condition (record/cover): EX- (minimal surface noise) / EX- (light edges wear)

Before CTI, before Wes Montgomery in gauze and Antonio Carlos Jobim in soft focus, Creed Taylor produced this: a horror record for the hi-fi crowd, with music by Kenyon Hopkins (the composer behind Baby Doll and 12 Angry Men), a woman named Toni Darnay screaming on cue, and sound effects layered onto small-group jazz like blood on a cocktail napkin. Titles like The Crank and The Secret run as miniature radio dramas without dialogue, each one a set-up, a creak, a stab of brass, a payoff. The cover is famous for a reason.

What makes the record more than a gimmick is that Hopkins's writing is real: modal vamps, tremolo strings, a walking bass that stops walking when it hears something. Musique concrète for people who had never heard the phrase and would have laughed if they had. Original mono ABC-Paramount pressing, the one to have.