Italians and film music: a match made in heaven – the Holy Trinity being Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota and Dario Argento soundtrackers Goblin; however as Catania-based Hidden Shoal signees HC-B indicate, haunting soundscapes can exist separately from the celluloid. Named after famed French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the cinemaphonic quintet have been recreating the atmosphere of murky movie theatres and grainy projections since 1999. Soundcheck For A Missing Movie, their latest LP, finds the band looking for a perfect spaghetti western/Mafia tale to score and instead writing an engrossing collection of elegiac etudes with enough potential to transcend the cinemascope. Opening epic A Dusty Book, City Of Lights gradually unveils all its sweeping-string/stinging-guitar glory over the course of ten minutes – with nary a dull moment between them; Black is as sinister as any Sicilian scene in The Godfather trilogy and the single Hot Afternoon In The Bulls’ Square is all corrida drumbeats and menacing brass drones. The sole vocals-dominated number on the album, the languid Slow Compensation is the calm after Playing With Planes’ eleven-minute crescendo storm. Ending with the post-rock blast of Missing Movie, the record doesn’t so much evoke maestro Morricone’s immortal pieces as creates its own imaginary city of hot sun and high drama, proving along the way there’s more to Sicily than la cosa nostra.

DENIS SEMCHENKO

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