Having no prior knowledge of this release before playing it, I immediately assumed that this release was going to be a Death Metal one and upon hearing “Poison” I thought that somehow the wrong music had been pressed on to these CDs. After a little research I found that this is a selection of songs from a series of films I had never seen (or heard of for that matter) so I doubt I’m getting the full impact of these tracks, but as it stands, it’s a fairly troubling listen.

Although the tracks can be fairly minimal, they create very uneasy and vibrant atmospheres, like the simple yet haunting violin lines during “Poison” or the bizarre sounds of “Fish In A Bowl” or the just plain creepy “Surprise”. Each song is its own little story and even without knowing the scenes that the music goes with, the songs tell an interesting tale.

I’m not sure how often I’ll come back to this, or who I would recommend it to, but if you’re interested in unsettling music, then this is definitely worth a listen. (Online March 16, 2005)