Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2009 February 09 • Monday

The forty-seventh Soundtrack of the Week is Goblin's score for La Via Della Droga.

Goblin did a bunch of movie soundtracks, including Dario Argento's Suspiria, one of the greatest film scores of all time. Really, without Goblin's music and Luciano Tovoli's camerawork, Suspiria would probably be mediocre at best. There appears to be a remake of Suspiria planned for 2010. Do you suppose they're doing this just to show us how bad it could have been?

But back to La Via Della Droga. The first time I ever went to Canada, it was to play a couple of shows with Chris Cawthray and Ed Zankowski. The Cawthrays kindly hosted me at their Toronto home and showed me the city.

Somewhere on Queen Street I walked into a hip video store which made me feel right at home. While taking a look around I overheard one of the employees talking about how he had watched The Heroin Busters the night before and how it was "awesome".

Inspired by this chance remark, I watched The Heroin Busters (a.k.a. La Via Della Droga) when I returned home, and also found it to be more or less awesome. I can't remember anything about it anymore, but I enjoyed listening to this CD of the score.

It begins and ends with a wailing psychedelic theme (not the usual Goblin sound), and in between are the funk-prog stylings for which Goblin are so cherished. You'll also hear some hot conga playing and some keyboard sounds that would be right at home in an episode of Doctor Who.