Eugen Thomass – Scarabea OST
A rare 7inch EP on Hans Wewerkas tiny Austrian Inmus-Label. It’s the soundtrack to Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Tolstoi adaptation “Scarabea – Wieviel Erde braucht ein Mensch”. Syberberg is one of the most obscure and controversial german independent moviemakers. Due to his neo-conservative and nationalistic views he plays a rather isolated role among the otherwise predominantly leftwing orientated “Autorenfilmer” of Germanys 60s and 70s cinema.
Among his early works I would really like to see his TV documentation “Sex Business – Made in Pasing” he produced for the Bavarian Broadcast. A portrait of a pornmovie producer in late 60s munich sounds like a thrill.
I haven’t seen “Scarabea” so far but given the fact, that Syberberg graduated in philosophy and Susan Sontag was heavily digging his work, I guess it’s a tough one to watch (concepts, constructions, metaphors, symbolism, you-name-it).
Eugen Thomass’ soundtrack is a quirky mixture of psychedelia, jazz and beat with the inevitable use of fuzz guitar, sitar, Hammond B3 and an everpresent jew’s harp on all five tracks. It creates this special trashy sixty-ish mood blending together suspense, drugs, erotica and mystery, that we all know so very well from european sleaze like “Vampyros Lesbos”.
“Undergroovin'” and the title track are definitely the groovier ones on the EP while the others tend more to fake-baroque noodling. Overall a nice listen and a hard one to get hold of.
“Undergroovin'”
[audio:eugen_thomass_undergrooving.mp3]
“Scarabea”
[audio:eugen_thomass_scarabea.mp3]
3 Comments
Fabulous! Thanks for sharing. Nice review.
Thanks for posting, this is an excellent soundtrack.
Any hints on where I could purchase this great OST?
D
Thank you very much, I look forward every other week for your posts & the mixes are such wodrfneul surprises.I am just amazed at the stuff you post. The selections are like the songs you might hear only once or twice, usually late night, on the am stations of my youth, the songs that would have been interspersed with the same lame, usually, top 40 drivel, that was pumped out 24 houirs a day back then but this was the only way you ever got to hear the good stuff, that Ventures instro or surf toon or Joe Meek production or fav girl group song unless you had the money to buy the 45.Ah, nostalgiaTorch