ARE YOU a sucker for an imaginary soundtrack, film-score funk? Hell, I am.
Ever since the days of Barry Adamson’s inestimably influential Moss Side Story, the score for a Manchester crime flick yet to be made, and its strapline: “In a black and white world, murder brings a touch of colour”. And it really did, the whole concept added a dimension to my musical appreciation; especially at a time when soundtracks had lost so much of the sass and louche groove, with swirling, identikit Hollywood orchestra grandstanding occluding the view.
Then, of course, came Tarantino, who breathed a new (admittedly retro) life back into the form; and crate-digging reissue labels such as Crippled Dick Hot Wax began to unearth the best, the weirdest and the most bizarre of continental soundtracks of the Sixties and the Seventies, such as Vampyros Lesbos, and their three-volume Beat At Cinecitta series once again making names like Morricone and Piccioni hallowed with the musical cognoscenti.
This past year or so a few acts across the globe have playing with the soundtrack jazz-funk atmospheres to fine effect; Melbourne’s Surprise Chef, Sweden’s Sven Wunder; and now Brighton, excuse the pun, hoves into the imaginary celluloid soundworld as Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel prepare to bring us The Globeflower Masters Vol.1 for Mr Bongo, due in September, as the leaves begin to fall.
Both are musicians who’ve been involved with some of the more intelligent and eclectic British groove creations of recent years: Glenn with the rare groove dectet The Impellers, and the Latin bliss of Andres y Xavi; meanwhile, Mark can cite involvement with chilled electronicists Blue States and The Soul Steppers.
The Globeflower Masters project has its genesis from an idea of Glenn’s to dive into the glorious musical pool created by the soundtrack and library composers of the golden age of the form, say 1965-75; something which had always informed his music, but which he felt he’d like to explore as a main wellspring. He sketched out a few demos, passed them onto Mark, who he felt could bring the chops to fulfil the vision.
They’re announcing that album today with a first single drop, “Faith In Time”, setting the tone for what’s in store: it’s superbly cinematic, all spy movie jazz organ, one of those intricately clicky bass lines that they just don’t make anymore, at once funky and darkly propulsive. Strings sweep and a deliciously unnecessarily overdriven guitar brings the correct fuzz meander. Sitting partway between Axelrod and Vannier, it pushes every conceivable soundtrack groove button.
You bring yourself, maybe a cocktail shaker; it’ll bring the spice of elegance.
Glenn Fallows And Mark Treffel Present The Globeflower Masters Vol.1 will be released by Me Bongo digitally, on CD and on LP on September 10th, and may be pre-ordered now over at Bandcamp.
