It's a remake of his Zombie theme. More like a cleaned up, more uplifting version. Peak mellotron choir goodness. Creepy heroic.
Fabio Frizzi - Zombie 2 Main Title (1979)
I think I prefer this though. There's something a bit more grime-y, drowsy and unstable about it, quite torpid compared to the above remake. Funereal zombie stoner synth.
Fabio Frizzi - Paura Nella Città Dei Morti Viventi (1982)
It's pretty hard to go past this here, the original Beat Records soundtrack LP of City Of The Living Dead though. One of the all time great Italian horror scores. Amongst the gorgeously mournful analogue synths, epic ghostly mellotron choirs, tenebrous atmospherics, there's even some acoustic guitar and quite possibly the most emotional use of a fretless bass ever in the history of recorded music on the unbelievably poignant Paura E Liberazione.
The daisy-age gone sour. A deranged criminal tale set to sweet innocent music. So it's not the usual 90s Memphis underground horror movie samples, it's a lovely tranquil Isley Brothers sample of Highways Of My Life mixed with Graveyard Production's melodic chorus that has fermented into something off key sickly sweet and absurdly unsavoury. It's a bit of creepy fun, lo-fi used to delirious perfection. They tread a fine line on Grab My Mask: Always verging on satire of hip hop's glamorisation of nihilistic ultra violence and yet it's still often unsettling. "Don't make me get my OJ gloves" is a particularly menacing line that's probably also black comedy genius. I'm pretty sure there's also a conflicted Robin Hood-esque moral tale lurking in amongst this complex barrage of words too.
King Goldi - Strap Like An Army Tank (Video incorrectly titled) - [1996]
Insane underground lo-fi psychedelic horrorcore* 90s Memphis stylee with some rockin' guitar samples and screwed techniques. That cheap creepy synth is something else. The music here has more in common with Chrome or The Residents than say 1996's rising stars of rap Jay Z or The Fugees.
*I feel like 90s underground Memphis Rap with morbid, horror, satanic and dark psychological themes was never properly named or in fact given a proper sub-genre term to seperate it from other Memphis rap and Horrorcore from other geographical areas. Using the term horrorcore with 90s Memphis rap is somewhat misleading as it really doesn't sound anything like Esham, Gravediggaz or bloody ICP, only really overlapping in some dark psychological lyrical themes. The 90s Memphis flows and beats are an entire (aesthetic sound)world apart from these Northern counterparts.
If they can retroactively coin the term Mid-School Hip Hop they should have no qualms about a seperate genre name for the music I'm talking about here. Bloggers and aficionados refer to it as evil Memphis shit or devil shyt. Perhaps I should try to come up with one... then again I can't stand retroactively titled genres especially if it's for music created created more than 5 years previous let alone 30 years ago. I mean is anybody seriously really using the term Zolo outside of Rate Your Music nerds?
The kids are reading history in reverse. So some of these children who weren't even born in 1999 call this dubstep. Not something that inspired or influenced dubstep but actual dubstep. This temporal collapse is distorting knowledge. It's a particular pedagogical and epistemic problem that is being applied across the board as seen in debates about slavery where they conveniently leave out of the timeline how the British stopped slavery and poured immense financial and human resources into this incredibly moral endeavour... correct me if I'm wrong I think perhaps sociologist Frank Füredi addresses the problems with reading history wrong and its disastrous consequences... anyway sorry this is a tangent not relevant to this amazing track.
...this was the b-side of their hit 99 with the wibble wobble bass, crisp jittery beat and overall immense dubwise production.
Back to the electro. This is something else. I guess it's electro gospel but I mean it could be gospel-house, I don't get the genre pigeon hole here...I'm guessing it's down to the make of drum machine and his geographic location which was St Paul.
This is a WTF? tune if there ever was one. It's electronic, it's post disco, It's funky, it's jazzy, It's futuristic, it's the strangest space age gospel tune you ever heard. Insane synth action with luxurious soul jazz piano stylings, acidic squelches, off the wall funky keytar breaks, unorthodox recording techniques and more. At one stage (0.42) I thought another song had started playing in another window of my computer but no that's just this song's strange arrangement and unique sound design. I can't tell whether that was incompetence or deliberate, either way it was surprising and a genius move.
If my memory serves Rosenbloom was a pastor and tv evangelist who recorded just this one 7" single and last year it got re-released by one of those trendy reissue labels either Light In The Attic or Numero Group.
Witchy and tribal. This definitely has a second half of the 00s vibe, making clear that there was definite overlap between Hypnogogia and Hauntology. This has a similar spirit to groups like Pocahaunted but then again I guess Broadcast were always more than just hauntologic with their folky neo-psych and dilapidated moogy dream jazz.
