More unreleased pioneering electronic soundtracking. It's all about the first minute here. Two awesome layers of synth. That thick dark threatening synth bass drone paired with the modulations of the meandering melancholic glimmering melody over the top. Intermingled between the synths there's also something that sounds like a treated stringed instrument, maybe a banjo, guitar or a Jew's harp, giving it a further menacing vibe. Later in this 14 minute snippet of soundtrack from 1980 we get all sorts of uncanny, atonal jump scare fx and drums of impending doom. This is golden ultra gloomy synthetic scoring... almost makes me wanna check out this terrible movie again...
Glorious improvised thick synth textures with dark apprehensive tones. Synthesizer as multi layered drone generator for vibe setting although there's an occasional melodic piano interlude. This is peak synthetic film scoring. Composed for low budget regional horror auteur Don Dohler of Night Beast notoriety.
*Just noticed that this is no longer unreleased. An LP of the Fiend score was recently released by the ace cult soundtrack label Mystic Vault.
Fabulous score to a Yugoslavian horror movie set in Austria. Highly innovative synthetic film scoring from this duo from Belgrade. Put in synth score context it was recorded in the same year as Goblin's Suspiria, Tangerine Dream's movie debut Sorcerer and a year before John Carpenter's Halloween. This is the sound of synth and electronics in horror before it became formulaic. There's a real sense of pioneering freshness here as they utilise an array of textures, sounds and fx to capture all sorts of strange and dark flavours. A Dark Echoes soundtrack has never been released and this eight and a half minute snippet of the score's audio is all that can be found on youtube.
The best 80s electronic movie theme tune. There's just something about it. An intangible essense of the groovy yet haunted variety. A meticulously crafted tenebrous synth score yet somehow also jaunty. An uncanny pop triumph.
Haunty-ology fans (Do they still exist?) take note, this could be a blueprint for several Ghostbox artists.
A Silent Rage soundtrack cd was finally released just last year by Dragon's Domain Records.
On this low budget Canuxploitation cult movie's score we get great thick synthetic textures of dystopian sound then The Closing Theme at 2.55 is delightfully dire dark death-disco. The real futuristic bad vibes.
This is not a lost future. It's the sound of a future they didn't cancel, our current deranged state of affairs: The militarised police shooting protestors in Melbourne, going to prison for stickers, the UN proclaiming trans lesbians are lesbians, getting arrested for tweets, the national guard patrolling the NYC subway, politicised intelligence agencies, de-banking citizens for wrong-think, getting attacked/murdered by illegal aliens, endless war, mass surveillance, football clubs banning life-long members for incorrect views, robo-dogs, continuous emergency powers, obscene wealth tranfers during C****, the general criminalisation of the normal law abiding population (farmers, truckers, you, me) etc. etc. You will comply. You will submit. You will eat ze bugs!
Surely the holy grail of never released horror synth scores. This 1982 score is post-Carpenter synthetic slasher-core with haunting wonky pitched radiophonic synths, ultra menacing pulsations, ominous drones, unhinged analogue cues and stings.
That melancholic glinting modulating analogue sound so beloved by The Radiophonic Workshop, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada as well as their haunty-logical offspring Belbury Poly, Advisory Circle etc. is used here to perfection.
Since the dawn of the sharing mp3 files via blogs thing in the 00s, fans have been putting together their own versions of the Unhinged soundtrack. It's a mystery that the cult Unhinged score has never been commercially released.
Jonathan Newton aka Jon Newton only ever did a handful of scores... he went on to be a music professor teaching at Portland Uni.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The hit single! not...(In a perfect world.....)
There's magic on this when that bendy cosmic guitar line and those drums do that hypnotic push/pull thing... glorious.
An impeccably considered simmering jam of the highest order where the menace and tension are tightly controlled, restraint before histrionics.
Throwing out their most angular shapes and apprehensive dialogue.
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.
