In The Music Cabinet, RENDEZVOUS LA founder & resident DJ Alfonso takes listeners on an audio tour of his cabinet of curiosities: everything from late 60s through early 80s soundtracks, library music, exploitation film radio spots, VHS tape excerpts, contemporary works, and assorted sonic oddities.
Hi friends, and welcome to my first contribution to the newly reVAMPed Two Headed Dog blog! After months of being on hiatus, I’ve decided to resurrect the Music Cabinet podcast, and as you can see, dear ol’ Ben kindly offered to host it. Instead of starting an entirely new podcast from scratch, to me it made more sense to just pick up where I left off, hence this is episode 24 (in case there was any confusion). For those of you who’d like to hear previous episodes, an entire archive can be found on the Damn Fine Network’s Libsyn page: https://
First up in this episode is Luciano Michelini’s score to Sergio Martino’s 1975 film, 'Morte sospetta di una minorenne'. This record is absolutely amazing! Featuring beautiful artwork by UK artist Luke Insect, this one sounds very Goblin-esque. According to the Four Flies Records press release, the church organ used on this record is the same one that was used by Claudio Simonetti just a few months prior for Goblin’s Deep Red soundtrack. Featured in this podcast are the first two tracks off side A: Death Warning, and Gettin’ Closer.
Sonor Music Editions recently released a brilliant soundtrack by none other than Giuliano Sorgini called ‘Un urlo dalle tenebre’, and featured on this podcast are two tracks - the opening title theme, Messa nera, and Reparto agitati. The film itself is rather tough to track down, especially with English subtitles, but our friends at Cinematic Void recently uploaded it onto YouTube as part of their Friday night virtual screenings: https://youtu.be/
For Record Store Day 2020, Finders Keepers Records released a killer 45 by composers Gianfranco Reverberi and Romolo Forlai. This is their score to Renato Polselli’s 1975 XXX film, 'Rivelazioni di uno psichiatra sul mondo perverso del sesso’. Big drums and killer synth work! I was fortunate enough to snag a test pressing of this one, and here it is.
Saxon Gregory Productions are known to have released some awesome bootleg trailer and film audio releases, including the much sought after ‘Burial Ground’ “soundtrack”. Presented here in this episode is a release from 2007, in conjunction with Sinister Sam (The Rita’s Sam McKinlay), ‘Knife Vs. Skull Face’ 45 - the trailers for ‘The Embalmer’ and in Italiano, ‘The Virgin of Nuremburg’.
Argentinian brothers Luciano and Nicolas Onetti made their film production debut in 2013 with the neo-giallo, ’Sonno profondo’. The story I’ve read was that Luciano acquired a new camera and decided to make a giallo type film with it, and this was the result. While the pair have gone on to create a variety of films, ’Sonno profondo’ is the first in their trilogy of gialli - the others being 2015’s ‘Francesca’, and 2018’s ‘Abrakadabra’ (out NOW at cauldron-films.com). This first offering seems to me to be more of an extended music video because of the fact that it’s shot in first person point-of-view, however, that said, take note of the music! The score was written entirely by Luciano and it is absolutely spot on! One can easily mistake his work as Goblin studio outtakes. Yep, it is THAT good. My suggestion? After listening to this podcast, go online and buy ‘Abrakadabra’! It is much more refined and is probably my favorite of neo-giallos.
Several years ago, our lovely friends at Sonor Music Editions contacted me about doing a guest DJ set at Rendezvous. Of course, I was absolutely thrilled, however I did warn them that our humble little tavern is TINY and to not expect a big ol’ mega Hollywood club (they were flying in from ROME!). They understood and booked their flights. When they arrived, I could tell that they were indeed surprised to see how small in fact our bar was. Nonetheless, as people began to file in, and they hit the decks, they had a great time! A truly unique place, they told us. Anyway, to make a long story short, both Lorenzo and Andrea brought some grail records to sell, and I must say, the Rendezvous cleaned house! THIS was but just one of those records - the soundtrack to Jess Franco’s ‘Marquis De Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir’ by Rendezvous patron saint, Bruno Nicolai. A beautiful mint condition stock copy. Presented on this podcast is the track, ‘Circle’.
Maestro Piero Umiliani needs no introduction to seasoned listeners of the Music Cabinet, but that said, one of the greatest and most prolific composers of Italian library and film music is featured here with his work, ‘Percussioni ed effetti speciali’ - a double LP collection of beautiful percussive works which includes the two tracks featured here on this podcast - Timpani in movimento’ and ‘Marasma’. Recorded at Umiliani’s legendary Sound Work Shop in Rome, this record had a limited release on Umiliani’s own Liuto Records label. This record was lovingly reissued by the Italian label, Schema Records in 2016.
Paul Weller from The Jam is a fan of musique concrete, early electronics, and tape manipulation stuff! Who knew, right? Anyway, I was fortunate enough to grab this gatefold 45 release from Ghost Box Records, UK. Needless to say, it sold out quickly and is fetching quite a high price on Discogs! Presented here is the entire A side, which includes the tracks ‘In Another Room’ and ’Submerge’. It’s really good stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Last but not least, I’ll leave you with some audio from Czech director Jan Svankmajer’s 1994 film, ‘Faust’. I don’t exactly remember how I stumbled across this film, but let me just say that it has become one of my latest obsessions! As you can deduce from the title, the film is a loose interpretation of the legend of Faust, but it is set in mid-90s Prague. The movie features killer claymation, stop-motion animation, puppetry, and live action. Aside from the beautiful cinematography, ONE of the real stand-outs for me is the sound design! While there’s not much in terms of a “soundtrack”, the sound department on this film created some real auditory gloriousness! On the podcast here, I believe I said that I was going to feature “a few minutes” of the scene in which Faust summons Mephistopheles, but it turns out it’s more like eight minutes. I got carried away, it’s that good! Of course, you can stop the podcast whenever you’d like, but I suggest listening to the whole thing. Who knows? You might end up summoning demons! But hey, we can all use a little excitement during lockdown, right?
Thanks for reading/listening! Stay safe and see you next month. x
DJ Alfonso
P.S. - Hit me up on Twitter if you have any comments, complaints, corrections, etc. Find me @djalfonso