Another fantastic soundtrack from UK vinyl reissue label Death Waltz, this one the the never before released score to director Abel Ferrara's infamous exploitation classic Ms. 45, one of many rape/revenge 'slasher' flicks, this one particularly heinous, featuring a woman who is raped, only to return home in tears, where she is raped AGAIN by a burglar. Which of course sends her on a rampage of murder and revenge, culminating in the iconic finale, where she dresses as a nun to attend a Christmas party (hence the striking nun cover art). It's a seriously intense film, loathed and loved in equal measure, and the soundtrack, by longtime Ferraro composer Joe Delia is also quite intense, the music sonically depicting the main character's transformation, the before and after. Lots of tense, moody, minimal, atonal piano music, the playing aggressive, the keys pounded, wreathed in swirls of Moog synth, giving it a darkly psychedelic vibe, a little bit harrowing, and haunting, and very very tense. The A side culminating in one might be the most intense moment here, a noisy, blown out buzzscape, that ominous tension ratcheted way up, swirling fuzzed out synths, piano pound, disembodied voices, seriously chilling. The post transition is even stranger in a way, sort of seventies NY funky, disco drums, wild funk bass, wailing sax, it's more sexy and smokey, slithery and seedy, like some wild jazzy disco-funk, that removed from the film, is super cool, but when coupled with the movie's ultra-violence, makes for something truly strange indeed.
Needless to say, like all Death Waltz releases, the packaging is OVER THE TOP. The vinyl is super heavy, milky clear in color, housed in an impossibly thick, full color gatefold sleeve, new cover art, that art also recreated on a massive fold out full color poster, inside the gatefold, a booklet, with tons of photos, reproductions of the original movie posters, along with new liner notes from composer Joe Delia, and as always, Death Waltz records have a way of disappearing super quick, so grab one while you can...
The latest from aQ beloved psychedelic space rockers Mugstar is not a proper new album, but is instead a soundtrack to a film called Ad Marginem, Mugstar providing a brooding and moody score, their usual space-prog heaviness dialed back a bit, the group weaving lush landscapes of tribal drumming, and low slung riffage, a perfect match for the film, shot mostly in black and white, with dramatic burst of abstract color in the beginning, and at certain points throughout, Mugstar spend much of the record/film locked into a sort of hypnorock mesmer, that most fans of Circle will find immediately appealing, a single riff, looped and layered and repeated, while the group wreathes that main groove in subtle sonic colorations, the vibe is definitely post rock, or very minimal psych rock, the guitar slipping from jangle to muted chug, the drums driving and propulsive, but the whole thing tense and dramatic, a very slow build, swirling organs drifting in and out, Slint like minor key melodies, quite effective and intense, it's not until near the end of the first side, and obviously at an appropriate place in the film, that the band lets loose, exploding into a stretch of rollicking psych rock, laced with soaring leads, pounding drums, the sound fierce and heavy, before slipping right back into the more pensive sonic brooding.
The B side follows a similar pattern, spending most of its time in loping cyclical dirge mode, still minor key and moody, this time, near the films end, slipping into a long stretch of slow, hushed, near ambience, a drifty bit of psychedelic shimmer, brooding and ominous, until finally, the drums slowly creep in, the guitars build to a roar, the sound explodes into something more heavy and hypnotic, super intense and dramatic, a sort of space psych Godspeed moment, a noisy super intense sonic coda, as the film fades to black.
The film might be something you watch only once or twice, but like the best scores/soundtracks, Mugstar's music for Ad Marginem, even separated from the visuals, still sounds amazing, and essentially plays like a Mugstar record proper, albeit a slightly more mellow one, but fantastic nonetheless!
Have you seen this film yet? It's so amazing! Worth the price of this disc alone is Rebekah del Rio's version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", sung in Spanish and totally spine-chillingly good. You also get several tracks of Angelo Badalamenti's score, creepy and atmospheric, plus Sonny Boy Williamson doing a Willie Dixon track, Linda Scott performing a Hammerstein / Kern tune (the '50s pop number the actresses audition for in the film), and 3 tracks written and performed by Lynch himself. Bravo.
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Who isn't happy to see / hear / be in the presence of this compilation? Really, it has something for everyone. The diva, the sensitive singer, the corny comic, the drumming maniac. You know who we're talkin' about! Speaking of which, whoever is responsible for Animal's playing is an absolutely kickass drummer. Seriously, check that shit out! And who doesn't get a lil' lump in the throat when they hear "Rainbow Connection"?
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Also on vinyl, not cheap, but it is a cool soundtrack...
Here's a lost classic "psycho-symphonic film score" brought to you by the same rare psych vinyl obsessed treasure-hunters (Finders Keepers and Delay 68) that brought us such gems as the Yamasuki Singers and Jean-Claude Vannier reissues, and the Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word and Welsh Rare Beat comps! This previously unreleased soundtrack to a UK thriller from 1972 starring Oliver Reed, Edward Woodward and Jill St. John was written, composed, arranged and produced by the late Stanley Myers, already an accomplished film composer in '72 though his breakthrough success came in 1978 with his score for The Deer Hunter. For years people have been trying to get their hands on a copy of the music he recorded for Sitting Target but try as they might they found nothing because there was no copy ever in print...until now. Finders Keepers got ahold of the original quarter inch reels to make this forward-thinking, sometimes fuzzed out, eclectic orchestral soundtrack available in stores for the first time. With ominous strings, spacey guitar, and groovy chase-scene tension, this is simply great stuff, the kind of sounds you know lots of good hip-hop/electronic producers would love to get their hands all over to sample. DJ Shadow may or may not have ever heard this before, but it sure sounds like something he'd have happily woven into Endtroducing someplace” we also keep thinking of the similarities in sound and style to the great David Axelrod retrospective we listed recently. Sitting Target was apparently the first British movie to be rated "R" and Myers was just the right man to make the seductive and suspense-inducing sounds to accompany it. Andy Votel's typically well-written and researched liner notes speak of how, in the musical career of Stanley Myers, the "Swinging Sixites" gave way to the "Sinister Seventies"” definitely exemplified by this moody, broody, but action-packed soundtrack! At only a little over twenty minutes we just wish there was more!