March Of The Fleas - Broadcast (2024)
Sorta like a lo-fi shoegaze jam but Broadcast stylee. I get that these are demos but were Broadcast ever this raw? My brain says no but I don't really trust my memory bank anymore so who knows... maybe I'll have to dig out me dusty old cds and give them a listen. So the recently released Spell Blanket compilation is made up of 36 demos recorded between 2006 and 2009. This material was apparently sketches for a future LP that never got made. (Retro) Retro retro-future.
Broadcast - My Body (2024)
Hymn for an occult ritual... goths in the woods...fun baby Diamanda Galas doing spooky incantations...
I don't recall Broadcast ever being this overtly... well just this overt.
Disturbing or hilariously cheese-y, I don't know... maybe both.
Broadcast - Follow The Light (2024)
While containing many sketches and snippets Spell Blanket has plenty of gorgeous haunting psych-folk moments like this. Surely one of Trish's most outstanding tunes.
Bernard Herrmann - Gort/The Visor/The Telescope (1951)
Darkness and fear with added theremin fun.
Front 242 - Moldavia (1991)
The sound design and the way sound is organised here is pretty impeccable. Also just an iconic anthem innit.
Health - Ashamed Of Being Born (2023)
It's hard to have an affect if you're a post-industrial pop group post-1980s but this is somewhat interesting if perhaps post post-post ironic (or should I add in a few more posts). This video with its images of the cult of nerdy fandom with their infantile dress ups and mental illness deification is all about you and your identity or lack thereof and the emptiness at the heart of it all...The downer euphoria "I'm a sad boy" identity pioneered by the likes of Drake is transposed here onto a Linkin Park/NIN style jam. What's the difference anymore? Rap, psych, metal, industrial, dance pop: All this shit sounds the same...is the same.
Pedro The Lion - Rejoice (2002)
Codeine/Low/Idaho.... Pedro has the blueprint...pulled off with particular aplomb. This is a raw non-ironic sad boy but it feels like he's reaching for something more and not just acquiescing to the abyss.
Crass - White Punks On Hope (1979)
A song slagging off The Clash is always a winner with me. Also notable for astute commentary on retarded "There is only one viewpoint. It's ours and we are correct" lefty conformism and meaningless pick a team "Which side are on?" politics that still rings true today. Imagine thinking for yourself...
I get the irony of a dogmatic sloganeering band slagging off a band for being dogmatic sloganeers.
"Pogo on a nazi, spit upon a jew Vicious mindless violence that offers nothing new Left wing violence, right wing violence, all seems much the same Bully boys out fighting, it's just the same old game Boring fucking politics that'll get us all shot Left wing, right wing, you can stuff the lot"
Polvo - Every Holy Shroud (1994)
Like Pavement and Unwound tunes like this sounded nostalgic back in the 90s when they were released. I've gotta say It is surprising that I still really enjoy Polvo. In fact I think I like their stop start shenanigans, weird time signatures, modal guitars and daft surreal melancholy more now. Still acquiring the taste 30 years on.
"Celebrate the new dark age with us Calculate the irony with someone you can trust"
The charms of Midnight Star..... they certainly had a fucking knack for these insidious grooves. Although this was infectious electro-funk for the future these fellas were so old school they still wore their showbiz threads instead of the trendy sneakers, leather jackets and tracksuits. It didn't really matter though coz if you were breakin' or roller skatin' this jam was electric.
Oblivion was just a push of a button away back in the day when the cold war was raging with it's arms race and star wars programme, We understood the very real threat that we were going to be blown to bits by a nuclear bomb at any minute. Paranoid dread was real and normal to us kids at the time.
We didn't get our Nuclear Holocaust or jet packs. It seems jet packs aren't on the horizon anymore but the future does offer us the renewed promise of the possibility of thermonuclear annihilation. Isn't it nice that our childhood dreams are being kept alive by our overlords.
The Future is an alias for Michael Johnson Jr of legendary electro-funk combo The Jonzun Crew.
The Future - Unclear Holocaust (Re-mix Version) [1984]
You may prefer the instrumental dub mix b side for your breakdancing til armageddon.
Sweet, smooth and sultry this funky post-disco* hip-hop jam is the business. Behold that groove, bass-line extravaganza and cowbell goodness. Everybody get out your roller-skates, it's time to partay!
*Disco often gets conveniently overlooked as a major ingredient in the formulation of hip hop. By the time it mutates into gangsta rap nobody's owning up to it as an influence. Moot point I spose.
