Ennio Morricone was one of, if not the, most prolific composers of the 20th century. While most people are familiar with his scores for countless films and television series, it is a lesser known fact that he also composed a handful of albums for production music libraries. Continuing with our dark and twisted library series, I'm pleased to present one of the legendary Italian maestro's darkest efforts, rivaling even some of the great giallo soundtracks he composed throughout the 1970s. "Controfase" was released on the Gemelli label in 1972. Gemelli was an Italian music library label formed in the mid 1960s, which was owned and operated by Morricone's friend and frequent collaborator, Bruno Nicolai. Ordinarily such composer-owned library labels folded upon the death of the composer. However, after Nicolai's death in 1991, Nicolai's daughter took over the Gemelli label and subsequently re-released a handful of his recordings.
I recently started a new semester at school, and have picked up an additional course. I am swamped with assignments at the moment, due in part to a mistake which forced me to start the course a day late, so I'm going to have to keep my writing to a minimum for the time being. I will attempt to put up at least two to three posts a week though. Hopefully I'll be able to find my groove with the assignments within a couple of weeks, which will free up a bit more time for me. When possible I will provide an online review to provide you with more info on the release in question.
Unfortunately information surrounding this release is scarce. In fact, I couldn't even find a single review of the album online, which I find strange considering Ennio Morricone's huge following. "Controfase" was released in extremely limited numbers, with Gemelli releasing only 500 copies, making it extremely difficult to find this release on vinyl. I consider this to be a masterpiece of dark avant-garde library music. Morricone implements mysterious and dissonant jazz percussion, ominous string arpeggios, and atonal ambient electronic sounds, all in his trademark style, creating a brilliantly dark statement in the process. You can find more Morricone albums previously posted on the blog here.
I recently started a new semester at school, and have picked up an additional course. I am swamped with assignments at the moment, due in part to a mistake which forced me to start the course a day late, so I'm going to have to keep my writing to a minimum for the time being. I will attempt to put up at least two to three posts a week though. Hopefully I'll be able to find my groove with the assignments within a couple of weeks, which will free up a bit more time for me. When possible I will provide an online review to provide you with more info on the release in question.
Unfortunately information surrounding this release is scarce. In fact, I couldn't even find a single review of the album online, which I find strange considering Ennio Morricone's huge following. "Controfase" was released in extremely limited numbers, with Gemelli releasing only 500 copies, making it extremely difficult to find this release on vinyl. I consider this to be a masterpiece of dark avant-garde library music. Morricone implements mysterious and dissonant jazz percussion, ominous string arpeggios, and atonal ambient electronic sounds, all in his trademark style, creating a brilliantly dark statement in the process. You can find more Morricone albums previously posted on the blog here.
Year of Release: 1972
Label: Gemelli
Catalog #: GG.ST. 10.019
Genres: Library Music, Avant-Garde, Contemporary Classical
Bitrate: 320kbps
Label: Gemelli
Catalog #: GG.ST. 10.019
Genres: Library Music, Avant-Garde, Contemporary Classical
Bitrate: 320kbps
Track List:
A1. Controfase
A2. Tempo
A3. Soli
A4. Come Sommersi
B1. Con Ferma Ostinazione
B2. Follia
B3. Degenerazione
B4. Eclissi Seconda
A1. Controfase
A2. Tempo
A3. Soli
A4. Come Sommersi
B1. Con Ferma Ostinazione
B2. Follia
B3. Degenerazione
B4. Eclissi Seconda
thanks for this. great stuff!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Sounds great!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for uploading all this stuff. I've downloaded a few and tried to thank you earlier but this is the first time my Google account has let me complete a comment. All the best.
ReplyDeleteGreetings Paul. I was wondering if you could provide me with some detailed info on the "Ennio Morricone - Controfase" album. I searched on google, but couldn't find much relevant information. Any info you could find concerning this album, and the label it was released on would be most appreciated. If you could, please leave a comment on my blog, as I have a tendacy to forget to check back on the posts I have commented on. Thank you for this killer album and take care.
ReplyDeleteZer0_II
21 décembre 2009 01:12
@Anonymous: Apparently I picked this up from one of Paul Durango's old blogs. I suppose you are wanting to remind me of that fact for some reason since you went through the trouble of finding a 2 year old comment, and then copying and pasting it here in the comment section of this post. I can think of a couple of reasons, but I wonder why you are going about trying to deliver your point in such a roundabout way. I assume that you are either trying to imply that I "stole" this, need to give credit to Paul, or feel as if I shouldn't have posted it at all because someone else already posted it.
ReplyDeleteI have never made it a secret that many of the albums I share here have been posted elsewhere first. I have linked to other blogs often in my posts, so I obviously don't have a problem with giving credit when it is due, as long as I'm aware of where the album came from to begin with. I don't know Paul that well, I link to Paul via my blogroll/aggregator site, and he links back to Digital Meltd0wn. It wouldn't surprise me if half of my library music albums cover from Paul Durango. His blog serves as an archive of library music, and dozens of people contibute the albums which are posted there. He specializes in library music, while I only share my favorite albums. However, my aim isn't to be the first to post an album. I simply want to share what I consider to be the top tier of the library music albums in my collection, as well as select styles, such as my recent collection of dark library music. I also try to write descriptive reviews which many music bloggers fail to provide.