Lost Sounds and Soundtracks. “The Sinful Dwarf”

"Won't it be funny to see a Danish movie titled The Sinful Dwarf?  In a theater?" my friends and I mused, sallying forth towards a midnight screening at the original Alamo Drafthouse.

Well, it wasn't funny.  It was really messed up, actually.  But by far the highlight of the evening before we unceremoniously snuck out mid-scene into the night air (had it ever smelled so sweet, tasted so fresh?) was the movie's completely deranged and jittery cacophony of a score by Ole Ørsted whose further credits include a smattering of sound and directorial work (for what appear on IMDb to be mostly exploitation films...I don't do Danish, but I can guess where Alverdens Porno's intentions lie) and, oh, yeah...participation in a definitive Stockhausen recording.

What you are listening to:

(1) Opening titles music by Ole Ørsted.

***

Music can be one of cinema's great pleasures. When used with inspiration—not dictating our viewing experience with a death grip or slathered like bad wallpaper over the rest of a sound mix—it can transform either solitary shots or spliced sequences of moving images into entirely new expressions, galvanizing details within the raw cinematographic material or contrapuntally complicating the initial impressions of the image.

Given our love for movie music in all its forms, whether a soundtrack features original orchestral compositions, near-abstract soundscapes, or acts as a curatorial force for collecting, exposing and (re-) contextualizing existent music, Lost Sounds and Soundtracks will serve to highlight some of our favorites, obscure and not so obscure, commercially available and ripped directly from audio-tracks where necessary. Unless analyzed within their original context, all will be divorced from their image-tracks in hopes that we might briefly give them their singular due.