Ryoji Ikeda scored the soundtrack for CS Leigh's film See You At The Regis Debray; and this two disc set is the entire soundtrack to the film split into two sections, approximately 45 minutes each. We've not seen the film; but from what we can gather, it describes a few days in 1969 when Andreas Baader (of Baader-Meinhof fame) spent with the French intellectual Regis Debray, while Baader was on the run from the German authorities. Debray himself had quite a storied past, having spent time in a Bolivian jail for associating with Che Guevera.
Ikeda's soundtrack begins as you would expect any Ikeda album to start: with a slow-building ascension of precisely micro-shifting digital tones. Ikeda cuts to a collage of the jarring ring of telephones that dissolves into a repetitive strum of a low-slung guitar that sounds very much like a Morricone sample from The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. This detours into a subterranean field recording of various clanks, muffled rumblings, and distant voices. Then an elegiac chorale of reverb saturated drones with snippets of radio transmission (bells? gongs? chimes? those same digital tones?) completes the first disc. The second disc returns to that Morricone riff, only flushed out this time, given more of an Achim Reichel energy of bad-ass Western twang matching futurist arpeggiation. These 15 - 20 minutes of the soundtrack are the highlight of the album, and make us wish Ikeda would do more of this type of work. The rest of the second disc consists of an eerie collage of someone panting heavily transitioning to a collage of chimpmunked AM radio hits then to dissonant guitar squalor sort of like early Nurse With Wound, before turning to a collection of old Spanish political speeches, perhaps Che Guevera?
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Maestro strikes again! You should already know prolific South Indian film score composer Maestro Ilaiyaraaja and his "Electronic Pop Sound" from a couple Finders Keepers compilations we've highlighted: his own Solla Solla, and also the one featuring singer K.S. Chithra, with music by the Maestro. If you thought those two discs were over the top and irresistible, just get a load of this new one! (And even if you missed those, well, you probably have an idea of what we're talking about, if you've been exposed to any Bollywood/Kollywood/Lollywood craziness, as represented by other recent collections like Bollywood Bloodbath and Life Is Dance.)
Compared to those other Ilaiyaraaja's, this is similar, but with perhaps even more "video-game-iness" in the goofily orchestrated mix. It's VERY '80s electro synth sounding, and groovy too, as the subtitle promises. There's a big kitsch/cheese factor no doubt, but that's a big part of this genre's charms, really! Plus, this shit's tight, every element - electronic beats and sweet vocals and synthesized string sections and ethnic instruments and startling sound FX - in its place, everything and everybody dancing to the tunes of the Maestro. Hott stuff. 16 tracks, 65 minutes, you'll be grinning gleefully the whole time.
And you gotta love the cover, right? Icing on the cake of this swank trifold digipak, which includes a 30 page booklet with info on each of the films from which music was taken.
Yay, more delightful music from Ilaiyaraaja, illustrious composer for South India's Kollywood (not Bollywood, but close) film industry. Finders Keepers / B-Music has previously brought us a couple other comps full of Ilaiyaraaja's tremendously enjoyable and unusually arranged tunes, so hopefully you know all about him already and are eager for more, 'cause look out, here's another seventeen tracks of the man's colorful and creative East-West mashup music, circa the synth-pop Eighties (his prime), full of electro funk drum machine grooves, '80s future shock synthesizer (Yamaha DX7 keyboard in the house!), orchestral flourishes, and the often amorously impassioned vocalisations of a variety of famous playback singers including K.S. Chitra, aka the "Tamil Nightingale".
Ilaiyaraaja himself can lay claim to the honorific "The Maestro". He's also been called "The Crown Prince Of Tamil Pop", and it's easy to hear why from this disc of so very lively and infectious and not overly-serious music, joyful songs designed to get characters in Tamil films - and maybe you too - singing and dancing.
Apparently Ilaiyaraaja, currently 69 years of age, has written/recorded over 4,500 songs in his career (and counting), so we can probably look forward to more collections from Finders Keepers and other equally hip labels, but don't let this one slip by, it's got a lot of gems on it. Imagine if Axel F went to India...
Extensive, interesting, informative (as usual) liner notes from DJ Andy Votel are included, the disc having been compiled by Votel and Doug Shipton.
Import double vinyl version also forthcoming, by the way, we should have that in time for our next list.
Yay!! Now in stock, in quantity, on nice fancy import vinyl, in two parts. And each of the lps contains a bonus track not found on the compact disc version! Here's what we said about the cd:
If any album on this week's list is gonna put a smile on your face and spring in your step, this is the one! First off, we love Bollywood stuff to begin with, and then that this was curated by the Finders Keepers / B-Music folks, you know it's gonna be good... And indeed the stuff they've dug up for this compilation is so fantastic, fun, energetic, absurd, over the top, and catchy, yeah it's Bollywood at its best. Well, except that actually to be precise it's KOLLYWOOD not Bollywood, 'cause this is is all music from films produced by the Tamil-language film industry, based not in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) but in the South Indian city of Chenai (formerly Madras), in a neighborhood called Kodambakkam, thus "Kollywood" (and remember, there's also Pakistan's Lollywood too, based in Lahore, and Nollywood in Nigeria...).
In any case, there's 16 tracks here [18 on the vinyl, spread over the 2 lps], each more groovy and insane than the last. Furthermore, they're all the work of composer Ilaiyaraaja (meaning, Prince), aka The Maestro, a very creative and hard working fellow indeed, responsible for the scores to over 900 films in his long career!!! Thanks to Finder Keepers, who've selected these gems, sourced from rare 45 rpm singles and such, we're now big fans. Reminds us A LOT of one of our very favorite Bollywood and/or Kollywood collections ever, an all time AQ fave disc in any genre in fact: the long out of print Vijaya Anand "Dance Raja Dance" cd on Luaka Bop from years ago, another amazing batch of songs from South Indian musical cinema.
Solla Solla, like Dance Raja Dance, Dance, is simply irresistible. A lively, genre defying mash up of Eastern and Western, kitschy pop and chaotic exotica, psychedelic sometimes intentionally, sometimes otherwise, full of sudden surprises and sweeping melodies, crazy rhythms, wild vocal outbursts, funky fat synths, big bands doing disco beats... Wow!!
These songs, presumably for whirling, ADD action sequences / dance numbers, often feature quasi-orgasmic murmurs and squeals from the female lead vocalists, giggles and screams as well. Along with plenty of lovely singing, too, of course. And from the men, lots of "Huuh!!" and "Hey!!". Quite bombastic, and ecstatic, and definitely dance-floor DJ fodder for when you really want the party to get goin'. Absolutely delightful!!!