When the differences between funk, electro, house and techno or even post-disco, freestyle and chart dance pop were pretty flimsy. If you added the emphasis on a particular instrument here it may have been categorised as a different sub-genre. A lot of categorisation at the time was geographical. In Australia in 1984 just starting High School it was all just called dance music.
Set It Off's influence continued into at least the early 00s with the likes of The Neptunes ripping off this aesthetic wholesale and calling it their own.
Newcleus - Computer Age (Push The Button) [Club Mix] - (1984)
A lot of old school electro jamz are amazingly pertinent to today, probably more so than anything actually current in pop music.
Some theorists say now that AI has been unleashed onto the public that we're doomed. How much more doom mongering propaganda can we take? I suspect AI was released into society to create more havoc, confusion and chaos so that more control can be exerted upon us lowlife masses. It will have you screaming for the government to fuck you harder with regards to your dwindling freedom.
Many people are under the misapprehension that science-fiction books & movies and futuristic electronic music are always cheerleading retarded technological progress but no many of these artist's artefacts have always been about warning us of these incredibly anti-human existential dangers. Enjoying Kraftwerk, John Foxx or Newcleus doesn't equate to wanting to comply with trans-humanism.
Are we under their control, or are they under our control, or what? Push the button Computer age is now Everyone must have a machine They say it's gonna make life easier, well, I can't stand it.... They say we should put them in control Well, maybe next we'll give them a soul I guess we must now think that we're gods, While we're less men than ever I know the Lord cannot be too glad In fact, I'm sure he must be quite mad To see us take His role from our lives And give it to computers For here we sit in our easy chairs As our machines decide how we'll fare Who will suffer, who will survive? It's up to the computers Push the button Are we under their control, or are they under our control, or what? Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning! Warning! Computing "I'm no longer in control I can't program my machine Now it wants to take my soul Stop it or it will proceed!" Why is it you're trying to give me Programs I'm in charge and yet you're trying to Program I'm metal so you think you have to Program But I'm a man 'cause I don't need no Programs Now computing...now computing...now computing...now computing... Are we under their control, or are they under our control, or what?
Totally epic track that gets pretty cosmic at 5:40.
Timeless 80s pop perfection: aged like fine wine. Paddy McAloon's idiosyncratic words and feels ensure Bonny is like nothing else. Wretched grief thoroughly captured in an authentic yet beautiful manner.
Heartbreaking.
Rev-P - 1994 (1994)
Strangely several elements of Bonny were used here to great effect in this unusual uncanny slice of dark, damp and dubby jungle. This murky tune was created by Pete Parsons aka Voyager aka Static Substance.
Immaculate restrained minimal disco-funk of the future... There's still something rather inexplicable about certain early Chicago house tracks and In The City is no exception with its liminal unnamed vibe. Bleak lyrical content delivered via frightening vocal science intermingled with bouncy bass and exuberant drum machine hand claps signal a somewhat poignant inevitability of 80s urban living. This downcast sensibility is blanketed by warm synth tones leaving feels tilted towards elation rather than agitation, adding a disconcerting dimension. Dystopian psychedelia where danger and excitement are so entwined they're indistinguishable from each other.
The enigmatical Mystery Of Love is still fresh to this day and ultimately transcendent. This is the original 1985 instrumental not the later re-recorded version with vocals that came out under the moniker Fingers Inc.
It's funny innit that years later somebody in the UK termed ambient house a sub-genre because house at its inception was already ambient and house so...
That fluid bass swirling like a kaleidoscope giving it a circular momentum, the ace cymbal work and those wistful washes of melodic synth with a euphoric tinge make this primo 80s tune-age from Chicago!
A flowing atmospheric track like this seems more suited for driving, home listening or headphones than a sweaty dance-floor. Larry Heard created a timeless and indeed mysterious sound here.
More raw stripped down jackin' trax from Chicago. Appearing to be deceptively rudimentary these hypnotic, pounding yet intricate rhythms are sterling elemental beat-science. Chip E uses minimal elements from Italo-disco and electro-pop creating delirious drum machine driven damage, originating one of the finest early house tunes.
Some people don't realise that house wasn't always a lame genre so here's some house before house got defined. No piano riff-age or acidic squelches here. On And On is still rudimentary and raw utilising specific disco elements but rearranged for maximum pleasure. Unhinged synth lines, primitive drum machine hand clap breaks galore and loops into the future.
Rolling golden grooves for miles... Highlife indeed!
