Death and Vanilla

This is Death and Vanilla’s third re-imagined soundtrack to date (the others being Vampyr & The Tenant), but it seems like a much higher profile release than the previous two since Fire saw fit to release it on vinyl. I can understand why, as Whistle And I’ll Come To You is quite a uniquely beautifully elegant and mesmerizing album. In fact, it makes me wonder if re-imagining soundtracks might actually be the Swedish trio’s true calling (rather than battling it out with Vanishing Twin to be the strongest of Stereolab & Broadcast’s psych-pop descendants). If it isn’t, the band at least have unquestionably excellent taste in cinema.

Notably, this latest foray differs from the band’s previous soundtracks in that Whistle And I’ll Come To You is a cult BBC favorite rather than a proper film. It was directed by Jonathan Miller and was first broadcast in 1968, presumably blowing many young minds and predating the similarly iconic The Wicker Man by five years. At the time, it was rightly hailed as “unconventional” and a “masterpiece,” but there are several other interesting and unique facets to it as well. 

For one, it curiously aired as part of BBC’s Omnibus documentary series despite not being a documentary. Also, Miller was quite an interesting character in his own right, as he was variously a medical historian, a comedian, an opera director, and a neuropsychologist at various stages in his outsized life. Similarly, the author of the original short story was the legendary M.R. James, whose supernatural fiction was a major influence on both H.P. Lovecraft and David Tibet (among others). Remarkably, Miller’s film has enjoyed a similarly outsized influence, as it directly inspired BBC’s cult favorite A Ghost Story For Christmas anthology series in the ‘70s. As series director Lawrence Gordon Clark eloquently put it, the unique allure of both Whistle and the later series it inspired lies in the “focus on suggestion” and a desire “to chill rather than shock.”

The film, shot in stylish black & white, tells the tale of an academic who finds a mysterious bone whistle in a Knights Templar cemetery while on a lonely vacation in a coastal East Anglian village. Naturally, the whistle has a cryptic Latin inscription (translated as “Who is this who is coming?”) and our unfortunate protagonist predictably seals his own doom by blowing it, as a ghost soon begins tormenting him in the night (even intruding into his dreams). 

Before the climactic supernatural events unfold, the most striking scenes tend to be those of the professor simply walking alone on the beach and the best pieces on the album fittingly combine a sense of forward motion with a mood that I would describe as bittersweet and wistful. The two strongest pieces in that vein are “Has It Been Good Here?” and the two-part “Walk On The Beach.”

The former is built on a gently bubbling groove that resembles a spacier, more hallucinatory Neu! before it vividly blossoms into a beautifully haunting and understated organ melody. The first part of “Walk On The Beach” is similarly organ-driven, as an epic-sounding  and snaking melody endlessly repeats and occasionally seems like it is overlapping itself like an ouroboros. The second part is more meditative and yearning, as its languorous and subdued melody is evocatively enhanced with beach sounds of seagulls and crashing waves. Notably, the same melody is later reprised with flute and xylophone in the similarly excellent “Evidence of Spiritualism.”

The album’s bookends are also pretty fucking brilliant (albeit very different, unsurprisingly, as the protagonist ends the story in a dramatically different state than he was in at the beginning). In any case, “Intro” is shockingly good for a piece with such a prosaic title and function, as a slow but insistent drum machine groove and a looping bass line provide the backdrop for a cool ghostly choral-sounding motif and gently haunting flute melody.“ The closing “Apparition” is also anchored by a simple yet insistent drum machine beat, but it is soon fleshed out by chugging electric guitar, yet another cool organ melody, and viscerally wild crescendos of vibrato-heavy synth howls.

Impressively, the remaining pieces prove to be just as effective at sustaining the album’s spell, as there are really only a few major melodic motifs and they continually resurface in dreamlike, cyclical fashion without ever overstaying their welcome (though there are a couple of divergent interludes like the brief wind chime ambiance of “Spooky Breakfast”). In fact, I feel confident in describing this album as something of a masterclass in composition, as Death and Vanilla display incredible thematic focus, weaving one timelessly haunting atmosphere after another while subtly deepening the sense of mystery and escalating menace and they kept their arrangements incredibly tight and uncluttered while doing it.

That said, I was even more impressed with this album as a stylistic feat, as band seamlessly wove together elegant arty austerity with the kitsch of vintage horror movies and library music and managed to wind up with something that feels fresh, contemporary and much greater than the sum of its parts. While I was a fairly devoted fan of Death and Vanilla before this album, I always viewed them more as a fitfully great singles band rather than a truly distinctive project with a bold vision and the skill to back it up. This album definitely changed that for me.  

Listen here.