Re-uploads: Bernard Herrmann and Ennio Morricone

Bernard Herrmann's fantastic score for The Day The Earth Stood Still and Ennio Morricone's funky, psychedelic fun romp Danger, Diablolik are available again.

Radiophonic Music In A Round House

(Click on the picture to download.)

This is basically a personal best-of cobbled together from the various Radiophonic Workshop albums posted on the XYZ Cosmonaut blog. (Thanks a lot, by the way!) While I think that all the praise heaped upon the Workshops 60's and early 70's output is largely justified, both BBC released Radiophonic compilations are marred by slightly annoying station id's and tracks that haven't really aged that gracefully. And the cds from the Dr. Who At The BBC Radiophonic Workshop series contain mostly sound effects and very short cues of incidental music that may be highly imaginative. But seriously, how often are going to listen to a few seconds of swooshing, whooping and bleeping?

So I did my own compilation, basically condensing the two BBC compilations down to those tracks that are of more than just historical interest and adding some tracks from the Dr. Who cds and the pretty great soundtrack of The Tomorrow People. Strictly speaking, the latter is actually not a Radiophonic record. The music for this ITV produced series was mostly cobbled together from a library record by the Workshop's Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson (working under the pseudonyms of Li De La Russe and Nikki St. George) and David Vorhaus, the three of them also forming the initial line-up of White Noise. Also, the show's theme was created by Dudley Simpson, a freelance composer who worked on a lot of Dr. Who episodes at the Radiophonic studios.

Bookended by the original Dr. Who Theme and it's 1980 re-working by Peter Howell, the bulk of this collection is made up of Delia Derbyshire's wonderfully otherwordly and sensous creations, John Baker's quirky and inventive rhythmic workouts and three fantastic tracks by Glynis Jones (wrongly spelled Johns in the ID3-tags, by the way). Also included are Dudley Simpson's theme for The Tomorrow People and two tracks by David Cain, the short but charming Crossbeat and the impressive musique concrète-piece War Of The Worlds.

If you want to get the full albums, head over to the XYZ Cosmonaut. And here's a pretty fantastic and insanely well researched essay that's well worth reading, even if you only have a passing interest in the Workshop.

The knob-twiddling lady on the photo is Delia Derbyshire and that's Ron Grainer looking over her shoulder. The painting by Bridget Riley doesn't really have anything to do with the Workshop, I just thought it suits the music's proto-psychedelic pop modernism quite nicely.

Ennio Morricone - Danger, Diabolik

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One of the most fascinating and unique things about Italian pop culture is the popularity of the fumetti neri: crime, mystery or spy comic books in black and white aimed primarily at young adults and characterized by dark atmospheres, a lot of casual violence and twisted (anti-)heroes. One of the most popular fumetti neri-characters is the black clad super criminal Diabolik, a ruthless and totally amoral sociopath. (Oddly, sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani, who created Diabolik in 1962 and wrote the series for over twenty years, look like harmless, slightly spinsterish elementary school teachers).

In 1968 the adventures of the glamorous and stylish super villain were turned into a feature film directed by b-movie auteur Mario Bava. I haven't been able to see the movie yet, but this sounds like a very promising combination. Though he lost it somewhat by the seventies, Bava was one of the most astonishing European directors, especially considering the constraints of the Euro-exploitation movie industry he was working in, and he created at least one true masterpiece of formally radical modernist film making with his early giallo thriller Sei donne per l'assessino (Blood And Black Lace).

Ennio Morricone's Diabolik soundtrack is a lushly textured, highly enjoyable slice of vintage spy twang with a slightly psychedelic bent and those soft female vocals typical for his work of the time. Not necessarily essential Morricone, but definitely a fun listen and the main theme Deep Deep Down is really quite beguiling. The source for this rip is a sort of semi-legit cd recorded from either the DVD or the Laser Disc of the English dubbed version (hence the dialogue snippets and a few sound effects). Danger, Diabolik was never officially released on lp or cd and the master tapes were allegedly destroyed in a fire years ago.

