[Mateo Sanboval]

I have it down to two, but your reissue comment seals it (you shitter ;)

The other one has yet to be reissued... but it's coming this year. (Long live the new vinyl!)

I'm with this guy.

[tim28212]

Jacob’s Ladder?

ding ding ding

[inksb]

Totally knew exactly what it was too... (glances around the room to make sure no one can tell he's lying)

[Mateo Sanboval]

Son of a...

[deafmetal]

These Twilight Zone sets are giving me the feels. It has been impressive to see some of your VS collections in the other thread. I consider my own to be a bit lacking in comparison and I'm still missing the following grails:

1. Evil Dead
2. Evil Dead II
3. Night of the Living Dead
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (I have a Victor Japan pressing from @monsterworship -thx!)
5. Revenge of the Ninja

As for sleepers, a few of them have been reissued now like Blue Velvet and others, but I highly recommend Raising Arizona/Blood Simple, which are some of my favorite Carter Burwell scores for the Coen Brothers -- and those were the first two scores he wrote for them which is even more impressive. A horror score that seems to slip through the cracks is Manfredini's April Fool's Day, which is a gem. Ditto for his Swamp Thing OST. Also, I know the new releases are not technically sleepers, but The Goonies is solid gold Dave Gruisin and well worth a standalone listen.

[ScoJo]

These Twilight Zone sets are giving me the feels. It has been impressive to see some of your VS collections in the other thread. I consider my own to be a bit lacking in comparison and I'm still missing the following grails:

1. Evil Dead
2. Evil Dead II
3. Night of the Living Dead
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (I have a Victor Japan pressing from @monsterworship -thx!)
5. Revenge of the Ninja

As for sleepers, a few of them have been reissued now like Blue Velvet and others, but I highly recommend Raising Arizona/Blood Simple, which are some of my favorite Carter Burwell scores for the Coen Brothers -- and those were the first two scores he wrote for them which is even more impressive. A horror score that seems to slip through the cracks is Manfredini's April Fool's Day, which is a gem. Ditto for his Swamp Thing OST. Also, I know the new releases are not technically sleepers, but The Goonies is solid gold Dave Gruisin and well worth a standalone listen.

I agree with you on 99.9% of this my man, but am compelled to be That Fact-Checkin' Cuz Guy and correct your mis-atttibution of April Fools Day. It's Charles Bernstein old boy, and a wonderfully ironic, jaunty, hooky score which is waaaay out of Mr Manfredini's range!

Hahahahahahahahaha

[ScoJo]

Jacob’s Ladder?

ding ding ding

Motherf-

[deafmetal]

I agree with you on 99.9% of this my man, but am compelled to be That Fact-Checkin' Cuz Guy and correct your mis-atttibution of April Fools Day. It's Charles Bernstein old boy, and a wonderfully ironic, jaunty, hooky score which is waaaay out of Mr Manfredini's range!

Hahahahahahahahaha

Oops, thanks for the correction, was just looking at the Swamp Thing and think I combined them in my head. All good.

[inksb]

I was very surprised to find that April Fool's Day commands quite the price these days.

[Bub]

Congrats Tim! That's a real beauty. I've had my eye on that for a bit now. While I appreciate the WW reissue, nothing compares to that unsettling OG key art.

Ugh dude i hate that. i reported one of the big book resellers on eBay for that a few years ago. They did it twice to me and after i reported they blocked me haha, which is god because i never want to accidentally do business with them again. They clearly didn't know what they had, and had a fairly rareish book for about 2/3 of what it usually went for. after a week of them not shipping it, i sent them an email and they said it must have gotten lost in the mail, refunded, five minutes later it goes back up form the same seller at the usual price.

Happened twice, same author too, and their feedback was FILLED with review of them pulling the same thing.

That blows, man, but glad to see you were able to scoop em up for a better deal later on. Gives me hope on The Evil Dead haha.

[Dollarhyde]

Awesome thread guys! And amazing to see these epic Varese collections. Will post the few I have, literally a few.

Great to see these lists of sleepers and grails too. I've always said to myself once I'm fed up spending all my record money on anime osts 😅 I've got to start picking up some of the great scores that I keep see getting posted here.

Is there something unique or special about Varese e.g. type of music or artists, sound quality?

[havershaw]

I love love love those VS Twilight Zone LPs - I managed to get all 5 within a few months of each other a few years ago, all for pretty cheap (I think between $10-$20 each, on eBay).

Speaking of, there *were* two copies of Cat’s Eye on eBay for cheap - now that one of them is coming to me, there’s only one, haha.

