Once again a re-issue from the Rome based soundtrack label, this time a classic Italian western soundtrack from Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, which is one of the genres best. Il Mercenario or A Professional Gun, is a must have soundtrack and if you have not already added this to your collection, this is the perfect opportunity to do so. Its a straight re-issue of the original LP recording and also the re-issues that have already appeared on compact disc and on digital platforms. It says in the technical data that it has been remastered, but in my opinion this was not needed as this score has always been presented in top quality sound, liner notes are by Claudio Fuiano (me thinks a proof reader is required seeing as this is the ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURESUNDTRACK according to the front cover). Anyway its a score worth having even with a spelling mistake and the erasing of Bruno Nicolai from the music by credit on the front cover too. Attention to detail BEAT Please.
Dragon’s Domain Records presents CHUCK CIRINO: EROTIC THRILLERS, featuring music composed by Chuck Cirino (CHOPPING MALL, NOT OF THIS EARTH, DEATHSTALKER II and RETURN OF SWAMP THING ) for two films from his filmography, SINS OF DESIRE and HAUNTING FEAR.
The success of BASIC INSTINCT in 1992 saw an incredible boom of like-minded erotic thrillers in the home video market. Released almost a year later, SINS OF DESIRE was directed by Jim Wynorski (CHOPPING MALL, NOT OF THIS EARTH, DEATHSTALKER II and RETURN OF SWAMP THING), written by Peter Liapis and Mark Thomas McGee, starring Gail Thackray, John Henry Richardson, Delia Sheppard, Tanya Roberts, Carrie Stevens, Nick Cassavetes, Jan-Michael Vincent, Becky LeBeau, Monique Parent and Ace Mask.
SINS OF DESIRE begins with Monica (Thackray), who is a patient of Dr. Callister (Richardson), a sex therapist. While she’s unconscious, Callister takes advantage of her and she panics, forcing him to kill her by accident. Callister and his wife, Jessica (Sheppard), also a doctor, bury Monica. Unknown to them, Monic was investigating their clinic for her boss, Mitchum (Cassavettes), a private detective. The Callisters hire a hitman (Vincent) to kill Mitchum. When he fails, they kill the hitman. After a former patient of Callister’s kills herself, her sister, Kay (Roberts) goes undercover as a nurse at the clinic to find out what happened. As Kay gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to Mitchum.
Based on the classic Edgar Allan Poe story ‘Premature Burial’, HAUNTING FEAR was written and directed Fred Olen Ray, starring Brinke Steven, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Henry Richardson, Delia Sheppard, Karen Black, Robert Clarke, Robert Quarry, Michael Berryman and Hoke Howell. Released in 1990, the film follows Victoria (Stevens), who has an irrational fear of being buried alive. Victoria consults her doctor (Clarke) and is given medication to help her sleep but this only amplifies her fears. Unable to help her, Dr. Carlton refers her to another doctor, Harcourt (Black), who begins using hypnotism to deal with Victoria’s mental block. Victoria’s husband, Terry (Richardson) has been secretly having an affair with his secretary, Lisa (Sheppard) and has racked up some serious debt. Terry conceives of a plan to kill Victoria and use the inheritance to pay off his debt. Terry and Lisa decide to bury Victoria alive in order to scare her to death but their plan backfires and Victoria returns for some bloody vengeance.
Chuck Cirino
Chuck Cirino did not start his career as a composer, but rather as a programmer in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania for a Public Access cable TV station, where he learned how to create TV shows by himself, without a crew. In his spare time, he experimented with the station’s video equipment and created a series of genre productions that allowed him the opportunity to learn how to incorporate special effects into his work. After relocating to California, Cirino transitioned into directing high-end special effects television commercials. His first work as composer was for the 1980 cult film GYPSY ANGELS, which starred Vanna White and Richard Roundtree. Since then he has scored films for Roger Corman, directed music videos for bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and The Dickies’ KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, and has recorded over 40 music soundtracks for feature films including SORCERESS, HARD TO DIE, TRANSYLVANIA TWIST, and many others. Most recently, he has scored A DOGGONE CHRISTMAS, A DOGGONE HOLLYWOOD and A DOGGONE ADVENTURE.
