The original title of the film behind this soundtrack was “I Caldi Amori di una Minorenne” which translates to “The hot loves of a minor.” Which translates to oh dear, that’s troublesome, but it was a common theme when I was a kid. Be careful or you’ll run afoul of drug pushers and charlatans who’ll lure you into a life of sleazery and debauchery and then… well, nothing good can come of that. In this story, Katrin (played by Tyrone Powers’ daughter Romina Powers) ends up dead. The plot follows the investigation into her demise. For real, this is the stuff we were warned about back then, as if the regular talk of nuclear war with the Soviet Union wasn’t scary enough. Not exactly a good way to raise children. If you can’t show the rewards of good behavior, scare the hell out of your kids to keep them close to home and away from people that don’t look like you. There was some horror lurking behind every corner, supposedly. Of course many of us kids knew that there was adventure lurking around every corner. The scare tactics didn’t work so well for me, but for sure I witnessed people my age pull the same shit with their own kids later on down the line.

The soundtrack, by GIANNI FERRIO, is the steamy jazz noir of the Italian film world. You can smell the streets and the cigarette smoke coming off it. There are a few tracks, judging from the titles, that are meant to approximate acid trips. That was another regular terror lesson from the times. Like, okay weed my not kill you but if you take LSD it will lead you down a path into insanity that you’ll never return from. You’ll end up locked up or dead. Blah blah… it’s pretty funny really looking back on it now. Tech bros and running off into the desert for events like Burning Man and stock brokers and their wives and partners are participating in bilious ayahuasca ceremonies led by Upper East Side shamen named Todd who spent a summer in Brazil… etc. The soundtrack is fire though. Lots of fun. It will explode out of the speakers so I do recommend going loud with it.

This soundtrack thing could theoretically last forever. It seems to be a bottomless pit of strange sounds. The problem is, I’m now discovering, is there is a lot of sameness to it. Not the music itself, which runs broad and diverse, but the tone and mood. My own tone and mood are rarely this consistent. There are a few more I want to explore but it may be time to move on. Of course this could change if one of those still to get into proves to be a real banger and it leads me down another bend in the tunnel.

Stay tuned.

Perversion Story… I’m still shaking my head.