Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2019 December 13 • Friday

We're still not over Johnny Trunk's book of beautiful wrappers when this other book of album covers of library music records arrives as an early Christmas gift.

This revised second edition of The Music Library makes this a rather lucky Friday the 13th!

I have a handful of library music recordings here. A few on CD and several LPs, most of the latter coming from Pandemonium Books and Discs. They were a little pricier than I would have liked but they were irresistible and the high prices they fetch is noted by Mr. Trunk in his introduction to this new edition.

The music has a huge range and surely part of the appeal is not knowing what you're going to get from any of these records. And while, as I understand it, these records were never commercially available in stores but were distributed only within industries (movies, tv, radio, for soundtrack and various commercial purposes), the covers are way beyond mere eye-catching and quite gorgeous.

If anybody ever applied the lessons to be learned from the Stenberg brothers to album covers, those people must have designed some of the library music records.

Okay, that one is fairly simple but it's devastating. And look at the lettering. Done by hand, I reckon. And also stripes. Perhaps this bounces right off you but it pierces me to the core.

I realize that this one is quite similar—different color stripes, different lettering (though also by hand, I reckon)—but we're including it here because Mr. Trunk notes that "Jimmy Page features". I want to hear it!

"Easy listening, hip psychedelia, dramatics, some fine industrials." What more do you want? Some high speed jazz perhaps?

This one is described as "Deranged, guitar led psychedelia". There's no way you don't wish you were listening to it right now.

We'll just let the covers speak for themselves now.