It’s Italian music composer Fabio Frizzi’s birthday today and I just couldn’t be happier.  The man has composed many scores for one of my favorite genre directors, Lucio Fulci, and their collaborations adorn my soundtrack shelf and now my iPod.  Frizzi’s music bubbles to life via swirling synthesizer tonalities intertwined with orchestral and rock instruments in a manner that can be breathtakingly energetic or breathlessly terrifying.  Frizzi is an underrated talent that I rarely hear discussed amongst the soundtrack collectors I’ve spoken with and his work reflects a unique voice that has been able to successfully adapt itself to images both grotesque and beautiful – often in equal measure, and sometimes even simultaneously.

As those Fulci collaborations go, his score for 1979’s classic ZOMBI 2 (aka: ZOMBIE here in the United States) is a very simple but effective affair that contrasts traditional horror film music against jaunty tropical themes that wouldn’t be out of place in a travelogue film – albeit a travelogue in which a woman gets a wooden splinter jammed into her eye in mind-blowingly graphic detail.  The memorable theme (which is used numerous times with various little changes to keep it interesting) uses a remorselessly consistent drum machine rhythm as a backbone for coldly repeated synthesizer dronings and a Mellotron-esque choir that insinuates itself as a reminder that we are watching the reanimated dead ripping people to shreds. 

I’ll never forget the first time I showed the movie to a friend on Japanese laserdisc back in the early 1990’s and she nearly had a meltdown when (in the opening scene where the policemen board a small boat that’s wandered into New York harbor) the camera zoomed into a plate full of writhing worms and the soundtrack let rip with the burbling synthesizer equivalent of a resonant wet fart in an echo chamber.  She nearly jumped out of her skin and she told me that the sound was the most disgusting thing she had ever heard – which, of course, matched the image perfectly.

The collaborations continued during this very fertile creative period for both Frizzi and Fulci.  THE GATES OF HELL (1980) may well be one of my favorite soundtracks from this era as the music is perfectly realized in both conception and performance.  The main theme is once again a rhythmic arrangement that gets a number of workouts during the course of the movie, but this time it is more complex and elaborately recorded than anything in ZOMBI 2.  Once again, the drum kit leads the way, but this time the ultra-dry recording of the snapping snare drum sounds like a drumstick whapping against tight, mummified flesh – each strike of the drum tearing through the dried-out skin.  As various synth flourishes undulate in the background, the electric guitar makes it’s entrance; distorted yet very much under control and played in such a manner as to accentuate the sliding of the fingers of the player against the strings, it sounds like tendons being stretched to their screaming limit.  It will have you playing zombie air guitar for days on end.  And then there is the lovely piano melody that shows up….

It’s really a wonderful recording and sounds spectacular on headphones.  THE GATES OF HELL has a lot of variety and may very well have nudged its way to the number one spot of his work for me.  Which is pretty amazing, as I never thought anything would ever surpass THE BEYOND from 1981.

And what can I say about THE BEYOND that hasn’t already been said?  I’ve seen it in the theatre more times than I can remember during its re-release some years back.  THE BEYOND and Dario Argento’s classic INFERNO (1980) are the horror equivalent of Alain Resnais’ and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961) to me (which is already a kind of horror film, but perhaps that is another blog entry….).  All three of these films are movies I can watch and enjoy endlessly.

Frizzi’s score for THE BEYOND is a rollicking mixture of inspired Mellotron madness, choirs of various sizes and configurations and some guitar and bass parts that wandered in from some kind of weird, supernatural western (if you just heard the music outside of the movie and didn’t know what context it was being used it) that makes me want to stand up and cheer.  And then run away from the zombies, of course.  It is the STAR WARS of obliquely plotted Italian zombie movie scores.

So before my rhapsodic waxing goes on for too long, just a few words of indulgence about the score for the much-maligned MANHATTAN BABY (1984), which is a sweepingly beautiful, even romantic, piece of workmanship.  Whatever one might have to say about the film (and hey, I like it quite a bit), the score deserves to be judged on its own quite formidable merits.

Earlier today I discovered that Maestro Frizzi has his own Facebook page, so I sent him a Happy Birthday message and requested being befriended.  I HATE Facebook and I think this may well be the first time I’ve done such a thing (I was really hungover), but how could I NOT acknowledge the work of someone whose music I so deeply admire and enjoy?  How fantastic it is to know that he’s still very much alive and still making music – I wish I could say the same thing about so many other artists whose work I also love (indeed, how nice it would be to say such a thing about Maestro Fulci as well).

Here’s a copy of the introductory message I sent him at around Noon today:

Greetings Mr. Frizzi;

I'm a fan of your music and want to wish you a very Happy Birthday today!

I'm listening to Sette note in nero right now as I type this. Your scores with Maestro Fulci are amongst some of my favorite film music. I listen to THE BEYOND and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD on my iPod quite often while walking around New York City.

Thanks for your works and have a great day,

Scooter McCrae

Having no idea what the time difference is between here and Italy, and not being sure how often Mr. Frizzi checks his e-mails, I had no idea if he’d even see it today or not.  Heck, I was just excited to see that he had an internet presence.

But an hour later, I’m thrilled to say I got the following response:

Thank you very much for your words, Scooter!!!
It's nice imagine you walking around the Big Apple listening to my music ;) An image that is like a B.Day gift !!!

Welcome among my friends!

Best

F

So needless to say, I’m a happy little clam today.

Happy Birthday, Maestro Frizzi, and many more of them – all filled with music and many appreciative fans like myself who wish you well.