Morricone in the Brain

AMG Review of Morricone in the Brain

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

The theme of this compilation isn't obvious, other than to gather music from some of Ennio Morricone's more obscure films into one package. It does cover a lot of ground, the 27 tracks sampling from the soundtracks of no less than 17 movies the composer scored between 1965 and 1981. It's also less strange than the title and some of the annotation might lead you to expect, emphasizing his more gentle, placid, even -- dare we say -- sentimental side. Yes, there's some weirdness here and there -- the gothic choral voices of "Requiem Per Un Operaio," for instance, or the way "Recreazione Divertita" glides from easy listening to go-go organ psychedelia to football chants and soothing classical passages. But there are also high, winding wordless female vocals; slightly mushy, dainty orchestration; spare, lilting piano riffs; music box tinkles; and jaunty whistling, such elements sometimes combining within the same piece. There are relatively few of the twangy guitars or ominous chant-singing and off-the-wall instrumentation that count among the most distinguished trademarks of his work from this era, though these do surface occasionally via tracks such as "Slalom (Titoli Versione Film)." Just to keep you on your toes, though, there are jarring items verging on dissonance, like "Gli Intoccabili," the cheesy music hall synthetics of "Rag Nuziale (Primo Matrimonio)," and the funhouse jungle sounds of "La Scoperta Dell' America (Esotica)." Like some other Morricone anthologies on the Cherry Red group of labels, this collection performs a valuable service for serious fans of the composer, as it assembles a wealth of material from soundtracks that would be both hard to find and expensive to buy as a group. However, it's neither among his best material from the mid-'60s through the early '80s, nor fully representative of the scope of his work from that era.