Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music
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In the heyday of B-movies, low-budget television and scrappy genre filmmaking, producers looking for a soundtrack reached for library music: LPs of stock recordings for any mood. Initially regarded as an inexpensive alternative to traditional film scores, library labels became treasure troves for record collectors, and much of the work became recognized as extraordinary. Unusual Sounds is a deep dive into this hidden musical universe from writer and filmmaker David Hollander.
The book features histories, interviews, and extraordinary visuals from the field’s most celebrated creators, along with original art by Robert Beatty and a foreword by George A. Romero—whose use of library music in Night of the Living Dead changed film history.
The 20-track compilation includes compositions by Brainticket founder Joel Vandroogenbroeck, KPM Allstars John Cameron and Keith Mansfield, Montenegrin-born composer Janko Nilović, and the Italian film composer Stefano Torossi amongst others.
I found out about “library music” or whatever you want to call it, through a couple different YouTube channels that post a lot of records from all different time periods past, and I just want to say that these compositions are HIGHLY underrated. These are amazing records and I can’t believe my ears sometimes with the amazing depth of some of these projects. I’ve heard softer records, records for the summer, horror library sounds, moody records, jazz records, sound stage, kpm, Bruton, De Wolfe, etc. the list just keeps going it’s insane. How is this not talked about more? Why isn’t there a long documentary about these records and insanely talented musicians that made them?
Over the last year I’ve been delving deeper & deeper into library/elevator/piped music after discovering the k-mart tapes on the internet archive. Thanks for all the people in the comments here talking about various bits of music that I can now look up
i tend to gravitate to the more obscure, avante garde library records but when i wanna relax im bumpin John Cameron , Keith Mansfield, or Alan Hackshaw . ill be releasing my own library record soon. all sorts of genres. to get us back to that element and vibe we once had
Was lucky enough to have my musical interests fall into place and end up here. Brian Bennet, Alan Hawkshaw are my favorite so far (among others) superb stuff
Ive been listening to this kind of music for god knows how many years and it is so crazy to see the legends that I've always heard speaking and seeing them in person. Thank you for this
There's an absolutely fantastic peice of library music from the album that was shown at the beginning. Bach's prelude and fugue no.16. performed in a jazz arrangement and can actually be heard in an episode of Callan starring Edward Woodward entitled The Most Promising Girl Of her Year. There was an upload somewhere on here of the arrangement so if you do hear it, let us know if it's your 'bag' as it's very psychodelic arty 60's
Terrific — and concise. I shared this on my FB page to help my friends understand "what the heck" this "Library Music" is that I have been so fascinated with (all my life, really, but only recently have had access to online—and what a joy it is). Friends have expressed bemusement, and I think some of them don't take me seriously since most of the Library tracks I favor were used in (the dreaded) Pornography. Well, that was my entré into some of this fine music (the rest I heard in ads or films growing up, like most folks, and I'm always on the hunt for buried treasures as I go composer to composer, or film to film). I was a bit surprised that the clips shown from "Barbara Broadcast" had music not from the film underneath but it was nice of you to select them since, of all the films I've seen, it is still a stand-out not only for filmmaking in that genre, but for the impeccably chosen Library cuts (and we're talking Radley Metzger (Henri Paris) here—a man with Very Good Taste compared to some of the adult filmmakers who followed). A toast to CJ Laing and Annette Haven representing the industry in those quick clips—goddesses of the Golden Age of Adult Films—when music (really) mattered. 🙂
Oh lord! I never thought I would stumble upon this marvelous presentation apart from the silly obsession with these since I first started listening to them around 12 years ago. I wish Syd dale was there too for me his music always lifted my spirits in everyway. A fan, admirer and respect to all these great musicians who can create wonderful world around you in a span of under 2 to 3 mins of sheer fantasy. With love from Pakistan!
it says a lot about how niche my interests have gotten, but the music that plays right at the start of this video – "Husky Birdsong" – is also used in the Kirby episode of Unraveled to introduce the 5-month timeskip halfway through that episode
EDIT: and the music at 4:09–4:27, "Gentle Persuasion" is used in the same episode when BDG has an emotional crisis in the studio, just before going on a wilderness sabbatical
Very interesting. This is an unexplored subject among musicologists, amateur historians, musicians: very few have written about this. I’m aware of the book but have yet to read it. Being a fan of Capitol’s Hi-Q series, my only hope is that the author covers music from earlier eras as well as the one depicted in the clip. Nothing against the music of that era, which I love. It’s also understandable that the author would reach out to living people, and so wouldn’t be able to talk to someone like William Loose, who died in ‘91. But Loose and others wrote fresh and exciting music *in the 50s*. My only hope is that this film and its accompanying book cover that material and era, too.
What's the tune at the beginning?
How can i watch full documentary??
