Guido De Angelis, Maurizio De Angelis

Beat Records is proud to present the world premiere on CD and LP of the complete original motion picture soundtrack for the movie Il cacciatore di squali, directed in 1979 by Enzo G. Castellari. Superstar Franco Nero is Mike Di Donato, an Italian-American with a mysterious past dominated by a terrible event from which he is probably fleeing, leads the life of a good savage on a deserted island with his own version of Friday, played by Marta Miller, the gorgeous Argentinian actress with a prolific career in genre cinema.

The soundtrack was composed by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis during a deeply influential period in music history, as 1979 was the moment in which the disco music phenomenon was spreading like wildfire across the world, infusing every creative endeavor with its powerful energy, and the brothers Maestro were no exception. The main titles burst from the speakers with great skill, creating a musical transition from a quiet seaside scene into Mike's dynamic fight with a shark. Pulsating grooves, nervous guitars, derailing brasses, breaks artfully edited into sync, and the general musical tension creates a magnet for the spectator, glued onto the screen with both eyes and ears.

We have plenty of orchestrations of this theme, literally everything. In one version, the rhythm section hits like Sylvester, another time with strings in the style of Sister Sledge, then here comes the brass as if it were a Bee Gees cue, but holy Mary, it's undeniably the De Angelis bros, and you recognize them in the details, accents, and overall orchestration. If only I had them here while writing these notes, I would hug them gratefully for the umpteenth fucking cool emotion popping up from this time capsule. Two other musical themes in the score lend a hand, one for lighter, more comedic situations and everyday life, and a series of tense electronic cues accentuated by a few live instruments.