Rare Reggae Song From 1975 Gets Massive Streaming Effect Due to Stranger Things Soundtrack

The Duffer Brothers and their music supervisor have been meticulous in their quest to sew together a tapestry of the best sounds of the 70’s and 80’s through the Netflix series Stranger Things. One of those tracks is “In Transit to Bermuda” by Dorian Zero, showcased in the “pizza van” in Season 4, Episode 3. Now it’s available to sample and license through Tracklib, the world’s largest service for sampling and licensing original music.

The potential impact of a sync or sample’s placement in the right show or film can catapult an artist into overnight success bolstered by continued streams and fan interactions. Several tracks from the Stranger Things series have seen extremely successful placements (for example Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,”) topping global and regional music boards with increased visibility through social media iterations and covers on platforms like TikTok.

Tracklib provides the opportunity to discover the deep cuts of decades past, and allows artists to breathe new life into vintage tracks. Their sample licensing process is simple and affordable, and most of the music on Tracklib includes sync approval for the sample. This makes it both possible and easy for artists to say yes to sync deals for films, video games or tv-shows like Stranger Things without having to re-clear the sample. This is in itself pretty revolutionary, as anyone who has dealt with sync licensing of music that contains samples can testify to.

Dorian Zero’s “In Transit to Bermuda” was originally recorded in 1975 but remained unreleased since then, and it was acquired years ago by Italian label Kutmusic, together with other material from the late New York artist Kenneth Dorian Passante. It could have easily been lost to the ravages of time. Nostalgic TV shows, movies, games, and other entertainment formats are reviving this iconic music, attracting the likes of new listeners while transporting music fans through cross-decade discovery. The Stranger Things soundtrack was built with incredible detail to match the aesthetic of the show and cue familiar emotions that intertwine with character development.

“I acquired the master tape in 2013 and was intrigued by Dorian’s story.” - says Nicola Battista of Kutmusic - “I collected more of his material, managed to re-release his eponymous album from 1977 in digital format, and am working on a collection of his creative output from the late 1960s and the 1970s and a docu-fiction project with actor/director Flavio Sciolè. Since I am constantly searching for sync opportunities for the catalog I represent, when I heard a vintage reggae track was needed for a TV show, I submitted Dorian’s track and a bunch of others (which apparently were not from the right timeframe for the TV show). Later, I heard the project was Stranger Things. A few months later, I had almost forgotten about it; until the end of May, I was informed the track had been picked up and included in Season 4. Curiously, the track was not on digital music stores yet, since it had been saved for the larger compilation project about Dorian. We released it as soon as possible, and a few days later it was included in the show’s official playlist on Spotify. Which resulted in more than 100.000 plays just in the first week, and counting.”

“When music is used and reimagined in new contexts, it finds new audiences with new ears, hearts and minds. The popularity of Stranger Things can’t be underestimated. Neither can the positive impact of a TV-series on a song used in the soundtrack, nor the impact of a sample on the original song being sampled. We’re very happy to offer In Transit for Bermuda by Dorian Zero for fast, easy, legal and affordable sampling through Tracklib, and we can’t wait to hear what our global community of sampling artists and producers will create with it.” says Pär Almqvist, Tracklib Co-Founder and CCO.

Want to learn more about how Tracklib’s library of over 100k original tracks can liberate creativity in today’s artists? www.tracklib.com/

About Dorian Zero
Dorian Zero “In Transit to Bermuda” on Tracklib:
www.tracklib.com/song/in-transit-to-bermuda/

Kenneth Dorian Passante, 1948-1994. Originally released in 1977 but apparently recorded at least a couple years before, the “Dorian” LP was supposed to launch Dorian as a glam rock (or should we say proto-punk?) artist. The name Dorian Zero (with different variations such as Dorian & Zero, Dorian Zero Revue and so on) was his band name, but seems to also stick to his own persona. The album and a single taken from it were also documented by John Holmstrom in a memorable – and disastrous – interview on Punk Magazine #14 (1978). Omitting to credit the other musicians involved in the making of the LP – including guitarist Jeff Beck on “Destination Nowhere” and “Inside Looking Out” – Dorian declared on the original album cover “I have no one to thank for this album but myself”. Before recording the album, Dorian had been on an elusive 7" single released in 1969 by B.T.Puppy, the record label founded by The Tokens, with a track written by Brute Force (Stephen Friedland). Other tracks were only fixed on acetates and remained unreleased. Some are entirely lost. In 2022, a previously unreleased reggae track from 1975, "In Transit to Bermuda", recorded at Electric Lady Studios by Eddie Kramer, was included in Episode 3 of Stranger Things 4 (Vol.1) and in the Stranger Things Official Playlist.

Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0ObztW0DmBT3xKrctHY3N3
Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1jkJ728NeI

About Tracklib
Tracklib is the world’s first and only digital service for clearing samples, finally solving a huge problem in the music industry and leveling the playing field by making sample clearance accessible and affordable. Their catalog consists of over 100k all-original recordings from over 400 record labels and publishers around the world. The catalog includes everything from Isaac Hayes to Mozart and Jazz artist Bob James, whose music has been sampled in 1000s of songs. Samples from Tracklib have been used in major songs from artists like J. Cole, Phantogram, Mary J. Blige, Lil’ Wayne, DJ Khaled and BROCKHAMPTON.