Here's a lost classic "psycho-symphonic film score" brought to you by the same rare psych vinyl obsessed treasure-hunters (Finders Keepers and Delay 68) that brought us such gems as the Yamasuki Singers and Jean-Claude Vannier reissues, and the Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word and Welsh Rare Beat comps! This previously unreleased soundtrack to a UK thriller from 1972 starring Oliver Reed, Edward Woodward and Jill St. John was written, composed, arranged and produced by the late Stanley Myers, already an accomplished film composer in '72 though his breakthrough success came in 1978 with his score for The Deer Hunter. For years people have been trying to get their hands on a copy of the music he recorded for Sitting Target but try as they might they found nothing because there was no copy ever in print...until now. Finders Keepers got ahold of the original quarter inch reels to make this forward-thinking, sometimes fuzzed out, eclectic orchestral soundtrack available in stores for the first time. With ominous strings, spacey guitar, and groovy chase-scene tension, this is simply great stuff, the kind of sounds you know lots of good hip-hop/electronic producers would love to get their hands all over to sample. DJ Shadow may or may not have ever heard this before, but it sure sounds like something he'd have happily woven into Endtroducing someplace” we also keep thinking of the similarities in sound and style to the great David Axelrod retrospective we listed recently. Sitting Target was apparently the first British movie to be rated "R" and Myers was just the right man to make the seductive and suspense-inducing sounds to accompany it. Andy Votel's typically well-written and researched liner notes speak of how, in the musical career of Stanley Myers, the "Swinging Sixites" gave way to the "Sinister Seventies"” definitely exemplified by this moody, broody, but action-packed soundtrack! At only a little over twenty minutes we just wish there was more!
Soundtrack to Cornel Wilde's 1966 film. Shot on location in Africa (Rhodesia, South Africa, Bechuanaland & Mozambique) -- often hundreds of miles from the nearest village -- with a cast composed almost entirely of non-professional actors (most had never acted before in their lives), a minimal budget and a whole lot of blood, sweat & tears (literally), The Naked Prey brought method acting to new levels. The music chosen to be the score for the film is every bit as authentic as the shooting locations, for it is all composed and played by the N'guni clans amongst whom the crew worked and filmed. While Wilde of course selected the tracks from what the N'guni played for him during the filming, the music is just as they performed it. The entire score is merely recordings of drums, chants, strange animal imitations, and the natural ambience of the bush, ie: field recordings. Thank god this preceeded the medling interference of the world beat puveyors Peter Gabriel et. al. And actually, the score in and of itself was a bit of cutting edge concept. As is pointed out in the liner notes, this was released the same year as Nonesuch began their Explorer series and long before any kind of major world music industry. Another fine release from Latitude.
More of that classic porn-funk soundtrack music people just can't get enough of. Pictures, too.
We all love Morricone's western soundtracks. Fistful Of Dollars, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, For A Few Dollars More. They are all so evocative and gorgeous, able to stand comfortably on their own removed from the films they are so inexorably linked to, which can't be said for most soundtracks. Don't know a whole lot about Bruno Nicolai, but either he owes a huge debt to Morricone, or Morricone has a secret influence....100,000 Dollari Per Ringo has all the sights and sounds and smells (well the sounds at least) we've come to expect from an Italian western soundtrack, soaring strings, lonely harmonica, whistles and gently strummed guitars, bellowing almost-operatic male vocals. But there's just something about this particular collection that moves me in a way no other Italian soundtrack has, Morricone or otherwise. I don't know about you, but I rarely listen to a whole soundtrack all the way through there are usually specific parts or songs that I want to hear. But with 100,00 Dollari, it flows so perfectly I end up listening to the whole thing all the time, sometimes forgetting what I'm listening to, and having to check, because it doesn't always sound like an 'Italian Western'. Which is part of what makes it so great. Vocal tracks, sleepy, dusky instrumentals, and roaring, bombastic epics all balanced and sequenced erfectly. It helps that the opening track, Ringo Come To Fight, is one of the greatest 'cowboy vocal songs' EVER with gorgeous sorrowful vocals and a gorgeous arrangement. And track two, Sfida Eroica, is THE most kick ass song ever. Seriously. Makes me want to leap out the window and join the shootout in progress across the street in the saloon, rescue my lady from the jail, leap on my horse and ride into the desert, not before I retrieve the sack of gold, my trusty sidekick and my dog Ringo. It's like the soundtrack equivalent of a song that makes you HAVE TO air guitar or air drum. And the rest of the soundtrack kicks holy ass as well. Morricone fans obviously need this, but there's stuff on here that would appeal to fans of Godspeed, Calexico, Lanterna and dreamy, twangy rock in general. Give it a try.
Yet another new label enters the increasingly crowded horror movie vinyl reissue field (alongside Death Waltz, Waxwork, No Static, etc.) although their first foray is an especially bold move, in two ways, the first, it's a 7", and not an lp, the second, it's not the creepy, incidental score, the Carpenter like synths or Hermann like strings, nope, it's the 'hit song', a cheesy eighties rocker called "Everybody But You", from the 1985 cult classic Night Train To Terror. Perhaps you recall that movie, a crazy cool, cheesy horror flick, in which God and Satan are on a train together, to discuss the fates of three unlucky (or potentially lucky) souls, a sort of Creepshow style anthology, featuring a crazed killer who hoards body parts of his victim, a death obsessed woman and a weird Russian roulette ritual, and a Holocaust survivor terrorized by the son of Satan. It's been a while since we've seen this (20 years at least), so we're not sure how the song here fits into the movie, but it's just what you'd expect from the token rock song from an eighties slasher flick, all wheedly guitar shred over pulsing new wave-y rock, a throbbing synth rhythm, cheesy lyrics, wild sorta funky saxophone solo, the best part is when the song fades out, and plays in the background beneath this exchange between the band (?) and a sinister voice that sounds a lot like the Tall Man from Phantasm:
"Hey George, I'm starving, how about some hamburgers and beer?"
"There's no food on this train."
"What kinda train is this?"