I have a library tape by Pete Moore with a few unpublished tracks! What can I do with it? It's on 1/4" tape 7-1/2 fps as I recall. Cheers peeps…
I found out about “library music” or whatever you want to call it, through a couple different YouTube channels that post a lot of records from all different time periods past, and I just want to say that these compositions are HIGHLY underrated. These are amazing records and I can’t believe my ears sometimes with the amazing depth of some of these projects. I’ve heard softer records, records for the summer, horror library sounds, moody records, jazz records, sound stage, kpm, Bruton, De Wolfe, etc. the list just keeps going it’s insane. How is this not talked about more? Why isn’t there a long documentary about these records and insanely talented musicians that made them?
Over the last year I’ve been delving deeper & deeper into library/elevator/piped music after discovering the k-mart tapes on the internet archive. Thanks for all the people in the comments here talking about various bits of music that I can now look up
i tend to gravitate to the more obscure, avante garde library records but when i wanna relax im bumpin John Cameron , Keith Mansfield, or Alan Hackshaw . ill be releasing my own library record soon. all sorts of genres. to get us back to that element and vibe we once had
Was lucky enough to have my musical interests fall into place and end up here. Brian Bennet, Alan Hawkshaw are my favorite so far (among others) superb stuff
Thanks for sharing
Love Library music, endless discoveries of wonderful little masterpieces for me, I wouldn't of known about it if it hadn't been for youtube!
Legends
Keith Mansfield the GOAT!
Ive been listening to this kind of music for god knows how many years and it is so crazy to see the legends that I've always heard speaking and seeing them in person. Thank you for this
There are about 100 KPM albums on Spotify these days.
There's an absolutely fantastic peice of library music from the album that was shown at the beginning. Bach's prelude and fugue no.16. performed in a jazz arrangement and can actually be heard in an episode of Callan starring Edward Woodward entitled The Most Promising Girl Of her Year. There was an upload somewhere on here of the arrangement so if you do hear it, let us know if it's your 'bag' as it's very psychodelic arty 60's
Terrific — and concise. I shared this on my FB page to help my friends understand "what the heck" this "Library Music" is that I have been so fascinated with (all my life, really, but only recently have had access to online—and what a joy it is). Friends have expressed bemusement, and I think some of them don't take me seriously since most of the Library tracks I favor were used in (the dreaded) Pornography. Well, that was my entré into some of this fine music (the rest I heard in ads or films growing up, like most folks, and I'm always on the hunt for buried treasures as I go composer to composer, or film to film). I was a bit surprised that the clips shown from "Barbara Broadcast" had music not from the film underneath but it was nice of you to select them since, of all the films I've seen, it is still a stand-out not only for filmmaking in that genre, but for the impeccably chosen Library cuts (and we're talking Radley Metzger (Henri Paris) here—a man with Very Good Taste compared to some of the adult filmmakers who followed). A toast to CJ Laing and Annette Haven representing the industry in those quick clips—goddesses of the Golden Age of Adult Films—when music (really) mattered. 🙂
❤️
Wow! It’s crazy to hear these masters talk. I’m amazed. They are super heroes. I want to see an Italian version of this.
Oh lord! I never thought I would stumble upon this marvelous presentation apart from the silly obsession with these since I first started listening to them around 12 years ago. I wish Syd dale was there too for me his music always lifted my spirits in everyway. A fan, admirer and respect to all these great musicians who can create wonderful world around you in a span of under 2 to 3 mins of sheer fantasy. With love from Pakistan!
HEY I FINALLY the Synthetronic album by Fabio Fabor and Giancarlo Barigozzi
it says a lot about how niche my interests have gotten, but the music that plays right at the start of this video – "Husky Birdsong" – is also used in the Kirby episode of Unraveled to introduce the 5-month timeskip halfway through that episode
EDIT: and the music at 4:09–4:27, "Gentle Persuasion" is used in the same episode when BDG has an emotional crisis in the studio, just before going on a wilderness sabbatical
It's a shame to refer to this type of music as "library music".
It's so much better than that.
luv this
Boom bap bitch
Very interesting. This is an unexplored subject among musicologists, amateur historians, musicians: very few have written about this. I’m aware of the book but have yet to read it. Being a fan of Capitol’s Hi-Q series, my only hope is that the author covers music from earlier eras as well as the one depicted in the clip. Nothing against the music of that era, which I love. It’s also understandable that the author would reach out to living people, and so wouldn’t be able to talk to someone like William Loose, who died in ‘91. But Loose and others wrote fresh and exciting music *in the 50s*. My only hope is that this film and its accompanying book cover that material and era, too.
Great book – nice illustrations and tons of information. Highly recommended!
My heroes!
Triestig. .. het verdwijnen van deze instrumenten. …
Really cool
<3
grabbed the LP , its incredible. i also found about 5 Bruton music LP's in a $1 bin about 5 years ago, lucky find.
what a fun find…deep cuts baby
if you liked this – check out THE LIBRARY MUSIC FILM feature documentary https://www.facebook.com/LibraryMusicFilm/
THANK YOU SO MUCH