The early 2000s was "Library Music Mania" here on Soul Strut.  What is library music you may ask?  Library music is stock music used for television and film.  

From the 60s all the way into the 80s, this stuff was only available in limited quantities for production houses and most of it was released on LP.   All the awesome funk, psych rock, jazz, etc that backed TV and film back in the day was on LP and once these places started going digital, the music made its way to the market place for the record collector to salivate over.   KPM out of the UK was one of the majors to release this kind of music.

The Beat Beat series is considered one of their best.  Volume 1 consists of the groovy mod-funk Hammond stylings of Alan Hawkshaw (of Mohawk's "Champ" fame.)  The track "Beat Me 'til I'm Blue" even kind of sounds like it.  The  whole record is in that vibe with the B side sharing weaker work from UK composer legend Keith Mansfield.

From a sonic perspective, Volume 2 with Alan Moorhouse at the helm is my favorite.  It's much more punchy groove rock record than its predecessor.  Tracks like "Soul Skimmer" and "Expo in Tokyo" do not disappoint.

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