A stunning image of a zombie chomping on an LP grabs the attention immediately in this new book exploring LP covers for a variety of horror-genre soundtracks.  Essentially, Blood on Black Wax is a coffee table book, the sort of volume one leafs through casually and perhaps reads a few of the brief comments that appear with most of the album covers featured here.  The reproduction of these covers is striking with vivid colors and reproduction that make this a gorgeous tome to explore.

The information that is included is a blend of composer comments, commentary about the music of the film featured, and some information on the album itself.  The latter relates more specifically to the vinyl releases in cases where a more recent re-release has occurred when the album might otherwise only have appeared on CD when formats changed over in the 1980s.   Composer interviews are integrated into the information for many of the selections here.  These alternate with brief information about each of the films and then some discussion of the music and, often, the way it was used in the film.

Albums are organized into seven broad categories which actually serve the coffee table style of the book. Blood on Wax is not really something one might read cover to cover, though one certainly can.  Instead, it rewards a casual browsing where one might just simply enjoy the visuals and art of these album covers.  The accompanying text serves its purpose of being informative and is equally entertaining.  It also helps that this format is broken up with the use of questions and composer answers that are distributed throughout the book.  The striking cover will catch your eye which invites you to leaf through the book stopping at the familiar films of one’s own childhood or wondering about a film one has never heard of before, though most likely fans of these genre films will be familiar with most of the films included.

Carollo: Symphony No. 3
Emma Tring, soprano.
London Symphony Orchestra/Miran Vaupotic
Navona Records 6250
Total Time: 27:57
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The London Symphony enters the list of performers on Navona’s stable with this new release featuring the third symphony of John A. Carollo (b. 1954).  Carollo’s music has appeared on some earlier Navona releases introducing this Hawaiian-based composer who spent a majority of his life working as a mental health professional.  A blend of traditional harmony within a modernist style is perhaps the best way to describe Carollo’s music.  It is quite accessible work with a picturesque quality that is a bit more in the forefront of this more recent work.

The Symphony No. 3 (2017) is cast in four movements with evocative titles inspired by William Blake’s poetry.  The work itself is a rethinking of earlier song cycles.  “To Morning” provides a rather atmospheric start to the work that soon opens up into a rather pastoral quality.  The harmony has an impressionistic feel of slowly rising in beauty with the sun.  Musically, it the sound is somewhat evocative of a mid-century film score with touches of Delius.  That Hollywood feel somewhat appears in the second movement’s “Gestural Rituals” which focuses on a motivic idea that is repeated across some rather dense harmonic support.  There is a bit more interaction here and a rather fascinating driving section.  A piano plays more of a role in the fabric of the orchestra as well.  These ideas tend to repeat in a rather incessant way across the movement.  For the third movement, “In the Garden of Earthyly Delights”, Carollo adds a soprano line as another potential color in the orchestra.  It is an equally evocative work with solo wind and piano lines that give the opening an intimate quality.  The piece is certainly aided by the superb musicians who are highlighted in telling solo moments here.  But this particular movement feels a bit more like a chamber piece with the vocal line working more in tandem with the piano.  The final movement, “Let the Evening Stillness Arouse”, continues this intriguing blend of dark dissonance with evocative swaths of thematic solo lines.  The piece has a somewhat languid, and overall restrained quality.  There are certainly moments of great beauty in this work, but the movements feel somewhat disparate essays that feel often like brief sketches of a fleeting moment.

In addition to the CD of the piece itself, the release featuers a DVD featurette and a recording of the symphony in 5.1 surround stereo.  All this to help perhaps make up for the short playing time.  With this, Navona enters an opportunity to expand its audiophile interest while presenting new music with a major symphony orchestra.