Probably the grails for me (that I don’t have) are:

1. Phantasm
2. Evil Dead 2
3. NOES
4. Re-Animator
5. Pet Sematary

I threw $60 or $65 at that Re-Animator on discogs and got no response.

[ScoJo]

Is there something unique or special about Varese e.g. type of music or artists, sound quality?

Oof. Lots to say there @dollar, some of it subjective. Here's my personal bullet points though:

- They are terrific pressings, and invariably a well cared for 40yr old Varese will take a giant shit on a modern reissue. They had a fantastic audio team at Varese, and combined with the fact that it was an era of vinyl production being the
height of music repro, they knew what they were doing in the pressing plants.

- The main era of Varese activity (70s-90s) was a golden era for film scoring, especially in genre cinema.

- They developed relationships with composers, and would release multiple albums by them over the years, representing a career output in some cases (ie Goldsmith)

- I love the sleeve design, and various house styles, of VS albums over their main production era. They almost always employed key art used in the film's marketing, so there is strong synchronicity with the experience you had with the film (look at their Reanimator release - why would anyone consider putting anything else on that cover??)

- Feels. For me, because of their ubiquity in the import ost racks when i was a teen getting into films/scores (esp horror and sci fi/genre stuff) these were the LPs i was buying, drooling over, plotting to save and buy, and religiously playing over and over. I couldnt tell you objectively whether Evil Dead is a 'good score' - having it and listening to it is wrapped up with multiple emotions and strong associations: my collection would feel like a joke without it (and so many other VS albums)

[havershaw]

100% agree with everything ScoJo just said.

[Mateo Sanboval]

Heh. Scottrick just defined "collecting".

[Hatter313]

Creepshow acquired! coming next week (sorry if that was any of you I was bidding against) one grail down.

So i've got a few of the Varese records as licensed to other labels, like Colisseuem, Celine, or TER. Its the same masters but i wonder how much variance is in the pressing themselves.

The biggest one i wonder about is Evil Dead 2, i searched out the TER years ago because the UK key art is my favorite and i loved that they used it for the album there, but i wonder how it compares to an actual VS pressing.

[Hatter313]

Congrats Tim! That's a real beauty. I've had my eye on that for a bit now. While I appreciate the WW reissue, nothing compares to that unsettling OG key art.

Ugh dude i hate that. i reported one of the big book resellers on eBay for that a few years ago. They did it twice to me and after i reported they blocked me haha, which is god because i never want to accidentally do business with them again. They clearly didn't know what they had, and had a fairly rareish book for about 2/3 of what it usually went for. after a week of them not shipping it, i sent them an email and they said it must have gotten lost in the mail, refunded, five minutes later it goes back up form the same seller at the usual price.

Happened twice, same author too, and their feedback was FILLED with review of them pulling the same thing.

That blows, man, but glad to see you were able to scoop em up for a better deal later on. Gives me hope on The Evil Dead haha.

One day Bub, one day we will all have Evil Dead, then we can sync up our livestreams and spin them together...i'm sure that won't awaken anything ;D

[ScoJo]

Creepshow acquired! coming next week (sorry if that was any of you I was bidding against) one grail down.

So i've got a few of the Varese records as licensed to other labels, like Colisseuem, Celine, or TER. Its the same masters but i wonder how much variance is in the pressing themselves.

The biggest one i wonder about is Evil Dead 2, i searched out the TER years ago because the UK key art is my favorite and i loved that they used it for the album there, but i wonder how it compares to an actual VS pressing.

Congrats! That's just an all-time great VS album, every thing about it is magic. Enjoy in creepy health!

It would indeed be interesting to directly compare the VS/sister European pressings with each other. I'm pretty sure the only ones I currently have both of are the Carpenters (H, Fog, EFNY, PoD) - I will gladly do a little side by
side'ing on those to get a general sense of how close they are

[havershaw]

Looooove the VA Creepshow!!

[CrossedPete]

Man this thread is dangerous. I completely forgot to add NOTLD to my grail list. I always thought there were only 3 volumes for twilight zone. I don’t have any of them but now I know I need all 5. If You could only get one is their a stand out volume? Also I’m noticing a lot of love for Jacobs Ladder. I have the WW version and I like the score I just didn’t know VS released it first. Does someone have both? Is there a difference? Do I need both?

[Hatter313]

i have deliberately ignored those 5 volume twilight zone LPs for years, not wanting to go down that rabbit hole tracking them all down.