Chuck has worked as a producer, director, filmmaker, videographer, animator, special effects technician, editor, and composer. He executive produces and directs WEIRD TV, a television series featuring weird Americans, bizarre news, unbelievable events and outlandish skits. Chuck’s credits also include executive producer and director of the Sci Fi Channel projects, WORLDWIDE WEIRD and WARPED IN SPACE, and BABERELLAS, an independent Sci Fi feature distributed by Xenon Pictures.
Chuck also produced BURNING MAN 1994, the very first documentary on the subject. Chuck works and resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Flordilyn and a cat, Too Too. His spare time is spent growing an experimental back-yard, permaculture food forest. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and the liner notes have been written by noted author Randall Larson, with the participation of the composer.
Also from Dragon’s Domain CRAIG SAFAN: HORROR MACABRE VOLUME 2, featuring music composed by Craig Safan for two projects from his extensive filmography. CRAIG SAFAN: HORROR MACABRE VOLUME 2 includes music from NIGHTMARES, the 1983 horror anthology, along with SEDUCED BY MADNESS: THE DIANE BORCHARDT STORY, a 1996 television film.
Released in 1983, NIGHTMARES had its origins in a short-lived weekly television series titled DARKROOM on ABC hosted by James Coburn in which two horrific tales unfolded back-to-back within its hour-long time slot. The show was conceived in the vein of other short horror-thriller programs such as ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THRILLER, THE OUTER LIMITS, and NIGHT GALLERY.
In the year following the success of DARKROOM, rival network NBC moved to capitalize on anthology storytelling by commissioning Christopher Crowe and Jeffrey Bloom, who had written and directed a handful of episodes of DARKROOM, to write four short scripts to be assembled into a two-hour unnamed pilot directed by Joseph Sargent. Bolstered by distinguished acting talent including Emilio Estevez, Lance Henriksen, Christina Raines, William Sanderson, Veronica Cartwright, and Richard Masur, the completed pilot demonstrated genuine potential for the network. However, there was a small problem. The executives at NBC deemed the episodes too intense for television audiences. The television pilot was summarily scrapped in favor of resurrecting the anthology as a theatrical motion picture called NIGHTMARES released by Universal Pictures.
The music for NIGHTMARES was composed by Craig Safan, who had also composed most of the episodic music for DARKROOM. Safan had already made a name for himself scoring THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE and FADE TO BLACK and would further his career by authoring beloved scores for THE LAST STARFIGHTER, REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN and all two-hundred and seventy-one episodes of the hit television series CHEERS. Safan had just come off a particularly heartbreaking project when his entire score for WOLFEN was rejected and replaced by a score from another composer. Safan’s music for NIGHTMARES is a calculated blend of aleatoric orchestral music coupled with a heavy dose of synthesizers during one of the film’s most memorable segments.
SEDUCED BY MADNESS aired on the NBC network in 1996, presented in two episodes and starred the legendary Ann-Margret along with Peter Coyote, Leslie Hope, Christian Campbell, Hedy Burress, Tobey Maguire, Freddy Rodriguez, Cliff De Young, Dean Norris, Tomas Arana and Kurt Fuller. Ann-Margret plays Diane Kay Borchardt, a Wisconsin teacher’s aide convicted of hiring her students to spy on and eventually kill her estranged husband. SEDUCED BY MADNESS dramatizes the events leading to Borchardt’s conviction, life in prison without the possibility of parole until she has served forty-five years in prison. For SEDUCED BY MADNESS, Safan composed a chamber score—comprised primarily of strings, winds, and percussion.
Emmy-nominated and eight-time ASCAP award-winning composer Craig Safan has scored more than one hundred feature films, television and documentaries, has had more than 50 soundtrack albums of his music produced, as well as having three original albums of his own impressionistic music released. He’s been commissioned to compose for ballet as well as for live performance of silent films and was given the Poledouris Film Music Legend Award at the 2014 International Film Music Festival in Cordoba, Spain.
Mastered by James Nelson of Digital Outland. The booklet contains liner notes written by author and composer Brian Satterwhite and includes comments from the composer.
AVAILABLE NOW ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS FROM MOVIE SCORE MEDIA.
BUNKER. BY ANDREW MORGAN SMITH.
“A driving, thematic, and energetic listening experience”(mmi)
Original score from the 2022 horror thriller feature film directed by Adrian Langley, starring Roger Clark, Luke Baines and Kayla Radomski, produced by Buffalo Film-Works and Crossroad Productions, released by Blue Fox Entertainment (USA).
