Luciano Michelini - L'isola degli uomini pesce(The Island of the Fishm [Fin De Siecle Media - 2007]This is a soundtrack for little know 1979 sci-fi Fantasy tropical island adventure L'isola degli uomini pesce( The Island of the Fishmen) by one of the lesser know Italian film composers Luciano Michelini's. Mixing together romantic, dramatic and adventure led string themes, with jungle drum rock-outs and funked out grooves, to more mysterious and dark water bound string struggles. Though this seems to lack one central and repeated main theme- as it has a few, there’s much to enjoy here as it’s quite varied fair. With some quite nice experimental and far-out 70’s elements, like pulsing noise like synth's, quirky percussive angles, though it never goes too out there. There’s also a nice feeling of watery dread and fear on some of the tracks which clear where used for shots of the fishmen/merman or when their about to attack a hapeless victim. It’s nicely package in a fold out full colour digpak, with a short write-up about the film which apparently was given an Us release with extra scenes by Roger Gorman and of course Luciano Michelini himself. Toped off with the great ‘helpless female’ surrounded by Mermen cover and stills from the film. Well worth a look if you enjoy 70’s soundtrack and would like to investigate the clearly very talented work of Luciano Michelini. Roger Batty
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