In the annals of movie soundtrack lore John Carpenter holds a place as something of an unsung DIY exemplar, especially these days in an age of over-arranged Danny Elfman cookie-cutter bombast and pop-tune product placement. Adjunct to his directorial, screenwriting & producing duties he has also long scored the music to his films. His 70s and early 80s composing on films like Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape From New York still gas my jets to this day. There’s something about the minimalist proclivities coupled with synth bass and percussion to menacing grooves that perfectly complemented the on-screen action and urban anomie. That five-note fuzz bass motif that anchors the Precinct 13 theme still gives me chills and thrills when I hear it. Carpenter is subtle musical influence on many, but I’ve come across few bands that cop to such a direct debt as Zombi.
Zombi is just two guys: A.E. Pattera on drums, cymbals, Moog source & SCI Six Trax; Steve Moore on Fender, Korg Poly Six, SCI Prophet 600, SCI Pro One, Roland Juno 106 (all vintage synth consoles from what I gather). Their sphere of obeisance widens to encompass the musical preferences of other seminal directors like Italian shlock horror mavens Dario Argento (who also scored the music to George Romero's zombie epic Dawn of the Dead) and Lucio Fulci as well as metal and prog trappings. True in fealty of their sources they seem to be securing a host of gigs composing music for slasher and horror films. Other stated influences include Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michael Jarre. I also hear echoes of early Vangelis (think Blade Runner) in their compositions. Their website features a wealth of sound clips dating back to earliest self-produced EP efforts (2002) as well as radio studio-taped live material from this year. I'm particularly grooving on “Sequence 8 (alt)” and “Orion,” which reminded me of Argento’s Goblins fused with Faith No More. Very curious to hear how Phil, Professor Blivins & others sound off on these samples.
Paging through the local weekly I discovered that Zombi’s set to play the Twin Cities on Sunday, April 10th as one of two opening acts for Pelican. It’s a tour promoting their August ‘04 release Cosmos on the Release imprint, the noise/experimental offshoot of Relapse. To sum this whole thing up in two words: I’M THERE.
Posted by derek on March 22, 2005 8:26 PMWow, I had a Juno 106 once. And a Juno 6 (with the cute little arpeggiator function). What's with Danny Elfman? "Nightmare Before Christmas" is a minor masterpiece of leitmotiv, man.
Posted by: Dan Warburton at March 22, 2005 10:02 PMNightmare might be the pearl amongst all the oyster innards, but my memory is a blank as to its charms & singularities, overpowered by the surging assembly-line sludge that is the soundtracks to: Dick Tracy, Summer School, Back to School, Article 99, Deloris Claiborne, Mission: Impossible, Flubber, Good Will Hunting, Men in Black I & II, Planet of the Apes (2001), Spider-Man and The Hulk. I’m happy Elfman’s long been pulling in the serious ducats, but artistically these scores strike me as often wincingly symmetrical & transparent.
Give me an old cassette copy of Oingo Boingo’s ONLY A LAD & I’ve got just about all the Elfman I need ;)
Did Elfman or Faltermeyer compose 'Axel F'? I'm sorry but that is straight dope.
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at March 23, 2005 7:13 AMFaltermeyer, and I agree that “Axel F” exudes the fonk (Elfman ain’t fonky). Faltermeyer’s soundtrack to Midnight Express is pretty cool too. Another great 70s soundtrack that just popped into my head in mulling about Zombi: Tangerine Dream’s theme to Friedkin’s Sorcerer (the film is subpar to Clouzot’s Wages of Fear, but the music is the bomb at ratcheting the suspense).
Posted by: derek at March 23, 2005 7:32 AMI'm pretty sure the fantastically mustachioed Giorgio Morodor did the music for Midnight Express. Great soundtrack. About the only Danny Elfman composition I have any love for is the theme from the Simpsons. Of course, I read this article and am now intrigued by Zombi, only to discover upon checking their website that they were in Chicago last night. Doh! Looks like they will be back at the end of april though.
Posted by: Rrrrrrrrrobbbbbbbbbbbbbb at March 23, 2005 12:45 PMCrap, Rob, yer right. According to AMG, looks like Faltermeyer only had “arranger’s duties” on the ME soundtrack; not sure why my memory made the mix-up. Nice list of Moroder’s credits there too, which include: Cat People, D.C. Cab (Mr. T, yo), Flashdance, the Stallone arm-wrestling epic Over the Top, and my fave of the clutch: Quicksilver, Kevin Bacon’s post-Footloose foray into the gritty neo-realist world of bicycle couriers (costarring the luscious Jamie Gertz)- oh, the humanity!
Also forgot Elfman’s Simpson’s theme credit, infectious as all get out, but early Boingo is still his apogee IMO.
Let’s compare notes on Zombi in May.
Posted by: derek at March 23, 2005 1:46 PMDidn't Goblin score Dawn of the Dead and all those spaghetti slashers? Was Argento in Goblin?
Also: John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's score to Halloween 3: Season of the Witch is a masterpiece. On the back of the record, the composers describe their process-- they set up all their synths and sequencers in front of a screen and scored the film in real-time. I bet they've each only seen it that one time.
Posted by: William Hutson at March 23, 2005 6:40 PMYeah, the Goblins did Dawn of the Dead. That soundtrack and a zombie pie fight on an ice skating rink are just a couple of the essential items missing from the remake. I'm bloody serious!!!
