I was NOT prepared for how creepy and awesomely weird this vinyl record album is. Shock by the Creed Taylor Orchestra is sort of like a Mario Bava film on LP, that is really the ONLY way I can describe the cuts I’ve heard so far.

Maybe I’m impressed with this because I was expecting to hear utter, unimaginative crap–it’s the inverse cool theory or record album packaging. The more crazy hype the album cover has, the less likely it is to be interesting to cool. In spite of how not-understated this album cover is, the record comes off as being groovy, hep-cat, and sinister at the same time.

The cuts are miniature scenarios, with some sound effects, a bit of audio manipulation, and some really late 50s/60s-era Italian soundtrack sounds thrown in for good measure. Think “Blood And Black Lace” as filtered through Creed Taylor’s sensiiblities and you get what I mean.

Check it out for yourself:

 

P.S. I just discovered a most interesting blog called Scar Stuff, which has a wealth of information about this and two other records recorded in the same vein. It turns out that “Creed Taylor” is none other than film composer Kenyon Hopkins.
 
–Joe Wallace