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Rating: If I had to condense my (so far brief) life into a summary of five CDs, without the slightest doubt, those geniuses the Goblin would be among them. A brilliant, dynamic, essential group, majestic, terrifying: a group always underestimated, always mistreated, always relegated to the fringes of the music scene. A group that found its acclaim, simultaneously with its relegation, in soundtracks: and for this reason, it has always been labeled as a "soundtrack group," so a group of little importance, without significance. Yet, groups without significance shouldn't send shivers down your spine. Or evoke Freudian atmospheres, cynically and impartially analyzing the human psyche. Or, with just two or three chords repeated for five minutes, hypnotize you, subdue you, annihilate any form of resistance. Truly, a group of no significance.
Goblin was born in 1975 from an idea of Massimo Morante (vocals and electric guitar) and Claudio Simonetti (keyboards), to which Fabio Pignatelli (bass) and Walter Martino (drums) would shortly after join. Their talent is truly elevated: they began to make a name for themselves soon, and their fame starts spreading like wildfire, so much so that it piques the curiosity of the Italian horror master, Dario Argento. After attending one of their performances, the director decides: they will be the ones to interpret the soundtrack of his new film. Said, done. While the final shots of "Profondo Rosso" are being filmed, Argento's undisputed masterpiece, the band gathers to try out the main themes of the movie. The final touch is given when Simonetti decides to reinterpret, in a progressive version, with his band, some pieces by the great jazzist Giorgio Gaslini, who not only consents to the reinterpretation but even attends the rehearsals of the four. Everything is ready: the final touch, pure class, has been added, and the film is ready to land in cinemas. Simultaneously, "Profondo Rosso- The Complete Original Soundtrack Recording," the CD containing all the soundtracks of Dario Argento's work, is released in record stores.
Before starting to describe some of the tracks present (a total of twenty-eight, including some bonus tracks), I'll give a brief premise. I warn readers that it is impossible for me, despite all the efforts in the world, to remain objective in the face of such magnificence. If you are a fan of the band, continue reading: otherwise, make peace with your heart and return to the homepage of the site, as you will not find the slightest trace of a zeroing critique. Thank you for your attention.
A monumental work, an impressive job. The first impression you have, having before you the artwork of the disk in question (the discovery, by pianist Marcus Daly, of the horribly massacred body of the medium Helga Ulmann) is the one written above. And indeed, the effort made by Goblin is decidedly remarkable. Their mixture of progressive, jazz, and electronic sampling results at times truly incredible, original, and malleable. Comparing the film with its soundtrack, it is noticeable how the group has created compositions perfectly matching the cloud of mystery and murder that permeates, stagnant and oppressive, throughout the duration of the movie. Whether it concerns the evil and disturbing diversification of the moving puppet, a fatal distraction preparing for a heinous crime: the sixteen seconds opening of "Mad Puppet's Laughs", composed solely of the laughs created by the diabolical marionette, definitely raise hair on the nape. The oppressive and bloody lullaby of "School At Night", a propitiatory chant opening the doors to new murders, conceals a cloud of oppression and childhood turmoil deliberately created to permanently disturb the listener, well aware of the heavy burden hidden behind the charge of a common, even banal, music box. A lullaby revisited multiple times within the same CD: beyond the original version, there are alternative versions, an instrumental one, one entirely in celesta (a register of the organ), and one in echo version, beyond, naturally, the primary composition by Giorgio Gaslini, jazz contaminated with electronic devices and with "noble" incursions, like those of violin and harp. The nervous, obsessive progressive with tribal rhythms of "Death Dies", often accompanied by keyboard hints, can be listened to and re-listened to repeatedly: the wait, the haste, the eagerness to unveil the great mystery, the tension of discovery, the primordial anxiety of the dark, a slow, lazy, killer dark, participating in the convulsive opening of systole and diastole in long moments of fear, fear of the absence of something that should be there, but isn't; a lengthy search, for the discovery of subliminal signals captured by the unconscious, and still unknown to the mind's global view. Besides the album version, there is the alternative form of the film, divided into three parts. The creeping, treacherous, hypnotic guitar of "Mad Puppet", monotonous yet never tiresome, a radar in search of the hows and whys, a limited radar, respecting the most basic human faculties, seeking the solution to the many questions arising in the mind, and ending up stopping before the evil idol of the puppet, a pretext to distract the attention of a man who has understood and should not understand, a man who can do nothing against the robotic reflexes and the nearly omniscient antagonist.
There's also room for flashes of romance, small rays of light that gently pierce the storm-laden clouds of the film's plot. To whom dedicate this piece, if not to her, Marcus's beloved, the journalist Gianna Brezzi, with her cheeky yet tenacious, clever yet alert air? The piano, the second skin of Marcus and his friend Carlo, provides the background to this composition with light tones, predominantly dominated by flute and sax, instruments that loosen the knot formed in the listener's chest. Another version is recorded here too, the one that belongs to the film. The dreamlike atmospheres of "Wild Session", a sweet distant song, like lost in a misty fog moved by a cold breeze, paves the way for a progressive base that unwinds through mazes of extrasensory perceptions and remnants of contaminations. But, before the grand finale, there's still room for "Deep Shadows", a torture of imperfect and incomplete sensations, with a rhetorical void yet unsettling in its magnitude, at times neurasthenic, at times acidic, at times psychologically fragile. Again a double version: besides the album one, the film one, divided into three parts.
Finally. Her. The film's engine: the most classic of soundtracks, beyond the sponsorships for cell phones, doesn't lose power and greatness despite thirty-one years of age. Her. "Profondo Rosso": a ruthless analysis of human perversion, in need of eccentric, peculiar cures, thirsting for crimes, to quench that sick thirst ignited long before, on Christmas day of a cursed year, a thirst that didn't stop when hearing a sweet music, a thirst that didn't stop when crossing the languid gaze of a child ruined forever, a thirst fueled by an internal anger, dripping madness, the portrait of the shattered psychology of a poor woman, helpless against her evil, forced by her evil to kill and instigated, after years of dormancy, to stage a new spiral of blood, a never-ending nightmare, without space, without time. The extremely high-pitched, prolonged, inhuman whistle of the piece is the fuse that delivers the final blow to the listen's reasoning: the obsessive arpeggio returns, reemerges, and then returns anew, converging in a furious yet necessary organ closure. An organ symbolizing the punishment inflicted by Marcus on Carlo’s mother, a guilty one without blame, who sees her life end in an indecent and unjust manner. And the organ sonata that closes the piece is her funeral, a heretical funeral, reflecting in the deep red of contaminated blood. As expected, "Profondo Rosso" is the most revisited piece: among others, there is an interesting remix, and the track that closes the work of the Italian band is directly extracted from the film. Indeed, it is the final scene of the horror, the final confrontation between Marcus and the woman, rendered in sound and subsequently accompanied by the inevitable composition.
I have nothing more to say, except to bid you farewell with advice: the disc, like the film, is indispensable. Not having it would be, to remain on theme, a real crime. Requiem.
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