The Bird With The Crystal Tuneage

An Italian Exploitation Soundtrack Playlist

A little while back I compiled a short playlist of Italian soundtrack queues for subscribers to The Quietus¹. All the choices came from the heyday of Italian exploitation film - roughly the late ‘60s to the mid ‘80s - and, in order to whittle my options down a little, I concentrated on horror movies. This left a whole bunch of great tracks from other cinematic genres – spaghetti westerns, poliziotteschi, Eurosmut etc – on the bench, and because I’m the kind of music fan than just has to make everybody aware of his fabulous taste, the situation needed remedying. So, in order to satisfy my obscurantist tendencies, and to ease myself back into regular writing after the Christmas break, I thought I’d compile a follow-up list that went a bit further afield.

What is there left to say about the music composed for Italian cinema in this period? Some of the most innovative composers of the post war years, names like Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani and Fabio Frizzi, all jostling for paying gigs soundtracking the flood of films coming from the studios; putting music to everything from bloodthirsty gangster movies to skin flicks, probably acutely aware that the pictures they were composing for were somewhat below their talents, but, hey, a gig’s a gig; packed into studios with pipe smoking session musicians in roll neck jumpers, cranking out some of the most innovative and mind bending music of the era. Later on, as the counterculture took a hold, long hairs like Goblin and Libra got in on the action, bringing rock influences to the forefront. The music got heavier, fuzzier, the electronic elements often placed front and centre as the movies cycled through fads and trends at a dizzying rate. Barbarian movies one week, Mad Max clones the next.

The quality of the music that emerged from this period is astounding. Due to the short time frames afforded to the composers, unselfconscious innovation became the norm. There’s no space to worry about whether or not you’re breaking new ground when you’ve got a one week turnaround and a serious martini habit to satisfy, so you get it done as quickly as possible and rely on skill and raw talent to get you through the day. Thankfully there was more than enough of both to go around. The music created during this period is some of the most innovative and expressive ever made, as this small list hopefully goes some way to proving.

Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi & Vincenso Tempera – ‘Vai Gorilla’

(From Vai Gorilla, 1975, dir. Tonino Valerii)

Probably the most well-known track on this list – it’s been sampled a few times and was a formative influence on the sound of Eddie Chacon’s haunting Pleasure, Love and Happiness album - this lovelorn shuffle, the work of a three-man murderer’s row of Italian soundtrack talent, finds composer Fabio Frizzi away from the job for which he’s most well-known: providing the scores for infamous Lucio Fulci movies like City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond and Zombie Flesh Eaters. Whereas his work for those films relied on dank atmospherics, warbling synthesised choirs and an oppressive sense of dread, ‘Vai Gorilla’ is an airy, melancholic stroll, with a synth bass line that purrs like a Merlin engine. I’ve never managed to catch the film, but it apparently concerns a bodyguard (“Gorilla”, in the Italian slang of the time) being hired to look after a shady businessman, which given the Italosploitation propensity for long winded titles cashing in on regional fads, would probably be translated in the UK to something like Minder Punches The Years Of Lead.

Goblin – ‘Connexion’

(From Contamination, 1980, dir. Luigi Cozzi)

A gut-spraying mash up of Alien and The Quatermass Experiment, with an unexpected swerve into Dr. No territory in the final third, Contamination was director Luigi Cozzi’s attempt to follow up the success of his Star Wars cash in, Star Crash, with another, hopefully similarly successful, science fiction film. Sadly, the stars didn’t align for Luigi that time and Contamination emerged from the pod as a bit of a dog’s dinner, fatally compromised by producer interference and a lack of budget. Luckily Cozzi had Goblin on hand to provide a score and the result is one of their best, most underrated, soundtracks. With their prog rock and funk influences to the fore and Fabio Pignatelli’s bass prowling around the top of the mix like a randy panther, Contamination is at the head of the list of non-Dario Argento Goblin soundtracks, alongside their work on Joe D’amato’s formidably sleazy Beyond The Darkness. Faults aside, Contamination is a great late-night-and-several-drinks-in exploitation film. Meaning you’ll probably fall asleep during the boring bits, but the good bits are loud enough that you’ll wake up in time to see all the exploding intestines.

