More Powerful Searching

HOW DOES IT WORK?

This is not a regular music blog, it's more like an information clearinghouse to help you express your MPS-Love.

Click HERE, to view complete discographical listings by MPS catalog number. In progress of course--not yet all discography lists are posted. Then click through on catalog number to the individual album listing. Even more in progress, not all MPS albums have entries here yet.

Or view LABELS at left to search by year, artist, or subgenre. Not all entries have art or links. That's where you come in. Leave links or descriptions or reviews in the comments.

Don't forget to thank ME, for helping you complete your MPS collection. Don't forget to thank the various BLOG OWNERS for sharing their hard work, and don't forget to thank the ARTISTS by actually buying CDs so they can be paid for their work.

Check out the Jazz Labels Listing Project for more discographical info on MPS than you could ever imagine.

Then CHECK BACK frequently for updates, additions, and improvements.

Please HELP fill in the blanks by adding comments or links to blogs, art, reviews, sales offerings, etc.

Magic Purple Sunshine/MPS-Love is not affiliated in any way with the actual MPS company or its license holders.

UPDATE: I will try to record various album contributions in the comments here. If you subscribe to the comments on this post you will be notified of many reader shares and contributions.


COMMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS 1 - 200
COMMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS 201 - 400
COMMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS 401 - up

Most Promising Sound

Musikproduktion Schwarzwald ceased existence as an independent entity in the 1980s. It's now owned by the Universal label, and many of its albums and compilations have been reissued in Europe, the US, and Japan under various licensing arrangements.

Today Promising Music is reissuing albums from the MPS catalog in extremely well-conceived CD format. They've put out individual albums in really nice packaging and multi-CD anthlogies collecting many albums by a single artist.

Think how good your scratchy rips would sound and feel with actual CDs. Go ahead, spend some money.

PROMISING MUSIC
available at DUSTYGROOVE

Music Peddlers Solidarity 3

Are you enjoying all the rare goodies my co-blogger Mellow has been sharing with you? Well not today...in our annual tradition, for the third year I am shutting off comments and therefore hiding download links for the duration of RECORD STORE DAY. Visit the Record Store Day homepage for information on activities near you. There's a new wave of MPS CD reissues just this minute released -- available at Dustygroove.com among other places (I'm looking forward to picking up the CD reissue of Dave Pike's "Salomao" ), and there are local in-store events and online specials all over the place. So take a day's break from online downloading and go out and spend some money.

Support your local artists!

Comments and download links will be back up Sunday.

Peace!

Update: Comments restored, back to normal. What did you buy on Record Store Day?

Music Peddlers' Solidarity 2

Magic Purple Sunshine will shut down it comments again this year on April 17 in honor of Record Store Day. It's great to get free music on the internet, but without the crate-diggers infrastructure out there there would be no new or old LPs to discover. So on April 17 you won't be able to access any of the links here; check out the Record Store Day site or visit your favorite online record store to find out their realtime specials for that day. Keep these folks in business!

Today is April 17. Go outside and buy a record! Comments will be turned back on tomorrow.

Update: Back to normal!

Music Peddlers Solidarity

In honor of Record Store Day, Magic Purple Sunshine's comments will be shut off Saturday, April 18. Which means you won't be able to download anything. Go out, enjoy the spring weather, and patronize a record shop near you.

There aren't so many great record stores left anymore, my favorite is in another city but with a great online store. I recommend Dustygroove America.

UPDATE Back to normal. Remember to leave a comment of thanks or your thoughts of the music when you grab something.

Many Problems Solved

Thanks to readers for pointing out a number of dead links.

Already a number of albums have been re-upped, and moved to the top of the blog. I will try to get more of these re-upped, time permitting. There are some cases where I did not grab something that has gone dead; if I can't seem to find something to put back up I will issue an appeal in the "More Powerful Searching" thread where I list updates.

Everybody helps out, yes?

MusikProduktion Schwarzwald

MPS, MusikProduktion Schwarzwald (Black Forest Music Production).
SABA, BASF.
Most Popular Sound.
Magic Purple Sunshine.

What does MPS mean to you?

Multiplying Probable Salivation

Magic Purple Sunshine has been a great success. I'm really amazed--and grateful--how many MPS albums have been collected in one place. I've heard a ton of music I've loved and some I have not. But it's been a great experience, which will continue, even now as the list of yet-uncollected albums grows shorter.

Meanwhile, the label-collecting bug has spread, and as you can see from the new blog list at left, there are now similar blogs collecting albums and discographies from several other labels.

I am pleased--or crazed--to announce another blog that is my own project, Nine Sisters, collecting the output of the legendary American jazz label MUSE. It's built on the exact model of Magic Purple Sunshine, so its format will be familiar to readers here. There is even a post for contributions and new additions, especially since it is not as completely laid out as our blog here. Hopefully I will see some of the regulars here over there as well. There's a lot of albums linked up, but there are many more not yet found, many causing me, as noted, to salivate wildly.

