Production
Crime and Dissonance, a collection of Ennio Morricone's film scores from the 1970s, was conceived as a follow-up to Dagored releases Morricone 2000 and Morricone 2001 . [1] [2] [3] However, that label abandoned the project, and Mike Patton of Ipecac Recordings decided to release it instead. Morricone had no input in the project; instead the track listing was assembled by Alan Bishop. [1] Bishop had previously assembled the Morricone 2000 and Morricone 2001 collections as well. All three compilations cover a roughly coterminous time period, spanning the late 1960s to the early 1980s, but concentrating primarily on the early 1970s. [4] Bishop had been given a list of films whose scores were available to use in the collection; he set about compiling the two-disc set from there. However, the final song on the album, an eleven-minute section from the soundtrack to Un uomo da rispettare , was not included in the list of available material. The project was delayed for some time while Bishop waited for record label Sugar Music to license the song. [1]
Patton, founder of Ipecac Recordings, has described his admiration for Morricone's writing, feeling that the composer turned "what could be banal, surface-style pop into really deep, orchestrated, tense and compelling music". [5] Patton considers Morricone to be one of his favorite composers, and wanted the compilation to serve as a fitting tribute. He felt it was "imperative" for Crime and Dissonance to focus on Morricone's lesser-known work, as it had to compete with a large back catalogue of similar compilations. [1] To this end, Patton and Bishop focused on Morricone's more experimental work, which Patton has compared to the music of Brazilian tropicália group Os Mutantes. Patton has praised Bishop's work on the project, calling him "a big Morricone scholar", and has described Crime and Dissonance as one of the Ipecac releases he is most proud of. [6]
Crime and Dissonance features liner notes written by composer John Zorn, who had previously reinterpreted Morricone's work on the album The Big Gundown . [7] The album's title reflects the range of genres covered by the films whose scores have been included, [4] with the collection gathering music from "horror, suspense, mafia, and period movies", including several pieces taken from Dario Argento's giallo film L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo . [7] However, the album itself only lists the titles of the films, omitting the context in which the music was originally presented and leaving the compositions to "speak for themselves". [7]
Reception
Crime and Dissonance was released on October 18, 2005, through the Ipecac Recordings label, [8] although it has previously been scheduled for release on September 6 of the same year. [1]
The album has garnered mostly positive reviews from critics. Writing for Allrovi, Thom Jurek rated the collection four-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it "essential Morricone". [8] Jurek felt that the album served to present "a much wider view of Morricone not only as a composer, but as a sonic experimentalist". [8] Pitchfork Media's Joe Tangari awarded the album a score of eight out of ten, describing it as "a minor revelation". [10] Tangari felt that the collection represented Morricone's most innovative period of work, and praised Bishop's compilation for its cohesion and flow. [10] Joshua Klein of The Washington Post has described the album as featuring "bizarre soundscapes, discordant drones, proto-sampledelica, weird instruments, strange sounds and oddball voices". [11] Klein felt that the collection portrayed Morricone as a ground-breaking and confident composer, eschewing his trademark spare-sounding scores to freely experiment. [11]
The A.V. Club 's Andy Battaglia rated the compilation an A−, noting its dissimilarity to Morricone's more well-known work. Battaglia complimented the arrangement of the tracks, feeling that they flowed into one another well, and noted the range of genres the collection represented. [9] Danny Fasold of The Roanoke Times has commented on the wide variety of styles the collection contains, adding that it proves "Morricone always delivered something interesting". [12] Stylus Magazine 's Cameron Macdonald rated the album an A−, finding that the "kitsch" mass-market appeal of Morricone's better-known western scores made Crime and Dissonance a more "relevant" record. However, Macdonald felt that album's second disc was the weaker of the two, finding that the "slapstick" nature of some of its pieces seemed out of place. [7] Dave Gurney of Tiny Mix Tapes rated Crime and Dissonance three-and-a-half out of five, calling it "a group of Morricone's most uncompromising works". [4] However, Gurney questioned the target audience of the collection, believing that it would not be likely to appeal to casual listeners while not presenting much new material for dedicated Morricone collectors. [4] An anonymous review for The Stranger described the album as proof that "there's much more to the maestro than his revered spaghetti-western work for Sergio Leone". [13] The review highlighted the range of genres present in the collection, calling the end result a "deluge of otherworldly, endlessly fascinating sounds". [13]
Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He has received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Ipecac Recordings is an independent record label based in California. It was founded on April 1, 1999, by Greg Werckman and Mike Patton in Alameda, California.
The Director's Cut is the second studio album by American musical supergroup Fantômas. The album is a collection of cover versions of themes from horror films and television series, performed in a variety of different musical styles. The album was released on July 9, 2001, through Ipecac Recordings, a record label co-owned by the band's vocalist, Mike Patton.
