Disc of the day
Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
(reissued El/Cherry Red, 2008)
Double noir delights from jazz and orchestral giants!
Although it died a death at the box-office Alexander Mackendrick's acid showbiz noir stands as one of the greatest films of the 1950s, a twisted, venal trawl through a sordid twilight world of amoral press agents, power-hungry gossip columnists and fat, bent cops. It features two geniuses at the helm - Mackendrick directing the actors and cinematographer James Wong Howe setting up the luminous shots - and two star actors - Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster - turning in lifetime performances as the demonic master-and-servant double-act. It's therefore somehow appropriate that it also features two of the best soundtracks ever recorded in that decade. Chico Hamilton's 1957 Quintet provided the nervy and sad music for the club scenes while Elmer Bernstein turns in the quintessential late noir score for the grand dramas of death, redemption and defeat, utilising a suite of weeping violins and mourning cellos to a veritable main street of sleazy, swaggering, hectoring horns.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 23/06/2009
Duke Ellington - Anatomy of a Murder (Columbia, 1959)
Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm (Decca, 1956)
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
2:32 PM GMT 12/03/2010
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
Belfast combo return unannounced, go sardonic pop-folk.
6:00 AM GMT 09/03/2010
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