Again, all music composed, produced, and arranged by Ilaiyaraaja. Various veteran "playback singers" like S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and T.M. Soundararajan appear on here. The liner notes by Doug Shipton go into depth about Ilaiyaraaja's career, and plenty of photos/graphics are provided.
Yay!! Now in stock, in quantity, on nice fancy import vinyl, in two parts. And each of the lps contains a bonus track not found on the compact disc version! Here's what we said about the cd:
If any album on this week's list is gonna put a smile on your face and spring in your step, this is the one! First off, we love Bollywood stuff to begin with, and then that this was curated by the Finders Keepers / B-Music folks, you know it's gonna be good... And indeed the stuff they've dug up for this compilation is so fantastic, fun, energetic, absurd, over the top, and catchy, yeah it's Bollywood at its best. Well, except that actually to be precise it's KOLLYWOOD not Bollywood, 'cause this is is all music from films produced by the Tamil-language film industry, based not in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) but in the South Indian city of Chenai (formerly Madras), in a neighborhood called Kodambakkam, thus "Kollywood" (and remember, there's also Pakistan's Lollywood too, based in Lahore, and Nollywood in Nigeria...).
In any case, there's 16 tracks here [18 on the vinyl, spread over the 2 lps], each more groovy and insane than the last. Furthermore, they're all the work of composer Ilaiyaraaja (meaning, Prince), aka The Maestro, a very creative and hard working fellow indeed, responsible for the scores to over 900 films in his long career!!! Thanks to Finder Keepers, who've selected these gems, sourced from rare 45 rpm singles and such, we're now big fans. Reminds us A LOT of one of our very favorite Bollywood and/or Kollywood collections ever, an all time AQ fave disc in any genre in fact: the long out of print Vijaya Anand "Dance Raja Dance" cd on Luaka Bop from years ago, another amazing batch of songs from South Indian musical cinema.
Solla Solla, like Dance Raja Dance, Dance, is simply irresistible. A lively, genre defying mash up of Eastern and Western, kitschy pop and chaotic exotica, psychedelic sometimes intentionally, sometimes otherwise, full of sudden surprises and sweeping melodies, crazy rhythms, wild vocal outbursts, funky fat synths, big bands doing disco beats... Wow!!
These songs, presumably for whirling, ADD action sequences / dance numbers, often feature quasi-orgasmic murmurs and squeals from the female lead vocalists, giggles and screams as well. Along with plenty of lovely singing, too, of course. And from the men, lots of "Huuh!!" and "Hey!!". Quite bombastic, and ecstatic, and definitely dance-floor DJ fodder for when you really want the party to get goin'. Absolutely delightful!!!
Again, all music composed, produced, and arranged by Ilaiyaraaja. Various veteran "playback singers" like S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and T.M. Soundararajan appear on here. The liner notes by Doug Shipton go into depth about Ilaiyaraaja's career, and plenty of photos/graphics are provided.
If any album on this week's list is gonna put a smile on your face and spring in your step, this is the one! First off, we love Bollywood stuff to begin with, and then that this was curated by the Finders Keepers / B-Music folks, you know it's gonna be good... And indeed the stuff they've dug up for this compilation is so fantastic, fun, energetic, absurd, over the top, and catchy, yeah it's Bollywood at its best. Well, except that actually to be precise it's KOLLYWOOD not Bollywood, 'cause this is is all music from films produced by the Tamil-language film industry, based not in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) but in the South Indian city of Chenai (formerly Madras), in a neighborhood called Kodambakkam, thus "Kollywood" (and remember, there's also Pakistan's Lollywood too, based in Lahore, and Nollywood in Nigeria...).
In any case, there's 16 tracks here, each more groovy and insane than the last. Furthermore, they're all the work of composer Ilaiyaraaja (meaning, Prince), aka The Maestro, a very creative and hard working fellow indeed, responsible for the scores to over 900 films in his long career!!! Thanks to Finder Keepers, who've selected these gems, sourced from rare 45 rpm singles and such, we're now big fans. Reminds us A LOT of one of our very favorite Bollywood and/or Kollywood collections ever, an all time AQ fave disc in any genre in fact: the long out of print Vijaya Anand "Dance Raja Dance" cd on Luaka Bop from years ago, another amazing batch of songs from South Indian musical cinema.
Solla Solla, like Dance Raja Dance, Dance, is simply irresistible. A lively, genre defying mash up of Eastern and Western, kitschy pop and chaotic exotica, psychedelic sometimes intentionally, sometimes otherwise, full of sudden surprises and sweeping melodies, crazy rhythms, wild vocal outbursts, funky fat synths, big bands doing disco beats... Wow!!
These songs, presumably for whirling, ADD action sequences / dance numbers, often feature quasi-orgasmic murmurs and squeals from the female lead vocalists, giggles and screams as well. Along with plenty of lovely singing, too, of course. And from the men, lots of "Huuh!!" and "Hey!!". Quite bombastic, and ecstatic, and definitely dance-floor DJ fodder for when you really want the party to get goin'. Absolutely delightful!!!
Again, all music composed, produced, and arranged by Ilaiyaraaja. Various veteran "playback singers" like S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and T.M. Soundararajan appear on here. The liner notes by Doug Shipton go into depth about Ilaiyaraaja's career, and plenty of photos/graphics are provided.
FYI, we also have (or can get) this on import vinyl, in two volumes, $24.00 each. Vol.1 contains a bonus track.
This is one of those records that we always thought we were just going to hear about, maybe hear a song or two on some compilation, but never actually get to hear in its entirety. So we're THRILLED to see this pre-CAN album, a soundtrack to a film that never came out (how come those are always the best?!), finally seeing the light of day. And what a tripped out, acid soaked, free-pop-jazz-rock odyssey it is!
Recorded in 1968 by a lineup that included Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit who a year later would make their debut as Can with the release of Monster Movie, listening to these sounds one for sure can hear the seeds of what would become Can's distinctive krautrock sound, but this also displays a much more fried, disjointed and mind altering side to these way ahead of their time music makers. While mostly an instrumental affair that at times reminds us of the equally colorful and fucked up Jean Claude Vannier concept album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, there are a few tracks which have vocals courtesy of Irmin Schmidt, but the true show stopper is when Rosy Rosy, a film actress in Germany at the time, takes the mic for "Kamerasong", a track we imagine folks like Broadcast and Stereolab have played on repeat a billion times (like we have now!). While plenty of the songs here hint at the more song based Can records to come, lots of Agilok & Blubbo is much more about sprawling, scrappy, tripped out and fucked up delight, the kind of sounds modern day colorful noise makers like Kemialliset Ystavat and Sunburned Hand Of The Man would bow down to. What makes the record so enjoyable is how its paced, just when things have gotten way deconstructed and abstract they snap into more of a catchy, driving melody and then continue on in more bizarre directions and into outer dimensions. Warped, damaged and engaging in all the right ways!
