Ennio Morricone - Autostop Rosso Sangue (Original Soundtrack) [Clear Cyan Italy Import]

Ennio Morricone's score for Autostop Rosso Sangue is a sleek, sun-baked slice of 1970s menace, pressed here on clear cyan vinyl as an Italian import.

The 1977 film, also known as Hitch-Hike, was directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile and stars Franco Nero and Corinne Cléry as a bickering couple whose trip through California turns deadly after they pick up a hitchhiker played by David Hess. It is a lean, nasty thriller, and Morricone, who composed, conducted and orchestrated the music, keeps the tension simmering under the dusty highway heat.

The album opens with Autostop and moves through cues like Sunshine, Molly and Nevrosi sulle Strade, whose title translates as neurosis on the roads, a neat summary of the film's fraying nerves.

This is Morricone in his prolific 1970s genre mode, when he was scoring thrillers, westerns and crime pictures at a remarkable rate, and his instinct for melody never deserts him even when the mood turns dark. Strings, eerie textures and sudden bursts of drive sit side by side, giving the score a restless, unpredictable character that mirrors the story on screen.

Fans of Italian cinema soundtracks will find plenty to savor, and the clear cyan wax gives it a fittingly vivid, sunlit look.