THE STORY: Trapped in a bunker during World War I, a group of soldiers are faced with an ungodly presence that slowly turns them against each other.
THE SCORE: “Bunker was a blast to work on. When the director, Adrian, first contacted me he specifically wanted to have a score in the neoclassical world. It needed to oscillate from pure horror to something far more classical in orientation. He challenged me by asking, ‘If a composer from the 40s wrote a horror score, what would it sound like?’. With that challenge I dove in and started creating. In addition to recording the score with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, I incorporated an instrument I affectionately call, the Piano Guts which is the soundboard of an upright piano with it’s strings still on it. I plucked it, struck it, bowed it, and rubbed it to create some wild noises and textures. That made for a wild soundscape for this body horror extravaganza.” – Andrew Morgan Smith.
THE COMPOSER: Composer Andrew Morgan Smith studied composition and music media at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. As a media composer, he started his career writing for SyFy movies and has now branched out into Indie film and other TV content. His credits include such hit films for the channel as A Sort of Homecoming, Zombie Shark, and A Deadly Affair. Andrew is no stranger to the world of horror scoring – his music for Jeepers Creepers 3 and You Might Be the Killer are also available from ScreamWorks Records.
MMS23008 BUNKER (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Music Composed by ANDREW MORGAN SMITH Release date (digital): February 24, 2023 Release date (CD): TBC.
RANGERS OF THE LOST RING. BY PANU AALTIO.
“Another rich and adventurous score from a composer that always entertains and enthrals”. (mmi).
Original score from the 2023 family adventure feature film (original title: Pertsa ja Kilu: Faaraon sormus) directed by Taavi Vartia, starring Pauli Kesälä, Leon Ruokola and Alina Tomnikov, produced by Taavi Vartia Tuotannot and released by Nelonen Media (Finland).
THE STORY: A movie about the power of friendship and courage during an exciting and thrilling adventure. A story about growing up, the fear of loss and finding yourself.
THE SCORE: “I’m always looking for new angles to take on in film scores, so when director Taavi Vartia suggested I use an electric guitar on Rangers of the Lost Ring, I had a ton of fun going on a journey from modern rock through 80s action movies, to even the Bond movies of the 60s. And then with the Budapest Art Orchestra beautifully performing many of our soaring adventure moments, I really got to play with many wonderful timbres in this score.” – Panu Aaltio
THE COMPOSER: Rangers of the Lost Ring marks the twelfth MovieScore Media release with Panu Aaltio for whom the label released the acclaimed Tale of a Forest (2012), Tale of a Lake (2016) and Tale of the Sleeping Giants (2021), all three of which won the Best Original Score for a Documentary award of the IFMCA. The string of collaborations include The Home of Dark Butterflies (2009), Finland’s official submission for the 2009 Academy Awards and the epic Dawn of the Dragonslayer (2009), the adventure scores for The Island of Secrets (2015) and Finders of the Lost Yacht (2021), as well as Super Furball (2018) and its sequel, Super Furball Saves the Future (2022). Training as a cellist since the age of six, Aaltio also studied music technology and classical composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and film music at the USC where he received the Harry Warren scholarship for Excellence in Film Scoring.
MMS23004 RAIDERS OF THE LOST RING (Pertsa ja Kilu: Faaraon sormus) (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Music Composed by PANU AALTIO Release date (digital): February 24, 2023 Release date (CD): TBC.
• BEAR MCCREARY WINS SCORE OF THE YEAR FOR EPIC TV SERIES THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER; AND IS ALSO NAMED COMPOSER OF THE YEAR, WINNING TWO OTHER AWARDS
• SIMON FRANGLEN WINS TWO AWARDS FOR WORK ON AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
•THE DOCUMENTARY TRIBUTE TO LATE ENNIO MORRICONE HONORED WITH SPECIAL AWARD
FEBRUARY 23, 2023 — The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2022, in the 2022 IFMCA Awards.
The winners are:
SCORE OF THE YEAR.
• THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, music by Bear McCreary, theme by Howard Shore.
BEAR McCREARYHOWARD SHORE.
COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
• BEAR MCCREARY.
BREAKTHROUGH COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
• HESHAM NAZIH.