Super limited new lp from the duo, Isidore Ducasse, which is Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Root Strata, Tarentel, etc.) and his ex-Tarentel partner Trevor Montgomery. Named for the 19th century French poet better known by his pen name Comte de Lautreamont, this unit was originally formed to create the soundtrack for a Western, and while the film never materialized, the eventual soundtrack, this record right here, works just fine on its own, being darkly evocative and well able to conjure up visions of some lost West in the minds of the listeners.
Definitely mining territory similar to groups like Earth and Barn Owl, the vibe is dusty and windswept, desolate and dreamlike, opening with chiming melodies, delicate and hushed, over soft swells of tape hiss and amp buzz, the record slowly unfolding as a series of hazy, shimmery drones, all moonlit and washed out, peppered with languorous twang, streaks of warm fuzz and deep low end thrum. Stretched out atmospheres that drift from lush layered buzz, to soaring string like majesty, swoonsome melodies surfacing amidst slow swirling clouds of soft focus distortion. There are moments where the record veers into way more abstract territory, with the duo capable of conjuring up some sweet cosmic dronemusic or more minimal abstract drift, and those moments definitely have their place, and do evoke some fantastic and mysterious tableaus that no doubt play out in whatever imaginary western these sounds now accompany, and there is enough of those sounds that this will no doubt hit the spot for those into drone/drift minimalism, but the core of the record remains a dark twang flecked drift, a dreamy, otherworldly ambience, a slo-mo avant country drift, that will no doubt appeal to fans of Barn Owl, Earth, Scenic, Morricone and the like. So nice.
Pressed on 140 gram vinyl, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
This soundtrack review requires a bit of a backstory, as it played a pivotal role in one particular aQ staffer's formative years. Way back when, this aQ-er had a super cool babysitter, she was a skateboarder, played cool music, was not at all strict about bedtimes, and most crucially, would let said staffer watch cable, and in particular, R rated movies!! Which would prove to be her eventual downfall. This babysitter, allowed said aQ-er (OK, it's Andee!) to stay up late, and watch Larry Cohen's infamous horror flick, It's Alive, about a family whose spawn is some sort of horrific demon baby, who, mere seconds after being born, proceeds to kill the nurses, and escape from the hospital, terrorizing the city, before being hunted down. Well needless to say, as giddy as Andee was to be watching such gleefully subversive stuff, that night, he was plagued with nightmares, and the nightmares continued until he was forced to come clean with the folks, which resulted in the end of the super cool babysitter's reign. Sad stuff indeed, but the power of this low budget flick definitely transcends simply terrifying a easily frightened child. Even rewatching this as an adult, the film is well crafted, beautifully filmed, and has a terrific dark and brooding score.
The plan apparently was to reunite the stars of Hitchcock's Psycho, which is also where the idea to have Hermann do the score came from, and while the casting didn't work out, Hermann did end up doing the music, and it's fantastic. And it was one of Hermann's last scores, along with Brian DePalma's Obsession and Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver. And much like those scores, it's classic Hermann, with a strange orchestral arrangement of 6 clarinets, 8 French horns, 6 trumpets, 6 trombones, 2 tubas, 2 harps, and then bass guitar, organ, percussion Moog synthesizer, and the only stringed instrument was a viola d'amore, a strange Baroque instrument with tuned sympathetic strings. And while those last few instruments might have you thinking this might be far out and freaky, and maybe even a little psychedelic, it's actually much more traditional, and very Hermann like, lots of hushed horns, huge brass crescendos, tense moody build ups, lots of space, layered low end drones, mournful melodies, it's haunting and at times harrowing, and when paired with the stylized visuals, it becomes even more effective. And like the best scores, Hermann's It's Alive is a fantastic listen sans film, the sort of intense dark ambience, and brooding orchestral atmospherics that should appeal to dronelovers and dark music obsessives, as well as all you soundtrack nerds, for who, of course, this is most definitely ESSENTIAL.
Like all Film Score Monthly releases, the cd is accompanied by a super elaborate booklet, extensively researched, with tons of liner notes, interviews, rare photos, and notes on each track.
The Swedish musical oddities never cease to amaze us, whether it be the hermetic psych of Joakim Skogsberg or the voodoo heaviness of Goat, Swedish musicians always seem to extremely commit to whatever thematic conceit informs their musical output. When we first got this release by Ixtahuele, we thought it was indeed a reissue of some obscure pagan exotica record from the fifties, but a closer look at the photo of the blonde lads on the back cover decked out in forties tuxes, one wearing a fez, just seemed a tad too modern and lo and behold, we realized Ixtahhuele is indeed a modern ensemble mining the sounds of Arthur Lyman, Les Baxter and Martin Denny! Using classic exotica instrumentation, of you know, marimbas, piano, stand-up bass, and all sorts of exotic percussion: bongos, gongs, taiko drums and cymbals, this group does a pretty stellar job of performing original classic sounding music without trying to put a modern spin on the sound. Instead of overdoing the hipster tropes of tiki bars and island girls, the band does its best to get to the heart of the alluring spell-binding qualities of true exotica: ritual dances, evil flora, island fever, stone relics and sun gods, the music oceanic and dreamy, beautifully hypnotic and sometimes fraught with an uncertain sense of danger, mystery and intrigue. Nice!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In what may be an odd way of constructing a soundtrack, the Quay Brothers commissioned the soundtrack of their film Institute Benjamenta to be composed by Lech Jankowski who did not have the privilege to see a single frame of the film before writing the music. The Quay Brothers in turn took Jankowski's dark Polish folk/jazz for guitar, violin, double bass, and minimal percussion and sculpted the film around the score.