Claudio Simonetti – ‘Nuke Is Over’

(From The New Barbarians, 1983, dir. Enzo G. Castellari)

The Italian’s went for Mad Max in a big way, leading to a seemingly unending slick of post-apocalyptic, Road Warrior-aping nonsense, of which The New Barbarians AKA Warriors Of The Wasteland is one of the finest examples. Despite basically concerning a post-nuke roving tribe of predatory homosexuals² driving souped up golf carts around a quarry, The New Barbarians is miraculously entertaining due to the finely honed genre instincts of Enzo G. Castellari, director of the original Inglorious Bastards and a man almost incapable of making a boring film. Add to that some strikingly bizarre production choices (Do you like bubbles? I hope you like bubbles), a Fred “The Hammer” Williamson performance so threatening it feels like he might reach out and bitch slap you through the screen, and a stuntman getting catapulted into the air every five minutes and you’ve got entertainment at its Mad Max-imum. But it's the kick ass electronic score from former Goblin Claudio Simonetti that ties it all together. Simonetti’s involvement with the nascent Italo disco scene produced some brilliant music, and his soundtracks from this period are stuffed with full bore electronic bangers, of which ‘Nuke Is Over’ is one of the best. However, we must temper our applause because he is also responsible for writing Black Lace’s ‘Superman’ and is thus going to hell.

Mario Migliardi – ‘Matalo! (Theme Song)’

(From Matalo!, 1970 dir. Cesare Canevari)

The influence of the counterculture was keenly felt in the Italian westerns of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, their casts of wandering existentialist loners and general atmosphere of haunted disillusionment suiting the mood of the times, what with the dream of the hippy sixties beginning to curdle at the edges and Italy ramping up to the years of lead, which would see any hopes of peaceful revolution stomped in a flurry of violence that was to last for two decades. Several of the big name Italian exploitation directors tried their hands at this new breed of cowboy movie, with Lucio Fulci (Four Of The Apocalypse), Giulio Questi (Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!) and Enzo G. Castellari (Keoma) all turning in fine efforts. Cesare Canevari’s Matalo! Is one of the oddest of the Italian acid westerns, with a vibe closer to Edgar Allen Poe than Man With No Name, and a blaringly anachronistic heavy rock soundtrack perfectly in keeping with its hero’s outfit of distressed paisley and, um… unique choice of weapon³. It’s a disjointed film, with a fantastic opening leading to a lot of standing around bickering and our ostensible hero not even appearing until the halfway mark. The soundtrack, however, is never less than stellar, at points sounding less like the music for a western and more akin to the kind of droning communal freak rock being simultaneously pioneered by Germany’s Amon Duul 2 on albums like 1970’s Yeti.

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis – ‘Keoma (Instrumental)’

(From Keoma, 1976, dir. Enzo G. Castellari)

And so, a final ride into the sunset. Castellari’s late period contribution to the acid western is maybe the best of its kind. A haunting and lyrical ghost dance, taking in themes of redemption and betrayal, stuffed to the gills with Christ imagery and held together by the piercing blue eyes of Franco Nero. It’s Shakespeare by way of The Searchers and one of the best examples of its peculiar genre. Keoma’s soundtrack, however, can alienate. Castellari had fallen under the spell of McCabe And Mrs. Miller, and the score’s use of basso profundo vocals, obviously hoping to imitate Leonard Cohen’s contributions to Altman’s masterpiece, are an acquired taste. To this end, our final selection is the gorgeous instrumental version of the main theme, composed by the De Angelis brothers, about whom a whole article would have to be written in order to do them justice. However they’re probably best known to UK readers for composing the music for the hugely popular cartoon Around The World With Willy Fog, the theme tune of which still burns behind the eyeballs of anyone who grew up watching Children’s BBC in the 1980s.

That's all for today. Let me know if you've enjoyed this little trip into the wilds of Italosploitation in the comments. Until next time… Adios, amigos!

1. https://thequietus.com/subscriber-area/organic-intelligence/italian-film-sountracks-goblin/

This will only be viewable to subscribers of that august publication, but if you haven’t subscribed to The Quietus then do consider it. Especially if you’re a fan of the kind of below-the-radar racket I’m talking about here.

2. In true Italosploitation style it’s both worse and better than it sounds.

3. Boomerangs. He uses boomerangs. They really build it up as well, and then he just kind of chucks them at people until they fall over.