Side A: A Degree of Murder excerpts

Side B: A Degree of Murder excerpts

This release presents excerpts from the soundtrack of the film A Degree of Murder which was composed by Brian Jones with the help of Jimmy Page and Keith Richards. This is the first time they come out in vinyl format, but not as underground release, the most significant ones being a DVD-R of the same name released on the film 40^th anniversary in 2017 by IMP that also was accompanied by a cdr for the first 250 copies and a factory pressed reissued DVD from the same label coupled with Germany 73, allegedly the label got busted thereafter; from that review:

Idol Mind Production found a good colour copy of ‘A Degree Of Murder’, the famous film starring Anita Pallenberg whose soundtrack was assembled by the late Brian Jones, with Japanese subtitles, and offered this version on DVD adding to the first 250 copies a bonus cd-r that features music excerpts. Work on the film score started September 5^th 1966 at London IBC Studios by Brian Jones who assembled a small combo to help him cut tracks, Nicky Hopkins (piano) and Jimmy Page (guitar) together with Peter Gosling (keyboards and background vocals) and Mike Leander (orchestra conductor) are for sure featured while it is dubious if other players took part to those sessions as Brian Jones said once that ‘some of the boys helped’ but Bill Wyman said he wasn’t there; we may think that Charlie Watts could have helped, but Kenny Jones too. Producer and engineer Glyn Johns was on board, even if his personal relationship with B.Jones wasn’t very good. Obviously, Jones is said to have played many instruments (sitar, organ, dulcimer, recorder, clarinet, harpsichord, harmonica, banjo, autoharp) while there is also a rumour that Mick Jagger helped in the production, let alone Keith Richards.

Recording went on whenever possible through February 1967 (on the 11^th B. Jones was at London’s Olympic Studios) while the film itself was premiered in Germany on April 19^th 1967 in Munich with the German title Mord und Totschlag, directed by Volker Schlöndorff. The story of the film is the story of a girl (A.Pallenberg) who accidentally kills her boyfriend with his gun and then hires two men to hide his corpse. On April 24^th 1967 at the Cannes Film Festival A.Pallenberg and both B.Jones and K.Richards were present although after a brief discussion with Anita, Jones abandoned the Festival earlier. At that time Anita had already switched from Jones to Richards as boyfriend and that probably contributed to Jones personal drama and downfall.

The Soundtrack on the accompanying cdr has music that resembles at times some Stones 60s songs like Sitting On A Fence or Ruby Tuesday while the overall music feel brings to mind the albums from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, except for some blues instrumentals. That was the problem with Brian Jones at that stage of his career, as he wasn’t able to make original music, while very good in dressing songs with his multi-instrumental playing skills. No Soundtrack album was ever released by Universal and this makes this film somehow legendary as it shows the only music self- made by Brian Jones to have been recorded, apart from the Moroccan ethic stuff that came out on the Joujouka album. Later a European version appeared and from that review:

This new European DVD of Brian Jones film A Degree Of Murder presents the film from a British copy; no Japanese subtitles here though and a good colour version of the film with nice soundtrack (the most important thing to Stones fans) with good high volume audio. As written on the front cover this is Brian s Only Recorded Legacy. This is a better version of the film than IMP release, still in mono though. It must be said that recently the film was officially released on blu ray in Germany at the end of 2021 with an anamorphic widescreen and Dolby 2.0, hence most likely that’s where this audio comes from. According to this ep liner notes (by a William Perks…) the film was broadcasted by ZDF in 1969, then are reported some words said by Jimmy Page in 2012: Brian knew what he was doing, it was quite beautiful, some music was just created at the time, I was playing the guitar with a violin bow and Brian had a guitar that had a volume pedal as well as a mellotron, his soundtrack was incensed by film director Volker Schlöndorff according to his statement on the official press release in 1967. It seems the original tapes have disappeared so the music soundtrack comes from the film reels used for the blu ray release, that on this ep is claimed to be in True High Fidelity stereo. Of course, the 50 years threshold could be taken as the triggering factor for this release, but the fact that an official DVD has come out should invalidate that. The soundtrack music is indeed in stereo, although a narrow one, something that that can be ascertained clearly for instance at the end of Side A or at the beginning of Side B, due to the Dolby 2.0 encoding used for the blu ray.