Dark Music Review: Into the Land of Phantoms – Jill Tracy

Imagine this: It’s Halloween night and you’re in a movie house in San Francisco to see F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire movie Nosferatu. Sound good? Now let’s say that in addition a live band will be accompanying the movie, and they’ve been doing it for years with music they composed themselves to go with the movie. Sound good? If you’re like me it sounds awesome!

Too bad we both missed it. On the plus side, there’s a recording of the 2001 showing, so you can at least imagine you’re there. Meet Into the Land of Phantoms by Jill Tracy and the Malcontent Orchestra. I first discovered this album while looking for some new music on one of those sites where you tell it what you like and then it gives you suggestions for other music you might like. Can I tell you this kind of thing never works for me because my musical tastes are too dark? Really. I’m not bragging. The iTunes genius? They need to send some Apple engineers to the Dark House because my music collection has the iTunes genius scratching its head in the back of its cave. So yeah, this kind of thing usually either suggests that I would really like the song “Lullaby” by The Cure (which is crap – I hate that song) or it never works for me, except this one time.

Jill Tracy at the piano

I listened to some of the album and was drooling immediately for more and had to buy it. Here’s the deal: You know Brian Eno’s ambient albums? Like his album Music for Airports? Well this is like that but more like Music for a Creepy Vampire Movie. That’s what I like: Take a great idea and turn out the lights. Nobody is singing about their broken heart or that they kissed a girl. It was recorded live at the theater while the movie was playing and thus has a “real” feel to it which sounds like the band is right there next to you. The music is deliciously atmospheric and moody. There are parts where sunny people do sunny things. There are parts where the ship is overrun by rats. In some tracks you can hear the cackling of Renfield, in others you hear the weird speed of the Count’s carriage, and the stalking of Nina and Harker. There are shadows that do one thing while their owner does something else.

There are two problems with this recording. Problem number 1 is that it’s broken up into 38 tracks that are only a minute to two minutes long, which must have made sense to somebody, but doesn’t work out so hot on your iPod when it’s set to shuffle. Problem number 2 is that the whole score is not included on the CD, so you can’t play it on your stereo while watching the movie on your TV. I know because I tried! My dream is that some day in the future somebody will release a DVD with this music and the movie in sync.

In the meantime, this makes great background music for other activities. Put it on and maybe cut out some snowflakes. Write about your broken heart or how you kissed a girl. Or maybe turn out the lights and imagine being stalked by Max Schreck.

Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: Only if someone else is naked there while you listen.

Final result: If you like strange or dark music this will fit right in with your collection.

Into the Land of Phantoms – Jill Tracy and the Malcontent Orchestra - 125 Records – 2001

Check out this album on iTunes