avant eye candy #4 - Music of Our Time

A subsidiary imprint of Columbia, specialising in modern composers, including electronic and concrete works.  

These three are the best-known - and most seen about - compilations they did.  

                                       

                                       

A different packaging of Extended Voices.

The French version of New Electronic Music.

A lesser known and probably hideously rare Music of Our Time compilation - this 7 inch, 33 1/3 rpm  label sampler, M.O.O.T.  A demonstration disc, not for sale.

                                            

Three repackagings of Berio's Sinfonia with the Swingle Sisters.

                                            


                                           

                                             

Later on the discography gets a bit confusing with some Music of Our Time release coming out via Odyssey, another Columbia subdivision. And at other points "Music of Our Time" type releases just go through Columbia's modern music line.

                                           

                                           

avant eye candy #3 - Turnabout

The gorgeous Electronic Music series on Turnabout.

Like Candide, a "subsidiary budget line" of Vox.

Mostly doing more conventional classical stuff, with more conventional covers, but - in the spirit of time, reflecting what seems to have been considerable public curiosity about electronic music and concrete - they put out this excellent series, which you can find floating around relatively cheaply still, on account of the relatively large pressings I should imagine.

Some of the designs for their non-electronic 20th Century composers are quite intense.

                                      

avant eye candy #2 - Limelight

                                         

                                       

                                            

                                    

                                            

Big fan of Sixties labels who did those sort of "introduction for the general listener" compilations of musique concrete and electronic composers: Turnabout, Nonesuch, Vox's Candide imprint, major-label subdivisions like Columbia's Music of Our Time...

But I don't think I've got any of these beauties put out by Limelight, a division of Mercury that was originally focused on jazz but abruptly switched to electronic and avant-garde music circa 1967.

Quite a few seem to have been licensed from Philips in Europe, often off the illustrious Prospective 21e Siècle series.

                                      

                                      

Limelight also signed up a few acid rock and progressive groups, like the synthadelic Fifty Foot Hose

                                      

Never heard of this lot

                                         


And the first album by Beaver / Krause - Ragnarok - misleadingly heralded on the front as "Electronic Funk" - which nonetheless suggests that conceptually if not sonically they are the godfathers of techno.  (Or if not them, then the publicity / A&R people at Limelight).

Limelight also put out some world-y releases not unlike the Nonesuch Explorer series.                               

I covet the full set - but especially this label sampler:

                                 

                                     


This one though I could probably skip to be honest....

                                 

[most of these images half-inched from Degenerate Art Stream blog]