John Erik Kaada, also known by the mononym Kaada, is a Norwegian singer-songwriter, producer, film score composer and multi-instrumentalist. Kaada's career spans a string of solo albums, motion picture soundtracks, high-profile collaborations with key players such as Mike Patton, as well as numerous live appearances at home and abroad.
The Mission is the soundtrack from the film of the same name, composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced by Ennio Morricone. The work combines liturgical chorales, native drumming, and Spanish-influenced guitars, often in the same track, in an attempt to capture the varying cultures depicted in the film. The main theme, "Falls", remains one of Morricone's most memorable pieces, and has been used in numerous commercials since its original release. The Italian song "Nella Fantasia" is based on the theme "Gabriel's Oboe" and has been recorded by multiple artists including, Sarah Brightman, Amici Forever, Il Divo, Russell Watson, Hayley Westenra, Jackie Evancho, Katherine Jenkins, Amira Willighagen and Yasuto Tanaka.
The Big Gundown is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
"Nella Fantasia" is a song sung in Italian based on the theme "Gabriel's Oboe" from the film The Mission (1986). With music by composer Ennio Morricone and lyrics by Chiara Ferraù, "Nella Fantasia" is popular among classical crossover singers, and was originally released in 1998 by Sarah Brightman. It has since been covered by many artists.
"Gabriel's Oboe" is the main theme for the 1986 film The Mission, with Robert de Niro, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson and directed by Roland Joffé. The theme was written by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, and has since been arranged and performed several times by artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Holly Gornik, and Brynjar Hoff, among others. The theme has been called "unforgettable" and a "celebrated oboe melody". Vocalist Sarah Brightman convinced Morricone to allow her to set lyrics to the theme to create her own song, "Nella Fantasia". In 2010, Morricone encouraged soprano Hayley Westenra to write English lyrics for "Gabriel's Oboe" in her album Paradiso.
Mondo Cane is a 2010 album by Mike Patton. Featuring a forty-member orchestra and fifteen-piece backing band, the album contains a series of cover versions of 1950s and 1960s Italian pop music. Patton conceived of the album while living in Bologna, and became attracted to music he heard on the radio featuring pop singers backed by orchestras.
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's motion picture Inglourious Basterds. It was originally released on August 18, 2009. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, including Spaghetti Western soundtrack excerpts, R&B and a David Bowie song from the 1982 remake of Cat People. "The Man with the Big Sombrero", a song from the 1943 screwball comedy Hi Diddle Diddle, was rerecorded in French for the movie. This is the first soundtrack for a Quentin Tarantino film not to feature dialogue excerpts. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, but lost to the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.
Re: Pasolini is a double album by Italian jazz pianist Stefano Battaglia, recorded in 2005 and released on ECM in 2007, and is dedicated to the figure of filmmaker and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini. The cover artwork features a still from the film The Gospel According to Matthew (1964), considered one of his masterworks.
Laborintus II is an album by the Belgian orchestra Ictus Ensemble, the vocal group Nederlands Kamerkoor, and the American vocalist Mike Patton, which was recorded live at the 2010 Holland Festival. It was released on July 10, 2012, by Ipecac Recordings, and debuted at number 23 on the American Billboard Classical Albums Chart. It was not well received by critics.
Oddfellows is the fourth studio album by musical supergroup Tomahawk. The album is the first to feature new bass player Trevor Dunn, who has replaced previous member Kevin Rutmanis. Oddfellows was recorded live in the Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, after a brief period of rehearsal. Guitarist Duane Denison favored the location as its cheaper studio costs allowed for longer periods of song-writing.
Django Unchained is the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's motion picture Django Unchained. It was originally released on December 18, 2012. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, though with an especially heavy influence from Spaghetti Western soundtracks.
"Chetty's Lullaby" is a 1962 jazz song composed by Chet Baker. The song was released as a single in 1962 in Italy.
The Narrow Garden is a live album by violinist/multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang which was released in 2012 on Ipecac Recordings.
The Hateful Eight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (stylized as Quentin Tarantino's The H8ful Eight) is the soundtrack album to Quentin Tarantino's 2015 motion picture The Hateful Eight. The soundtrack includes the first complete original score for a Tarantino film and is composed, orchestrated and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Morricone composed 50 minutes of original music for The Hateful Eight.
Ennio: The Maestro, also known as The Glance of Music, is a 2021 documentary film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, celebrating the life and legacy of the Italian composer Ennio Morricone, who died on 6 July 2020. The film consists of interviews with directors, screenwriters, musicians, songwriters, critics and collaborators who have worked with him or who have enjoyed him throughout his long career.
