UMBERTO

After 2 full-lengths mining vintage horror scores and Italo/Goblin-isms for inspiration, Kansas City riddler and composition whiz Umberto slow-pans his focus out of the graveyards and black widow cobwebs into the celluloid-stained artificial streets of Beverly Hills police beats and pop culture ghost-busting. Freeze! is an inscrutable but impressively legit reinvention of Jan Hammer-style 80’s soundtrack cheese: soaring keyboard lines, fast-tappin’ piano, locked-in bass grooves, goofy canned drums, baroque purple haze soloing, etc. “Put An APB On Those Bastards” kicks things off with a tension-ramping Corvette cruise into the heat of the night, while “Illegal Entry With Intent To Zuul” is a pitch-perfect rooftop chase scene that ends with somebody falling fifty stories into a posh private pool (and is apparently also somehow about that horned dog demon that possesses Sigourney Weaver in G-Busters?). A bizarre and thoroughly enjoyable curveball from one of our fave current music-makers. Black vinyl 45s in pro-printed jackets with hilarious/hijacked Eddie Murphy artwork by Derek Goon. (Label info)