"Some call it the heavenly express. Others Satan's Cannonball! But we guarantee to deliver every passenger to his right destination."
"Like I really wish our bus hadn't broken down, you know?"
"No way! This train is cool!"
"From the top!!!!"
And then it's right back into it.
The flipside features a track from an entirely different film, called Gretta, at first we didn't get the connection, but then we discovered that Night Train To Terror was in fact, a sort of cash grab, created from chopping up three other films, and editing them into one, and one of those original films was in fact, the aforementioned Gretta, which was included as a bonus on the recent dvd issue of Night Train. That track is just tinkling music box, and parlor room piano, not so much creepy as wistful and melancholy, easy to imagine that music playing beneath the credits, lulling the viewer into a false sense of safety, before letting the hammer fall. Or machete. Or chainsaw. You'll just have to see the movie(s) to know for sure.
Swank packaging, full color front cover with scary Night Train cover art, the back with a still from the film, three new wavers rocking out (we're guessing) and the legend: A rock band gives their final performance on a hell bound trip into the outer reaches of horror! Obviously fans of Death Waltz and Waxwork and all the rest are gonna want this for sure.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.
Finland's self-proclaimed Undisputed Kings of Lasermetal are back! Note that 'Lasermetal' as a genre exists ONLY in connection to Nightsatan, and is definitely NOT actually metal, though these guys do look pretty metal - you've got one guy, Inhalator II, wearing all sorts of studded gear, including studded headband; another guy, Wolf-Rami, who has a scary skull face inside his motorcycle helmet; and a third, Mazathoth, who wears a Boba Fett style helmet, and a cape, and has antlers inexplicably growing out of his back. But they're an instrumental synth trio, not metal in the slightest, except conceptually perhaps.
If you recall, we made Nightsatan's debut album Midnight Laser Warrior an aQuarius Record Of The Week a few years back, blown away by their brand of "crazy, futuristic, electro prog", a soundtracky, synth-heavy sound inspired by John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream, not unlike Zombi or Umberto, but taking that into a ridiculously fantastical Finnish realm of over-the-topness. Well, with this new release they somehow go even FURTHER over the top, 'cause instead of just sounding like a soundtrack, it IS a soundtrack, to a real movie that's included here on its own dvd disc packaged with the cd. And the movie stars Nightsatan, playing themsleves, as surreal sci-fi superheroes wandering a futuristic wasteland encountering (and slaying, or having sex with) strange characters. It's an homage of sorts to Italian '80s post-apocalyptic exploitation cinema, complete with dialog dubbed in Italian (English subtitles are provided). It comes across like a mix of Mad Max and Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, truly bizarre and absurd, full of gory special FX and nudity. Sex, violence, and synthesizers! Basically, an extended, insane music video for Nightsatan. It's a professional production, including some impressive special effects (it's worth watching the 'making of' bonus feature to see how they did it - 'cuz we didn't think they had deserts in Finland), with a plot involving, yes, 'loops of doom' - we can't explain it but it does sort of make sense. it's really a bit disturbing at moments, and twistedly funny too, and of course the music is pretty rad, and you can enjoy it alone on the soundtrack cd, which is twice as long as the movie, consisting of 14 tracks, 48 minutes of Nightsatan's retro-futuristic synth-splorations, droning and glistening, often underlaid with propulsive beats via Inhalator II's 'laserdrums'. Mood-wise it ranges from sinister suspensefulness, to exciting electro-rock, to maudin, melodic 'love theme' moments.
Fans of Umberto, Trans Am, Blizaro, Emeralds, all ought to dig - imagine a mix of all those, but with an added element of pure Finnish WTF?-ness. It's hard to believe that Nightsatan are NOT one of the so-called NWOFHM bands put together by the guys in Circle, like Steel Mammoth. But nope, they're just friends, apparently this sort of thing just what they do in Finland these days. Ah, Finland. Ah, Nightsatan!
The Notwist have displayed quite a range of sounds and styles over their lengthy career, morphing from a more experimental outfit into a powerhouse band crafting some of the most scrumptious and infectious songs that have been in heavy rotation around these parts going on years now.
In so many ways their range and breadth of sound position them as true kindred spirits to Radiohead. The same sort of pop / experimental music hybrid. While they have definitely demonstrated that they can really get to the heart of melodic avant-pop, we're sure this opportunity to score a film by Hans-Christian Schmid was an exciting prospect, allowing the band to once again zero in more on ambience and texture. Their score for Music For Storm is moody and brooding and could easily sound right at home on a record by The Necks, Sylvain Chaveau, Arve Henriksen, or any of our favorite hypnotic mood peddlers on labels like Miasma, Root Strata, Rune Grammofon and Type. Utilizing bowed xylophone, effects laden glockenspiel, minimal electronics and accordion, The Notwist have proven once again they are group who understand how to evoke and create strong moods and suspenseful sounds. This LP comes in a striking silk-screen print cover, with a 24-page photo booklet and a cd version to boot!
This soundtrack won an academy award in 1976 for best score and we can see why. It is so fantastic. Jerry Goldsmith also scored the original Planet of the Apes, Chinatown, Poltergeist, and the first Star Trek movie, among others. The Omen is full of maniacal chanting in latin and slow, super creepy instrumentals. Listening to this record made me feel like you feel as a child, when you're left alone and you're afraid to walk down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. It almost made me afraid to walk out back, behind Aquarius to get my bike where it was parked in one of the 'slaughterhouses'. Do you remember when Gregory Peck finds out his child's mother was a wolf and then shaves the patch of hair off his head to reveal the triple 6's? Ohhh... and do you remember in Omen Two when the black bird pecks the womans eyes out on the foggy road. The Omen one and two are irrefutably two of the most amazing 80's horror movies! But this soundtrack functions just as well by itself, a haunting and beautiful epic slice of evil!
Soundtrack to the fabulous documentary movie, which hopefully you were lucky enough to see. Blind blues musician Paul Pena travels to Tuva (Central Asia) to compete in their national throat-singing competition, a skill in which he is entirely self-taught. A funny, touching movie, and of course blessed with some great music! So, here's the hard-to-find soundtrack album.
