BY DARREN ALLISON
Cinema
Retro has always prided itself on exploring the most diverse range of
soundtrack genres. Not only do we cover the classics, but also the more obscure
such as Production and Library music but also specialist labels such as All
Score Media and Cineploit – a label which offers new soundtrack scores produced
in a retro style and as homage to cult films of the past. At their heart, they
are all projects devised to keep cult film music of the past very much alive
and to the fore in the present day.
Rashomon
– Ashcan copy – Filmmusic Vol. III (Cine 21) Release date 25th October 2019
Originally issued in 2011, Ashcan Copy is the third instalment in Rashomon's Film Music series of LPs. Cineploit
Records is proud to present this re-release, and to introduce the record to a
wider audience than the 150 lucky souls who snagged a copy of the ultra-limited
initial release on Hlava Records. Active since 2009, Rashomon is the solo
project of Matt Thompson, also of Cineploit mainstays Zoltan. This is his
second release on the label under the Rashomon name, following 2014's LP/DVD
extravaganza The Cameraman's Revenge:
Film Music Vol. 4 – the final release in the Film Music series to date. The previous edition to this, 2009's The Finishing Line: Film Music Vol. 2,
had focused on recreating the psychological mind-state of the wilder end of
1970s British public information films. By way of change Ashcan Copy is presented as an album
of soundtrack cues from films that were, for one reason or another, never
released. The films, hailing from Italy, Japan and the U.S. (among others)
supposedly date from the 1950s to the 1970s and were (according to the
extensive sleeve notes) exactingly sourced from film archives across Europe.
In reality, all the music is self-composed. The eight
tracks include elements of noise, folk, psychedelia, prog and noir-jazz within
their elaborate constructions, created with panoply of instrumentation
including the atmospheric sounding Mellotron, zither, home-made percussion,
Fender Rhodes, harmonium, Mini-Moog and more. Delicate and sensuous, heavy and
oppressive – the record negotiates these musical contradictions while retaining
a single-minded pursuit of strangeness and surprise.
Having finally found its spiritual place on soundtrack
specialist label Cineploit, Ashcan
Copy has finally come home. The album’s fabric is woven seamlessly
throughout Cineploit’s core, signature sound. Running around 40 minutes, Ashcan
Copy will take you on a dark, brooding journey - but it’s simply the nature of
the beast. In context, the music would never sound out of place if set against
some psychedelic piece of Giallo or (as in the album’s opening track) ‘Double
Kill’ in a gritty slice of 70s Poliziotteschi . Cineploit excel in this
particular area of subgenre film music. Freakish and fascinating, it hits the
spot very nicely. The whole album has been completely remixed and includes a
bonus new track. The whole package (while strictly limited) is again in line
with Cineploit’s exceptional standards with an LP/CD set (180g Vinyl 300
coloured bone/red mix /200 black. housed in plastic outer sleeve) and the CD
housed in a matching card gatefold sleeve.
Morlock – Ancient Paths – (Cine 22) Release date 25th
October 2019
Prog drummer Andrew Prestidge branches out into the
field of electronic music with his solo synthesizer project MORLOCK! After
several years spent holding down the drum stool with acts Angel Witch, Electric
Wizard, Warning, Zoltan, The Osiris Club and Suns of the Tundra – Andrew sat
down with his keyboard collection, a 4-track recorder and a selection of sonic
screwdrivers to create a new kind of music. The space-rock jams contained on
'Ancient Paths' are influenced as much by the retro sci-fi soundtracks of John
Carpenter and the folk-horror that seeps into every corner of the British
Isles. Andrew also takes progressive elements such as 70s Tubeway Army and
mixes them into an impressive filmic mélange, bringing all of the component
elements together and working to great effect.
Andrew's previous experience in live-soundtrack
performances ranges from silent films (performing at Stewart Lee's ATP Festival
with Suns of the Tundra to a 1919 film detailing Shackleton's expedition to
Antarctica) to reworking vintage horror scores with Zoltan. For Ancient Paths,
many of the tracks reference occult literature and cinema, such as Fritz Lang's
Metropolis 'Rotwang's Furnace', Phantasm 'Morningside', H.P. Lovecraft's Colour
Out Of Space 'Blasted Heath', and the comics of Jack Kirby 'Kirby Oberon'. The
band name itself is of course a nod to H.G. Wells's classic 1895 novel 'The
Time Machine'. So there is plenty of pedigree involved in this album. Considering
Andrew Prestidge’s background as a Prog drummer, it was a welcoming surprise to
find this album a great deal more ‘gentil’ and ‘otherworldly’. Tracks such as ‘Kirby
Oberon’ have a real haunting quality while tracks such as ‘Godspeed the Plough’
have a melancholy Celtic thread woven throughout them. It all makes for a very
nice and eclectic mix. The entire
package is also a strictly limited one. The LP/CD set consists of 180g Vinyl (300
x 2-coloured) and (200 x black) with UV spot on front & back and a printed
Inner sleeve housed in plastic outer sleeve. The CD is also included as a bonus
CD (housed in a cardboard gatefold sleeve) also with UV spot finishing and a printed
Inner sleeve, all of which is very impressive.
Check them out at https://www.cineploit.com/