Somewhere right now Thom Yorke is blushing, now that this 1973 soundtrack has been reissued. Well, that's our speculation anyway, 'cause the main theme sounds SO MUCH like a Radiohead song (which one, we haven't quite figured out. Not "Paranoid Android" but close.) At any rate, this was either a big inspiration to Radiohead or it's just a marvellous coincidence. You'll hear it for yourself we're sure. Thom certainly needs to hear this if he hasn't already (as we suspect). And it's not just the melody of this soundtrack's main leit motif, but the singing voice itself. A French female doing wordless ah ah ahs -- play it back to back with Radiohead and you'll swear it's Mr. Yorke's famous falsetto. But that's only part of the reason this soundtrack is so fascinating. It's also a very very early electronica effort by a young Jean-Michel Jarre, later in the '80s to become well-known as a New Age superstar famed for spectacular multi-media shows. In the seventies, though, his output could be considered credible electronica pioneering. 1977's Oxygene is a pretty cool album after all. But this was before even that, and it's way more extreme. Truly jarring electronic sound that's hard to reconcile with the idea of "background" music in film! And Les Granges Brulees was not, as far as we're aware, a horror or science fiction flick where such might make sense. As far as we can tell, this Jean Chapot directed movie was a mystery / romance (staring Alain Delon btw). Certainly the vocals are romantic, and much of the rest of Jarre's crankier-than-Kraftwerk electronics are suspenseful, a la Goblin. One track breaks the mood a little bit -- "Zig-zag" must be from a scene where the characters visit a circus or something, as it's got that Jean-Jacques Perrey zaniness to it. But most of this is interplay between the haunting theme and freaky electronic fx. A very cool, out of the blue reissue, forshadowing Kid A some thirty years ago!
Awesome instrumental score that Jeremy Jay created for a short film called Dreamland. Lots of moody and sensual piano playing. So rad!
Visionary cult cinephiles get ready to drool! If you were as excited as we were about the recent reissue of Kenneth Anger's early films, then this incredibly packaged and affordable 4dvd+2cd box set of the early films of Chilean theatrical genius Alejandro Jodorowsky will surely make your head explode!!! Fando Y Lis! El Topo!!, HOLY MOUNTAIN!!!! Marvelously restored and beautifully remastered, there is so much amazing material here that has either never been available before, or only available previously as extremely hard to find poor quality transfers from mediocre prints.
AND there's more! This set also includes the absolutely killer SOUNDTRACKS to both El Topo and yes, Holy Mountain!!! The Holy Mountain Soundtrack has never been released before and it so totally kills, and why wouldn't it, Don Cherry is all over it! But more about that in a minute, there's also bonus features, interviews, deleted scenes, audio commentary, a documentary and a short film from 1957 that was presumed lost until it was found early last year.
So for those who may be unfamiliar with Jodorowsky's films, a bit of back story:
Born in Chile and struggling to become an actor, Jodorowsky became fed up with the idea of scripted theatre and moved to Paris to study mime. Working with the great mime, Marcel Marceau while at the same time influenced by the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, Jean Cocteau's mythical fantasias, and the European Art House cinema of Fellini and Bunuel, Jodorowsky relocated to Mexico to form the theatre troupe, The Panic Movement, which would stage early happenings (involving lots of nudity and rotting food) and existentialist plays by Ionesco, Beckett and Fernando Arrabel. It was Arrabel's play, "Fando Y Lis" that would inspire him to move away from the theatre into cinema, but far from any structured or direct form of filmmaking. Jodorowsky wanted to re-interpret Arrabel's play by filming it completely from memory and in a remote and ruggedly extreme locale. Here he would bring together all the soul-baring psyche of experimental theatre, the role-playing excess of costumes, props and pageantry, the ritualistic entanglements of violence and beauty as catalysts of transformation, and most importantly the notion of existence as a journey through all kinds of personal and mystical revelations both sacred and profane. All of these qualities permeate each of the three films here.
Ok, you get the idea. So let's just break it down for you, what you get from this awesome box set:
--Fando Y Lis (1968): Jodorowsky's first full length black and white feature started riots at its premiere at the Acapulco Film Festival and was banned in Mexico due to its violent sexual imagery and ritualistic mocking of church beliefs. Based on Arrabel's play about a pair of dysfunctional lovers (one impotent, the other paralyzed) in a Fellini-esque quest for the spiritual city of Tar.
Extras on this disc include the 1994 French documentary, La Constellation which features interviews with Marcel Marceau, Peter Gabriel (who was inspired by El Topo, when he wrote The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway), and the French sci-fi illustrator, Moebius, who began working with Jodorowsky on the failed attempt to film Frank Herbert's Dune, which sparked Jodorowsky's interest in graphic novels.
--El Topo (1970): The bloody surreal western that spawned the Midnight Movie. Funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, this film is like a Sergio Leone film on a serious dose of brown acid.
Extras include an interview with Jodorowsky about the Midnight Movie phenomenon.
--Holy Mountain (1973): The ultimate spiritual quest film. Jodorowsky takes us through every imaginable belief system only to completely shatter our preconceptions about spiritual enlightenment.
Extras include deleted scenes and commentary about Jodorowsky's continuing interest in the Tarot.
--La Cravate (1957): A 35 minute silent film in color based on Thomas Mann's The Transposed Heads about a girl who sells heads and the men who are her customers. This film was presumed lost until its discovery last year in someone's attic in Germany!
--El Topo Soundtrack: 18 tracks composed by Jodorowsky and John Barham inspired by both the soundtrack work of Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. Full of flutes and droning horns, accordions and organs and twisted Mariachi styles.
--Holy Mountain Soundtrack: 24 tracks composed by Jodorowsky, Don Cherry and Ronald Frangipane. Ranging from spiritual free drones to acid rock to Moroccan desert jams to pensive marches to soft jazz and everywhere in between. There are even themes for each of the nine planetary characters. Such a wild, weird, and wonderful soundtrack and it alone is worth the price of admission.
Phew! So can you guess, that this is totally and absolutely recommended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ltd to 300 numbered copies. Includes dvd, poster.
For those of you who were left craving more of Seu Jorge's dulcet tones after you exhausted your soundtrack cd to Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic (on which he covers a bunch of David Bowie songs in Portuguese)... here's the complete collection of his acoustic interpretations that he recorded for the movie (note: some of them did already appear on the soundtrack release). Geez, this would've made a great summer album, wouldn't it have?! Ah well, we might just have to bring a little of that season's warmth into the winter months... either that or resort to tucking a copy away 'til next June!
Haven't seen the movie yet, but we think Juno's soundtrack cd is like a really good mixtape from your closest pal! A variety of old and new faves that pushes all the right nostalgia buttons. It includes Mott The Hoople's "All The Young Dudes", Belle & Sebastian's "Expectations" and "Piazza, New York Catcher", The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man", Buddy Holly's Dearest", Velvet Underground's "Sticking With You", Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You", Cat Power covering the 1959 tune "Sea Of Love" (previously covered by The Honeydrippers), Sonic Youth doing The Carpenters' "Superstar", and a bunch by former Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson... who must be pretty stoked that the star of the film suggested that her character would be a fan, thus leading to Dawson's inclusion on this soundtrack and a big boost to her career.
