As great as it is to have all of those iconic Carpenter scores available again on vinyl, it's these lesser known soundtracks that Death Waltz has been reissuing that get me really jazzed, albums of eerie electronic weirdness and pulsating prog that haven't been available on any format for decades, if at all. Easily one of the most obscure scores that the Waltz has given their attention to, Joe Delia's score for Abel Ferrara's 1981 underground classic Ms. 45 is one such artifact that has recently been resurrected on vinyl, the first time this score has ever been released in any form at all, actually, timed to accompany the recent re-release of Ferrara's notorious film by Drafthouse Films. Ms. 45 was the follow-up to Ferrara's unbelievably seedy art-gore flick Driller Killer, a grimy riff on the rape-revenge genre about a young woman repeatedly assaulted on the streets of NY, a sequence of brutal events that leads to her crusade of murderous vengeance that ends in a stunning costume party massacre where our heroine blasts everyone away with the titular weaponry while dressed in full nun regalia. It's a real kick to the eyeballs, filtered through Ferrara's misanthropic, squalid vision of New York, tinged with surreal imagery and bursts of gory violence. For this notorious piece of art-house filth, Ferrara enlisted pianist Joe Delia, who had already made a career backing the likes of Stevie Wonder, Chuck Berry and The Isley Brothers; with his background in rock and jazz, Delia brought a raw energy to his score, and incorporated both atmospheric arrangements and squalling noise to excellent effect, mixing urban jazz, experimental vocal sounds, menacing Moog drones and screeching free-jazz horns into an almost avant-garde assault on the viewer that reeks of early 80's Big Apple squalor.

    The score evolves from a sparse, haunting piano theme, a delicately simple and repetitive melody that is gradually joined by tense droning synthesizers and distant metallic rattling noises evoking the harshness of Ferrara's urban hellscape. The sound slowly becomes laced with bursts of dissonant electronics that create a sudden swell of dread and fear, the soundtrack gradually becoming more abrasive and atonal as it mirrors the psychological and emotional disintegration of the main character; later in the score, Delia works in bursts of ear-scraping guitar noise and skittering drumming for brief assaults of almost No Wave-informed abrasion; you can hear the resonating squeal of the early 80's art-punk scene leeching into these tracks, especially across the latter half of the film when the action begins to ratchet up to the violent conclusion, and the jazz musicians that Delia hired for the recording torture their instruments into almost Contortions-esque jazz-punk dirges that lurch through the grimy sooty haze. That last half of the score also features the use of saxophone, funky bass guitar, Fender Rhodes and Moog synths, long passages of creepy, unsettling choral moaning voices, stretches of grimy early 80s funk, swirling sinister piano, before it all culminates with the sleazy disco backdrop that plays over the climactic costume party/bloodbath. One of Ferrara's most memorable films, for sure, backed by Delia's harrowing tapestry of sonic sleaze.

    As with most of the newer Death Waltz titles, the presentation for Delia's Ms. 45 looks fantastic, the translucent vinyl housed in a gorgeous heavyweight case-wrapped gatefold with a printed insert bound into the jacket, accompanied by liner notes from Delia himself as well as a huge full-color poster reproduction of the cover art.