Marc Wilkinson - Blood On Satan’s Claw OST

Atmospheric devilry abounds in the latest Trunk coup

Having famously delivered the lost soundtrack to The Wicker Man to great acclaim, Jonny Trunk has now netted the music from another of the greatest British horror films of the 70s. Noted for its authentic atmosphere of 17th Century rural England and the sexually charged performance from Lynda Hayden’s central character, a Satan-obsessed teenage girl named Angel, the cult 1971 film is considered an artistic accomplishment way ahead of its time. Principal to the film’s ominous mood is Marc Wilkinson’s excellent score – a collection of short pastoral and orchestral pieces, largely based around a minor key motif of five descending notes. Admittedly, that doesn’t sound particularly evocative on paper, but considering that it only requires four ascending notes to bring to mind a pink panther, those five notes quickly do the job of instilling a creepy unease. In fact, according to the witch-finder generals at Trunk, this particular chromatic scale has been known since the middle ages as ‘The Devil’s Interval’. Satan, be gone from these eardrums!

Trunk | JBH 023 CD

Reviewed by Daddy Bones
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