Mr. Alucard
I was asked a few years ago to contribute a track to an album of imaginary film music - the result was Mr. Alucard.
The title is a reference to one of the campest of the Hammer Horror films: Dracula A.D. 1972. Christopher Neame plays swinging Londoner Johnny Alucard who manages to reanimate Count Dracula himself (Christopher Lee, naturally). The Count then proceeds to stalk the descendants of his archenemy, Prof. Van Helsing. In one particularly stunning scene intended to demonstrate his genius, the professor writes the name Alucard directly above the name Dracula. He then draws lines between all the letters in the 2 names to reverse the order, going through the entire process before realising ALUCARD IS DRACULA!!
Despite the culturally depleted almost commonplace pop vampire there is still a fundamental need for us to feel the fetid breath of the undead on our necks. What ails us that we need this fear so badly? Is it the discomfort of knowing there's a part of Europe that will forever be somewhere else - with unholy religions and inaccessible mountain strongholds? Or our guilt that we may in the height of illicit passion have contracted a disease and then infected our beloved and pure families? Or just our anger that we never will allow ourselves sexual abandon to the point we will allow another to drink our blood?
I set my vampire firmly in the Balkans. I had been to Bulgaria a number of times, most recently with a theatre group performing an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, no less. I was performing the music I had composed for the play. Of the many intense experiences I've had there (ranging from decrepit hospital wards to direct cash deals with local gangsters) the musical ones are perhaps the strongest. Bulgarian musical tradition is perhaps the most complex in Europe, both rhythmically and harmonically. Over the years I've collected Bulgarian instruments and rhythms, which have enriched my own music enormously - Mr. Alucard being a case in point.
The piece opens with the hammered dulcimer - an instrument that immediately conjures Central and Eastern Europe. The dulcimer phrase is then repeated much more quietly - demonstrating the other central theme of the whole piece, dynamics. One of the joys of working on film music for composers and technicians is the dynamic range that is available. Usually volumes have to be pushed to the full and the dynamic range compressed to keep the music sounding strong and loud to avoid being over-shadowed by other tunes from other artists. With film music there is no such competition so the full range from tiny whispering flutes to enormous explosions are at our disposal. This is almost the signature of film music. In fact the reason why sound systems have become so powerful in cinemas in the last 10 years is not to allow consistently high volumes but to create an enormous range. You cannot go quieter than silence so to increase the dynamic (and dramatic) range there is only one way to go - up!
Other voices are added to the mix to conjure the vampire - my prized Bulgarian double flute mimicking the cold wind blowing through the Rhodopes, classical violin and double bass. A collage made from old vinyl clicks gives a sense of age - of cracking and brittle bones. A typically asymmetric Balkan rhythm grows from the fertile soils and our vampire walks.
Although the album of imaginary film music was never realised, Mr. Alucard was later released by another record company as an EP with 3 other of my pieces. Animator Rui Martins was so impressed by Mr. Alucard that he created a wonderful and uniquely detailed film to the music. In the long process of the computer animation I never told him the detail of the narrative I created my piece to - he just responded to the music as it is. The result is stunning. Not only that but our two narratives spookily coincide at places. The moment Rui's vampire descends the staircase I had seen my vampire on the stairs with a candelabra. The feel of his film - its patina belying its hi-tech origins - is perfectly in tune with my work and techniques. In fact I've had to convince people that the piece is an animation and not derived from live action and silent films.
This work with Rui is the inspiration for the entire Horrorshow project - creating a working method and a standard for all the other pieces.
dir. Rui Martins