I can't remember where I got this rip (most likely some torrent download), but whoever the original uploader was - mad props to him/her!

Vangelis - Blade Runner bootlegs

After listening to Vangelis' Blade Runner album for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I developed a bit of an obsession for the music of Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic. As you probably know, the original soundtrack never gained an official release. For reasons much speculated over Vangelis obviously refused to participate in a soundtrack album back in 1982. So what saw the light of day after the film's opening were de facto-cover versions of some themes from the soundtrack: A bunch of studio musos were hired to record orchestral arrangements of Vangelis' electronic music. The result is a kind of James Last-ization of the wonderful original score and should be avoided by all means.

Finally, Vangelis released a Blade Runner album in 1994, twelve years after the movie. This isn't a soundtrack album, but rather a concept album based on the film. Like Vangelis said in interviews, the record consists of music that was composed during his work on the Blade Runner score. So what you get is music from the film that's for the most part edited and/or has new intros and endings attached to it. There's also four tracks which where obviously intended for the soundtack and ultimately not used. Some of the tracks also have snippets of dialogue at the beginning, none of which correspond with the placement of the music in the actual movie. It's a great record, sort of Vangelis' personal evocation of the film, but a far shot from being any kind of soundtrack album.

All this information was new to me and I decided to track down some of the bootlegs on the net which actually proved to be quite easy. So here is my Blade Runner-mega post with two versions of the soundtrack (the best ones available from what I've heard) and one very special goodie.

First up, there's the Gongo Edition, purportedly a Romanian bootleg. It also contains the short cue Ladd Company Logo by John Williams, composed when Vangelis' involvement in the score wasn't sure, and Bicycle Riders (Harps Of The Ancient Temple) by Gail Laughton. It's a music-only version, so there's no dialogue or ambience, and I guess it's your best choice if you want the main themes without most of the reprises and incidental music.

The second version is the two disc ESPER Edition, generally considered to be the definite representation of the score. It contains virtually the complete underscore including incidental music and various reprises. Occasionally, there's also some ambience and dialogue from the film, though in contrast to the official Vangelis release it actually matches with the underscore. I think both versions have their merits: while I personally find that the shorter Gongo Edition works better as an album of music per se, the ESPER bootleg is a unique and hauntingly beautiful evocation of the film. So get them both, after all they're for free!

Los Angeles, November 2019 was also produced by the people who did the ESPER edition. It's actually not another bootleg version of the soundtrack. Instead, it uses ambience and sound effects from the film (and, according to some sources, also from the Blade Runner video game) along with some of the music low in the mix to recreate the atmosphere of Blade Runner's world. It's a kind of aural travelogue through the film's near future L.A., a somnambulic drift through a seedy, bustling, rain soaked moloch of a city. To give you an idea, think of a brooding, nocturnal urbane counterpart to KLF's Chill Out album. Btw, all the tracks segue into each other, so if you want to burn this to cd you should do so without pauses.

All three bootlegs are bit torrent downloads, so once again big up the original uploaders!

Bernard Herrmann - The Day The Earth Stood Still

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Lucky me! I downloaded this via bit torrent and was quite surprised that there are two bonus tracks which are not on the Arista-release still in print (though a bit hard to come by). So I did a quick research on the net and this is what Soundtrack Collector tells me:

"A 24K Gold CD, part of a limited 2500-copies LaserDisc box, contains additional 18 minutes of alternate Theremin mixes, studio rehersals and outtakes."

So this is obviously a real rarity. The bonus tracks are not really essential, but it's nice to have them anyway when, like me, you are 1. a somewhat anally retarded music geek, 2. a major fan of Bernard Herrmann's film scores and 3. a complete sucker for the theremin. In any case, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" is not only one of the best sci-fi scores ever, it is also simply a great record in its own right. So treat yourself to some theremin-drenched otherworldly eerieness!