Sorgini, Giuliano – “Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue, The” – [Death Waltz Recording Co]

Death Waltz Recordings is a London-based label that releases gorgeously glossy editions of classic horror film soundtracks. This LP is their 2012 pressing of Giuliano Sorgini’s score to the 1974 Spanish/Italian-produced hippies-vs.-cops-vs.-zombies schlock attack, released in the US as ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’ and an absolute classic of good-bad horror cinema, notable (to this reviewer at least) as the source of the dialogue sample at the beginning of Electric Wizard’s manifesto track ‘Wizard In Black.’ “So what’s the music sound like, Gravy?” I’m glad you asked, children; the answer is: sometimes surprisingly abstract for a 70s film score. Actually, upon listening to this record I am forced to conclude that the score was the most competently executed aspect of the movie. There’s about a 50-50 split here between ominous, ridiculously prescient dark ambient work (punctuated by zombie moans!) (A3, A5, B1, B3) and rad 70s nonsense: flutes, cocaine bass, bongos, electric organ, and the kind of wrought string arrangements only an Italian in the 70s could have written. Sometimes it’s ELO funky (A1, A4, B8), sometimes it’s obviously a film score (B2, B6), but the more experimental tracks are the best: they’re still genuinely eerie 38 years later. Death Waltz, according to their website, consider this score a precursor to Goblin’s revolutionary work for 1977′s ‘Suspiria,’ and I agree with them. Methinks it’s time to watch the film again. Check out the liner notes by Stephen Thrower of Cyclobe and Coil, who (I didn’t know this) is also a published Italian gore film expert.