The sixth installment of the Shadows of the Unseen series once more offers an adventurous voyage of discovery through the landscape of cinematic sound and music. Some influential sound studios mentioned in the previous post are represented again: The Polish Radio Experimental Studio (Krzysztof Penderecki), Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (Vladimir Ussachevsky and students Alice Fields and Pril Smiley, as well as Ilhan Mimaroğlu), BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Delia Derbyshire and – associated – David Vorhaus) and GRM (François-Bernard Mâche’s only and superb soundtrack to L’annonce faite à Marie, which comes highly recommended by Stephen O’Malley – but is unfortunately out of print).
Brian Gascoigne, David Briscoe and David Vorhaus’ justly celebrated OST for Saul Bass’ only feature film Phase IV makes several appearances to celebrate its release (in restored version) on BluRay (via Carlotta).
Also just released: Ron Geesin’s soundtracks for Stephen Dwoskin (just out on Trunk Records) – which reminded me of the great music that Gavin Bryars’s made for the same filmmaker (never released, but you can find a taste here).
Shout out to Finders Keepers Records who made me discover the wonderful music that Andrzej Korzynski composed for Andrzej Zulawski, Andrzej Wajda, and others, but also the soundtracks for Jean Rollin’s films, amongst others by François Tusques (an influential figure in the French free jazz scène, who often worked with Barney Wilen, who made an appearance in the previous mix) and Pierre Raph.
Another shout out to Shinjuku Thief who meticulously collected countless obscure musical fragments of Japanese films – many I hadn’t heard of before, so thank you! – some of which are present in this mix.
Some musical pieces might ring a bell, as they have been sampled or appropriated in recent years (already in earlier mixes, notably François de Roubaix’s Dernier Domicile Connu, as sampled by Kendrick Lamar), most famously Gianfranco & Gian Piero Reverberi’s music for Django, Prepare a Coffin (by Gnarls Barkley), but also Carter Burwell’s OST for Psycho III (by Aim, but it could just as well have been DJ Shadow or, why not, Burial). And I’m pretty sure the Radiohead band members have been intensively listening to Giovanni Fusco (as they have done to Penderecki).
While working on this mix, I have been enjoying unearthing some obscure horror and mystery films, like The Premonition, The Ballad of Tam Lin, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death and, especially, William Dieterle’s thrilling Portrait of Jennie, whose soundtrack was originally commissioned to Bernard Herrmann who only finished one (all-too forgotten but terrific) song (while the title song by J. Russell Robinson, for its part, went on to become a hit for Nat King Cole). Every mix seems to stir up the joy of discovery, and I hope you feel the same!
1. Vladimir Ussachevsky, Alice Fields, Pril Smiley – Line of Apogee (Lloyd Williams, 1968)
2. Henry Mollicone, Pril Smiley – The Premonition (Robert Allen Schnitzer, 1976)
3. Delia Derbyshire – The World About Us / The Last Caravans (BBC TV series, 1967)
4. Andrzej Korzynski – Diabel [The Devil] (Andrzej Zulawski, 1972)
5. Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – Honjin satsujin jiken [Death at an Old Mansion] (Yôichi Takabayashi, 1975)
6. Toshiro Mayuzumi – Ningen jôhatsu [A Man Vanishes] (Shôhei Imamura, 1967)
7. Ron Geesin – Chinese Checkers (Stephen Dwoskin, 1965)
8. François Tusques – Le viol du vampire (Jean Rollin, 1967)
9. Włodzimierz Kotonski – Labirynt (Jan Lenica, 1963)
10. Krzysztof Penderecki - Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie [The Saragossa Manuscript] (Wojciech Has, 1965)
11. François-Bernard Mâche – L’annonce faite à Marie (Alain Cuny, 1991)
12. Ilhan Mimaroğlu – Fellini – Satyricon [Fellini’s Satyricon] (Federico Fellini, 1969)
13. Teizo Matsumura – Chi no mure [Apart from Life] (Kei Kumai, 1970)
14. Franco Battiato – Brunelleschi (Roberto Cacciaguerra, RAI TV film 1978, unused)
15. Giovanni Fusco – La guerre est finie (Alain Resnais, 1966)
16. Gianfranco & Gian Piero Reverberi – Preparati la bara! [Django, Prepare a Coffin] (Ferdinando Baldi, 1968)
17. Marianne Faithful – Made in U.S.A. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
18. Pierre Raph – La rose de fer (Jean Rollin, 1973)
19. Andrzej Korzynski – Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
20. Toru Takemitsu – Tôkyô sensô sengo hiwa [The Man Who Left His Will on Film] (Nagisa Ôshima, 1970)
21. Toshi Ichiyanagi – Erosu purasu gyakusatsu [Eros + Massacre] (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1969)
22. Egisto Macchi – Nucleo centrale investigativo (RAI TV series, 1974)
23. Bernard Herrmann, Jennifer Jones – Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948)
24. Hikaru Hayashi – Kôshikei [Death by Hanging] (Nagisa Ōshima, 1968)
25. Brian Gascoigne, David Briscoe, David Vorhaus – Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974)
26. Bo Harwood – The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, 1976)
27. Orville Stoeber – Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (John Hancock, 1971)
28. Joel Haertling – I… Dreaming (Stan Brakhage, 1988)
29. Carter Burwell – Psycho III (Anthony Perkins, 1986)
30. Gavin Bryars – Central Bazaar (Stephen Dwoskin, 1976)
31. Light Forms (Music For Light Bulbs And Churches) (Steve Roden, 2002)
32. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998, based on the Andy Hardy film series (George B. Seitz et al., 1937–1958) + rework by Christian Fennesz (2001)
33. Gino Marinuzzi Jr. – Terrore nello spazio [Planet of the Vampires] (Mario Bava, 1965)
34. David Vorhaus – The Ballad of Tam Lin (Roddy McDowall, 1970)
35. Vladimir Ussachevsky, Alice Fields, Pril Smiley – Line of Apogee (Lloyd Michael Williams, 1968)
36. Brian Gascoigne, David Briscoe, David Vorhaus – Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974)