CHRIS ALEXANDER: MUSIC FOR MURDER
2M1 Records
Reviewed by David Bertrand

The first time I slapped on Chris Alexander’s 2004 album BlackGloveKiller, I heard the track ‘Organ Grinder’ and gasped out a quick, “Holy hell.”  I was a big admirer of Chris’ writing in Rue Morgue Magazine; under the guise of the Schizoid Cinephile, he delivered a frothy monthly brew of impassioned, eccentric rants in tribute to vintage horror, vintage soundtracks, and cinematic excess of all vintages.  His guts seemed to spill in all the right places, and his music too, rewarded with a wealth of creepy, brutish analog loops, bone-bleached desert guitar drones, and keyboard lines

borrowed from Claudio Simonetti’s satchel, all trapped and screaming inside a coffin of reverb.

Chris, of course, has become a definitive name in genre film journalism, is the current editor-in-chief of Fangoria, and has made a life’s work of re-juicing the careers of under-appreciated film greats through his endlessly entertaining and excitable accolades.  But meanwhile, to almost no acclaim, Chris has quietly crafted a series of superior albums distributed via his own (now defunct) label, Meridian Music – notable as the first home of synth-prog darlings Zombi, now on Relapse Records – and composed several memorable scores for film and radio (The Stink of Flesh, Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories).

Music For Murder, though not marketed as such, is partially a ‘best of’ collection from a decade’s worth of work, with at least half the tracks culled from the four Alexander albums in my best discount cialis own, incomplete, collection.  2M1 Records – a new film soundtrack specialty label – has done us a service, however, delivering a huge step-up in the easy availability & downloadibility of Chris’ music, the quality of the audio (significantly improved from tinny CD-R pressings), and the sheer consistency of the material, as well as the fine artwork by Kelly Forbes: two black giallo gloves wiping away the red stuff after a hard night’s work.  It’s an album best aurally assimilated on headphones, alone, at night.  Of course.

Favourites include: ‘The Quiet Life of Martha Morris’, a 7-minute moaning, heart-twisting circus dirge in tribute to the armless wonder from Tod Browning’s Freaks; the calculatedly skin-curdling effect of Skin Too Tight’s echo-notes and groin-pulsing rumble; and the aforementioned ‘Organ Grinder’, here presented in a ‘Demonology Mix’ that amps up the urgency, volume and hammer-to-chest impact of the original.

About the author:

David Bertrand

David Bertrand is the Operations Manager for the Fantasia International Film Festival, a writer for Fangoria Magazine and DJ cialis online pharmacy at Toronto's Fear Street.