Supposedly the Clint Eastwood movies, Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly ran long because Sergio Leone couldn't cut around Ennio Morricone's score. He just couldn't bear ending the scene before Ennio's score ran out. Il Carbonaro sound like they're combining that southwestern lonesome praire sound with dub delay and echo in a new take on the Western, which is exactly what Ennio was known for. Not to mention the A-Side track here also shows up in the movie Postales because they couldn't cut it either...
A-Side's "High Noon" blasts horns in over a cool organ working alternately against the brassy shine. The bang quickly subsides and a funk bassline slowly takes shape under echo xylophone with heavy vibrato, like those psychedelic volumes of lounge music. A reggae tempo feels right at home with a Calexico style trumpet section like Hot Rail. Something about it gets really majestic, those expanses and south of the border tones just get better with a hint of a funk groove beneath this and the dub percussion bouncing off into the distance is an unexpected touch. You can't quite place this in a specific era and the touchstones are hardly noticeable but it's adding up to weird new terrain.
B-Side "Amigo de la Muerte" a funk bass takes opening spot and there's just a touch of that crazy reverb that seems to loop back in on itself and grow louder before they cut it off. The electric has a lot of that wetness, stabbed out in a slow tempo high tension number. A melodica drives the melody and the brass section plays more of a support structure to this lonesome harmonica sound. They keep taking this into an epic place but that solitary tiny organ is that lone stranger driven hard by the gathering dust storms behind him. Ghostly feedbacking delay used sparingly is again what sets this apart. Dub western? Who knew.
Get this from Colemine Records.
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