Brian Jones 'Lost Masterpiece' - A Degree Of Murder (Soundtrack)

The soundtrack by Brian Jones has never had an official release, possibly because of legal conflicts. Although the Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page, session pianist Nicky Hopkins, musician Peter Gosling, and Small Faces drummer Kenney played on the album Jones contributed many respective instruments to the recording sessions. It was recorded between late 1966 and early 1967 at IBC Studios in London. Jones stated that "the boys in the band played on the record" but Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has said that neither he nor drummer Charlie Watts participated in the music making and Jones never elaborated exactly which members played on the soundtrack. Jones also stated that many session musicians play on the soundtrack but session logs reveal that most of the instrumentation was done by Jones himself. 

Jimmy Page talks about working on the soundtrack:
"Brian knew what he was doing. It was quite beautiful. Some of it was made up at the time; some of it was stuff I was augmenting with him. I was definitely playing with the violin bow. Brian had this guitar that had a volume pedal-he could get gunshots with it. There was a Mellotron there. He was moving forward with ideas."

British underground filmmaker Fabrizio Federico took inspiration from Brian's soundtrack for his movie Teddy Bears Live Forever (2019) proving Jones lasting influence in the cinema department: 
''It's a perfect film score, the tapestry of different instruments and sounds was a first in 1966, and on top of that this was his first soundtrack! God only knows what he would have created had he had lived, maybe he could have won an Oscar for best soundtrack at some point.''

In the tumultuous period between late 1966 and February of 1967, Brian reached the pinnacle of his songwriting success. Brian was dating the model/actress Anita Pallenberg and ended up composing the film score for the German-made film called "A Degree Of Murder" (Mord Und Totschalg) which starred Anita. Brian saw the project both as a creative challenge and something that would bring him and Anita closer. Keith Richards said of Brian's soundtrack:
"For a project nobody ever tried before-to write a whole piece of music for a film-it was good." 

The director of the film, Volker Schlondorff described the film and Brian's role:
"I liked Brian and trusted him. You could feel that he had a lot of creativity. He was very much in touch with his time and he was also very much in love with Anita, the only actress in the movie - and its soul. She was bound to inspire him, if he was to write the music for her. And it wasn't just that his music was special, it was that the score was so spontaneous, vital. Only Brian could've done it. He had a tremendous feeling for the lyrical parts and knew perfectly the recording and mixing techniques required to achieve the best sound for drums, his guitar or flute et cetera." "When the editing was done, Brian came back to Munich and sat in the editing room with me as we discussed, just as with any other professional movie composer, where to put music and what kind of music. It was just the true story of a girl who accidentally kills her boyfriend with his own gun, but instead of going to the police she hires two men for a few hundred marks to drive the corpse to the country where they bury him in the construction site of an autobahn. No moral implications, no guilt trips. It's more like an outing on a beautiful autumn day. Brian's score then was to provide a reflection of those rather callous feelings, while somehow managing to hint that of course she was mourning her boyfriend's death."

Brian wrote a theme, which is reprised throughout the film in various styles including bluegrass, folk, Eastern influences, R&B, rock and country. Once Brian had accumulated enough material for the project he turned to Glyn Johns to help put it together. Although the two men did not get along personally, they worked together smoothly on the project. Glyn Johns described his role: 
"Brian came to me and asked for help. He'd lost so much self-confidence by this time and really was in need of a hand. In a way I felt sorry for him. It wasn't that I didn't think he was capable of handling the project himself. But clearly he wanted help in the engineering. So I agreed. Brian worked very hard in his Courtfield flat on two little tape machines. He had all types of ideas which worked. He did it very well, and it came out amazingly. And we had a good time doing it. Brian was extremely together and confident while he was working on it. When it was finished he was both pleased and relieved. The rock 'n' roll bit which was written to fit the early murder scene was really good" 

The soundtrack was recorded at IBC Studios between late 1966 and early 1967 with all music composed, arranged and produced by Brian (with Glyn Johns engineering). The soundtrack also featured session musicians Jimmy Page (guitar), Nicky Hopkins (piano), and Peter Gosling (background vocals). 
Brian played all the other instruments including: sitar, organ, recorder, banjo, harpsichord, autoharp, dulcimer, clarinet, and harmonica. In the March 10, 1967 official press release, Brian explained that he used players: 
"ranging from one musician to ten. I ran the gamut of line-ups - from the conventional brass combination to a country-band with Jew's harp, violin and banjo. In the main the musicians were established session men - though some of the boys from the group also played."