Not just the Simpsons theme, but so many incredible songs from the Simpsons, including Planet of the Apes: The Musical and Streetcar Named Desire the Musical:
. Long before the Superdome,
. Where the Saints of football play,
. There's a city where the damned call home,
. Hear their hellish rondelet:
.
. New Orleans!
. Home of pirates, drunks, and whores...
. New Orleans!
. Tacky, overpriced souvenir stores...
.
. If you want to go to hell, you should
. take a trip
. To the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Mississip':
.
. New Orleans!
. Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile...
. New Orleans!
. Putrid, brackish, maggotty, foul...
.
. New Orleans!
. Crummy, lousy, rancid and rank...
. New Orleans!
I heard from my friend living there at the time that New Orleans officials tried to get the episode changed as they viewed the lyrics as slander. Yeah whatever!
Was Oingo Boingo the band playing at a party in Rodney Dangerfield's classic film 'Back To School'? It's a dead man's party/leave your body at the door . . .
M
Posted by: Michael Rodgers at March 24, 2005 3:02 AM
Also I'm disappointed Carpenter and Jon Bon Jovi didn't collaborate for the soundtrack to Vampires: Los Meurtos. I mean, what a missed opportunity!
Posted by: Michael Rodgers at March 24, 2005 3:37 AM. . .not a big cartoon fan but this is timeless (Stonecutters):
"Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the Metric System down?
We do! We do!
Who leaves Altantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do! We do!
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do! We do!"
And yes, that was OB at Rodney's party.
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at March 24, 2005 6:28 AMI think Alf Clausen is the man responsible for most of the priceless songs that are in episodes of the Simpsons, including the awesome musical starring Troy McClue "Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off."
"I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-A to Chimpanzee..."
Rob
Season of the Witch, oh man, isn’t that the flick with the Halloween masks that melt the wearers’ faces? Haven’t seen that in many a moon & don’t recall the music.
M, that was Boingo at the frat party- Triple Lindy, baby! (ouch!)
And at the risk of further coming clean with my culture vulture creds my fave Simpson song is probably “Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius” (sung to the tune of Falco’s Amadeus)- hilarious.
Carpenter’s Vampires is a guilty pleasure. James Woods chewing up the scenes right along with the bloodsuckers & I love how the ‘plot’ glosses over the sheer absurdity of his character with bucket upon bucket of drive-in movie gore.
Agree on Vampires, though I'd describe it more as high-quality hackery than a guilty pleasure - I have no guilt about loving it. Gotta disagree with you about Sorcerer, though; that movie is fantastic, and I wish Friedkin would put out a deluxe DVD of it, like he recently did with To Live And Die In L.A.
A friend of mine swears that one of the greatest soundtracks of all time is Ennio Morricone's for Exorcist II: The Heretic, but I've never heard it and it's not available on CD as far as I know.
Posted by: Phil at March 24, 2005 7:32 AMPhil, have you seen Wages of Fear? Blows (pun intended) Sorcerer out of the water & is far superior on the suspense tip; though they’re admittedly coming from very different places conceptually in some ways.
Word on Vampires; my guilt is only skin-deep (and the puns keep a comin’!)
Whatter your thoughts on Zombi?
Just booked my flight to Vkaniskdia & am looking forward to sampling the spiced tulip tea that fabled locale is so famous for, firsthand.
Posted by: derek at March 24, 2005 8:29 AMYikes, you'll have to file me under "failed potential listener" for this one! I listened to the first four Zombi samples and I was totally bored and couldn't hear anything that would justify a second listen. Bummer.
While playing "Orion", the least boring of the four pieces to me, I had thoughts of Heldon, a group I totally love, but the thoughts were like "gosh, this is like third-rate Heldon; I'm so overdue to play my main man Pinhas and get the real deal...". If you want to hear fierce, austere synths over full-bodied throbbing bass and drums, my best Pinhas/Heldon recommendation is the previously unreleased live tracks compromising the second half of Rhizosphere/Live, Paris 1982 on Cuneiform. In my opinion this disc is the best beginner Pinhas disc because the first half represents his beatless, pulsing space music side very well, and those live tracks (especially "Last Coda from the Western Wail"!!!!) nail the Heldon school of Zeuhl better than anything else I've heard!
I probably just lack the whole movie context to feel good about those synth timbres; I've never heard of any of those movies or movie references before. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen a horror movie in my entire life! Unless you count my favorite movie, Institute Benjamenta, which is occasionally a little scary. :-)
It must be something quite specific about these synth timbres that determines one's engagement in this Zombi music. I certainly have no blanket distaste for synth timbres; in fact, by coincidence, this week I happened to randomly pull out the excellent Bruckmann/Rosenberg/Zerang trio disc Six Synaptics and get into some extremely satisfying repeat spins largely motivated by Kyle Bruckmann's moog playing. To me, the sheer distinctive sound of the keyboard was enough to engage me, to say nothing of the incredibly creative and uncliched phrases he came up with.
Maybe this is an analog/digital thing? Are those Zombi synths digital?
Posted by: Michael Anton Parker at March 25, 2005 7:20 PMGoblin's score for 'Suspiria' is pretty high up there in the 70's synth-heavy proggish horror movie score department.
Posted by: Sergio Zamora at March 29, 2005 5:14 PMZombi aren't that bad as an idea, but as a live band I think that they leave a little to be desired. I saw them play with Lair of the Minotaur this past fall, and sort of "got" what they were doing more than I "enjoyed" it. I think that if they start to find their own voice amidst the heavy-handed pop culture references, they'll be great, but as they are now, they're something of a one-liner.
Posted by: Will at March 30, 2005 9:08 AM
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