Cineploit Records

Cineploit is a new label by former Pungent Stench drummer Alex Wank, who while pummeling the skins in that band for the past two decades has also been a movie and soundtrack collector. The focus of Cineploit is to release music (on 180g vinyl and CD) inspired by and for lovers of soundtrack music especially Italian and European Cinema of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. 

It’s first two releases, which I’ve had the fortune to listen to are by THELEMA and MALABIMBA.

Effectively these albums are soundtracks to movies that exist only in the artists heads and by listening to them you are left to interpret what those movies might in your own. I’ll therefore attempt to review Cineploit Records first two releases by describing the movies that appear in my mind when I listen to them.

MALABIMBA - MalaBimba

A quick google search shows that “MalaBimba” is the title of a 1979 Italian horror/soft porn movie. I haven’t seen it so I’m going to go with my imagined version. The album cover features a small child stabbing a teddy bear through the top of the head with a bread knife. This sets the scene for a twisted B grade slasher/cannibal flick with a minimalist score featuring drums and 70s style analogue keyboards. Like a stripped back Goblin without guitars.

The film kicks off with the creepy laid back jingle of “Meta Strada 1” which is followed by the 70’s cop show theme styled “Meta Strada 2”. Both of which allow us to establish that MalaBimba is set during 1974 in an isolated country town somewhere in Italy, where there is only one remaining cop. 

I did find the scene, set to the goofy ‘Addormentato’ (then leading into the more dramatic tones of ‘Addormentato 2’) to be very effective. In his teenage years, our main character seeks revenge on his over domineering grandmother by graphically forcing, base first, an entire dial telephone up her ass. However, I think that the director and producer should have chosen clever editing and sound effects to replicate this, rather than blowing a good chunk of the movie’s budget to hire an Anal Contortionist to carry out the stunt. As he grows up, our lead antagonist then goes on his sick and twisted psycho sexual rampage through the small Italian town, whilst evading (and eventually beheading) the local cop to the sounds of ‘Diventare Adulto’, ‘L’Ultimo Poliziotto’ and ‘La Violenza’ among others.

This is a solid first effort, but I would like to hear this duo expand instrumentally. Funk bass, jazz trumpets and the odd gong or kettle drum wouldn’t go amiss here. Perhaps in future movies, if the director and producer channel their budgets towards the soundtrack (rather than international casting calls for practitioners in the dark arts of Anal Contortion), it will allow them to expand musically into these and ‘other’ areas.

For now though this stripped back approach works to the movie’s stark advantage. Particularly in the final scene, where in what we assume (hope?) is a dream sequence, the lead gets his just deserts when a giant replica of his tortured childhood Teddy bear gets his revenge by ramming a fence post through the top of his skull. All of which is set to the sound of the rather groovy and up tempo ‘Senza Disciplinare (Qui Finisce Male)’.

THELEMA - Hearing the Light

“Hearing the Light” is the lost David Lynch movie where all the dialogue was spoken by the actors backward in German. All of its Characters are unlikeable and fortunately die slow & agonising, well deserved deaths. That is, except for the faceless antagonist featured on the album cover, who whilst appearing nasty, seems to be more human and likeable than any of his victims.

From the brooding hypnotic nightmare opening sequence of “Close your eyes and See”, “Hearing the Light” is almost entirely cold and grey. However, “You will not get that so fast” brings about a slightly lighter tone with a female vocal being introduced to signify springtime and the main character’s new love interest. This soon becomes pointless though, as she is slowly frozen to death whilst ice skating naked the following winter (after a summer that never arrived) during a lovemaking scene gone wrong. This is depicted in the track “Grey evening” with it’s morbid rock lead guitar tones and hammond grimness. Later, there are dying hints of warmth attempting to push through, as her isolated, trapped and fading ghost returns during the track “Still hearing the Light” and for one last gasp in the epilogue “A light reprise”.

“Hearing the Light” is the sound of 1950s Film Noir, blended amongst modern ambient lounge music trappings. It comes from a world where there are always dark clouds blocking out the sun, no one ever smiles yet can seek the courage to slit their own wrists. 

Next from Cineploit 

Three more albums from Cineploit have already been released. They are ZOLTAN – “First Stage Zoltan” ORGASMO SONORE – Revisiting obscure film music vol. 2 and SOSPETTO – Segni Misteriosi, con il sangue dipinto sul muro. Also released are two limited edition splatter vinyl 7”s by ‘Omaggio’ (Alain Leonard and Alex Wank) which are tributes to ‘Lucio Fulci’ and ‘Joe D’Amato’ You can go and check out all of these including the albums reviewed here by going to http://www.cineploit.com