The Haunting Influence of 60s and 70s Horror Movie Soundtracks and Other Strange Vinyl

Anyone who likes Illinois Department of Sound, Brian Eno, Legendary Pink Dots, or other sonic adventurers is bound to cross paths with the legendary composers of 60s and 70s Italian cinema soundtracks. Why?

Because these composers, including Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani, and scores of others have amazing, abstract, "experimental" and otherwise surreal non-linear sounds in those compositions.

Morricone recorded an impressive amount of improvised music and semi-improvised music, and some of that work is rather amazing. The sountrack to Dario Argento's Cat o'Nine Tails is a great example.

Track 2 on this soundtrack vinyl record rivals much of what passed for experimental music, ambient or industrial in the 1990s...this work is trippy, a bit hallucinatory (it would work as the soundtrack to your next fever dream), and daring, even for a film score.

Morricone isn't the only one from that era (which really should be extended to include the 1980s, I'm happily looking at YOU, Simon Boswell) who deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of what film scores should sound like.

Bruno Nicolai, who was Morricone's conductor, also delivers some great swirling and often psychadelic sounds to the mix.

Piero Umiliani released a lot of material in a similar vein but one stands out for a fan of Throbbing Gristle, Chris and Cosey, Coil, and the darker sounds of Wendy Carlos. The album, Musicaelettronica, features some a-bit-ahead-of-its-time synth and keyboard work worth examining:

I mention all this to say that when you see soundtrack vinyl creeping into our sale listings on the 'Zoo, it's because these sounds are heaviluy influential on JoesExplodingZoo bands including Paisley Babylon, Illinois Department of Sound, and Japan Versus Texas.

Soundtrack sounds, especially anything from the surrealist 60s, 70s, and 80s or the psychadelic equivalent are very welcome here. Other influential genres include Dub, looper music, ambient and ambient dub, some 90s industrial, Plunderphonics, and other sound experimenters.

Stay tuned as we add more of these to the inventory...there is a lot of amazing ground to cover with these vinyl records and you could do a lot worse than starting out with the composers listed here.

Joe Wallace
Joe's Exploding Zoo