I haven't heard this in 15 years but I came across it on the youtubes last night... and wow it's... magnificent! Soundway compiled this tune back in the 00s on the great double cd Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Ghanian Blues 1968-81. This infectious track is highlife merging into afro-synth-funk and it's on another plain innit.
If you love Nigerian synth legend William Onyeabor you are going to love what Tonny Doziz does with his synthesiser here. This is a hell of an ensemble. A crack percussion team is deployed to give you maximum rhythmic pleasure: On congas of glory George Asante, cowbell extraordinaire Alex Jubin, Danel Asare on maracas and drummer Kung-Fu Kwaku aka Shaolin Kung Fu (Gybson Papra). Held down bass-wise by Slim Yaw Manu.
... hypnotic sweet psychedelic-jazz-funk Ghanian stylee is the Vis-A-Vis highlife way.
When falling in love was like being on the run: It was gangster. It was heroic.
Roger's previous single Steal Away was an American top 10 smash and a number 24 hit here but this follow up didn't even crack the top 40 here in Australia but make no mistake this is one of the greatest soft rock radio anthems of all time.
"Ten miles east of the highway Hot sparks burnin' the night away Two lips touchin' together Cheek to cheek, sweatshirt to sweater"
Yes indeed he wrote and sang that line "sweatshirt to sweater" and somehow made it noble and beautiful.
Hot Rod Hearts lyrics are deceptively simple but are actually brilliantly concise. Coupled with the lightly sophisticated sound it's pop perfection innit, right up there with early Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector's girl groups etc.
Staying in Melbourne zones... What about this west coast classic from rainy Melbourne? Expansive melodies and harmonies galore, adult sentiments, gambling themes, such bleak lonely freedom loneliness, confusing wistfulness and dreary romance.
I had this on a tape in primary school and the emotions entwined with that immaculate arrangement were just so unusually complex it was incredibly disconcerting yet enticing for a young mind.
It's also a phone call song like the previous post's I'd Really Like To See You Tonight but much more consummate in its execution.
Here's a forgotten bit of gold that was at the intersection of soft-rock, teeny bop and yacht rock! It's our Broady-boy* Ricky and his lost classic Don't Talk To Strangers.
Getting more into the yacht-y end of the soft rock jamz. And boy oh boy they wrote an excellent chorus here, one of the great pop songs about laundry.
"I'm not talkin bout the linen"
It's the real name of the song innit, as stated by the song's true fans, AM radio enthusiasts and Samuel L Jackson in The Long Kiss Goodnight. Don't let Geena Davis tell you otherwise.
There's some incredible 3D production shit goin on here... yeas.
Hits Huge 1984:Australians of a certain age are gonna remember that various artist hits compilation and this tune was the best thing on it. I don't think Journey were all that popular here, having no top 40 hits (Don't Stop Believin' peaked at #100) but Steve Perry's debut solo single was a top 5 smash. This song is just as excellent as the first time I heard it back in high school when I was in year 7.
The synth-y intro, the voice, the emotions, all of those emotions in that fabulous voice, the dramatic doomed from the start romance, the self-hatred, the sexual confidence, the ace succinct guitar licks and a crafty coda outro all add up to soft-rock anthem gold.
"You'd be better off alone
If I'm not who you thought I'd be
But you know that there's a fever That you'll never find nowhere else"
This depiction of a doomed passionate tryst captures a frisson that is incredibly enticing stuff, particularly for young players.
This is so much more goodness than I remember. I don't recall this video at all. It's hitting the synapse jackpot though: The 80s anthemic production, the oriental synths, the daggy dad dancing, those sunnies, that, I dunno what it is, some kinda legendary fancy tracksuit top, then wait for it he pulls out and pretends to play a mini saxophone. Then that break where it's just guitar and vocals and Ronnie fucking Spector.
Eddie and Ronnie for the win.
Also this does not get the credit it deserves. It's at least a year prior to Walk This Way so... as I said Eddie and Ronnie for the win BABY!
Unbelievably this wasn't a number one hit (#30) and doesn't ever feature on golden oldies radio here in Australia. It might just be the best thing they ever did though. A shonky love-life scenario entwined in large melodies in peak radio rock anthem sung by crafty songsmiths who were so uncool it was heroic!
The teen drama spirit of girl groups, Phil Spector and Love Me Do Beatles lived on here.
I don't recall hearing this in the 80s. I mean I had the 7" single of Boys Of Summer but I'm guessing this tune wasn't a hit here in Australia (quick search reveals it only got to #98 on the charts). Anyway this is something else innit. Fretless bass, brass smothered in thick layers of synthesisers and dodgy lyrics about watching prostitutes while drinking beer. Whether it's good or bad I cannot say... or just maybe this sprawling epic is awesome.
