Various Artists

Barry 7’s Connectors

Greedbag Youtube Bandcamp

Barry 7’s Connectors raids the vinyl archives of 1970s library music, a cheap soundtrack source for films, TV and adverts. Mr. 7 is normally found fronting Add N To (X), or going out as a very alternative DJ.

Barry certainly wins his obscurist trawler medallion, these selections going beyond mere kitsch towards a kind of Stockhausen-goes-pop sensibility, crafted by a host of pan-European unknowns.

The brief, orgasmic pant of “Erotica” introduces the really silly plinky-plonky space age boogie woogie of Nino Nardini’s “Catch That Man”, jingle bells replying to kazoo-obsessed synth phrases. This marks the onset of an extremely varied run, ranging from the abstracted sound effects of Doris Hays and Georges Teperino (whale noise from whales just beamed into the stratosphere) to the compact psychedelic folk-pop of the two Pauls Piot’n’Guiot (Morricone chorus yelps, pert horns and soothing strings).

Sven Libaek’s “Solar Flares” has a coasting sophistication, broken up by some scuffed electric guitar solos, then tracks by Paul Bonneau and Cecil Leuter jog the synapses towards Forbidden Planet, or maybe one of John Carpenter’s themes, simple yet sinister. Bizarrely, Anthony King’s “Forgotten World”, with its trilling keys and underwater barks, could easily be one sent over by Barry 7’s own bunch. –Martin Longley