I've finally singled out this track from the substack digital album dump Anonymous Productions from last year. This is fucking great vintage AP. It's got all the new wave, 70s radio rock, neo-psych-glam, post-punk indie vibes he's famous for. Except now he's infamous for playing a part in the worst day in American political history by instigating a coup at the capitol with Ray Epps... oh wait he was just photographed in a DC hotel room on insurrection day... still I mean he's a deplorable so why isn't he locked up? I mean we need to consider our safety.
Anyway is that the ghost of Mark E Smith on backing vocals with Mercury Rev's Grasshopper wailing away on his cosmic guitar?
*Actually a quick Brave search reveals AP to have contributed to a few tunes on Sean Ryder's most recent solo record Visits From Future Technology from 2021.Ariel co-wrote three of the tracks and did guitar, bass, keyboards, background vocals and beatboxing. As far as I can tell these collaborations were recorded ten years prior to the release of this LP.
I'm sure I have this confusion every time I go back and listen to early Black Dog records: Hang on wasn't this Origin Unknown or one of Andy C's tunes? Oh what? Did he sample it though? I'm sure my first encounter with these sounds was on a hardcore tune maybe from 92 or maybe a darkside or jungle track a year or two later...something on Reinforced or Moving Shadow maybe... blah blah blah...
Then sure enough you figure out that big chunks of Black Dog's Virtual are sampled on DJ Crystl's King Of The Beats (1994) which was on Moving Shadow, Young Head's The Way I See Things (1992) on Reinforced, DJ Junk's Monsters & Demons (1993), Jo's Imagine The Future (1993), DJ Red Alert & Mike Slammer's Heavy Duty (1992) etc. Virtual's entire vibe and atmosphere is all over these tunes which means it was massively ubiquitous and influential for the fist half of the 90s.
It doesn't need to have influenced every second hardcore IDM darkside junglist to be a great tune on its own though.
Listening to stuff like this through your computer or phone just doesn't do it justice. Hearing a tune such as Merck through a bangin' club PA is a mystic experience. So you gotta pump this through yo headphones or sound system proper and it'll be sweet! The intangible tone of 90s ambient techno records is like no other. This mysterious wistful yearning, a sort of cosmic nostalgia blissfully connecting our eternal space-dust with each other, our ancestral heritage, the earth and the stars. Thank-you Black Dog Productions!
It's unbelievable just how many great electronica cds came out of the UK in the 90s. So it's easy for a track like Pot Noodle to get lost but it's well worth your attention. Aphex Twin, Autechre and Boards Of Canada get all the kudos for 90s British tech by the now people but innovative originators Black Dog were also exceptional. Not only that they're essential. While the early Black Dog EPs get all the praise and credit the Spanners cd released five years into their career is a lost treasure in their catalogue.
This here track could almost be a blueprint for a tune from Boarrds Of Canada's Campfire Headcase or something off Pluramon's Pick Up Canyon album with its gentle guitar, tranquil ambience and playful minute detail. Black Dog's tones were just more pure than everybody else's. I don't know how they did it but they were just impeccable and serene and understated yet insidious and emotional. Pot Noodle's nimble breaks are otherworldly begging the question why do i ever leave such luxurious sonic zones? It must have been incredibly flattering for this trio to have been so vastly influential. Electronic acts were releasing Black Dog facsimiles while Black Dog were still issuing their own peak material.
I'm really not up with release schedules in the reissue/archive world anymore but I came across this terrific bit of Drone-y ambience the other day. It was released last year by Black Truffle. Tonic 19/01/2001 is an exceptional ever evolving myriad of tones and drones. A trio of premier drone-ologists create some top shelf whirring vibrations to subtly mesmerize your mind... perhaps at a higher volume it might overwhelm your mind.
I mean as far as 7 inch moments go the electric whip-crack crazy of Save My Soul is as good as it gets innit.
It's all about that bass, those crisp-a-tonic snare hits and the pent up tension of it all. The push and pull of the quiet-loud dynamics. The ominousness and the pandemonium.