First things first, have you seen the film? It's an unsettling documentary about the planning and production of a "hell house" in Texas, a Halloween haunted house with ulterior sermonizing motives. That said, this soundtrack may certainly be enjoyed without viewing the film... particularly if you're a fan of Bedhead and The New Year. Followers of said groups are undoubtably already aware that the music was composed by band members (and brothers) Matt and Bubba Kadane. Much of the music is indeed of the drowsy drifting meditative variety for which those groups are well-known, Haunting gentle string plucking, melting bass tones, faintly ominous drones fill the air for most of the brief eighteen minutes.
Soundtrack inspired by early comic strip. Wacky!
Yay! This is Kid Koala doing what Kid Koala does best, taking recognizable genre musics and just tweaking them enough to add a woozy modern effect, a li'l bit of scartching here, some pretty glitching there. This is a song taken from his forthcoming album, and is a New Orleans style jazz number made even more poignant and sweet with his signature touches AND it comes with a fantastic video you can play on your computer. The video, made by Monkmus, features an animated funeral procession that turns into an unlikely street celebration with a surprise ending. The other track, which presumably won't be on the album, is called "Vacation Island" and features the Kid doing that magic again, this time to an old Martin-Denny-ish tropical exotica, but with beats. So cute and nice. Not many left either...
If the cd packaging didn't clue you in that this was a Kid Loco release, you'd probably never be able guess. Nothing jumps out and bites you on the nose, nothing give you even a hint of distinct Loco-ness, nor does it really draw your attention at all. Haven't seen the film yet, so unfortunately we can't comment on how the audio matches up with the visuals or storyline... but the music is generally slowly shifting moods which don't have any 'events' to sync up anyway. So this soundtrack for the film The Graffiti Artist does serve its purpose as background music very well, providing unobtrusive ambience and an occasional shuffling trip hop beat. Taken on its own, it might disappoint folks who've been eagerly awaiting fresh funky Kid Loco action. It's a far less sexy and more sedate listening. Actually crediting this cd to Kid Loco is a bit misleading because although he did handle all of the recording, mixing and producing, in fact the music was written by Kid Bravo and played by Tim Keegan (guitar), Jerome Bensoussan (trumpet, clarinet) and Erik Jansson (Rhodes keyboards)... and they did a fine job!
Still haven't seen the film -- Windy sez it's good though -- but we've had the soundtrack in stock for a little while and thought we'd go ahead and list it 'cause it's got some pretty great stuff on it. Basically, this isn't a full-blown score by some Hollywood film composer, but rather a Quentin Tarantino mix tape of sorts. And a rather eclectic, but well-programmed, mix tape indeed! There's everything from The RZA to Zamfir, from Nancy Sinatra to Neu! on here. Some of it was indeed written for the film (The RZA's cuts, including bonus kung-fu fight scene music and sound effects) while some of the tracks were taken from *other* films and TV sources (like Quincy Jones' Ironside theme). There's some surprising selections, including a ten-minute 1977 disco-funk version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" that's a great centerpiece to what's a very hip, well-informed compilation, demonstrating the good taste of Quentin Tarantino, or his music supervisor at least. (Quentin Tarantino -- good taste? What?) Anyway, this works fine as a stand-alone album, and no doubt will bring all sorts of visual, gory remembrances to those who've seen the Kill Bill flick itself.
Another sonic souvenir for Tarantino film fans...and, like the soundtrack to Vol. 1, this stands on its own as an excellent 'mix tape' even for those who haven't seen the Kill Bill flicks. Whatever you might think of Tarantino's indulgent exercise(s) in revenge fantasy and cinematic homage, you can't argue with such soundtrack selections as Johnny Cash, Ennio Morricone, Charlie Feathers, and the RZA (among others).
There's been quite a resurgence in folks' interest in the career and records of Basil Kirchin of late. Not sure if it's his inclusion on Nurse With Wound's legendary list of influences, or just more access to lost recordings, but we're pleased as punch either way. Kirchin was not JUST a legendary outsider producer of obscure musical madness -- like most of us he had to pay the bills. Not many of us are lucky enough to pay the bills by scoring one of the greatest 'horror' films ever, The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Unlike the insanity of his legendary Quantum record reviewed a few months back, Kirchin pretty much plays it straight here. Well, as straight as a mad musical genius can. From creepy pipe organ overtures, to dreamy, flute-flecked fantasy ambience, to grand sweeping cinematic epics, with pizzicatto strings and soaring strings to minor key spine tingling creep-outs. Fans of his more obscure recordings won't find the weirdness they may have been expecting, but fans of Morricone, Barry, Nicolai and their ilk will be quite pleased. Extensive liner notes detail the convoluted history of the film and the soundtrack.
Trunk Records comes through again with still more wonderful unheard sonic mysteries from the seemingly more prolific than anyone thought Basil Kirchin. So far we've been treated to various soundtracks, lots of library music, sonic sketches, so here's another piece of the Kirchin puzzle, an unreleased score for an infamous 1965 British exploitation film concerning death, birth, beatniks and wife swapping, and judging from the booklet, quite a bit of nudity, not to mention reenactments of the Jack The Ripper murders, sweaty men in saunas, topless ladies, and apparently "the infamous chicken scene". Hmmm... Guess we'll just have to let the music to the talking, and oh it does, swinging sixties jazz, laced with haunting Theremins, marimba melodies, moody smokey ballads, hazy, warbly ambience, the sounds groovy, funky, fuzzy, jazzy, creepy, bits of whirring organ drone butted up against soaring strings, mysterious ominous low end thrum blossoming into almost Joe Meek-ish sounding processed/looped ambience, long drawn out high end shimmer, Eastern sounding buzz and drone and drift that definitely sounds ahead of its time, so incredible, hard to believe this stuff has been hidden away until now.
And if that weren't enough, included as a bonus is the soundtrack to the film The Freelance, a 1971 gangland thriller starring Ian McShane, featuring a funky very seventies sounding score, heavy on the jazz, the free jazz especially, with some surprisingly abstract out there freakouts, that have us dying to see the sights that go with these sounds!
As with most Trunk releases, lots of pix, and plenty of interesting/informative/humorous liner notes.
