Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2011 September 26 • Monday

I'll buy just about any Nico Fidenco soundtrack but I'd buy this just for the title and the cover.

It's the 184th Soundtrack of the Week, 2+5 Missione Hydra.

After the mysterious and tension-building "Astronave Aliene (Prologo)" we get right down to business with the main theme, an outer-space stomp that manages to combine elements of "Rumble", "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" and "The James Bond Theme".

You hear it a lot, in different ways. A seductive lounge version becomes "Hydra Shake", a bossa nova version is "Space Bossa", a somewhat menacing take on it is "Swing a Go Go", a romantic version is "Momento Nostalgico" and so on. (There are versions two and three of "Space Bossa", in fact.)

It's all very groovy and agreeable, with really nice guitar and organ sounds and great use of percussion.

As far as the other tracks go, there's a lot of weird atmospheric space music like "Galassia Lontana", "Ultraspazio", "Segnali 2" (which quotes the main theme), "Antica Leggenda", "Strana Dimensione" and several others.

"Estasi Aliena" is a lush string piece that pops up again in "Paura e Amore" (It's the amore part, I guess). It's similar to some of the music you hear in Japanese television dramas of the last decade.

(And the cue "Lotta" sounds similar to some of Masaru Sato's Godzilla music.)

It's a great score, one of Fidenco's best.