter?
B3 The Seduction Of Winter “The Last Frolic”
B4 Kathleen & The Horses
B5 The Stake
B6 Kathleen & The Serpents 

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Birigwa "Birigwa" 1972 Uganda Folk Afro Jazz

Birigwa  "Birigwa" 1972 Uganda  Folk Afro Jazz

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https://open.spotify.com/album/3YGG8YJ7MLUlKHovrMgH2K

Pianist and arranger Mait Edey originally issued Birigwa as a private pressing on his own tiny Boston-based Seeds label in 1972. Luke Mosling and his Porter label have reissued it as part of the initial offering of titles with help from Edey (who wrote the liner notes and produced the original sessions). Birigwa is the name of the Ugandan singer and songwriter who fronted this group and whose musical traditions inform its every utterance. While this is not pure African music in any sense of the word, it is African folk music as it meets “new thing jazz” in the early ‘70s. The band was made up of Birigwa who sang and played guitar, bassist Phil Morrison, percussionist Yusef Crowder, drummer Vinnie Johnson, conguero Mpelezi, and saxophonist and flutist Stan Strickland. Edey played piano on a cut and helped out on percussion, and Arthur Brooks played flugelhorn on the album’s final cut. Three of the tunes here, “Lule Lule,” “Njabala,” and “Kanemu-Kanabili” are all folk songs, performed by Birigwa in the way he learned them with the other players all partaking in various ways, making this a “fusion” music of a very different sense of the word. These musics as they come together inform one another and therefore become something bigger, something new. The opener, “Okusosola Mukuleke,” is an original written by Birigwa whose guitar opens and closes the track, but on the way there is a short but hot flute solo by Strickland that opens the tune up to soul-jazz, skittering snare work by Johnson, and killer hand drums, all of which move to the center to pick up the sense of drama before Birigwa starts stretching his vocal range and yelping and improvising, ending the track as beautifully lyrical as it began. “Uganda,” another original, is played in the trance-like, gently flowing repetitive way that much Kenyan music is; it is the sound of a griot, offering a story, edifying the listener, and it doesn’t matter if you cannot understand the language – the gently rapturous tones and the shifting grain in Birigwa’s voice offer you everything you need to know. The way the percussion gently moves toward and undulates away from the center, the shimmering bassline and Strickland’s flute trills and fills make this a stunner, albeit a quiet one. The intricate guitar work on the folk song “Lule Lule,” is as sweet as a nursery rhyme, and as lonely as the expanse of the Uganda. The deep soul shouting at the heart of the lyric is where Birigwa showcases his strengths not only as a vocalist but as a part of a lineage, a chain across space and time where emotions may be complex but they can be shared simply by the utterance of an individual who feels them too. The improvising in his voice brings the true root of the sound of a singer like Leon Thomas or Joe Lee Wilson to bear. There isn’t a weak moment on this set, and the final cut, “Yelewa,” is devastating in its power. Strickland, who composed it, kicks it off with his tenor, joined by an electric bass and some odd reverb sounds. Soon the percussion – from congas, djembes, bongos, and all manner of beating noises – come soulfully entering in with a repetitive rhythmic loop that is so utterly organic and grooved that it is intoxicating. The words sung by Birigwa are based on his poem “Mosquito Song,” and everything at the musician’s disposal is used here: the multi-phonic tonalities in Birigwa’s voice, chanting, multi-tracked voices, a droning bassline, dynamic changes, and subtle shifts in the percussive line. This is the kind of spiritual soul-jazz that was made by labels like Strata back in the day. That this set is available again after all this time is a tiny miracle. It should be enjoyed, savored and learned from – and hopefully somebody will be sampling the hell out of some of these drum, vocal, and guitar patterns….by… by Thom Jurek….allmusic….~

African prog rock albums (and musicians) aren’t common at all, unfortunately, but here you are one of those rare pearls. “Okusosola Mukuleke” is a song by Ugandan artist Birigwa, released during his stay in USA, where he attended the New England Conservatory lessons. It is frankly impossible to enumerate all the different genres that Birigwa combined in his record and especially in this ballad: jazz, rock, ethno, and, of course, a pastoral kind of prog you wouldn’t imagine from an African artist.Actually, the sweet and spicy atmosphere of “Okusosola Mukuleke” perfectly describes the wide savannas and the flute - not so different from Italian prog standards - combined with the ethnic percussions draws an idyllic sketch reminding me a sub-saharian sunset (well, at least the idea I have of it). I also like Birigwa’s voice, moving from melody to jazzy variations….~
Birigwa was a 23 old African acoustic guitarist and vocalist who cut this record in the early 70’s with the help of jazz players such as Vinnie Johnson - drums, Phil Morrison - bass and Stan Strickland - flute & saxophone. Soaring vocals and strong rhythmic grooves dominate this unique mixture of Afro-Jazz, heavily leaning towards African music, originally released in 1972 on the Seeds label…….~

Jaw-dropping Afro-Jazz with wild, soaring vocals and strong rhythms. Amazingly tight drumming from Vinnie Johnson and fluid bass lines from Phil Morrison of Stark Reality fame and Stan Strickland and Arthur Brooks from Brute Force! Included are some wonderful and touching African folk songs originating from Uganda. Released in small quantities in 1972 on the privately owned Seeds label……~

Credits 
Bass – Phil Morrison 
Congas – Mpelelezi 
Drums [Jazz Drums] – Vinnie Johnson 
Drums [Shiko], Percussion [Misc.] – Yusef Crowder 
Flute, Tenor Saxophone – Stan Strickland* 
Percussion [Misc.], Liner Notes – Mait Edey 
Voice, Guitar – Birigwa 

1 Okusosola Mukuleke 5:46 
2 Uganda 4:58 
3 Kanemu-Kanabili 1:58 
4 Lule Lule 4:11 
5 Njabala 2:57 
6 Obugumba 4:45 
7 Yelewa 5:54 

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