Tom Bourgeois

Albin Mercier, a French journalist, is sent to Bavaria to write an article about life in Germany. He is befriended by a bourgeois couple, the writer Andreas Hartman and his wife Hélène, who live near to him. The Hartmans appear to be perfectly happy together, and they seem to enjoy Mercier’s company. Mercier, however, begins to resent their happiness and resolves to take the place of Andreas. But just when he believes he has won Hélène for himself, he makes a terrible discovery. Hélène has a secret lover…

This set of archival recordings lets us witness the formation of arguably the most powerful and expressive voice in rock history. From the earliest known performances in the small bars of Texas to the first sessions with Big Brother to her mesmerizing live shows, Janis never left behind her raw roots. She drew upon them to impel emotional performances as if by exposing her pain she gained power over her past and transformed it into a gift. In these newly sourced pearls, we can hear as never before the birth and fast burning flame of Janis Joplin. Included are outtakes and unreleased songs from the 1968 "Cheap Thrills" studio sessions, demos for the 1969 Kozmic Blues album and vast improvements on all existing vintage (1962-65) live recordings. The vintage recordings, in particular, are wonderful and although we had some of this material from the long out of print "Janis" movie soundtrack vinyl release, this collection has 39 (!) tracks recorded between 1962-65 including the ubiquitous "Typewriter Tapes" made by Jorma. The fourth CD unchains the urgent expression and lets it be heard in a complete Big Brother concert from 1967.

Discovered in Louisiana’s infamous Angola Prison Farm back in 1933, Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, went on to become the most famous Black folk and blues singer ever. His repertoire has been covered by artists as diverse as Nirvana, Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Born in the Deep South in the late 1880s, he was a living link between the end of slavery and disenfranchised African-Americans during the first part of the 20th Century. He bridged the gap between the false hopes engendered by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the despair of Segregation. Lead Belly created the folk boom that excited and illuminated the white New York literati as well as familiarising Europeans with the blues.

Toni’s story centres on an Italian immigrant, Antonio Canova (Charles Blavette), a labourer at a local quarry who has become entangled in relationships with his landlady (Jenny Helia) and with the young, hot-blooded Spaniard, Josefa (Celia Montalvan). As Josefa’s life disintegrates through rape and a necessitous marriage to the brutish foreman Albert (Max Dalban), Toni is caught up in a series of marriages gone sour and the psychological fragility of those he cares for.

This scathing late-sixties satire from Jean-Luc Godard is one of cinema’s great anarchic works. Determined to collect an inheritance from a dying relative, a bourgeois couple travel across the French countryside while civilization crashes and burns around them. Featuring a justly famous sequence in which the camera tracks along a seemingly endless traffic jam, and rich with historical and literary references, Weekend is a surreally funny and disturbing call for revolution, a depiction of society reverting to savagery, and - according to the credits - the end of cinema itself.