Cicciolina, Amore Mio soundtrack

I do love me some Bruno Mattei, but I haven't seen this film, actually. Cicciolina, Amore Mio was made as a vehicle for Ilona Staller, who was known in Italy as being the host of a sex-themed radio show at the time. (She later became a hardcore porn star, and then a member of the Italian parliament in the early 90s, and continued doing porn while in office.) From what I've seen of the film, it is basically a movie about her being the host of a sex-themed radio show. Go figure. I'm sure it's good, I just haven't gotten a hold of it yet.

Sorry folks, not sure how Blogspot reacts to bewbiez.

Gianni Marchetti's soundtrack to the film was released through BEAT Records not too long ago, but I was pretty pissed when my copy had a very noticeable bend in the front cover. (It's very visible in the top picture.) I haven't listened to the entire soundtrack, but I have listened to bits and pieces of it, and it's a pretty nice disco-themed soundtrack from what I have heard. The songs included, which are sung by Staller herself, were included on her solo album from around the same time as the film, which also had a now out-of-print release on CD. If you're a Mattei fan, or a Cicciolina fan, go for this. You may dig it.

Metallo Italia

Life's not all Mad Capsule Markets for me, y'know: one of my greatest passions in life is Italian genre cinema. This LP I'm showing off today isn't explicitly a soundtrack to an Italian horror, exploitation, poliziotteschi or fantascienza, but songs from this album have made their way into one through the guy composing its main soundtrack. What film is that, you ask? Bruno Mattei's famous Predator clone Robowar. Yes, the one that Spoony reviewed. (On a side note, I did send Spoony the songs on this album that showed up on the Robowar soundtrack through a brief email exchange. Great guy.)

Not totally seamless, these gatefold pics are, but what can I tell ya...

This compilation of NWOBHM-influenced Italian metal was released in 1985 (in May, apparently, according to a tiny printing on the inner record sleeve) to local success, but many metalheads objected to the cover: the beast of Italian metal, Marius, holding the severed head of a decapitated Eddie the Head, Iron Maiden's famous mascot. The entire compilation was put together by Al Festa, a famous composer of Italo disco, soundtracks to a few of Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso films from the late 80s (the latter's film, After Death, brought Al his most famous song in its opening theme Living After Death), and the director of the 1996 giallo Fatal Frames, one of my favorite films of all time, as well as a good friend of mine.

The two songs that show up in Robowar are the first two songs on the album: Raff's "I Trust" and Shout's "Break It Up". There are a couple other classics on this album as well, like TIR's "Amsterdam" and the famous Italian metal band Vanexa's "It's Over". Al also directed a video of the entire album, with all of the bands performing their songs at one venue, bookended by scenes of King Arthur (played by Al) and Marius. I haven't been able to track down the VHS by itself, but one channel on YouTube has devoted itself to uploading most of the tape. For some reason, they only put up the first halves of each of the performances, but the bookend segments are intact.

On a side note, Raff is putting out an album consisting of re-recorded versions of songs from their unreleased album Gates Of Fortune, and I Trust is one of the songs on it. The LP version is already out, but Jolly Roger Records is putting out the CD version of this album on September 8th. If you're interested, this is a great way to get into Italian metal, outside of, say, picking up a bunch of Death SS records.