Groovy, baby! Are you a filmmaker making a movie about sex kittens on the moon? A crime drama with rocket ships and ray guns? A documentary about swinging space aliens building the pyramids? Or just daydreaming about such subjects? Well, have we (and Omni) got the totally fab, pre-fab soundtrack for you!! Swank futuric funky jazz loungey freakbeat electronic grooves perfect for any kitschy exploito-flick you could imagine, pounded out by a band led by composer Peter Thomas, whom perhaps you know already as the man responsible for scoring Raumpatrouille (Space Patrol), a classic German '60s sci-fi TV show. His "in-kraut" stylings on many, many other soundtracks have earned him a cult following.
This exuberant disc consists of prime Peter Thomas stuff, material recorded in 1970, released as an obscure library music lp in 1975, and never before released on cd, until now! Remastered, from the original master tapes, and expanded with 4 rare bonus tracks, this features 16 tracks in total, most about 2-3 minutes in length, each categorized variously as either "Beat", "Electric Beat", "Strong Beat", "Rock Beat", or "Fast Beat", for what it's worth. They've ALL got bombastic beats, along with brassy horns, sizzling synths, fluttering flutes, and occasional wordless vocals... Any TV commercial or film project that was wild enough to made use of this library music would sound pretty hip, considering that the players in the Orchestra Peter Thomas included close associates and/or members of krautrockers Amon Duul II and Brainticket... Oh, and on lead guitar, Vampyros Lesbos co-composer Siggi Schwab!
Definitely another awesome Omni find. Packaged with informative, photo-illustrated liner notes, where you can read about PT's one of a kind "Tho-Wi-Phon" synthesizer, among other interesting things.
Probably some of you have seen this movie. I (Allan) have not (Andee has, and LOVES it)... but I do have an idea of what it's about. Don't think I'll be seeing it anytime soon, although by all accounts Italian director Roggero Deodato's horrific 1979 'mockumentary' (or 'shockumentary' perhaps) Cannibal Holocaust is a classic of '70s Italian horror films, said to be super intense, ultra-violent, and gorily realistic (so much so that it was falsely rumored to be an actual snuff film). But I am enjoying the soundtrack by Riz Ortolani, which by itself is unlikely to give anyone any nightmares, unless kitschy '70s film scores somehow frighten you, mixing (as this one does) maudlin string orchestration for lush romantic themes, wakka-wakka funk vamps, and eerie synths a la Goblin. Check out the porno-groove of "Cameramen's Recreation" or the jazz/disco numbers like the one called "Drinking Coco" that also boasts a pretty wild distorto-guitar solo. Meanwhile, one of the loveliest tracks is entitled "Crucified Woman"! Titles like that (which Andee says is indeed appropriate), and the raw, menacing electronic creep-out soundscapes that filter into the disc amidst the brighter and more melodic material, will remind you that this is music for a horror movie after all. Plus the cover picture of course.
We're pretty sure this soundtrack is on a lot of fans' wish lists, so it's nice that this has finally been properly released on cd, remastered and complete with bonus cd-rom video material including the theatrical trailer and an interview with Ortolani.
Jazzy, groovy Italian soundtrack reissue (for a 1969 Lucio Fulci flick, the US title of which was One On Top Of The Other, or alternatively, Perversion Story!) that should bring out the inner Austin Powers in you...
Ok, here they are, the first and best three albums (reissued on cd) by "possibly Allan and Andee's all time favorite prog band" Osanna, as we boldly declared in our review of another Italian prog rock fave, Il Balleto Di Bronzo. Yep, we've got the Osanna discs now, so you can judge for yourself. Even limiting our discussion to the realm of Italian prog, it would be difficult to claim that Osanna are objectively better than the also amazing likes of Il Balleto, Le Orme, Area, New Trolls, Franco Battiato, Goblin, I Teoremi, RDM, Museo Rosenbach, etc. But, Osanna do somehow combine the key elements of what we like about those bands and prog in general into these three crazy, colorful records, and thus deserve our hype. Ripping flute and sax solos, heavy psych guitar, powerful vocal choruses, hard rockin' prog drumming, weird musical changes and juxtapositions, electronic synth experimentation... Catchy, fun, fucked up prog from five nutty Italians, who want to rock out as much as be arty and display their adept musicanship.
The wonders of Italian prog have been revealed to us in a gradual process of discovery -- finding a used cd with a cool cover, or reading somwhere about another strange band, or getting a recommendation from a friend or customer. Neither of us grew up in Italy, or had a geeky older brother to hand down his PFM and Goblin LPs. In the case of Osanna, Andee's the one who came across 'em first, while travelling in Japan, actually. Rather randomly, the guy from the Boredoms-meets-St. Vitus doom/trance band Solar Anus (soon to have a mindblowing tUMULt label release) gave Andee a tape of Osanna to take home, promising him he'd like it. Well, Solar Anus dude knew whereof he spoke! Soon we were on-line, trying to track down the LPs, or cd reissues. Not long thereafter, Andee and Allan both possessed the complete works of Osanna on cd. But it took more than a few months for us to find a wholesale supplier so we could stock 'em at Aquarius and share our Osanna-excitement with you, our prog-lovin' customers... Actually we hope that self-proclaimed "prog" dedication is not necessary for enjoyment of Osanna, as we think that these discs are good and weird and silly enough for AQ-customers into whatever sort of musical extremity (experimental, krautrock, psych, metal, classic rock) to dig.
1972's Osanna album, their second, was a soundtrack to a film called "Milano Calibro 9". Working in collaboration with arranger Luis Bacalov, who is also known for his work with the New Trolls' symphonic efforts, this album incorporates strings, piano, and classical motifs. And, as befits a film soundtrack, many moods are touched upon... We don't know what the movie was all about, but it must have featured a fair amount of action, and trippy scenes. Osanna come up with super bombastic themes, high-energy instrumental freak-outs, suspenseful bits of jazziness, pretty vocal interludes, bleepy-bloopy synth fx, heavy electronic organ riff-drone, and the most heavy metal flute soloing you've ever heard. Totally kick ass. Osanna, you rock. Goblin was never this heavy.
