tQ’s friends over at Finders Keepers are reissuing several original soundtracks from the works of celebrated Chilean filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky. Before they’re released early next year, they’ve put out one track from each of 1970’s El Topo, 1973’s The Holy Mountain and 2013’s The Dance Of Reality. Listen to these below, alongside some quotes from Finders Keepers founder Andy Votel’s liner notes.
Spiritual-pseudo Western, El Topo – sometimes known as The Mole in English – featured Jodorowsky as director and actor. It was his first feature film and managed to attract the eye of Beatle John Lennon who championed the Chilean’s work and ensured it was released in 1971 on his own Apple label. The soundtrack is an impressive array of classical themes, South American music and jazz.
"The El Topo album marks the exact pinprick where Alejandro Jodorowsky’s legacy first bled into the wider public consciousness," says Votel. "Crossing artistic disciplines, garnering the initial vociferous support of the likes of Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Samuel Fuller, and eventually capturing David Lynch, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Marilyn Manson, Asia Argento, Erykah Badu, Jarvis Cocker and Kanye West (amongst many others) under his spell. In the year of release, El Topo also spawned a novella/screenplay book as part of its limited merchandise offshoots for those who fancied re-enacting scenes of the movie in the comfort of their own homes perhaps."
The colossal and unrivalled masterpiece of Jodorowsky’s career, The Holy Mountain, is an interpretation of French writer René Daumal’s book, Mount Analogue. The "spiritual, mythical and allusive" score was written and arranged by jazz trumpeter and composer Don Cherry, and recorded by Ron Frangipane and Jodorowsky himself at A&R Studios in New York in several sittings in 1973. The Holy Mountain is an awesome combination of jazz, rock, electronic, avant-garde and Eastern influences that boggle the mind and ensnare the senses.
Andy Votel: "Like Daumal’s original Mount Analogue aborted novel (which was interrupted mid-sentence by the death of the author) after the movie credits had rolled, The Holy Mountain soundtrack story came to an abrupt end. The thirst for the twenty-track spiritual jazz-folk-orch-prog-psych-electronic-glam opus on two slabs of black vinyl would never be quenched; destined only to exist in the wildest fantasies of record collectors and antique store bullshitters claiming to have seen copies at record fairs. For vinyl junkies in denial The Holy Mountain LP became their unachievable Holy Grail."
The Dance Of Reality was a triumphant return for Jodorowsky after a twenty-three year hiatus. "Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology and poetry, The Dance Of Reality reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a ‘dance’ created by our own imaginations," explains Votel.
Written, arranged and recorded by Alejandro’s son, Adan Jodorowsky, the soundtrack "expands from gossamer folk acoustic guitar themes and solo piano compositions to rich cinematic orchestral arrangements echoing the work of John Barry and Ennio Morricone combined with extrovert narrative traditional pieces executed in the vein of Nino Rota", all the while maintaining Alejandro Jodorowsky’s flair for the unexpected and the unknown.
The special vinyl editions will be released by Finders Keepers in early 2015. In the meantime, read the Quietus’ feature on Jodorowsky’s Dune here.