Recently one of us here at Aquarius happened to rent and watch the classic psycho-sexual thriller Klute for the very first time. That noirish 1971 film stars Jane Fonda as a neurotic New York call girl being stalked by an obsessed john, and Donald Sutherland as a straight laced investigator attempting to solve a missing persons case, to which Fonda's character may hold the key.
It became apparent that not only was the movie indeed quite excellent, but so was its beautiful, sinister, sometimes groovy soundtrack, quite integral to the film's effectiveness. A quick search revealed that, yay, the Klute soundtrack is currently available on cd, released by the same label responsible for recent Record Of The Week, the 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T!
So of course we ordered it in, immediately. What with the Klute soundtrack's ominous atmospheres, occasional lush sentimentality, and also very '70s psychedelic vibes (the discotheque dancing scenes!), we know it's going to appeal to a bunch of you. Heck, much of this music's worthy of a Dario Argento giallo, and also has a passage that sounds more like an Eastern-inspired, krautrocky jam session. It was composer Michael Small's first Hollywood commission, and he innovated a more intimate, modern approach to suspense film scoring, as the very detailed liner notes explain. Ethnic instrumentation, languid jazz trumpet (leading the melancholic "Love Theme From Klute"), and acid rock guitar are all elements of this soundtrack, though what's most common to most of the twenty nine Klute cues indexed here (48'51" total time) is a shivery combination of eerie tinkling piano, sudden skittery percussion, and breathy, whispery wordless female vocals, the latter performed by singer Sally Stevens, who was also heard that same year on Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack to Dirty Harry. Those moody cuts, like "On The Roof", "Moonwall", and "Bree Followed On Street", are both quite lovely and downright creepy... play this alone late at night and we know you'll be checking to see if your doors are locked!
If you've never seen Klute, by all means do so, it's a great movie, with Fonda's performance in particular quite impressive. But whether you've seen the movie or not, the soundtrack is one of those that can be enjoyed by itself, apart from the story and visuals.
It's paired here on this two-on-one disc with the soundtrack for 1976 Watergate drama All The President's Men, composed by the great David Shire (The Conversation, The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3). Naturally, it's also pretty good! The movie ties in with Klute as another example of paranoid seventies thriller cinema, and also shares the same director. Its soundtrack, while not quite as idiosyncratically striking as that of Klute, is certainly cool to have on this disc, offering 30 more minutes (24 tracks) of suspenseful sounds... And while not as "sexy" in subject matter as Klute, we'll note that All The Presidents Men, both film and book, contains a prime example of the cultural mainstreaming of porn in America, with "Deep Throat" famously being used as the code name for the Woodward and Bernstein's mysterious White House informant.
The label, Film Score Monthly, does their usual exceedingly expert job in presenting these two soundtracks, the extensive notes in the thick, full color illustrated cd booklet providing commentary well versed in both music theory and cinematic history. Recommended!
If you're familiar with the film, each of the seven jazzy tracks on this cd will certainly bring their respective scenes vividly to mind - whether it be the light lounge piano of "Radio Two" or the darker horn-filled final track. Polish composer and musician Krzysztof Komeda worked together with director Roman Polanski on many of his early films. He was responsible for the soundtracks to such notable films as Cul De Sac, Knife In The Water, and just prior to his untimely death at the age of 38, Rosemary's Baby. Komeda's works are a prime example of just how powerful and effective a film's soundtrack can be. Subtle, precise and highly influential.
Not sure if you're a gore hound, horror movie obsessive or exploitation freek, but odds are, if you are, then like us, you spent a good chunk of your free time, 10 or 12 years ago trying to track down a copy of the film Nekromantik. The film itself wasn't all that great, the highlights being the female fucking a corpse with a condom covered screwdriver and the testicles in the fridge scenes. Eww. And at the time, we were so obsessed with the gross out factor and the blurred nudity that we barely even noticed the soundtrack. So here it is, over a decade later, and surprisingly enough, the soundtrack is really cool. And holds up quite well on its own. Super freaky instrumental squeals that ends with what can only be the sounds of a dead limb being hacked off, haunting almost atonal string quartet. like a slowed down, warped Balanescu Quartet, haunting Tom Waits-ish creepy clatter, with whining violing being transmitted through a crappy little transistor radio, with clanking slow motion rhythms, creepy underwater sound scapes of burbling and swooshing space sound effects, industrial buzz, with a distant mournful melody, all scratchy played over the top and even occasional full on synth heavy Goblin horrorscapes. Definitely cool stuff!
A lot of the soundtracks we review, are for movies we haven't actually seen. In some ways that's sort of liberating, at least from a purely musical standpoint, hearing the sounds solely for what they are, instead of having those sounds inexorably linked to specific images. And in a lot of cases, we have discovered some incredible films via their soundtracks, and not the more common other way around. We got this soundtrack to this 1981 French horror/thriller (directed by Polish director Andrzej Zulawski, and scored by his longtime collaborator Andrzej Korzynski, also Polish, but more on that in a second) in a few months ago, and instantly, become totally obsessed, spinning it multiple times a day, inevitably folks in the store would ask what it was, because it's so goddamn good. And creepy, and twisted, and pretty much the perfect score, but for what, we weren't sure, as we had not seen the movie. And while are obsession proves that you needn't see the movie to love this, once we actually DID see the movie, we flipped for that too, wondering how the hell we could have missed out on it all these years. It's literally one of the weirdest, most fucked up films EVER. And the soundtrack we had become so familiar with over the last several months, finally viewed in the contest of the film, made both even more bizarre and amazing.
So the film itself, banned until 1991, and at the time classified as a "Video Nasty", stars an American, Sam Neil, who becomes convinced his wife, Isabelle Adjani, is cheating on him, which she is. Neil hires a private investigator, eventually meets the lover, and the lover's mother, but there's so much more to the story, there's a crazily neglected child in the mix, some truly twisted parenting, and SPOILER ALERT!!!! Some sort of super gross oozing monster that lives in an abandoned building that Adjani is in love with, or is at least having sex with? There's tons of screaming and hitting and fighting, and one of thee most dramatic freakouts EVER, with Adjani losing her mind in a tunnel, and ending up spewing and oozing all sorts of weird fluids, there's a particularly psychedelic denouement as well, lots of crazy scenery chewing, the whole thing is utterly and unabashedly over the top. Even right after seeing it, we weren't sure what the fuck just happened. But we did know, we loved the movie, and suddenly, loved the soundtrack EVEN MORE.
