Goblin
Contamination

1980... A small science fiction film with a splatter angle is released (a poetic license typical of Italian films of that era, regardless of genre).

CONTAMINATION is a work by Luigi Cozzi, an assistant to Dario Argento, here on his second personal work (the first was a documentary)... For the music, Goblin is called in, a progressive rock band that had great success with Deep Red and everything that linked the band to Dario Argento... Here, things are different; much has changed since the band's heyday when they climbed the charts. Massimo Morante and Claudio Simonetti, in order of writing, have already left; the band here features the duo Fabio Pignatelli on bass and Agostino Marangolo on drums, while the keyboards see the guest appearance of the great Maurizio Guarini, already a Goblin in Roller and who left after the first track of Suspiria, and on guitar, the skilled Roberto Puleo, who follows the line set by the brilliant Carlo Pennisi. The band was coming off a break with great cinema; the last real high-level production, Zombi, did not achieve great success, and the previous attempt to make it to the charts with The Fantastic Journey of Little Mark did not yield results. Two fronts opened up: on one side, the Simonetti (always a troubled soul in the group and, I add, not very courageous, if there is no Dario Argento, there is hardly him) Morante duo, who from the beginning set the group to target the charts, on the other, the much more organized duo Pignatelli (the real Goblin) Marangolo, who instead wants the band to use the brand for work applied to cinema. Marangolo will take care to point out that with the original core of GOBLIN missing, the works commissioned to them will be much less important, but no less valid indeed.

This CONTAMINATION was probably composed without even seeing the film (quite ugly) and probably realized as LIBRARY material, that is, music composed without a specific purpose but ready to be made available to some production. During that same period, Goblin will also make another film, Patrick, for which they will replace, at the request of the De Laurentiis, the music originally composed by Brian May, who made the O.S.T for the first two Mad Max films.

I will go against the grain, but I find the music of these films more unsettling than the slightly chart-friendly ones with the Morante Simonetti, Argento Team. Here, I find that the renunciation of rock in favor of more inward, almost ethereal music serves to give more yield and authenticity to the actual soundtrack. Contamination renounces Morante's distorters and Simonetti's classical rock keyboards; there are truly terrifying pieces like WITHY or FRIGHT. I feel like saying that this album, totally different from the various Suspiria and Deep Red, increases its anxiety in a mix of science fiction sounds, and be careful; if CONTAMINATION was an anonymous film, try to believe the recycling of these pieces of music in the very cheesy (which rhymes with super cool) VIRUS by Bruno Mattei, a film about food-loving zombies faced while moving from city to city, passing through the third world of New Guinea until landing in the futuristic plant where the film's prologue takes place, here the very futuristic music finds their true identity. For me, an almost old-fashioned soundtrack, made as if the band used an orchestra and not Prog-Rock instrumentalists; Pignatelli, an extremely skilled bassist, shows us his recent passion for American bass; he who started with the YES model in the debut under the name CHERRY FIVE here delights us with fusion, jazz lines; Maurizio Guarini makes much more innovative use of synthesizers than Simonetti, himself always more oriented towards soloism, here instead the sound shifts on PAD and atmospheres; Marangolo on drums does just the right thing, while Puleo's guitar will have a sound alien to the biting style of Massimo Morante.

What can I say? If you have a passion for soundtracks of Italian genre cinema, this album absolutely deserves it; however, if you love the GOBLIN Sound OF, WITH, and FOR Simonetti-Argento, then avoid it. A curiosity, the first edition of Contamination included almost more pieces from the film BUIO OMEGA (a small film in the style of Mario Bava but directed by JOE D'AMATO), another contemporary work of PATRICK. From then on, the name GOBLIN will be used for the most varied commissions, including the VOLO experiment, which will see the band participate in Sanremo precisely the year Dario Argento will reunite the original group for his TENEBRE.