Cleopatra 2017
The Devil’s Domain OST
Fearsome Satan of cyber fiber finds sounds to possess his followers: an OST for a horror flick starring Michael Madsen.
Branching out into cinema seems to be an ingenious, if not very original, move for Cleopatra Records who thus created a perfect vehicle for placing their artists’ tracks on display and wrapping it all in a fresh score. More so, this, the label’s screen debut, provided them with a chance to submit a common denominator for quite incongruous, genre-wise, performances. DIE KRUPPS’ Jürgen Engler did a marvelous job composing mood-defining orchestral pieces that intersperse rhythmically intense numbers on the second disc of “Devil’s Domain” musical background, but to get there one has to work through the more boisterous first platter and its unsettling, although not necessarily sinister, songs such as THE STOOGES’ vibrant “I’m Sick Of You” or DMX’s expletives-ridden “Y’all Niggaz” which rub shoulders with the folk-tinctured “It’s All Over” from NEKTAR and BRAINTICKET’s raga-tinged “Watchin’ You” whose progressive agenda would undermine the script-enhancing grime.
The psychedelic layer peaking in "Mirrorball" by SONS OF HIPPIES is installed at the start, once VOWWS and Gary Numan have given "Losing Myself In You" a murky throb, but while LE SEUL ÉLÉMENT’s translucent “Mersey Mad Beat” is where surface tension begins to crack, it’s heavy metal of 3TEETH’s “Degrade” that’s a nail in this aural coffin. Pascal Languirand’s lucid “Oiseau de cristal” might show a way out of the dark – albeit another soundscape, “The Clairaudient Syndrome” from CHROME, is sucking all hope from the space – unlike Big Jay McNeely’s “I’ve Been Mistreated” blues that deepen nocturnal depression with theatrical mocking. Still, Taco’s new wave take on “Puttin’ On The Ritz” whips a surprised smile on the listener’s face before ONYX boom their way through “Slam” for a smirk to get stuck, and techno jive of BLACKBURNER’s “Burn! Burn! Burn!” becomes menacing rather than playful, and it will take Jessica Jean’s crystal voice on Burman’s uplifting “Take Me Away” to let light in. And delight, too, as suggested by "OMG" with which RADCLYFFE HALL return the gloom to square one.
Not an easy listening in terms of variety, the sonic background of “The Devil’s Domain” may turn into modern Goth’s wet dream.
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