CDOTD 2/25/2023

 Claudio Simonetti: Opera OST (Deep Red)

Purchased at Jerry's Records' Future Zone

I like that there are associations between particular film directors and composers. I didn't use the word "relationship" because in some cases I don't know what sort of relationship they might have had.

Often it's their best work. Consider: Hitchcock/Herrmann, Honda/Ifukube Leone/Morricone, Burton/Elfman (although I strongly dislike Danny Elfman's work), Cronenberg/Shore, PPaul Thomas Anderson/Greenwood, Spielberg/Williams. So too could be said of Dario Argento and Goblin/Claudio Simonetti. 

I don't know much about the Goblin story. Some version of Goblin exists with Claudio at the helm to this day. Without question, they are best known for their soundtrack work in Deep Red and Suspiria. I guess there are a few non-soundtrack albums to their credit, but the great majority of their output is film work.

Goblin's name is replaced with Simonetti's around the time of 1985's Demons, a film produced but not directed by Dario. This work, the film directed by Dario with a Claudio composing credit, dates to 1987. 

I've never seen it. That hasn't stopped me from listening to a soundtrack album before. I'll probably get to it sometime, many of Argento's films are available for little to no cost via streaming services. 

[An aside. Ugh. The aging man in me who remembers broadcast TV with an antenna bristles a little at the idea of streaming television services, much as I also appreciate receiving them. Tubi in particular has given me the chance to catch up on viewing many of the banned British "Video Nasties" titles. I draw the line at Italian cannibal movies, though.]

The Suspiria soundtrack is an absolute classic. I don't think even Deep Red reaches its level of intensity and volume. Suspiria comes closer to an experience of sight and sound, not just a cinematic viewing. That's a high bad to set, and it's unsurprising that nothing else in the Goblin/Simonetti catalog reaches that level. 

What do we have here? There's a classical-leaning main theme, unsurprising considering the theme and story of the movie. There are two selections by the metal band Steel Grave, which I am reading is another name for the Italian band Gow. There's only one LP under the Gow name, and Steel Grave only has a few soundtrack credits. They are, shall we say, rather average. Triangulate and average even period LA hair metal bad at the time, and you have some idea of what Steel Grave sounds like. 

There's a point I made about Frank Zappa previously, and that his embracement of early digital technology makes that era of his work sound particularly dated. It's the analog keyboards and recording techniques that have ultimately endured. I can't help but think the same thing, maybe even more, about Simonetti's work on this soundtrack. Right from the first moments of this recording, those FM synths really place this in a particular time. We're back in the mid- to late-80s! It's a sound I don't particularly like. 

There's also a bit of an elusive quality of Goblin's best recordings that's missing here, and that's the sense of sounding like a band. I like that quality. There's something about a collection/collective of individuals banding together to create a group identity and sound. Goblin had a sound, and that sound was great. Heavy, progessive-ish, metal-ish, dynamic. They sound like a particular thing, not an anonymous studio band. 

I could say the same for jazz groups. I like the groups that have a group identity. John Coltrane was unquestionably at the center of his famous quartet, but the John Coltrane Quartet had a sound. To change any one player (though Jimmy Garrison was rather in the background much of the time) would be to immediately changed the group dynamic. 

There are good moments to this work, especially when Simonetti does some backgroundish mood cues. To be fair to him, can everything he does be as engaging for listening separately from the cinematic experience than those two famous Goblin works I mention above? No. They're a high standard. Still, I could have used something a little less bland than this work, despite some good qualities.

I saw the current Goblin play live to Suspiria recently. It was great fun, and it felt like the music was finally at the proper volume. The band? Of the other three players, at least two probably hadn't been born when the film was originally released.

Claudio said that his grandmother was from Pittsburgh. Claudio himself is Italian and speaks with a noticeable accent. I wondered, how could that happen? Usually immigration happens into the US, not emigration out. It's not particularly important, I just wondered about it.