VOTD 6/08/2023 #2

Richard Einhorn: The Prowler OST (Waxworks)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

Here's the second of my purchases of someone's Waxworks vinyl dump at Jerry's. I wrote about Altered States yesterday. 

I might have passed on this one.  I don't know the film The Prowler at all, I guess it's an early entry into the 80s slasher craze. It's not a genre of film in general known for their standout soundtrack music, with the exception of Halloween of course. 

What caught my eye was the composer, Richard Einhorn. He's not someone I know anything about except that he did the music for the excellent Shock Waves. It's more-or-less the first Nazi zombie movie. It's a bit slow at first, but gets eerie when the dried up yellow-skinned undead Nazi supersoldiers start ascending from the water in and around a remote tropical island. Peter Cushing and David Carradine may get top billing, but the real star is Brooke Adams from The Dead Zone and 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It has an excellent electronic sound track by Einhorn, something of a favorite of mine. That was enough reason to take a chance on this.

The biggest surprise is that it's not really electronic at all except for a little bit of processing, maybe a synth in one or two spots. It's a studio orchestra playing the music, telling me that it was very thoroughly scored. Einhorn has some skills, to be sure, even if this isn't exactly what I was expecting. There's a bit of lush romanticism. I saw the trailer and the beginning is set at the graduation dance in 1945, so no doubt that's the connection. It's a bit later in we start hearing more of the horror movie tropes: glissando strings up and down, tone clusters, flutter-tongue flute, driving percussion. A later cue, a chromatic figure, would sound especially at home in a 70s-era Italian horror movie.

I don't want to say nostalgia, because it's not quite the right word. But, this seems like a well budgeted soundtrack for a real orchestra (albeit probably not a large symphonic orchestra), something that probably wouldn't exist for such a film within a few years. And when MIDI production becomes a factor, forget it. So much can be accomplished by a single person sitting at a desktop. I like the power that puts into a single person's hands, but it would take a tremendous effort to make something that sounded as rich as Einhorn's orchestrations. 

I've noticed that the mastering on this and the other Waxworks I bought is by Thomas Dimuzio. He appears to be their go-to as a mastering engineer. Good for him, I'm happy to see him earning off projects like this. Being a Buchla-based free improvisor will only earn you so much. The audio itself sounds great, though the pressing a little questionable, especially on disc one. It looks great, fatigue-green, light green, and rose splattered vinyl. But ultimately, I guess black vinyl still sounds best.