Bruno Nicolai fever breaking out in the bunker. Oh Bruno, how my heart soars at the sound of your film scores. Rome, Lake Como, spaghetti, Michelangelo...La Dolce Vita...Dolcelatte...Sophia Loren...of all the wonders your country has given the world your music is their equal! If you lived today I would catch a plane to your house and speak sonnets in praise of you from beneath your balcony...by moonlight...honest...
You can see that he brings out the romantic in me. But hold on, aside from the trillion top class, string-soaked and heart string-tugging film themes he has written he also made amazing, dark experimental music. This he has in common with his fratello musical Mr Ennio Morricone. Some might say he is as Tony Bennett is to Sinatra in that respect.; prince and king. Except neither sing. And that would do him a disservice.
The track Medium alone proves how capable he was of concocting a nightmarish atmosphere, the kind, in fact, that puts most contemporary, clichéd efforts to shame. Then there's Insidia, which ramps up the psycho tension before breaking out into a cool Jazz-drum driven archetypal Giallo theme complete with Herrmannesque strings. Alessandro Alessandroni plays sitar, even solo on Evocazione, but imbues it with a kind of bluesy, funky feel when he gets into his own groove. Brilliant. Propiziazione is another high point, but there are no lows. It's pretty much a perfect fusion of rhythm and radical orchestration that gets horror music fans high on frantic piano and nerve-jangling violins.
For other sides of Nicolai, ie more Pop, Romantic and Funky, there's a great 72 track Nicolai comp here
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