Korzynski's soundtrack is a series of short cues, most less than a minute, that find the composer experimenting with synthesizers, drum machines, primitive electronics. It's actually quite progressive, and in places is reminiscent of Carpenter or Goblin, especially in the movie's 'theme'. Check out the opening track "The Night The Screaming Stops", and it will be stick in your head forever, the tense strings, the pulsing rhythmic throb, the mysterious percussion, the swirling synth, and the creepy sci-fi sound effects, not to mention the melody. It's so haunting and creepy, but in the film, it's over the most innocuous sequence, and it's that juxtaposition that makes it so effectively chilling. Seriously if this soundtrack was 2 minutes long, and consisted of that first track, we'd still want a copy!
But dig in, there's plenty more, haunting swoonsome strings, drifting over a lilting organ melody, dreamy and drifty, but so subtly ominous, there's some full on synth prog, again revisiting that opening melody, but with more heft, as the soundtrack unwinds, there's lots of percussion, shakers, little flurries of synth shimmer, deep drones, the orchestral theme is particularly stirring, a refrain of the opening credit sequence, but so much more creepy and hauntingly stately. There are also lots of brief blasts of synthy psychedelia, appropriately titled things like "Detective's Desserts" or "Bloody Embrace", and part of the reason these cues are so short, is that much of the movie is sans incidental music, so the cues come in to accentuate certain events, the sonic equivalent of jump-scares, but super effective, and they add a whole other level of surreal psychedelia to the proceedings, very 'Euro' for sure. The series of "Kreuzberg" variations are particularly freaky, sinister and mysterious, grim ambience and super tense orchestral weirdness. Oh did we mention "The Man With The Pink Socks"? Another perplexing plot point, and one that here gets the bookending closing sequence, revisiting "Meeting With A Pink Tie". Adding some extra wah guitar, and both revisiting that opening theme.
Listen to the sound samples and see if you can resist. But really why bother? You won't be sorry. Even removed from the movie, this score is fantastic, psychedelic, orchestral, proggy, tripped out and bizarre, and no doubt will have you headed to the video store to experience the baffling brilliance of the film, once your sated on the equally baffling and brilliant score.
Like all B-Music / Finders Keepers releases, includes a huge booklet with lots of liner notes and tons of rare photos.
We've already sold a ton of these. It's not hard to see why. Everybody loves Bollywood film music, and Asha Bhosle is the queen of Indian cinema singers. And the always-adventurous chamber group the Kronos Quartet are pretty cool as well, aren't they? So the idea of Kronos teaming up with Bhosle to record a bunch of the best film songs written by famous Bollywood composer Rahul Dev Burman (1939-1994) is a fine one, and it's worked out marvelously on this disc. Rather than the hyperkinetic, energetic style of music that accompanies the big production dance numbers so often characteristic of Bollywood film, these tracks are of a more languid, moody variety, full of tender sentiment and romantic yearning. Perfect for the sad yet uplifting strings of Kronos (with help on tabla and other percussion from guest Zakir Hussain, and also Wu Man on pipa). And of course perfect for the lovely voice of Bhosle, who sang so many of these songs originally. We said "moody" but these moods do range widely, from sad to seductive to joyous.
This package (which comes ensconced in a nice metallic cardstock slipcase) includes a thick booklet full of detailed notes and photos. You get lyrics and even a synopsis of each of the films in which these songs first appeared, generally back in the early '70s. All in all, gorgeous tribute to Burman and his classic Bollywood ballads, and mostly likely a worthy introduction to them for many.
The soundtrack to the film of the same name features the film's score as well as excerpts from interviews between Kurt Cobain and music writer Michael Azerrad, but perhaps just as revealing are the musical selections. Nope there's nothing by Nirvana here, instead the cd presents 14 of Cobain's personal favorites and deepest influences -- The Vaselines, Scratch Acid, Iggy Pop, Melvins, R.E.M., Arlo Guthrie, Half Japanese, Butthole Surfers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, Mudhoney, Lead Belly, Mark Lanegan, Bad Brains -- plus a previously unreleased recording by Steve Fisk and Ben Gibbard. Makes for a pretty awesome, ultra eclectic compilation!
Repressed and BACK IN STOCK (for now...).
Super limited, lovingly presented reissue of this legendary record. Long out of print (minus the briefly available reissue on DC / Intoxica, now also out of print) and heavily sought after soundtrack to Rene Laloux's 1973 Cannes Grand Prix winning animated feature "La Planete Sauvage." If the film itself is a hallucinatory masterpiece, the soundtrack - composed by Alain Goraguer (long time arranger for Serge Gainsbourg) - is as fitting as it is brilliant. Like an LSD dosed Isaac Hayes score, the music herein is at the same time both reminiscent of classic early seventies drama soundtracks and completely surreal and strange. Lots of recurring leitmotifs recast in ever building and changing arrangements, including marimba, Theremin and bird whistles as well as the standard orchestral elements, guitars and funky organs. So great!
At long last, the always heavily sought after soundtrack to Rene Laloux's 1973 Cannes Grand Prix winning animated feature La Planete Sauvage, an old aQ fave, is available again on compact disc! If the film itself is a hallucinatory masterpiece, the soundtrack - composed by Alain Goraguer (long time arranger for Serge Gainsbourg) - is as fitting as it is brilliant. Like an LSD dosed Isaac Hayes score, the music herein is at the same time both reminiscent of classic early seventies drama soundtracks AND completely surreal and strange. Lots of recurring leitmotifs recast in ever building and changing arrangements, including marimba, Theremin and bird whistles as well as the standard orchestral elements, guitars and funky organs. So great!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Repressed and BACK IN STOCK (for now...).
Super limited, lovingly presented reissue of this legendary record. Long out of print (minus the briefly available reissue on DC / Intoxica, now also out of print) and heavily sought after soundtrack to Rene Laloux's 1973 Cannes Grand Prix winning animated feature "La Planete Sauvage." If the film itself is a hallucinatory masterpiece, the soundtrack - composed by Alain Goraguer (long time arranger for Serge Gainsbourg) - is as fitting as it is brilliant. Like an LSD dosed Isaac Hayes score, the music herein is at the same time both reminiscent of classic early seventies drama soundtracks and completely surreal and strange. Lots of recurring leitmotifs recast in ever building and changing arrangements, including marimba, Theremin and bird whistles as well as the standard orchestral elements, guitars and funky organs. So great!
