THE ROPE AND THE GUN.

 

I must be truthful and say I literally just stumbled upon this great soundtrack when I was just looking around the various sites online. This is a superb soundtrack, but I also should be honest with you and say I knew nothing of the movie or even if it was indeed a movie or maybe a game or it’s just an album? Well the latter applies it is a soundtrack to what is called a fake western, so no film sadly, but a soundtrack yes there is and I am so grateful that it has been produced and released. You know me I am a sucker for a western and with a title such as THE ROPE AND THE GUN well I am sold straight away, but this is truly wonderful, there are so many mini salutes musically to composers such as Ennio Morricone, Francesco De Masi, Bruno Nicolai and others such as Stelvio Cipriani, Nico Fidenco, Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, Franco Micalizzi, Carlo Savona and their like, it is a tour de force of musical sounds and colours that hail directly from a bygone age of movie music with the focus being upon the sound and style of the Spaghetti western. However, saying that there is also an originality to the sound and style employed, the composer T.R.JOSSET fusing sounds of the more traditional western as in banjo and fiddles plus atmospheric and grand sounding horns in the style of Copeland with the now stock sounds that we now associate with the Italian or Spaghetti western as in, Harmonica, whistling, guitar and trumpet solos and upbeat and catchy interludes which in this case are straight out of the Morricone/Nicolai text book of music for westerns. So, it’s good guys! There are also a handful of Mexican Hispanic sounding guitar flamenco type passages that add weight and atmosphere to the proceedings. One track in-particular, is cue number three, YOUR PLACE AMONGST THE SWINE, (MAGDALENAS THEME) reminded me of the style employed by Carlo Rustichelli on MAN PRIDE AND VENGEANCE, not a western I know, but it has that kind of vibrancy, that Spanish/South American influence and flavour. Another piece is track number four, ARRIVING TO REDWATER, which is a blend of styles and instrumentation, with percussive elements giving support to banjo, guitar, harmonica and jaws harp, which combined to create an earthy and haunting piece. Then we are treated to TROUBLE BE A HAUNTED PREACHER (PREACHERS THEME) which opens with organ solo, giving the track a kind of irreverent but at the same time Holy sound, this soon fades and is replaced by guitar, backed with subdued percussive elements, that usher in slow but determined sounding strings, which deliver a driving and somewhat unrelenting theme that is noble but at the same time becomes forceful. I suppose the composer has been able to let loose fully with his creative and inventive ideas as he is not restricted by sequences and timings in the ordinary way of scoring a movie, and this certainly shows as he has fully developed some rich and attractive themes and has created a soundtrack that is filled with tension, drama and hints of melancholy.
It is one of those albums that one listens to and as soon as it is finished you return to the beginning and play it again. Well I did anyway. There can be no highlight tracks here because it would be impossible to single out any one, all the music here is good all of it is haunting and riveting. For fans of the Spaghetti western this will be a smorgasbord of sounds and styles, a plethora of musical references that will evoke so many memories. Fuzzy guitars rule alongside soaring trumpets and wailing harmonicas in the superb soundtrack to a film that was never made. Although the score is not symphonic, it certainly sounds it, one would be hard pressed to pick this out as a synthesised work, as it is of the highest quality. Please don’t miss this one, you will be sorry. I look forward to more from T,R, JOSSET.