It may have taken me far longer than I
anticipated to darken Craig's inbox with this latest round-up (hey, last year
was a tough one), but the various purveyors of Italo-score goodness have
certainly been no slouches; the amazing proliferation of new releases continues
unabated. And no sooner had I hit 'send' on the last column than I received a
mailout announcing the emergence of some new kids on the block in the form of
Rome-based Four Flies Records.
The outfit's two tasty inaugural releases
in September were Gianni Ferrio's work for Steno opus La poliziotta and Franco Micalizzi's for Emmanuelle's 'spiritual sequel' Laure,
both originally released by RCA in 1975. Although both have been long available
on CD from DigitMovies, the return of these two gorgeous scores to vinyl is
welcome indeed and it's great to see someone giving lesser known gems like
these the treatment they deserve. November and December saw the outfit keeping
up the good work with releases of Sandro Brugnolini's Fantabulous
and Lallo Gori's never-before-released score for Franchi & Ingrassia /
Lucio Fulci caper How we Robbed the Bank of Italy, making these
guys definitely, as they say, ones to watch.
The UK's estimable Death Waltz Recording
Company have also kept the flag flying with a string of characteristically
great releases. Seemingly moments after I submitted the last column they
dropped Nico Fidenco's electro soundtrack for that grungy old chestnut Zombi
Holocaust on two different multicoloured double vinyl editions with
some great new Corlen Kruger cover art – wherein it must be said that those
zombies look a hell of a lot better than they did in the actual movie! October
saw another 80s love-it-or-hate-it affair – The New Barbarians
(AKA Warriors of the Wasteland) – get similar loving treatment,
with Claudio Simonetti's abrasive score adorned with supercool new art from
American heavy metal artist Wes Benscoter.
However, beating both of these hands down
as an object of desire is Death Waltz's recent vinyl reissue of maestro
Morricone's Black Belly of the Tarantula score as a gatefold
double disc edition with a beautiful photo montage sleeve by Eric Adrian Lee.
Obviously a must-have for any Morricone or Euro soundtrack devotee, the only
possible downside being that it's even more on the pricey side than usual. And
that's saying something.
As you may have heard, the Death Waltz
imprint was bought by US company Mondo Tees at the back end of 2014,
although thankfully DW head honcho Spencer Hickman remains at the helm.
However, Mondo have been up to some pretty damn sexy business of their own with
an eye-poppingly gorgeous double vinyl re-issue of Morricone's The Big Gundown.
You don't need me to tell you what a sublime score this is – here it's lavished
with new art by comics legend Geoff Darrow.
Speaking of Morricone – and what the hell
kind of Euroscore round-up would this be if we didn't? - Milan's AMS Records
have been busy trying to fill some gaps in your vinyl collection with new
editions of Metti, una Sera a Cena (AKA Love Circle), Investigation
of a Citizen Above Suspicion and Duck, You Sucker! The
resurgent Dagored also continue to come up with the goods, with handsome
re-issues of The Humanoid, Violent City, Revolver
and Fists in the Pocket. The double LP of the spellbinding Veruschka
that they released in 2014 has also had another repress, becoming available
again this month. The Florentine outfit has also recently put out Peppino
DeLuca's ultra-cool score for La Ragazza con la pistola (Girl
with a Gun), along with an edition of Bruno Nicolai's Eyeball that
has to be eyeballed to be believed!
Returning to il maestro, Australia's
Omni Recording Corporation have reissued his rare experimental library music LP Controfase
on vinyl, its first in any format (as far I can ascertain) since its original
release on Gemelli records in1973. Old hands GDM have also released his
score for 1966 German spy malarkey Agent 505: Death Trap Beirut
(under its Italian moniker of La trappola scatta a Beirut) in
October on CD and 10” vinyl editions. Meanwhile, their friends at Beat
Records have put out CDs of Claudio Simonetti's Nightmare Beach
and, much more interestingly, Armando Trovajoli's 1962 sci-fi stylings for I
pianeti contro di noi (AKA The Man with the Yellow Eyes).
September saw the release of a trio of
vinyl gothic horror slabs from Italy's Contempo
Records;
namely Riz Ortolani's La danza macabra (Castle of Blood),
Aldo Piga's Le strage dei vampiri (Slaughter of the
Vampires) and Armando Trovajoli's Seddok l'erede di Satana. This
marks the vinyl debut of all three, although La danza and Seddok
have long been available on CD from DigitMovies. The same month also saw
Milan's Schema label reissue Piero Umiliani's fabulous musical journey
around the world of witchcraft that is Angeli Bianchi.... Angeli Neri
(Witchcraft '70) on LP, bearing its original Omicron cover and
label art from 1969. Just as well, too, as those old Easy Tempo CD and LP
editions are pretty damn scarce these days.
Meanwhile, DigitMovies continue to
serve up even rarer gems on CD, as they have for the past 14 years. Recent
additions to their vast catalogue include Bruno Canfora's Il vostro super
agent Flit, Romolo Grano's Arcana, Gianni Ferrio's Milano...
difendersi o morire (AKA Blazing Flowers) and Adios
California, and Nico Fidenco's La Ragazinna (AKA Monika).
With all the flashy vinyl releases on offer at present it can be easy to
overlook the fine work these guys are doing - don't make that mistake, as the
service they provide to the Euroscore aficionado is absolutely invaluable. Show
them some love today and tell them ETC sent ya.
Plenty to get your teeth into there, and
who knows what 2016 will bring? To find out the answer to that, simply watch
this space - I promise that the next round-up won't take as long to surface as
this one did!
by Rob Talbot
Soundtrack blog :
http://italiansoundtrackodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/
Movie blog: http://robtalbotcultandworld.blogspot.co.uk/
