Cooking to the Beat

Great soundtrack to a less than great but highly amusing 1969 film also released as Cult of the Damned. In the same micro genre as other cotton candy colored and fluffy "thrillers" of the era such as Picture Mommy Dead and The Big Cube, this camp fest sports more professional heft with a cast including Roddy McDowell and Jennifer Jones.  It won't be cheap or easy to score a copy of this vintage LP but well worth it. Listen to a sample here.

As you might have guessed we're huge soundtrack fans at Cafe Drake HRV and none stir our pots more than the sinister lounge sounds of gialli - 70s Italian murder mysteries. Piero Umiliani's macabre circus themes mixed with groovy stripper beats hits all the right notes in his eclectic score for Mario Bava's Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970, top photo). That old work horse Ennio Morricone of course churned out hundreds of soundtracks beyond his iconic theme for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly; some of his most poignant compsotions can be found in The Night Train Murders LP (bottom photo). Both are available for free on Spotify and on heavy rotation every time we devote ourselves to risotto or manicoti.