Now, back to the MPS!

Music Posting System

Unlike other music blogs, new contributions here do not necessarily rise to the top of the blog. Since I've tried to create an entry for every MPS album whether or not I know of any resource on the web for that album, many entries do not actually have associated downloads. But new links get added to old postings almost every day. Did you know you can get updates to what's being contributed by other MPS-Lovers?

I've been posting an update to the entry More Powerful Searching when something new is shared. If you subscribe to the comments of that blog post you'll get those updates delivered right to your g-mail inbox so you can come back and snag all the good stuff.

And any album you share will quickly infect other MPS-Lovers with a fresh dose of MPS fever.

Manners Preserve Sanity

WOW! All this free music. Now, mind your manners.

I've noticed a LOT of visitors lately and very few comments. A handful of comments have been somewhat rude. Please be sure to leave a comment of gratitude now and then to make sure the people sharing links feel thanked. Even better, come back and leave your opinion of the music.

Before you leave a demanding comment like "LINK????" please read the posts at the top of this blog. When trying to grab a link from the comments, you may have to copy text you cannot see... some URLs do not show up completely. Most links end in ".rar" or ".html". Many of the albums listed here do not yet have links. Why don't you find one of these rare LPs and rip it for us? We will surely thank you for it!

To those who have left comments of thanks, or shared links, or shared information, or generally helped out, let me offer you a hearty THANKS of my own. And my apologies for burdening you all with this small complaint.

Now, to listen to some more music....

My Pretty Surgery

Time for a facelift, eh? A new logo. More purple. More psychedelic. Only fitting for MPS! Thanks blogger for making it so easy. Thanks to all the sharers for making it so rewarding. He-Ho, Goldfinger, and the rest, you're the best!

Multitudinous Pleasing Styles

I've been trying to break down all these MPS albums into subgenres. I'm making a few educated guesses but when I haven't heard an album I'm mostly leaving off the subgenre. But the more MPS albums I listen to, the more inadequate seem the labels we usually use to listen to music.

I've been using Prog Jazz to describe what I think is one of the hallmark MPS sounds. It's a little electric, but not full-on fusion. It's a little groovy, but not full on funk. It's very European!

The MPS sound was built on jazz but became a real melting pot. Many of the albums listed here have more than one genre. Who can describe this stuff? There's Now Sound, which is like Easy Listening, except maybe groovier, in an Austin Powers sort of way. And that "now" was forty years ago. There's vocals, and there's big bands, sometimes jazzy and sometimes not. And sometimes MPS took it to church.

And the Black Forest became a melting pot. Those Brazilians! The sultry hot latin sound! Those sitar-loving hippies! Even some exotica! And then there were all the musicians from behind the old "iron curtain." Should I add a tag for that? I haven't listed much yet but there was even a whole line of MPS classical music.

If you disagree with one of my style tags, or can identify the sound of an album I haven't yet tagged, leave a comment!

Must Peruse Systematically

Magic Purple Sunshine readers have really stepped up to share lately. I'm so happy! The gold-star of MPS-Love goes to reader He-Ho who has posted an incredible number of hard-to-find albums, including many not on the lists I've seen. He-Ho and other sharers have added dozens of links to the albums here. If you got discouraged before filing through empty entries, give it a try again. There's a lot fewer art holes, more blog links and a LOT more direct links.

It all sounds so good!!

Many People Sharing

Toe-tapping and head shaking are two of the prime symptoms of MPS-Love. Have you caught it? If you have, we've got the cure.

There are now entries for well over half of the MPS albums ever released. Thanks to many of you readers/web detectives/scanners, we've got art for the good majority of these. Thanks to sharers and bloggers there are many free downloads linked up in the entries. Free shares at blogs and even more direct links.

The best way to deal with your MPS-Love is to share the wealth. Do you know of an MPS album lurking on a music blog? Post the link in the entry here, or if there's no entry, leave a comment here and I'll set one up. Do you feel like sharing an album you own, especially an out-of-print gem ripped from your own treasured lp? Go ahead and upload it somewhere and leave a link here. Better yet, start your own music blog. It's very simple to start and very rewarding.

I'm not just an MPS enabler, I'm a prime victim of MPS-Love. I'm posting entries all the time for albums I'd love to hear. That MPS Concert album from 1969 with Mark Murphy, Dave Pike and Herb Geller? That album with Tony Scott and the Indonesian musicians? Bulgarian fusion keyboardist Milcho Leviev's MPS entry? That Billy Taylor album with the incredible cover? ZOMG, folks, I'm starting to sweat. Help your fellow MPS lovers out and share the love.