HESHAM NAZIH
COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR.
SIMON FRANGLEN.
• “Leaving Home (Hometree)” from AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, music by Simon Franglen.
• GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, music by Nathan Johnson
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ACTION/ADVENTURE FILM
• THE BATMAN, music by Michael Giacchino.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION FILM
• AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, music by Simon Franglen.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A HORROR/THRILLER FILM
• NOPE, music by Michael Abels.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ANIMATED FILM.
• GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO, music by Alexandre Desplat
DESPLAT.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DOCUMENTARY.
• POLAR BEAR, music by Harry Gregson-Williams.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR TELEVISION.
• THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, music by Bear McCreary, theme by Howard Shore.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A VIDEO GAME OR INTERACTIVE MEDIA.
• GOD OF WAR: RAGNARÖK, music by Bear McCreary
BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE.
• FRENZY, music by Ron Goodwin and Henry Mancini; album produced by Michael Matessino, liner notes by Deniz Cordell, album art direction by Nacho B. Govantes (Quartet).
FILM MUSIC RECORD LABEL OF THE YEAR.
• QUARTET RECORDS, Jose M. Benitez.
ROBERTO ASCHIERI SPECIAL AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTION TO FILM MUSIC.
• MICHAEL MATESSINO.
KYLE RENICK SPECIAL AWARD.
• ENNIO, THE MAESTRO, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
It is always a sad thing when we hear of a film music composers passing, it is like losing a family member in a way, because in many cases we never knew them personally but we felt we did because of the music that they composed and left for us. Gerald Fried sadly passed away this week, he was what I would call a workhorse composer, I mean no disrespect by this, its just that Mr Fried seemed to be constantly on the credits of TV productions and feature films. And he was working right up to the end of his life writing music and also screenplays.
There was something about a Gerald Fried score that resonated with many collectors, his soundtrack for the war movie Too Late the Hero I think is probably one of his best-known film scores, and his authentic sounding soundtrack for the TV movie I Will Fight No More Forever too is seen as an outstanding work in his phenomenal musical output.
I interviewed the composer a few years ago, and although he was a man of few words when discussing his career, I felt honoured that he had taken the time to answer my (probably annoying) questions. It was actually Too Late the Hero that first attracted me to the composer’s music, the movie was a big hit in the UK and I think I went to see it whenever it was showing on the cinema and in later years always caught it on TV. Fried’s score is an important part of the movie, underlining the action supporting the characters and being there to celebrate victory or to musically bring solace to moments of tragedy. It is also a rousing score, which has a central theme that inspires and invigorates. Gerald Fried was a composer, author, and oboist, educated at Juilliard (BS). He was first oboist for the Dallas Symphony and the New York Little Orchestra between 1948 and 1956. Then he joined Revue Studios in California, lasting until 1960, thereafter working freelance.
Joining ASCAP in 1956, his chief musical collaborators included Johnny Mercer and Jack Brooks. Fried was a member of the SAC (Social Athletic Club) known as the Barracudas as a teenager growing up in The Bronx. He would later be introduced to director Stanley Kubrick by mutual friend Alexander Singer. He and Kubrick would later play baseball and football together while growing up in New York City.
He will probably be remembered best for his music to the TV series Roots and his work on the Star Trek TV series. In October 2013 he received Lifetime Achievement Golden Pine Award at the International Samobor Film Music Festival (ISFMF), along with Clint Eastwood and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
He once said “Film scoring is so much more exciting than being an oboe player. I was 21 years old when I did my first picture and the idea of going to Hollywood … well! My eyes got awful big real quick. There’s a lot of challenge in film composing. We’re hired as part of a team, so you don’t show off. If music can stand up in the concert hall, it’s probably too complicated for film. My first task is to make it work within the film’s context”.
Born on February 13th 1928, in New York City, New York, he was to become one of the most sought after composers of music for film and TV, his list of credits is long and varied the composer never becoming type cast he seemed to be happy no matter what the genre. The composer passed away on February 17th 2023, in Connecticut USA.
FILM AND TELEVISION MUSIC FROM AROUND THE WORLD. WITH MOVIE REVIEWS AND NEWS FROM ALL OVER THE GLOBE.
MOVIE MUSIC INTERNATIONAL. (MMI) . 