This long time AQ fave is NOW ON VINYL!! When this soundtrack first came out on compact disc, we made it a Record Of The Week, that was years and years ago, the cd is long out of print, so not only will fans of this great record who would like it on vinyl be happy, but we bet there's folks who haven't encountered it before who will be blown away. So very recommended.
Here's what we wrote about it back in 2004 when we made the Blast First Petite cd reissue a Record Of The Week, for the first time:
We weren't really sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan - though it turns out the music was recorded in 1969, also not a bad year) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and languorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the movie (it was re-released on dvd in 2006 or so) and it's GREAT! Not a feel-good hit though, or a typical Western shoot 'em up, at all. The soundtrack is perfect, for this beautiful film.
180 gram vinyl pressing, limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies.
FINALLY RE-PRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK! An AQ Record Of The Week back in January, gone AWOL for some months now.
Wasn't sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and langorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the film (it was re-released on DVD not too long ago) and it's GREAT!
First there was Death Waltz, then Waxwork, and now One Way Static throws their bloodied and battered hat into the horror soundtrack vinyl reissue ring, with their reissue of David Hess's soundtrack to Wes Craven's depraved exploitation classic Last House On The Left. We listed this on last week's special horror soundtrack vinyl in-between list, but figured we'd list it proper again this week.
Composer David Hess has an interesting history, having recorded the original version of "All Shook Up", before Elvis Presley's version became a number one hit just a year later. But Hess ended up writing songs for Presley, as well as Pat Boone, eventually ending up an A&R man, before finally becoming an actor / writer / director, although for us, he'll always be the serial killer and gang leader in Wes Craven's Last House On The Left, although the strangest part of this whole story, and this soundtrack in particular, is that not only did Hess star in the movie, he also composed and performed all the music! Even stranger, is that the songs are folky and poppy, and weirdly catchy and upbeat, a strangely lovely contrast to the horrific images on screen, a legendarily stomach churning display of depravity and ultraviolence, much of it perpetrated by Hess himself!! There are moments of abstract experimentation, and weird studio FX, but for the most part, the score consists mostly of groovy seventies folk, fuzzed out psychedelia, strummy, sunshiney pop ballads, funky almost Blaxploitation sounding wah guitar workouts, and yeah, the occasional bit of synthy weirdness or brooding ambience.
The packaging is super swank as well, deluxe tip-on style gatefold jackets, with printed inner sleeves, no doubt Death Waltz fans (and Waxwork fans too) will dig big time! Note, this is also eventually coming out on as a limited edition digipack cd, with 4 bonus tracks. Both formats include extensive liner notes and photos.
"60s Italian Cinematic Science Fiction Classic Freaky Sounds" is the subtitle here, truly. Never heard of Angelo Lavagnino or his sci-fi Gamma 1 Quadrilogy before but now we'd love to see these four made-for-TV films, from circa '66-'67: I Diafanoidi Vengono Da Marte (which, the liner notes inform us, is referenced in an Allen Ginsburg poem, believe it or not!), I Criminali Della Galassi, Il Pianeta Errante, and La Morte Viene Dal Pianete Aytin. Films which were known in English, respectively, as War Of The Planets, Wild Wild Planet, War Between The Planets, and Snow Devils -- which, while not literal translations of the Italian titles, should still give you an idea of what sort of action must have been unfolding on the screen. Space operas and alien invasions, that sort of thing, super dramatic and colorful. Of the 31 tracks, almost 70 minutes here, there's a few cuts in the groovy "Easy Tempo" style, but mostly a lot of atmospheric, spooky tracks evoking bug-eyed sci-fi menace. Very cool indeed. Italian soundtracks from the '60s, that's rich ore to mine... and this collection represents a particularily good find.
Here's a unique kind of movie soundtrack, and an excellent one at that! Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man features live recordings of Martha and Rufus Wainwright, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Teddy Thompson, Nick Cave, Antony (of And The Johnsons), Beth Orton, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, The Handsome Family, Perla Batalla, Julie Christensen, U2 and the man himself, Leonard Cohen. The performances (except for the Cohen/U2 one) were part of Hal Willner's production "Came So Far For Beauty: An Evening Of Leonard Cohen Songs" which took place twice in Brighton, England (2004) and Sydney, Australia (2005). Cool!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another excellent installment in the ongoing series of classic horror score vinyl reissues from UK label Death Waltz. So far we've seen some of our favorite soundtracks get the deluxe reissue treatment: Escape From New York, Halloween II, Halloween III, Zombi 2, Prince Of Darkness, heavy on the John Carpenter for sure, even some soundtracks we hadn't heard of before like Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue. And now we have Let The Right One In, easily one of the best modern vampire movies, and notable in the Death Waltz catalog for being the first modern score (with more apparently on the way), and even beyond that, it's a strange fit sonically as well, as Johan Soderqvist's score is much more of a traditional, lush symphonic big budget Hollywood movie score, but it's still a good one, and for folks who've seen the film, the cues here will immediately evoke some iconic images from the film. But even if you haven't seen the movie, the music here is quite beautiful, and stirring, soaring swoonsome strings, minor key melodies, darkly emotional, haunting and melancholic, long passages of brooding and mesmerizing minimalism, with tracks like "The Slaughter" and "Hiding The Body", as the titles and the corresponding scenes in the film might suggest, unfurling as much darker, atonal affairs, adding dissonance, and creating tense / intense dronescapes, laced with subtle percussion, clouds of cymbal shimmer, moaning brass, delicate crystalline pianos, all set amidst softly roiling billows of low end thrum, sounding more like something you might here on Type or Miasmah. And like some of our other favorite scores, there are recurring melodic motifs, and Soderqvist deftly creates the sort of gorgeous haunting melodic themes that get lodged in your head, and become forever linked with the mood and emotions of the film.
There are a few tracks that border on the maudlin, it is after all a big time symphonic score, and to be fair those moments make perfect sense in the context of the film, but the majority of the score is a much darker, and more ominously brooding affair, which does make it in the end, a pretty excellent match over all for the Death Waltz series.
And like the rest of the Death Waltz lps, the record comes housed in that super distinctive black and blue bordered Death Waltz sleeve, with a new original painting, depicting the main character, sitting alone, in the snow, on the jungle gym in front of a dilapitated apartment complex, beneath a black sky. Includes a printed inner sleeve, liner notes by both Soderqvist and cover artist Candice Tripp, as well as a large A2 sized poster of the cover art.
Mr. Lewis is my hero. He was the first to popularize perversion with his low budget B movies and bring it to the the drive in. And to the people. Without his original low-fi nasty gore, who knows where some of us would be. And who knows which of your favorite