This is Otomo's second soundtrack for a Hiroshi Ando film. Blue, the film, is a live action version of a Japanese comic about two budding lesbian high schoolers destined for heartbreak. So it makes sense that Blue, the soundtrack, is correspondingly wistful and melancholy. Simple in its spare use of recorder, trumpet, acoustic guitar, pump organ, etc, and very, very pretty. Nothing like Otomo's other sampling/noise/jazz/whathaveyou outfits like Ground Zero, New Jazz Quintet, MC Hellshit... this is meditative, melodic, organic, warm, and quiet. Very nice, but not groundbreaking. There also appears to be a track from another soundtrack he did, this time for Tian ZhuangZhuang's The Blue Kite.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Otomo Yoshihide's new group, the accurately named New Jazz Quintet, debuts on this disc, which includes both the soundtrack to Ian Kerkhof's film "Shadondama Elegy" (sorry, we don't know anything more about the film) and additional material recorded by more or less the same musicians. Japanese turntablist and guitarist Otomo of course is best known for his seminal jazz/sampling group Ground Zero, as well as for his equally exciting recent work in electronic minimalism with ISO. Plus his numerous collaborations and solo performances! Anyway, his new group (featuring members of ISO, Altered States, Ground Zero, Rovo, etc.) certainly live up to the "jazz" part of their name on this disc, playing mostly music composed by Otomo, plus a Victor Jara tune.
We've never really been that into Canadian director Bruce LaBruce, but if any movie was gonna change our mind, it just might be Otto; Or, Up With Dead People. It looks pretty awesome just based on the pictures in the booklet. A super stylish gay punk zombie called Otto wanders the streets of Berlin, eventually finding himself cast in a low budget film. And then there's the soundtrack, brought to us by the ever awesome, always eclectic Crippled Dick Hot Wax!, a super varied collection, of almost entirely unknown to us groups, whose disparate sounds are somehow woven into a surprisingly cohesive collection. The names probably won't mean much to must folks, but the sounds, that's a different story. Haunting dramatic strings, cinematic (obviously) and ominous, gives way to some creepy chamber folk, all thumps and rumbles and deep dark guitar strum, dreamy, but mysterious. After some crackle encrusted strings, sounding a bit like a snippet of William Basinski, in come some skittery downtempo beats and some deep crooned vox, which transitions into some almost sunshiney psychedelic jangle, playful and poppy, you can almost envision Otto wandering through town, not a care in the world. OK, maybe not. But then up next is the awesomely titled Pandas Of Black Metal, with a sort of metal / electro hybrid, all frantic techno beats, grinding chugging guitars, warped 808's, bursts of static, strange samples, cool stuff, which eventually fades out, introducing some syrupy Scott Walker style balladry.
The other awesome proper band is up next, The Living Dead Boys, with some crunchy metallic guitars, wrapped around more techno beats and some super dramatic vocals, sounding a bit like a metallic Interpol, or a way more electronic Deadsy. After a bit of lilting twee music box pop, comes the sprawling 13 minute "On The Cusp Of Infinity" from Brittle Stars, which totally sounds like a band we would freak out over here, a blackened blown out, slow motion shoegazey doom sludge, Nadja, Tim Hecker, SUNNO))), massive metallic slowcore, dreamlike and glacial, and definitely worth further investigation. The rest of the record plays out as a dizzying assemblage of sample laced dream pop shimmer, skittery electronic weirdness, dramatic neo-classical, almost operatic black ambience, twisted free jazz 20th century soundscapes, Oval-like skip and glitch shimmer, finishing off with some cute playful folk pop, acoustic guitars and chiming bells, a brief little ditty, appropriately titled "Everyone's Dead".
Still can't say if we're sold on the movie, but we've been digging the soundtrack like crazy, and like we said, hard to resist a low budget gay punk zombie flick, especially with such a badass soundtrack...
We could go on and on and on about our undying love for the first Crank movie, easily THE most deliriously over the top action movie EVER. Filmed super stylistically as well, so the high (low) concept is reflected by the film stock and speed and angles. For those living under a rock, the movie revolves around a hitman, who is drugged and left for dead, the drug slows down his heart, eventually causing his death, but hellbent on revenge, our 'hero' manages to finds unique and inventive ways of keeping his adrenaline up and thus stay alive, in order to exact his revenge. He does lots of drugs, risks life and limb, fucks with cops, picks fights with gangs, fucks his girlfriend in the middle of Chinatown, but eventually SPOILER WARNING! He falls from a helicopter calling his girlfriend on the way down.
Fast forward to Crank High Voltage, only to discover, somehow he did not die, instead, he was spirited off by Asian gangsters, who remove his heart, replacing it with an artificial heart hooked up to a battery, with an hour's worth of charge. The hook this time around is, he needs to continually charge himself up, while he tries to track down his heart and have it put back in. Far fetched? For sure. But that's the joy of these movies. And who better to score a movie like this than Mr. Mike Patton. But instead of doing crazy voices, and wild shrieking weirdness, Patton has crafted a super weird, ultra varied, practically perfect soundtrack, alternately heavy, freaky, skittery, metallic, jazzy, it is a soundtrack after all, so removed from the images, a little is lost, but this soundtrack stands up pretty well. In fact, besides being blown away by the movie, the first thing we all thought afterwards was "we need to get this soundtrack". So here it is.
The best part is our hero's theme, a simple 6 note melody, that resurfaces throughout the movie in different forms, it's catchy as all get out, appropriately ominous and minor key, and definitely suits the spirit of the character. Beyond that, Patton has cooked up a wild imaginative hodge podge of sonic cues, mini jams, micro epics, dark mood music, and everything in between. Which is important since in the film, the action is all over the place, flitting from extreme violence, to dying-heart stupor, beaten to a pulp wooziness, to recently recharged hyperactivity, and Patton comes whips up the perfect killer jams to accompany the various moods and scenes.
