Klaus Schulze was a kind of proggy-avant garde composer from the German school of the seventies and eighties. His biggest link to popular knowledge is that he was a founding member of Tangerine Dream, though he left after only one album, I think. Nevertheless, in 1982, he composed the score for Next of Kin, a cheapo horror/slasher from Australia; the score didn’t get used and so its basically been the stuff of bootlegs until just a couple of years ago when it got a nice release on vinyl (and digital, thankfully). It’s good stuff. It’s pretty well all synth and drum machines and it’s pretty atmospheric and dark. If you’re thinking eighties style synth meets Tangerine Dream spaciness, you’re in the right ballpark. Good night driving music and at only a bit over thirty minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. My favorite track is probably Dream Theme which is one of the slower, more melodic tracks, but they’re all pretty good. The album does contain one track that is an excerpt from Johann Strauss’s Kaiser Waltz and I was actually kind of excited because I was hoping it would be a synthed up “cover” of it, you know, like Wendy Carlos did with all of the classical music in A Clockwork Orange? Unfortunately, it wasn’t; it’s just a straight orchestral recording. Having not seen the movie, I have no idea of the significance, but it works in context of the album in a weird way, having a full orchestral rendition of a classical piece right near the end of all of this synthesizer darkness. Anyway, a lot of fun. And I’m glad they did an official digital release when they put it out on vinyl; a lot of these boutique record labels don’t do that when they release obscure film scores and such and it’s a pain because I’m just not a guy that’s into vinyl for a lot of reasons and I get that they’re purists, but just give me a quick and easy way to get the digital content and I’ll buy it, which I did. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – synth-heavy horror score has been unavailable for decades; a lot of spacy, moody, atmospheric fun. 3 ½ stars.