For diehard fans of low-budget cult cinema, Jess Franco is among the great directors--his style somewhere between European versions of Roger Corman's Mondo sexploitation and Andy Warhol's hardcore improv. His films Vampyros Lesbos, The Devil Came from Akasava, and Mrs. Hyde, She Kills in Ecstasy--all made in 1970 and starring Franco's doomed Spanish seductress Soledad Miranda--perfected "horrotica," Franco's melange of B-grade horror and twisted erotica. Collecting original music from the films' soundtracks, Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party pays tribute to Franco, Miranda (who died in a 1971 car crash), and the films they made together.
German composers Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab (recording as Vampires' Sound Incorporation) created music sufficiently groovy and go-go to accompany Franco's freaked-out vision. Their crazy sounds are a speed-hopped swinger's bash of blaring trumpet, booming trombone, slinky organ, and spacy sitar, with a beefy foundation of mod guitar, bass, and drums. Eccentrically titled instrumentals like "The Lions and the Cucumber," "Droge CX 9," and "The Six Wisdoms of Aspasia" manage to be psychedelic in the way of both the Doors' haunting rock and the Fifth Dimension's up-up-and-away pop. Music ripe for revival, Sexadelic Dance Party falls somewhere between the glorious lounge orchestrations of Esquivel and the cheap Casio-funk porn music championed by bands like the Beastie Boys. It's just one more nugget mined from the overflowing heaps of past decades' trash culture. --Roni Sarig
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Freakysexyfunkycool!,
By Michael J. Mazza
"Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party" is a total trip. As the CD's liner notes explain, this disc contains music from the soundtracks of three films made by Jess Franco in 1970. The music was conducted and composed by Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab. The 14 tracks have such intriguing titles as "The Lions and the Cucumber," "Necronomania," and "The Six Wisdoms of Aspasia."
The liner notes describes the genre of this music as "acid jazz-pop," which is probably as good a description as any. The music combines ebullient horns, weird vocal effects, exotic Eastern-sounding instrumental effects, and other elements into a truly unique blend. This CD is often sensuous and often playful, and has bewitchingly sinister aspects as well.
But ultimately, the music is a lot of fun. If you're seeking musical accompaniment for an orgy, a Satanic ritual, an avant-garde fashion show, or a late 60's/early 70s theme party, check out "Vampyros Lesbos."
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Morpho!
By Roule Duke
The music on this awesome soundtrack CD is just as gorgeous as the stunning Soledad Miranda who graces the cover! I personally have all the films this soundtrack represents and love them all, I had no idea until resently that you could buy the soundtrack.
Franco obtained the music for his soundtracks from two obscure albumns by "Vampires Sound" (the two German composers) called "Psychedelic Dance Party" and "Sexadelic", soley because he like the female vampire design on the albumn covers. Both LP's were transfered completly back to back in original running order on a CD called "3 Films by Jess Franco" which was limited to 500 copies. This CD, "Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party", is actually 20 minutes shorter as many of the more experimental tracks have being omitted, most notably the 'stalking music' from "Vampyros Lesbos" but is still a gorgeous edition and well worth owning.
The sound is like chillout lounge jazz on acid, full of smooth beats, buzzing guitars, horns, funky keyboards and twangy sitar strings. I love every song! It is just so awesome to have them on CD making it a totally must own albumn. The music is just so much fun, you feel like grooving the moment it begins until long after the albumns over. The disc comes with a really cool little booklet thats full of info and has great pics.
Anyone who likes what they hear and what they see in the booklet should probually check out the films. My favourite from the ones represented here is "Vampyros Lesbos", but all Jess Franco's films are cult classics and Soledad Miranda's brathtaking scene prescence made her legendary icon of Euro-cult cinema even though she tragically died so young.
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2 Kool 4 U, Daddy-O!,
By Gavin B.
Hipness has come full circle with the rise in popularity of vintage Sixties and Seventies exotica film soundracks. Some of the veteran studio musicians play on these sountracks and do so with abandon and laser-like percision. It's a rare opprotunity to hear usually staid studio hands playing with an over-the-top enthusiasm they seldom have a chance to display. Hired studio guns have a thankless task when they back well known singers. The producer usually orders them to stay in the background and cheeky solos are regarded as taboo, for fear of upstaging the "artiste" who is paying them handsomely for their time.
"The Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party" is an example just how good it can get when these expert musicians are allowed to rip. Beatnick hipster arrangements with plenty of tempo shifts and thematic improvisation. Blaring Stax horn sections, wild psychedelic fuzz box guitar, jazzy organ runs, strutting funkadelic drum and bass, and an occasional glockenspiel or sitar for freakout effect. Composers Manfred Hubler and Siegfred Schwab toss this melange of styles into a Cusinart blender and hit the "puree" botton. The musicans of Vampyros Lesbos play lounge jazz, funk, psychedelica, mambo, samba, europop, ethnic music, rock and roll and just plain old kitsch with equal facility. This isn't schlock however... the music here is straight from cool cat school of pop fusion as practiced by Serge Gainsboro, Lee Hazelwood, Jimmy Webb,Ennio Morricone and the great Fellini sountrack composer, Nino Rota. Granted, Hubler and Schwab's soundtracks freely borrowed from other sources, but the final product was a fascinating pastiche of the great popular music of their era.
Detractors of exotica soundtracks often berate them as background music written for go-go dance parties or sordid sex scenes. Man!...those cats just can't dig it. They should buy a one-way ticket back to Squaresville and do the funky chicken til the cows come home.
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