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, the files probably came from VHS.
This stuff came out in vinyl format, from which it has been reworked but as
underground release the most significant was on a vinyl ep (
R&B Records REP 045) but there has also been a D
VD-R of the same name released on the film 40th 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.
All music was composed and played by Brian Jones on the following
instruments: sitar, organ, guitar, recorder, bass, banjo, dulcimer, harmonica.
Recorded January – February 1967 @ IBC and Olympic Studios, London. Brian Jones
played sitar, organ, acoustic guitar, recorder, Mellotron, dulcimer and
harmonica, Jimmy Page plated guitars; Nicky Hopkins piano; Kenney Jones drums;
Peter Gosling keyboards & vocals, Mike Leander was the orchestra arranger,
Glyn Johns engineered. Here’s the story:
“In early 1967 Brian Jones found time in between Stones tours to record the
soundtrack to the film Mord und Totschlag, starring his then- partner Anita
Pallenberg as Marie. In the film Marie shoots her ex-boyfriend with his own gun
after he attempts to beat her up. Instead of reporting this to the police she
hires two men to help her dump the body in a construction site near an
autobahn. Although the film was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival it
is known today chiefly for its soundtrack. The tracks on this LP provide you
with the musical highlights from the soundtrack, which has never officially
been released.
Talking to Rolling Stone in 2012 collaborator Jimmy Page said “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.” In the film’s official press release, director Volker Schlöndorff was
delighted with the results. “Brian’s music has worked so marvellously. His
special music fits the film wonderfully – and I do not think anyone but he
could have done it.”
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:
It must be said that 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 the vinyl
audio came from. According to the ep liner notes (by a William Perks…) the film
was broadcasted by ZDF in 1969. It seems the original tapes have disappeared so
the music soundtrack comes from the film reels used for the blu ray release, that
on the vinyl ep was claimed to be in True High Fidelity stereo. Of course, the
50 years threshold could be taken as the triggering factor for such 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 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. Rhis is a nice
effort, but I wonder if it would be possible with AI to erase all talking.