Skittery industrial weirdness wrapped around that main theme, and peppered with circusy synths and spacey effects giving way to pounding punk rock, a creeping moody crawl, chugging muted guitar, chiming melodies, interrupted by bursts of pounding drums, string swells, and thick metallic guitars, groovy sunshine-y almost jungle beneath twangy Summertime guitar and crooned female vox and handclaps, moody Morricone-ish twang and drift, funky retro porno grooves, mysterious Old West style flute flecked accordion weirdness that transforms into a creepy polka, grinding digital metal, with lots of stops and starts, warped and warbly sound effects draped over super haunting vocals whirs and whoops, Jew's harp jams and glitchy electronics, plenty of glitchy stuttery abstract hip hop, tolling bells over distant rumbles and on and on and on. Fans of Fantomas, especially the soundtrackier stuff will probably dig, and folks who are sometimes put off by Patton's wild vocalizing, might just dig this big time.
Needless to say, you should definitely buy this, but you should also see both movies, they're puerile, over the top, hyper violent, and funny as fuck. And they look AMAZING. Be warned though, the first film is much more 'cute', it definitely has a heart of (tarnished) gold, while the second one is much more meanspirited and harsh, but hell, as far as outrageous super stylized ridiculously impossible and hilariously brutal action movies go, you can't beat Crank. And Patton's soundtrack is pretty much the aural equivalent. Which means, ABSOLUTELY recommended.
Wow. This has got to be the thickest heftiest gatefoldlp sleeve we've EVER seen. Not just the kind that cracks and creaks when you open, no, it's the sort of lp that when you do finally crack it open, it's like in the movies when the main character is finally opening the long lost crypt, muscles bulging, tendons straining, sweating and grunting, as it slowly opens with the grinding scrape of metal on concrete... Okay, so maybe it's not quite -that- intense, but heck, EVERY single person who picks it up does a sort of double take and utters something like "Woah, wow... WOW!" Plus the cover images are gorgeous, the front is a stark black and white landscape of gnarled dead trees, the back is a makeshift gallows, occupied by two unlucky souls, with an ominous pile of human skulls in the foreground. Crack it open and inside the gatefold you'll see a acid drenched burnt out kaleidoscopic photo of Krysztof Penderecki behind a huge pile of analog studio gear. Penderecki? Yep, Pendercki! This is the long lost soundtrack to the 1965 classic The Sargassa Manuscript, AKA Rekopis znaleziony w Sarogossie, AKA The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, one of the greatest Polish films ever made, and most definitely one of the strangest, most fucked up visual trips EVER. Think Bunuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky, Gilliam and then realize you'd most definitely need to include Sargasso director Wojciech Has. But the sounds are as strange and wondrous as the sights, due in no small part to Penderecki's lovely, haunting and downright bizarre score. Dark delicate piano filigree hovers in wide expanses of barely there ambience, grunts and groans and mumbled vocalisations drift in and out, western steel string guitars play tiny boleros before being overtaken by majestic church organs, snatches of refined chamber music are interrupted by strange soundscapes of what sounds like thunder or trees being felled, hypnotic stretches of No Neck Blues Band-like rattle and clatter, mysterious percussive interludes, woodblocks and rattles and shakers, and surrounding it all, little bits and pieces, scraps of sound, all manner of strange audio delights. A completely intense and intensely strange musical trip, even without the equally bizarre visuals of the film. In fact the images these sounds conjure up in your head, in the dark, with headphones on, might just be even stranger than the movie itself. If that were even possible...
Pressed on INCREDIBLY thick vinyl, and oh, did we mention the sleeve?!?!
And as you might imagine, this vinyl-only Polish import is EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!
Along with composing the scores for some of Werner Herzog's greatest films, Florian Fricke was as much a musical pioneer as were his contemporaries Faust, Neu and Cluster. Unlike his contemporaries, Fricke's music is informed as much by music from arounds the world as it was rock and classical composition (in which he was schooled). Sitars, pan flutes and assorted ethnic percussion have as much a place in any given Popol Vuh album as moog synths, guitars, bass and drums. One only need look at his choice of a band name, taken from the title of a sacred Mayan text, to see where Fricke's affinities lay.
Popol Vuh's 1975 soundtrack to Herzog's Aguirre The Wrath Of God is a prime example of Fricke's multi-faceted musical aesthetic. At times the score is suitably bleak for the film's content. Most notably the main theme "Aguirre", which weaves in and out through the disc, is about as lonesome sounding as a tune -- which almost completely lacks melody -- can get. Around a slowly pulsing, sustained two notes played on guitar is a grainy mixed chorus. This is the music that's played during the long shot of people snaking their way down a mountain side and later on with the camera fixed on a turgid brown river. In striking contrast to this bleak theme are several pretty & mellow hippy guitar jams, a la Grateful Dead meets Mike Oldfield. As a bonus for this remastered edition SPV has included another mix of the theme "Aguirre" with additional throbbing ethnic percussion by Fricke and Co.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Along with composing the scores for some of Werner Herzog's greatest films, Florian Fricke was as much a musical pioneer as were his contemporaries Faust, Neu and Cluster. Unlike his contemporaries, Fricke's music is informed as much by music from arounds the world as it was rock and classical composition (in which he was schooled). Sitars, pan flutes and assorted ethnic percussion have as much a place in any given Popol Vuh album as moog synths, guitars, bass and drums. One only need look at his choice of a band name, taken from the title of a sacred Mayan text, to see where Fricke's affinities lay.
Recorded in 1971, In Den Garten Pharaos is Popol Vuh's second album. Like Affenstunde, it contains minimal arrangements -- in contrast to the film works Nosferatu and Aguirre -- and the compositions within are more centered around texture and timbre than melody. The album begins with creepy moog and organ drones, some of which would turn up on Aguirre the Wrath of God, evolving into semi-improvised chords and melodies played on rhodes piano along with hand drums. The second track features super heavy and dark church organ drones with cymbals and howling voices and more hand drums. Along with the original album tracks, this reissue comes with two previously unreleased ten minute tracks "Kha-White Structures" parts one and two which are solo moog improvisations by Fricke. All tracks are quite beautiful and haunting. Very nice!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Along with composing the scores for some of Werner Herzog's greatest films, Florian Fricke was as much a musical pioneer as were his contemporaries Faust, Neu and Cluster. Unlike his contemporaries, Fricke's music is informed as much by music from arounds the world as it was rock and classical composition (in which he was schooled). Sitars, pan flutes and assorted ethnic percussion have as much a place in any given Popol Vuh album as moog synths, guitars, bass and drums. One only need look at his choice of a band name, taken from the title of a sacred Mayan text, to see where Fricke's affinities lay.
