Secret Chiefs 3 / Traditionalists

Secret Chiefs 3 / Traditionalists

Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini

Web Of Mimicry

From out of nowhere, Secret Chiefs 3 (operating here as Traditionalists, one of the seven satellite bands introduced on their Book of Horizons album) present an elaborate colonna sonora paranoica: original compositions that were dreamt up in the harmonic language of the Giallo Horror Film Soundtrack--a particular subgenre of B-movie with remarkable scores by Italian masters such as Bruna Nicolai, Stelvio Cipriani, Ennio Morricone, Goblin, Pierro Piccioni, etc. Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini employs a full orchestral score that capitalizes on the Chiefs' stock manpower (Trey Spruance, Ches Smith, Timb Harris, Shahzad Ismaily, William Winant, etc.) and adds to it a broad cast of A-list hired musicians (among them Laurie Goldstein, Hans Teuber, et al.). Dissonant, violent strings recede into beautiful textures with flute and female vocals through echoplex; analog synthesizers, harpsichords, and celestas hover above a tight, '70s-style rock band rhythm section; crazed psychedelic freakouts payoff majorly; church organs grant repose, until tape treatments and a shrieking chorus of possessed voices force the listener to reconsider his or her position on the existence of Evil. The entire project, as one might expect from this band, is a spiralling allegory that extends itself well-beyond its cliched starting-point as a "soundtrack for a non-existent film." The film is imagined, but the horror is real.