I think they are very good on music, but not so good on design and liner notes. Kritzerland owner Bruce Kimmel deliberately leaves track times off the case back which makes his tracklists near useless to me. And while he always takes very good care of the cover, he doesn't seem to care much about the design of the rest of the artwork.

But I must say that the Kritzerlands I bought almost never disappointed me musically, and Kimmel has had a very good nose for finding stuff that seemingly was never on the radar of the other labels.

handstand, August 29, 2011; 10:30 PM

Searched for, never found, always wanted the score for the early 70's film "Cops And Robbers" composed by Michel Legrand. Now own one shiny copy limited to 1000 copies on the Kritzerland label.

Criticism; Not using original cue titles when available.

victoravalentine, August 29, 2011; 4:45 PM

I really dig his label since he released L'Homme De Rio. And I'm always
stunned what he manages to unearth. ;)

PS: The service is very good and reliable.

coma, August 31, 2011; 1:27 PM

Let me save you some trouble, the following labels are all on the up & up and are quality when possible (remember, master tape deterioration, and age are factors which affect releases):

Film Score Monthly ("FSM")
La La Land records ("LLLR")
Movie Score Media ("MSM")
Counterpoint (FSM offshoot; no seperate site, find them on screenarchives.com)
Howlin' Wolf Records
BuySoundtrax Records (though there have been several complaints about service and CDs arriving, which have never been cleared up, but many people do get their Cds)
Music Box Records (musicbox-records.com)
Prometheus Records
Perserverence Records (though there have been issues with an unliscanced title, a couple releases MP3 sourced, but aside from that it seems to be okay)
Varese Sarabande CD Club (September would be about their next batch)
Intrada Records (intrada.com)
and, of course, Kritzerland Records (though Bruce still cant' stop whinning about other labels annoucing on the same day; if I had a label, I'd do it in purpose just to drive him nuts)


I'm sure I've missed some.

tharpdevenport, September 1, 2011; 3:57 PM

Kritzerland does some nice stuff, I've bought a few, passed on others due to finances. Who would have thought Mundel Lowell's score for "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask" would see the light of day? Les Baxter's "Sadismo"... an instant classic! I snagged an autographed by the composer copy of Dana Kaproff's "Empire Of The Ants".

Big Disapointment, "The Last Man On Earth" being pulled from production.

victoravalentine, September 2, 2011; 3:07 AM

>I think they are very good on music, but not so good on design
>and liner notes.

I agree with you, Handstand.
Kritzerland faces its own contradictions: they put all their forces on the
music itself but not on the discussion of the music. Their liner notes are
all the same: short and focused only on the film. Not a word on the
instruments' use, track-by-track analysis, etc...

stefanmiklos, October 5, 2011; 5:52 PM