Ennio Morricone — Teorema/La stagione dei sensi/Vergogna schifosi

This excellent disk brings together three great & varied soundtracks from the late 60’s and illustrates perfectly Morricone's versatility, creativity and real genius as a soundtrack composer.

Firstly we have the five tracks by Morriocoine (the rest used were Mozart’s) for the 1968 Pier Paolo Pasolini film Teorama which was highly scandalous at time of release due to its mix of religion and sex. It opens up with two tracks of very edgy, discordant and experimental modern classical music - all doomy sawing strings, big drums, and demented/creepy choirs. Then for the next track we drop into Italian 60’s guitar pop/lounge music, with the track after this sliding into brassy influenced Spanish/surf groove. These tracks really illustrate the feeling of surprise, invention and pure experimentation that is at play within all three soundtracks here.

The next nine tracks from the Massimo Franciosa directed and Dario Agento written 1969 psychodrama Stagione dei sensi(Season of the Senses) which featured Udo Kier. The tracks here are a mix of a lot more gritty and upbeat mixing quite noisy (for the time) rock with clever brass embellishments and more loungey slightly sensual and sunny female vocal excursions. With one track in particular worth a mention for its mix of electrified sitar and moody string work - pure audio gold really.

Lastly we have the soundtrack for Mauro Severino 1969 thriller Vergogna schifosi (Dirty Angels). It’s made up of 6 tracks and is the least varied material here with most of the tracks been a variation on a more mediterranean lounge take on Midnight Cowboy type tune, with chanted male and often quite sensual female vocals. It's guaranteed to get stuck in your head for hours after it’s played out.

All in all an hour and five minutes playing time for these three highly replayble and varied soundtracks, which as usual with Fin de Siècle media soundtrack reissues come in an handsome six panel full colour digipak sleeve with a movie stills and a write-ups about each movie. Certainly a great handful of Morricone soundtracks and one of early 2008 highlights.