Album title: Dracula's Music Cabinet
Artiste: The Vampires of Dartmoore
Nationality: German
Label:
Year: 1969
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Zero
The Trollheart Factor: 0
Tracklisting: The Torture chamber of Dr. Sex/ Crime and horror/ The Fire-dragon of Hong Kong/ Murder in the Ohio Express/Dance of the vampires/Hello Mr. Hitchcock/The executioner of Dartmoore/Killers end/Soaked body/A handful of nitro/Dr. Caligari's creeps-cabinet/Frankenstein greets Alpha 7
Comments: Very little information seems to exist on this act. Why, if they were German, did they choose the name Vampires of Dartmoore, a place in England, and why add the extra “e” (Dartmoor is spelled
this way)? Only two of many questions which I suppose will never be answered. What I do know is that the creative genius behind the effort were Horst Ackermann and Herbert Thusek, apparently both known for their work in the field of jazz. Who plays on the album? No idea. What's the premise behind it? Not a clue. Is it good? Well, now there we can at least answer one question...
A dark creepy voice bids us welcome, there are screams, footsteps, creaking doors, an organ, sounds of some girl being smacked and what may be someone being sliced up, with a kind of kitschy smooth jazz tune going on and someone moaning as if in pain or pleasure, and the opening piece ends on a female scream. Next there's some nice striding guitar shuffling along, very funky and jazzy, bringing in organ and, um, slide whistles as well as sax, the sound of someone walking downstairs, a demonic laugh, a woman screaming, more slapping sounds, the sound of a struggle, breaking glass. All very weird. Dogs barking now. This goes under the name “Crime and horror”, while there's a distinctly oriental flavour to “Fire dragon of Hong Kong”, which mostly runs along on a peppy organ (Hammond?) but occasionally breaks for a moaning vocal.
“Murder in the Ohio Express” is carried on a bright guitar line, but occasionally breaks to allow what sounds like an effect meant to convey the motion of a train with the music in the background. Someone is shot. The music surges back up. And it just goes on like that. The next one has springs, lounge keyboard and a really nice melody but it's hard to concentrate on the music with all the odd effects being thrown in. Think someone's gasping out their last breath or something, then “Hello Mister Hitchcock!” croaks a creepy voice, “In two minutes you will be dead!” while happy keyboard hums along, and the man counts down the time, finally telling Hitchcock he is dead. The next one appears just to be a simple instrumental, very similar to the music that formed the background to the previous track, followed by a jazzy little upbeat tune interspersed with ambulance or police sirens. And gunshots. It's kind of like watching a movie while listening to some background music, or more like watching a movie while someone else listens to music, and occasionally the door opens and their music gets louder, then recedes as the door is closed again. Not too surprisingly, “A handful of nitro” features a lot of explosions, and there's maniacal laughter, footsteps, creaking doors and a grandfather clock in “Dr. Caligari's creeps cabinet” and we end as we began, with a big helping of weird and some weird on the side.
Favourite track(s): Um...
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: It's hard to know what to think of this. I have no idea why this project was created, other than perhaps as a bit of fun for the two guys involved. It certainly is a fun album, but it's so out there, so verging on the edge of being frankly ridiculous that it's hard, even impossible, to treat it in any way seriously and make any sort of critique of it. Still, I reckon I would listen to it again for fun. Would definitely recommend it. Everyone should hear this at least once.
Personal Rating: 