I really haven't given rap a crack or given a crap about rap since 2018 a year after Future's HNDRXX was issued. In 2018 albums by Migos, Young Thug and Future were in my year end list and then my love of Atlanta trap and whatever followed took a dive and waned to zero interest. After 5 or 6 years of being fully immersed in the innovative delirium of Atlanta trap and its orbiting scenes I just thought well if Thugger and Future ain't cutting it any longer what's the point?
Future had such a great run from 2013's Monster followed by Beast Mode, 56 Nights, DS2, What A Time To Be Alive and ending with 2016's Purple Reign. He was on such a roll I thought it was never gonna end indeed this purple patch was a purple reign. However in 2016 he released the disappointing Evol then the totally bloated Project ET. Then in 2017 he dropped the double wammy of HNDRXX & Future in the same week which was just way way too much and didn't really signal the full comeback we were all hoping for. Those two solo albums should have just been condensed into the one succinct banger-fied LP with all the dross chucked in the bin.
Anyway for some reason in the middle of the night I had the urge to listen Future's 2017 albums HNDRXX and Future again. I can honestly say I was surprised. Many of the tunes from HNDRXX in particular were exceptional and not the ho-hum death of Atlanta trap I thought they had signalled. I mean four or five tunes less and it might have been an all-timer. The vibe unexpectedly isn't anywhere near as nihilistic as the drug addled death wish that was DS2, in fact it feels rather sparkly and upbeat in comparison. The slurred wobbly meat glitch vocal science seems to be more restrained than usual or perhaps it's just been expertly refined due to further mastering of his techniques of fusing his flesh and bone vocals with the tech gimmix of the time.
Incredible is incredible, as are the two other tracks on the LP produced by Dre Moon. I listened to this straight after listening to a mixtape of 80s rock anthems and it totally stood up in anthemic anthem-ness next to those anthems. He's reaching the same ecstatic heights here that he achieved on the 2012 hands in the air classic Turn Out The Lights.
Dre Moon's beats here are like a sunshine pop/psych-rock opus crossed with the usual seedy luxuriance and dilapidated RnB all complimenting the low-key euphoria of Future's slurred strangely emotional delivery. The funny thing is using an array voice altering fx usually alien-izes and trivialises an artist ultimately making them a novelty but Future's performances seem to gain gravitas and pathos. You have to think that he and his producers were so advanced in the sophistication of this human/tech merger that it placed them (along with Migos and Thugger) light years ahead of everyone else.
That eerie ambient synth line here is straight out of early 90s British ambient house. It's a love song innit. Some spellbound space-y opulence on display here.
This avant-garde composer has just three scores to his name and what glorious works they were in the pre-Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter era of electronic scores. Who even knows if these were existing pieces or specifically arranged for these three films? I'm sure he was probably an academic connected to a university that probably had an electronic/computer music research centre but I can't be sure because I can find zero primary sources of information on the guy. Phillan Bishop is so mysterious I'm inclined to think he never even existed except as a pseudonym. Having said that he was one of the essential pioneers in the first half of the 70s with regard to the development of synth and electronic film scoring.
The only biographical info I can find is that Bishop was born 1948 and died 1991 at 43 years of age and was the nephew of Jazz pianist Hampton Hawes. That's it!
The Severed Arm's disconcerting reverberations, clanky bloops, unsettling rudimentary synthetical signals, eerie tones, clangorous drones and archaic unearthly textures are classic mid 20th century gestures from the electro-acoustic world.
It's unbelievable that Creel Pones have never done some kind of archival release of Bishop's delightfully deranged scores.
[1973]
Youtube channel Fish Man on youtube manages to extract 4 minutes and 13 seconds of the unsettling Messiah of Evil score here in this clip. Bishop definitely achieved peak eeriness for this eerie of the eeriest movies as heard in the first three and a half eerie minutes here then in the last forty five seconds we get those absurdly heavy clanks, a masterpiece of horror sound design as is the apprehensive whirling synthetic delirium of the finale. It all perfectly matches the surreal horror of the antics in the sea-side town of Point Dune.
[1975]
A swirling vortex of ominous electronics, clanks, scrapes and buzzing bleeps put through an echo chamber, discordant gothic piano and harmonica reverb-ed to oblivion, sinister chirps, off kilter synthetic bursts of sound, echoing atmospheres of malignancy and ending with spooky toy-town music box shenanigans amongst an array of blustery gusts.
Phillan Bishop was a sublime sorcerer of scary synthetic sound: A gift to these horror film makers.
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.
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.
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.
