Just Before Dawn - Brad Fiedel

Getting a bit more esoteric here in the electronic horror film scoring. Fiedel would later become famous for his Terminator score a few years later. On this 1981 score for Just Before Dawn the synth action is just one aspect alongside industrial, new age, field recording, pre-hypnagogic sleazoid funky glam and whatever else.  

Blood Rage - Richard Einhorn

More 80s synth horror soundtrack goodness. Richard Einhorn is an award winning symphonic record producer but is known around my house for composing legendary electronic horror scores to Don't Go In The House (1980) and Shock Waves (1977) amongst others. The 1983 Blood Rage score however has never been released.

[Added Entry 9/3/24]

A longer and better sounding selection of music from Blood Rage. 

Theme from C.H.U.D. - Cooper Hughes

(1984)

More 80s synth-y soundtrack goodness. Back in the 00s you could only get like a 13 minute fan-made mp3 download of this soundtrack but a few years back it got the deluxe trendy coloured vinyl reissue  treatment. Theme From C.H.U.D. is an absolute peak of very tasty post Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter synthetic film scoring. What a cracking tone they create here. Cooper Hughes wasn't one dude it was two dudes: Martin Cooper and David A Hughes who If I recall correctly were both in OMD's live line-up for a while. 

Code of Silence - David Michael Frank

More great 80s sumptuous (or is that sickly) synth-y soundtrack gold from films I've never seen. This is another score that I can't believe hasn't been reissued by one of these trendy coloured vinyl reissue soundtrack labels.  The evocative synthetic sound of David Michael Frank conjures the grain of vhs and the seedy strangeness of straight to video movies with this suspenseful vaguely oriental jam with tropical overtones. This atmospheric lament even becomes anthemic in the last couple of minutes when the funky bass and drums arrive with a fine string arrangement to top things off. Nice.

Bloodsport Soundtrack - Finals - Paul Hertzog

More synth-y soundtracking from the films I've never seen. This mysterious Paul Hertzog fella only did a handful of scores. 1988's Bloodsport was his second after the legendary My Chauffeur in 1986. Who knows what he did after the early 90s. I'm guessing since this synth-y style of soundtracking became unfashionable he probably ended up in education like the rest of us. Still you'd think some of these 21st century directors with a penchant for 80s sounds would have tracked him down to give their retro movie that authentic 80s feel but it seems after his excellent 1991 score for Breathing Fire he disappeared completely from the music and film industry.  

Eye for an Eye Theme · William Goldstein

Futuristic saxophone synth-y goodness with added fretless bass. Many of the best soundtracks are for movies you don't know or care about.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue (1975)

Timeless one hit wonder here in Australia and still occasionally heard on golden oldies radio. The guitar in this is just divine here as is the entire arrangement on this sweet luxurious soft-rock jam. 

[Added Entry]

Old Grey Whistle Test 26/3/76

Me old mate Retina Soup recommends this version in the comments and he's right as these guys are totally peaking here in a laid back, funky in the pocket manner. Masterful. 

George Benson- Give Me The Night

That moment when you hear a song clearly and properly for the first time in your life despite it having been in your life for over forty years. An enticing glimpse into the promise of adult life. You didn't know what it meant but you knew there was something seductive and glamorous awaiting. Lusty romantic desires waiting to be fulfilled.

Supreme yacht-boogie-disco jam. 

Swell - Well?

The connoisseur's choice for best guitar cd of 1992. That's me and me old mate Tony but somebody at Melody Maker liked it too and somebody at 3PBS-FM Melbourne and I guess it got a cd release in Australia and me old mate Dan from Grafton liked it too... but you know I guess it wasn't a sleeper hit like Slanted And Enchanted or Spiderland or a guaranteed blockbuster like Copper Blue or Automatic For The People or have a cult-y groundswell status like PJ Harvey, Screaming Trees or Red House Painters... yet it's surely the coolest guitar record of the early 90s.

David Freel was the most detached deadpan fella out there. He wasn't doin no cheese or overtly emotional crap, nah his gloomy yet understated post-154 neo-psych jams were stoic, cryptic and cool. I hazard a guess that this is the exact reason Well? isn't a popular record and only an acquired taste, despite having swinging drum hooks galore and melodically mysterious guitar lines to die for. 

The bittersweet noir of Swell's Well? is even better than I remember. 

Moody.

At Long Last

The hit single! not...(In a perfect world.....)

Everything

There's magic on this when that bendy cosmic guitar line and those drums do that hypnotic push/pull thing... glorious.

It's Okay

An impeccably considered simmering jam of the highest order where the menace and tension are tightly controlled, restraint before histrionics.

Wash Your Brain

Throwing out their most angular shapes and apprehensive dialogue. 

"Your TV and talking is wasting my time"

"I see shadows on the bright side"

This insidious gloom just gets under your skin. 

Infectious.

I'm not dead yet!

ie. The chronic illness (possibly caused by the mrna injection) continues to try to destroy me but I'm battling on!

er touché... er.. What a timeless anthem. Beautiful. The voice, the hair, the psych guitars and those drums huh those drums!. Don Fleming/Andy Wallace production/mixing. 1992 forever. 

Reminds of when sex was all important and serious and necessary. When too much sex still wasn't enough. That's a great vibe to live by. Don't let the doctors ever fuck with your libido ie. Don't go on antidepressants ever! They are a fucking gip and in fact keep you depressed, dependant, take your life-force away, make you violent and totally fuck with you your brain and body functions. You think Greg Dulli would have let anyone interfere with his manly functions? No fucking way! You need to fight depressive episodes without pharma and their gaslighting making you think you need them. I don't. I'm so embarrassed that I allowed big pharma to rule my life for so long. Don't let them trans you or let you think obesity is ok or ... There are healthy alternatives and their agenda of keeping you unwell for life so they may suck your financial blood continuously is fucking criminal and a reckoning is coming. 

Sometimes you just gotta forget that Twitter ever happened and remember when great tunes were made by people whose opinions you never needed to know. This is so great 32 years later! It's easy to forget what a great band SY were. Twitter fucked up a lot of things. So many artists have done the wrong thing by going on twitter and saying that they are better than you and that their opinion is the correct one. We as a society have been pushed to the limit with the cultural revolution nudging politics. Mark Fisher could be an insufferable Marx-ist but even he knew (as he wrote in one of his final essays) that identity nonsense, cancel culture and censorship was backwards unenlightened dark ages stuff. 

 

Oh boy I forgot about this epic! The last great grunge record. This slacker jam will take you by surprise as it goes into this amazing insistent mode where it just becomes unstoppably anthemic in the most contagiously affecting manner.

You might think "oh this is nerdy third rate slacker grunge" but Carry The Zero is undeniably sensational.