Cinemaphonic: Electro Soul

If any label seemed destined to get into the library music compilation game, it was Emperor Norton, the lounge-chic retrofuture specialists who put out Concorde-inflight-soundtracks by the likes of Fantastic Plastic Machine and Arling & Cameron. This one’s heavy on stuff that’d sound good scoring footage of a mustachioed detective’s land yacht smashing through a fruit cart — lots of brassy, organ-hammering uptempo funk-adjacent instrumentals with a two-mode switch between “groovy” and “hassle” — but if you can’t find a beat to loop in this (and you should), tracks like the hyperventilating “Harvey Wallbanger” (by Paul Simon’s kid brother Edward!) and the frictionless Italo-cool of Mario Nascimbene’s cuts stand up as great mood pieces on their own.