Death and Vanilla
The Tenant

After the reissue of "Vampyr" released last June 16, Death and Vanilla return with a new work, again created in collaboration with Fire Records, and set to be released next February 2. If "Vampyr" (first published in 2013) is practically the reinterpretation of the soundtrack of the famous "Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey" (1932) by Charl Theodore Dreyer, inspired by the stories of Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and considered (along with Tod Browning's "Dracula" and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens") one of the films from which vampire-themed cinema originated, this time the trio from Malmoe take on another cinematic masterpiece with an expressionist character filled with emotional tension and unease.

The work in question is "The Tenant" by director Roman Polanski, a psychological thriller starring Roman Polanski himself from 1976, known in Italy as "L'inquilino del terzo piano." The story has obsessive traits and tells of a Polish clerk, a certain Trelkowski, who rents an apartment in Paris that was previously occupied by a girl named Simone who committed suicide. Like a game of mirrors, Trelkowski, driven by the people around him, ends up completely identifying with Simone and will also attempt to commit suicide by throwing himself out of the window.

A very particular choice once again, and the trio from Malmoe (Sweden) comprised of Marleen Nilsson, Anders Hansson, and Magnus Bodin, approaches it with solemn devotion to the chosen cinematic work, reconstructing the soundtrack (originally produced by composer Philippe Sarde) with typical minimal electronic sounds and a certain touch of dream-pop tones that make the work accessible even to less demanding listeners.

Balancing between sounds in the style of Stereolab or Broadcast and more traditional authors like Angelo Badalamenti, "The Tenant" is the live recording performed in 2015 at the Cinemascore Festival in Spain during the film's screening. The final result is a work with typically "thrilling" characteristics, but in trying to combine more classic sounds and solemn atmospheres with a certain pop taste, it ends up not decisively going in any specific direction. Nonetheless, suggested for Polanski film enthusiasts and those who place minimalist electronic music at the center of their musical universe.