* 2023 stock * Among the most important scores of Maestro Stelvio Cipriani's oeuvre, and one that has been out of print for many years, Chris' Soundtrack Corner is pleased to make this music available again.

Solamente Nero ("Only Blackness," aka The Bloodstained Shadow) was the second film from Italian director Antonio Bido. With this sophomore feature, Bido created a very stylish and complex giallo thriller about a priest who witnesses a murder and subsequently becomes targeted by the killer, who mistakenly thinks the priest can identify him. Bido directs with credible giallo styling, offering sufficient feverish tension and some deliciously tangible jump scares until finally wrapping up the mystery in a satisfying resolution.

Bido initially wanted the Italian progressive rock combo Goblin to score his film. He met with the band's founding member Claudio Simonetti and later with all the band members and received their enthusiastic interest; but to his regret, an agreement between his film's production company and the band's record company could not be reached. Bido then met with Stelvio Cipriani, whose melodic style had contributed effectively to a number of notable giallo films. Bido selected from the composer's proposed musical themes those he felt would work best for the film; his only misgiving was that he wanted a score that was less melodic and more modernistic in its progression. A solution was realized in which Cipriani would compose the score in his normal way, but that Goblin, represented by Simonetti on keyboards, would perform on the recording of the score. Thus, each contributed his own stylistic signature onto the soundtrack, although Goblin/Simonetti would do so without official credit.

The resulting score for Solamente Nero is a dark, pulsating atmosphere of Cipriani's composition filtered through the sonic lens of Simonetti's progressive rock vibe. And while Simonetti's involvement was present most evidently in his keyboard performance, his influence is clearly evident in the role played by electric bass, guitar, and drums, bestowing Cipriani's compositions with a distinctly Goblinesque sensibility.

This new release from Chris' Soundtrack Corner reissues the musical content of previous releases of this score. We've combined together the shorter cues from those previous editions in order to provide longer individual tracks for a more pleasing and sustained musical listening experience.