2021, the year of the Varese Saraband STBC explosion

[Dollarhyde]

Is there something unique or special about Varese e.g. type of music or artists, sound quality?

Oof. Lots to say there @dollar, some of it subjective. Here's my personal bullet points though:

- They are terrific pressings, and invariably a well cared for 40yr old Varese will take a giant shit on a modern reissue. They had a fantastic audio team at Varese, and combined with the fact that it was an era of vinyl production being the
height of music repro, they knew what they were doing in the pressing plants.

- The main era of Varese activity (70s-90s) was a golden era for film scoring, especially in genre cinema.

- They developed relationships with composers, and would release multiple albums by them over the years, representing a career output in some cases (ie Goldsmith)

- I love the sleeve design, and various house styles, of VS albums over their main production era. They almost always employed key art used in the film's marketing, so there is strong synchronicity with the experience you had with the film (look at their Reanimator release - why would anyone consider putting anything else on that cover??)

- Feels. For me, because of their ubiquity in the import ost racks when i was a teen getting into films/scores (esp horror and sci fi/genre stuff) these were the LPs i was buying, drooling over, plotting to save and buy, and religiously playing over and over. I couldnt tell you objectively whether Evil Dead is a 'good score' - having it and listening to it is wrapped up with multiple emotions and strong associations: my collection would feel like a joke without it (and so many other VS albums)

Thanks @scojo putting down a solid argument there :).

It's only seeing how few Varese I own that I realise they were not just releasing the latest movie ost. Interesting you mention genre movies that totally makes sense, and of course the artwork, I love the photos often found on the back. I think I have a few Ter and colosseum versions of Varese releases, anyone know if other labels did this.

My meagre collection. Thanks again for the NOES LP @scojo!

[ScoJo]

Is there something unique or special about Varese e.g. type of music or artists, sound quality?

Oof. Lots to say there @dollar, some of it subjective. Here's my personal bullet points though:

- They are terrific pressings, and invariably a well cared for 40yr old Varese will take a giant shit on a modern reissue. They had a fantastic audio team at Varese, and combined with the fact that it was an era of vinyl production being the
height of music repro, they knew what they were doing in the pressing plants.

- The main era of Varese activity (70s-90s) was a golden era for film scoring, especially in genre cinema.

- They developed relationships with composers, and would release multiple albums by them over the years, representing a career output in some cases (ie Goldsmith)

- I love the sleeve design, and various house styles, of VS albums over their main production era. They almost always employed key art used in the film's marketing, so there is strong synchronicity with the experience you had with the film (look at their Reanimator release - why would anyone consider putting anything else on that cover??)

- Feels. For me, because of their ubiquity in the import ost racks when i was a teen getting into films/scores (esp horror and sci fi/genre stuff) these were the LPs i was buying, drooling over, plotting to save and buy, and religiously playing over and over. I couldnt tell you objectively whether Evil Dead is a 'good score' - having it and listening to it is wrapped up with multiple emotions and strong associations: my collection would feel like a joke without it (and so many other VS albums)

Thanks @scojo putting down a solid argument there :).

It's only seeing how few Varese I own that I realise they were not just releasing the latest movie ost. Interesting you mention genre movies that totally makes sense, and of course the artwork, I love the photos often found on the back. I think I have a few Ter and colosseum versions of Varese releases, anyone know if other labels did this.

My meagre collection. Thanks again for the NOES LP @scojo!

Celine Records also put out some stuff , a label associated with Colosseum. Escape from New York and others.

I'd forgotten about that NOES deal dude! I recall that was a very good deal! :) Just before the full madness kicked in, haha....

[Dollarhyde]

Yes, a great deal. The frosty mintiness of the vinyl was the real kicker. Such a great score too imo.

[ScoJo]

Yes, a great deal. The frosty mintiness of the vinyl was the real kicker. Such a great score too imo.

I'm a big Bernstein stan, that mid-80s three-fer of NOES, DEADLY FRIEND and APRIL FOOL'S DAY is some of my favourite horror/fantasy score work from any 80s composer! And so awesome that we got Entity and Cujo in recent years... would love to see his Mr Majestyk and White Lightning scores getting vinyl release :) But almost more than anything, I think everyone here knows how I feel about his epic 13min vampire disco banger Fly By Night from the LOVE AT FIRST BITE ost - if anyone is uninitiated.... treat yoself!

At exactly 5' 30" into this monster, is where I always get goosebumps all over, my hair streaks white, and I transform into a camp vampire disco slave! Now that I've mentioned it, I am off to listen to Fly By Night five times in a row from start to finish mwahahahahahaha.......