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Zoviet France, "Music for a Spaghetti Western"

The material on Music for a Spaghetti Westernwas recorded backin 1985-86 but not released until about 10 years later. ThankfullyKlanggalerie are keeping it from the tragedy of being lost to the ages,for now at least.



Klanggalerie

The four tracks (presented here as "scenes" and without real titles)are largely abstract tapestries with heavy repetition of samplesthroughout tightly woven layers of sound. A common sound of blurry echolinks the various samples together in a seamless flowing fabric.

Only "Scene 1" has any discernible vocals, and that also makes ittheonly track to give any indication when it was created. The repeatingsamples of Ronald Reagan would have been a lot more timely andprovocative back in the mid-80s, but they've held up remarkablywell.  The rest of the album is quite strong and despite thetimely samples, sounds fresh enough and could easily havebeen newly created when it was released as a long-lost recording.

The second, third, and fourth "scenes" more clearly show the origins ofthe album's title; though rather than a soundtrack to some old Eastwoodflick, sounds reminiscent of those films (possibly direct samples, it'shard to say) appear throughout, if heavily blurred and muffled.Stereotypical "Indians on the warpath" whoops surface on "Scene 2" and"Scene 4," and I think I hear a bit of the famous theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Uglyat the beginning of "Scene 3." Not so obviously tied to the Westerntheme are voices on "Scene 2" heavily distorted to the point ofsounding like whale songs and echoing chimes later in that same track.

Overall this is a solid piece of accessible and hypnotic sound and truly a gem worth digging out of the vaults.

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