If it's not quite kitsch, the music also isn't necessarily a profound moment in film music history but Lava seems unfettered by any restraint or even guidance as he throws everything and the kitchen sink into this menacing collection of cues. He really works that anachronistic instrument like crazy over the title theme before collecting a series of oddball sounds that, without images, make the film seem like it might have been heavier on sci-fi than horror. The same is true for Lava's urgent, theremin-laced score for Dracula Vs. The release notes that this score was so good that distributor Hemisphere Pictures actually used it two more times, including for the 1971 Al Adamson film Brain of Blood but as a time capsule of vintage horror sounds of a bit of spooky fun, Mad Doctor of Blood Island is definitely worth checking out. Additionally, the record closes with a vintage advertising spot for the film and an "Oath of Green Blood Intro," which advised audiences to drink a green 'blood' potion distributed before the movie as a gimmick. But the composer includes a handful of "Dance" tracks, including an alternate take, that bridge the gap between that theatricality and Martin Denny-style exotica, with lots of xylophone, cacophonous percussion and choral chanting. ![]() ![]() Ed Wood, and Howard Shore's Ed Wood, comes to mind. Arévalo's score sounds almost exactly like you would expect from most of the scoring of that time: melodramatic and ubiquitous, nudging the viewer along with an almost overwhelming sense of dread or suspense. Mad Doctor was an exploitation film starring Christopher Lee, originally released in 1969. I have a lot of admiration for anyone who counts these among their must-have holy grails, because I don't even know the films, much less their soundtracks, but the releases offer a thorough and high-quality collection of cues in packaging that provides some context about their respective legacies even if (like me) you're not already familiar with them. Real Gone Music presses a lot of interesting and unique records onto vinyl, and they just announced releases of two scores from these musicians, Arévalo's music for Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Lava's for Dracula Vs. Both have an extensive list of credits, but what they were making was never meant to be great art Arévalo was a Filipino actor who also happened to be a prolific composer, and Lava primarily worked in TV, with a few dalliances in film. This is just part of why composers like Tito Arévalo and William Lava are not well known, if they're known at all, to soundtrack collectors. But in between the Universal renaissance of the 1930s and '40s and the post- Psycho period when distributors began to subsidize horror at a higher price point, many of the scores that accompanied these films did not distinguish themselves as classics on the level of what came before or after. His scruffier, less commercially successful competitors were working with true shoestring budgets to bring their visions to life - and they seldom reserved the lion's share of them for the music. Part of the problem was that big-budget genre fare, especially horror, largely did not exist even after Rear Window and North By Northwest, Hitchcock didn't have the same resources for his proto-slasher movie Psycho. Generalization alert: Prior to 1970, horror scores were not nearly as often the exciting, complex affair that they later became as composers experimented with different genre influences and equipment, musique concrète exerted its influence, and sound design became a more vital (and sometimes difficult to distinguish) component of the filmmaking process. ![]() It's a great record for a funky séance, or a dinner party.Īnyway, onto the bona fide film scores. Any group that can recreate the timeless groove of Melvin Bliss' "Synthetic Substitution," as The Psychic Circle does on "The Eternal Colours," will always earn a special place in my hip-hop-loving heart but Seven Colours' seven tracks spotlight the way that contemporary musicians are absorbing the influence of horror movies, replicating the technique or style of composers they love, and then updating it with their own creativity. But before I get into this month's buffet of actual film music, I wanted to spotlight The Psychic Circle's Seven Colours of the Psychic Circle, a clearinghouse for funky, moody instrumentals that finds the halfway point between '70s horror luminaries like Ennio Morricone, Goblin and Stelvio Cipriani and contemporary ensembles such as El Michels Affair, Budos Band and BadBadNotGood. ![]() As the world continues to descend to a new level of hell, record labels continue to release some great titles - some current, some classic, and some ready for rediscovery.
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