Book Excerpt of the Day

Bruno Nicolai was clearly on a roll with the genre and delivered another fascinating score for La Dame Rossa Uccide Sette Volte (Red Queen Kills Seven Times or The Corpse Which Didn’t Want to Die, ’72). Starting with a little girl’s solo voice, the theme unfolds like a nursery rhyme or folk melody played on harpsichord and guitar with pop orchestra supplying a lift. It is yet another paradoxical example of a lovely, feminine melody for a brutally bloody film where violence against scantily clad women is a part of its entertainment value. Another winsome track is “In Automobile,” a bossa nova that expresses sunny seaside drives. The suspenseful material also is top flight. Nicolai uses strings to create a veneer of tension as lone instruments (harp, harpsichord, etc.) sound out figurative “bumps in the night.” During the second half, a rock sensibility creeps into the rhythm section with frantic cymbals accompanying insistent drums, forceful bass and the metallic texture of a jaggedly strummed electric guitar as fast arpeggios race across this uneasy surface. This approach serves several tracks as the plot clearly reaches its climax. This is Nicolai at his most frantic, but even when he slows the orchestra and stops the rhythm section he never loses sight of the suspense.

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

Ennio Morricone’s Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura (Cold Eyes of Fear, ’71) features Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, an improvisation ensemble founded in ’64 and made up entirely of composers. It also explores dissonant sounds but displays a more aggressive avant-garde jazz style. On “Seguita,” busy drums and walking bass provide an anchor for wah guitar and electronically enhanced trumpet interplay worthy of Bitches’ Brew-era Miles Davis. Morricone may be the trumpeter. Elsewhere, one can hear such bizarre sounds as ashtrays in pianos, bowed cymbals, scraping metal alongside the more typical but still jarring jittery horns and string drones. Although Cold Eyes’ cacophonous and abstract sounds discourage casual listening, its strong jazz and psychedelic aspects will engage listeners who are more attuned to experimental, exploratory music genres. No self-respecting avant-garde music or Morricone fan should be without a copy.

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

For the 1974 live-action Planet of the Apes TV show Lalo Schifrin clearly made an effort to deliver music consistent with the big screen series. The Argentinean composer provided a jarringly primitive, atonal, electronically accented theme and scored several episodes including the first. Taking a stylistic cue from Jerry Goldsmith and Leonard Rosenman, Schifrin created a percussion-heavy, action-packed sound. He uses orchestral dissonance to capture the alienation felt by astronauts lost in a dystopian and primitive future where apes rule over men. Shuddering strings, nervous woodwinds, strident brass and atmospheric keyboards create a persistent and nightmarish tension and sense of urgency. The closest Schifrin had previously come to such a sound was on his Dirty Harry scores. Schifrin also recorded two funkified tracks — “Ape Shuffle” and “Escape from Tomorrow” — for a promotional 45 at the time.

– from Chapter 5: Sci-fidelity and the Superhero Spectrum of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979