One of the highlights of Fabio Frizzi's rare stateside appearance this past fall (the C-Blast crew caught him in Philly on his ultra-short run of North American dates) was seeing Frizzi and his ensemble perform pieces from Lucio Fulci's surrealistic, gloriously atmospheric chunkblower The Beyond, some of the most haunting and memorable material of Frizzi's long and lauded catalog of film score work. And up until now, that score has been nearly impossible to find on any format, with the original vinyl on Beat Records commanding some serious rent-blowing prices. Needless to say, The Beyond has been one of the most sought-after Frizzi recordings for collectors, making this Death Waltz reissue a real pleaser.

This slab of Mellotron drenched majesty is one of the best score ever delivered for a Fulci film, and if you're a Fulci freak, there are two tracks in particular that should be instantly recognizable to fans of this flick. The opening theme "Verso L'Ignoto" is a standout Frizzi piece, a chilling theme for piano, fretless bass and flute that slowly becomes more dread-filled and terrifying, its baroque jazz-prog fused to a haunting gothic piano melody, gradually setting the foul, weird mood that permeates Fulci's bile-soaked cinematic feverdream. And "Voci Dal Nulla" serves as the main theme for the film, blending his epic, complex progginess and eerie folk-flecked atmosphere with an instantly memorable vocal arrangement that whips this into a frenzy. The rest of the score is equally ominous, bringing in scuzzy funk, sinister prog rock and swampy blues, with those elements of twisted jazziness reappearing alongside similarly eerie piano motifs. And you get Frizzi's signature rotted-out synthesizers, blending noxious electronics and queasy Moog with folky, floating flute melodies, burly bass guitar grooves and processional percussion that really gives this its urgent, edge-of-armaggedon vibe. Other tracks offer blasts of atonal synth and stunning operatic choral arrangements, tense Goblinesque prog rock workouts and ghostly chamber strings, wound together into a nightmarish, otherworldly delirium with that unearthly funky fretless bass and those lush acoustic guitars often at the center of the action. The only real diversion is the short piece of New Orleans-style jazz "Giro Di Blues". Overall, though, Frizzi's score is calamitous and mournful, and possibly the best work of his career; as Stephen Thrower says in his liner notes to this new vinyl edition, "...Frizzi's great gift to Lucio Fulci was to emphasize not the cruelty of his vision but the grandeur." Essential listening for Frizzi and Fulci fans, a masterwork of Italian spookprog.

Death Waltz's gorgeous new edition features fantastic new album art from the great Graham Humphreys, a four-page album booklet featuring rare production stills from the film, the signature Death Waltz obi strip, and extensive liner notes from Stephen Thrower, assistant producer Larry Ray and Frizzi himself.