Press Release from Quartet:
Quartet Records, in collaboration with GDM and EMI General Music Publishing, presents a remastered edition of the iconic and long out-of-print score by Berto Pisano for the action-adventure film KILL! (1971). The film was written and directed by novelist Romain Gary (who only directed two films), and starred Stephen Boyd, Jean Seberg, James Mason, Curt Jüngens and Aldo Sambrell.
KILL! was a chaotic mess, with actors who didn’t know what they were doing and a far-fetched plot about Interpol investigating the freelance murders of drug and porn dealers in Pakistan. Over time, however, the film has become a funny and entertaining subgenre pulp cartoon.
The score by Berto Pisano (co-composed by the unknown Jacques Chaumont, who, according to several sources, can be a pseudonym for Pisano himself) deserves special mention. One of Pisano’s great skills was his ability to combine Italian musical tradition with new sounds emerging at the time. In KILL! the composer provides a cocktail of exotic sounds, exciting action passages and sophisticated erotic motifs. The title song is performed by the Queen of Soul, Doris Troy, and the love theme features the whisperings of Jean Seberg and the chorus of Alessandroni.
KILL! was originally released on LP in Italy by General Music (whose original cover art we have retained for this Quartet CD) and in Japan by Seven Seas. Later, the CD was issued three times in Japan by three different labels, but all of them have been out of print for years. This is the first European release of the score on CD. It has been remastered and restored by Chris Malone from the original stereo master tapes, and the booklet includes liner notes by Miguel Angel Ordóñez.