Although the exact beginning dates of the recording are sketchy, we can pinpoint a general ending date for the project at around February 12th, 1967. Brian had been working on the finishing touches of the film score on this date when the infamous Redlands bust occurred. In fact, Brian had called Keith to tell him that he and Anita would be joining the party within a couple of hours, only to be informed by Keith that Redlands had just been busted. The following events might sound like a soap opera, but they involve both stories that both involve Brian's soundtrack and had ramifications to Brian being able to enjoy his success.

Next stop: Their Satanic Majesties Request....

LUCIFER RISING - Jimmy Page's chilling soundtrack

Step into the fun house where music, cinema and the occult finally mix.

The music itself is wonderfully perverse: a languid but steadily building Middle Eastern-sounding drone, festooned with evil chanting, tabla, screaming mellotron, a sonically shifting low frequency foreboding ambience and shimmering 12-string guitar work. It’s a mad, diabolical symphony of beautiful evil; a fascinating piece of unconventional aggressively avant-garde music from one of the rock era’s most mysterious living legends, so intertwined in mysticism that he even sent an assistant out to Egypt to buy the 'Stele of Ankh-ef-en-khonsu'. The stele is also known as the "Stele of Revealing" and is a central element of the religious philosophy Thelema founded by Aleister Crowley.

In Rolling Stone’s December 2012 cover story “Jimmy Page Looks Back,” Page said “...there was a request, suggesting that Lucifer Rising should come out again with my music on. I ignored it.”

Guitar World: There was always a certain amount of speculation about your occult studies. It may have been subtle, but you weren’t really hiding it.

Page: I was living it. That’s all there is to it. It was my life – that fusion of magick and music.

Guitar World: Your use of symbols was very advanced. The sigil on Led Zeppelin IV and the embroidery on your stage clothes from that time period are good examples on how you left your mark on popular culture. It’s something that major corporations are aggressively pursuing these days: using symbols as a form of branding.

Page: You mean talismanic magick? Yes, I knew what I was doing. There’s no point in saying much about it, because the more you discuss it, the more eccentric you appear to be. But the fact is – as far as I was concerned – it was working, so I used it. But it’s really no different than people who wear ribbons around their wrists: it’s a talismanic approach to something.

Young filmmaker Fabrizio Federico says the music and Lucifer Risings feel have been a big influence on his new film Loon, ''I think the vibe that they came across is phenomenal, it's eerie and exotically fascinating in that it feels evil. It's a very heavy creation, it's a beast. One day when I get a chance I'm going to replace Bobby Beausoleil's soundtrack and replace it with Jimmy's, he'd like that, him and Kenneth should make peace before it's too late.''

Being able to picture Jimmy in the dark at Aleister Crowley's haunted Boleskine House creating this music has always fascinated in that it feels so dark and hypnotic like a cobra. Where was this different music coming from, in 1972-73 with the speed of Zeppelin's ascent the adrenaline of success mixed with Jimmy's 'Do what though wilt'' evocation on the groove-out to Led Zeppelin III seems to have done the trick. But this music was different to what Page was recording with Led Zeppelin.

Page's soundtrack was finally released in 2012 after decades of it being a sought after prize and one of Led Zeppelin's biggest bootleg's to own. It's the type of album you put on before an Eyes Wide Shut naked virgin scene as she lies down on the alter and the ceremony begins. 

At 31 minutes the soundtrack is a short and sweet spell, entrancing the listener mere seconds into it's first peculiar Moroccan drone, similar to some of Brian Jones's experiments in 1967 on The Rolling Stones 'Satanic Majesties Request' album inspired by the Master Musicians of Joujouka in Morocco and their pipes of pan goat sacrifice. 

Page in his home studio

The band Mao on Federico's soundtrack for Loon taps into this pagan/kashmir atmosphere. ''I recorded the guitar parts at Boleskine House, I had my walkman on with the backing tracks playing along and brought my portable guitar amp into the house and recorded in the burnt bedroom with the pentagram mattress on the floor, which was used as an ouji board by local kids. Then I recorded in the hallway which is still sublime. At one point the toilet flushed by it's self, you can hear it on the mix. I recorded the guitar into my mobile phone, smoked some weed and it's some of the most supernatural music I've ever played.''

Director Fabrizio Federico

Eventually Page’s music escaped in 1981—probably sourced from the magnetic track from an early 23-minute-long “to be continued” print of Lucifer Rising that Anger showed potential investors (I’ve seen this, it’s pretty incredible)—when it hit the bootleg market as “Solo Performances by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant,” a limited edition LP with a green wax seal. Another blue vinyl version was released in a Kabbalistically numbered limited edition. Better quality digital versions started making the rounds on torrent trackers around 2005 and last year Jimmy Page released the music he’d composed for Anger’s film via his website on very limited edition red vinyl that sold out instantly.

Listen for your selves on the extended edition: