For anyone unfamiliar with the gem of a film that spawned this incredible soundtrack it follows the investigations of Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) on an island off the Scottish coast. He is lured there from the mainland by a fabricated story concerning a young girl’s ‘disappearance’. Have you ever gone into a country pub where the locals have all gone quiet as you enter, remember that scene from American Werewolf in London? Well the whole film feels like that and every character in the film acts like a dribbling inbred. With the locals acting this way and everyone having that knowing look locals put on around strangers the whole time it makes the whole thing really trippy. The locals are led by Lord Summer Isle (Christopher Lee) to say this is the best performance of his career would be a considerable understatement. The Summer Isle community have abandoned Christianity and now worship the ‘old gods’ asking them for successful harvests and the like. There is tenseness to the whole film, which carries over to the soundtrack. It's been created from every musical interlude between and around the dialogue. They are played in film sequence with little or no gaps. I found this cut-up style of play difficult at first but soon grew to love it. Where the tapes have been made direct from the actual film you have the background sounds from the actors movements included too. In part it sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop has been let loose after ingesting some particularly dodgy acid. Having said that it really is a beautiful album. You get to hear Christopher Lee singing the Tinker of Rye, what more could anyone ask for?

So what you have in this CD is 27 ‘tracks’ that cover everything from traditional folk music, performed by MAGNET (who I have ever seen anything else done by). Some very, very surreal sound effect sequences and some mildly psyche guitar work there is also a track called Hum which if extended across a whole CD could be marketed by any number of drone groups as their best album to date. The whole things a head fuk from start to finish and its glorious. The only fly in the ointment is that Gently Johnny one of the finest moments from the film is excluded for some reason. Nevermind. I could go on and on about this marvelous film and the mono soundtrack that accompanies it....... Go and buy it you won't be disappointed.

TPS

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