Certainly Popol Vuh's most popular recording and certainly one of the greatest film scores by any measure, Nosferatu is a brilliant soundtrack. Bringing together elements from plainsong and renaissance music, with Indian sitar and tabla, piano, synth drones, mellow psychedelic rock jams, and folky acoustic guitar. As well, much of the music is suitably lonely and dark enough to accompany the movements of a 500 year old vampire. Like his theme for Aguirre, the opening tune here -- Bruder des Schattens -- features a pulsing two note drone, here sung by a male chorus that sounds distinctly Eastern European, that steadily builds to include wind instruments before inexplicably fading into a pleasant guitar tune. The killer though, has to be the recurring theme "Mantra", a beautiful and haunting piece that references the Dies Irae played on sitar and electric guitar, with progressing versions on the disc adding chorus. Spooky. Highly recommended.
Diehard Portastatic fans might experience a few glimmers of recognition when they hear this score that the band did for For Who Loves The Sun, an indie film by Matt Bissonnette (this is the second time they've worked with Bissonnette, previously they did the soundtrack for his 2002 film Looking For Leonard). For the most part though if no one told you the name of the artist you probably couldn't tell. There aren't any big tell-tale signs such as vocals to give it away. What you would know though is that this is one fine piece of soundtrack work. The twenty two lush instrumentals (ranging from 32 seconds to just under three minutes long) feature an elegant blend of fluttery oboe, trillsome flute, warm piano and strings. Breezily pleasant and unobtrusive incidental music. Sure sounds like Mac MacCaughan has been studying his collection of Henry Mancini and George Gershwin film scores!
Death Waltz does it again. This amazing new soundtrack vinyl reissue label resurrects another John Carpenter classic, 1987's Prince Of Darkness, a trippy horror movie about the discover of an 'anti-god' in a strange vial of green liquid, there's messages sent through time, tachyons, MATH. It's a doozy, and the soundtrack is pretty much perfect. Carpenter once again teams up with Alan Howarth, the two having collaborated on the soundtracks for Halloween II and III, Escape From New York, They Live and loads more, and the sounds here will be immediately familiar to fans of those other soundtracks, even if they've never seen Prince Of Darkness. The opening is classic Carpenter/Howarth, a whipping wind beneath a dark sinister bassline, just a handful of notes, sort of like the beginning of an eighties rock song, but instead of breaking into a song proper, those notes just loop ominously, over and over and over, underpinning a haunting six note refrain, the sort of thing Carpenter and Howarth are masters of crafting, evocative and haunting, an earworm on par with the Halloween theme. Other abstract sounds swirl around the theme, muted pulses, distant drones, haunting choir like vocals. And the interesting thing about this soundtrack, moreso than any of Carpenter's others, is that all of the tracks here are essentially variations of that single theme, that bassline, and that melody, resurfacing in multiple incarnations, some lush and almost symphonic, others spare and nearly silent, hushed and harrowing, and still others, pounding and sinister and a little bit new wave sounding.
The majority of the second side is taken up by "The Devil Awakens", which stretches the preceding sounds way out, into a grim, sprawl of spectral drift, lots of drifting drones and abstract ambience, punctuated with strangely out of place horns, mysterious voices, that melody hidden just beneath the surface, very tense, and darkly ominous. So great!
And as with all Death Waltz stuff, the packaging is fantastic, that immediately recognizable red black and blue cover, with a super striking new painting, a strange figure with beams of light shooting into a black sky, the title in a pool of blood red, multiple eclipses, and some scary figures lurking in the background, that same painting is reproduced on the big poster included inside. The back of the jacket features liner notes from Howarth, while the inside sleeve features notes on the cover painting from artist Sam Smith.
-Where am I?
-In the Village.
-What do you want?
-Information.
-Whose side are you on?
-That would be telling. We want -- information.
-You won't get it.
-By hook or by crook, we will.
-Who are you?
-The new Number 2.
-Who is Number 1?
-You -- are Number 6.
-I am not a number -- I am a free man!
-[laughter]
In The Prisoner, the sixties James Bond superspy entertainment phenomenon is subverted into an enigmatic, psychedelic critique of the Cold War and modern mass society -- or something. The 1967 British TV series, starring Patrick McGooghan, has long been considered one of the most innovative and original TV shows ever, and enjoys quite a cult following today. Hence the release of this soundtrack disc, one of at least three planned.
This collection blasts off with Ron Granier's famous, dramatic theme, complete with thunder, the roar of motorcar, and the hiss of anesthetizing gas. It's one of the most famous tunes in spydom next to 007, Mission Impossible, and Secret Agent Man. The rest of the disc, taking music from the first three Prisoner epsiodes in order (Arrival, The Chimes Of Big Ben, and A. B. and C.) ranges from more jazzy suspenseful numbers to lovely lullabies to Strauss marches, and also contains many snippets of dialogue, including the classic bit quoted above (which many will remember from Iron Maiden's "The Prisoner"). Only some of the music here was composed and recorded especially for the series, with many selections coming from the Chappell Recorded Music Production Library. The Library music is often quite benign, reflecting the surface serenity of the Village, which after all is a very pleasant resort town -- albeit one from which you can't escape, and in which constant efforts are being made to break your will, if you're an obstinate fellow like Number 6. Suddenly the sixties library music, a 'genre' enjoying a hipster renaissance of late, takes on a sinster significance.
The Prisoner -- the cult '60s TV show that's really one of the best TV shows EVER, taking the spy genre into areas dealing symbolically with issues of free will and man's role in society -- now has spawned three volumes of soundtrack music on cd, proving that beyond the classic series theme song, the show also utilized a bunch of cool original compositions and library music pieces (their Prisoner titles and original library titles given here, so we know that "Spinning Car" from the show was originally a library track called "Psychedelia", for instance) as well, and all were important to the impact of the series. With snippets of dialogue from the show thrown in to additionally evoke the Prisoner's surreal world of paranoia and philosophy, these discs are going to be hard for fans to resist. We listed volume one recently (on AQL #154) -- so you can refer to that review, and your local video store, for further background on the Prisoner phenomenon.
File #2 features music and dialogue from the episodes Free For All, The General, Many Happy Returns, Dance of the Dead, Checkmate, Hammer Into Anvil, A Change Of Mind.
File #3 covers Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, The Girl Who Was Death, Once Upon A Time, and the famously bizarre series conclusion Fall Out (though the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love", an integral part of the soundtrack to that episode, isn't included here -- but you know it pretty well anyway). Each volume also includes the main title theme, and a booklet with lots of photos and Prisoner related information.
The Prisoner -- the cult '60s TV show that's really one of the best TV shows EVER, taking the spy genre into areas dealing symbolically with issues of free will and man's role in society -- now has spawned three volumes of soundtrack music on cd, proving that beyond the classic series theme song, the show also utilized a bunch of cool original compositions and library music pieces (their Prisoner titles and original library titles given here, so we know that "Spinning Car" from the show was originally a library track called "Psychedelia", for instance) as well, and all were important to the impact of the series. With snippets of dialogue from the show thrown in to additionally evoke the Prisoner's surreal world of paranoia and philosophy, these discs are going to be hard for fans to resist. We listed volume one recently (on AQL #154) -- so you can refer to that review, and your local video store, for further background on the Prisoner phenomenon.
File #2 features music and dialogue from the episodes Free For All, The General, Many Happy Returns, Dance of the Dead, Checkmate, Hammer Into Anvil, A Change Of Mind.
File #3 covers Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, The Girl Who Was Death, Once Upon A Time, and the famously bizarre series conclusion Fall Out (though the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love", an integral part of the soundtrack to that episode, isn't included here -- but you know it pretty well anyway). Each volume also includes the main title theme, and a booklet with lots of photos and Prisoner related information.
When I found out we were getting this record, I (Allan) just about flipped. Psychomania!? THE Psychomania?!? The soundtrack -- never before released, as it turns out -- to the creepy British zombie biker horror flick that has haunted my nightmares for years and years, ever since I saw it on TV, unsupervised by my parents I have to assume, when I was a little kid in the early '70s! Actually for a long time growing up I never knew it was an actual film, I kinda thought all these weird freaky mental images of maniac hippie bikers with British accents were my own imaginings from some bad dream but then as a teenager I found out the truth about my childhood trauma when I ran across the Psychomania VHS tape at a local video shop -- "Hey! That's the film I must have seen!" Perhaps you've seen it too, maybe even under similar circumstances (several people I've described it to have had long-buried memories come to the surface, and in fact one of the people who contributed liner notes mentions a similar experience to mine!).
As near as I can remember/surmise, it was about a gang of bikers who commit suicide and come back from the dead to terrorize innocents. Hence the cover tag line "Seven Suicides - and they roared back as The Living Dead!" But I also think that maybe someone gets turned into a frog? Or the bikers worship a frog, maybe? (Their must be a significant frog in the film, anyway, 'cause I remember one and there's a track called "The Frog" on here -- also the studio musicians on this soundtrack are billed as a band called Frog!)... Definitely some weird witchy LSD biker 'sploitation happenin's. A unique formula for a grade-Z flick to be sure. Released in 1972, this film about a cult has itself become a cult film, resulting a last in this release of composer John Cameron's soundtrack music.
While I can't really comment on the merits of the film (I still haven't seen it again since way back when, and while I'm tempted to find it and rent it now, I doubt it could compare to that initial experience!), it turns out that the soundtrack is KILLER. Yes indeedy. From the first track to the last, exploitation film scores don't get much better. It's got it all -- total Morricone/Goblin/Carpenter horror flick spookiness, interludes of suitably weird dialogue from the film (someone's mother telling him she's worried the police will arrest him and his delinquent friends gets the response: "the word, mother, is fuzz...the word, mother, is busted"), and lashings of evil acid rock/funk to further pander to and/or corrupt the long-haired kids to whom this must have been marketed. Repeatedly, you'll hear the band (that'd be "Frog") vamping on a simple but effective fuzz riff, presented slightly differently on every occasion. You can't argue with it, it's good. Oh, and let's not forget the folk-pop biker ballad "Riding Free" as sung by Harvey Andrews. Then it's back to the scary music and effects (was that a croaking frog?).
John Cameron explains in his liner notes that this was recorded before synths were in common use, so "every trick was used: Musser vibes through phase and wah-wah pedals, phased bowed bass, drumsticks inside a grand piano, electric harpsichord through a compressor, Hammond organ fed through a phase unit and Leslie speakers, and wordless solo voice." Thus, experimental ominous psychedelic bizarroid film music that gets our highest recommendation. And everyone we've played it for has been equally enthused. (We wouldn't make this Record Of The Week *just* 'cause of some repressed childhood memory...) Rev up your bikes and ride for the FROG. (Vinyl coming next week, for those who want even more of an authentic '70s experience.)
Do you like some acid sprinkled into your sun soaked psychedelic G-rated children's television shows, well, what if we added even MORE acid it and made it into a movie... well, then Sid & Marty Krofft were for sure your pushers. The big screen spinoff of HR Pufnstuf, these songs were a crucial part of creating the overall over-the-top fantastical and colorful world of the characters of Pufnstuf. A couple lists back we revelled in there finally being a domestic release of The Bugaloos cd and we gotta say we're rejoicing in just the same drink the crazy kool-aid way for these sounds from Sid & Marty Kroft's other druggy, deliriously metaphor filled, bizarre and bright colored daydream for kids with some winking nods to their parents watching along. With a great weird cast of characters including Mama Cass as Witch Hazel, we wish all family entertainment was this bizarre and jam packed with imagination and pleasure. We're still waiting for folks like The Polyphonic Spree or some Elephant 6 tinged groups like Olivia Tremor Control or Of Montreal to fully embrace our television childhoods and carry the torch of Pufnstuff, the Bugaloos and all of our druggy friends for a new generation of kids to trip out too. So fun and dazzling!
