Mysterious Spaceship Moon is my new album (out now) it’s the soundtrack to an imaginary 1960s British sci-fi film about imaginary moon people in their imaginary spaceship moon. It’s also a love letter to post war, British, cinematic soundtrack music. Click on a link to play or read the story of the album below.
It can be found on all streaming services. Either click a link here or search for “Richard F Adams.”
It’s my love letter to the composers who worked on Amicus and other films and children’s TV. In particular it’s a modern take on what they might have made if they were working now. Thanks to TV channel, Talking Pictures TV, in the UK, we have finally got to see again all these old post war classics of British film. What were lost in my childhood memories are now extant on screen again.
The film that above all else, inspired this album was the Terrornauts, starring among others Patricia Hayes and Charles Hawtrey. It’s a cheesy, cheap film in some respects but it has a charm that comes with innocence. It also has an outstanding soundtrack by an outstanding British composer, Elizabeth Lutyens. The music was pure modernist a la Stockhausen. It’s on this playlist where you can hear more Amicus film music.
For the Terrornauts, Elizabeth Luytens, one of the UK’s foremost twentieth century composers, created a fantastic atmospheric soundtrack that you can hear here. I don’t think mine is in the same league, musically speaking, and certainly it differs in style, but I was taking inspiration from this film and it’s siblings. I do think this album is of that era. Of course it wasn’t only the eminent Lutyens that Amicus used, the great Carl Davis was another modern great who they employed to great effect on “I Monster” while Lutyens also did “Psychopath” among others.
Another key influence was my childhood and the memory of the regular dark children’s dramas that ITV showed, in the early 1970s; these were At time’s fun, intelligently written, but also occasionally scary and dark. Timeslip, Tomorrow People, Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Catweazle and others left their mark on me. I think there’s also a flavour of Kes in there somewhere, the opening of which was filmed in the streets of the area I was born. These programmes and films were amazingly complex and complete worlds, with terrific soundtracks.
Amicus were for a time, a real rival of Hammer, making two non-canon Doctor Who film starring Peter Cushing and they created what must be the best horror film name ever with, “Dr Terror’s House of Horrors”. “The Land That Time Forgot” was also an Amicus film.
I don’t think my music necessarily sounds exactly like these old soundtracks and it isn’t an attempt at pastiche but I do hope they bring out the flavour of the feelings I had hearing them as a child and that they give a taste of the rather outré nature of those long distant soundtracks of another era.
Thinking about the recording, although this is a digital album, making full use of the latest push button tech, it’s really chamber music in nature. I hope it’s nice To listen to and is arranged for headphones or stereo speakers not, ideally, tinny little Bluetooth speakers. Show art and artists respect and they’ll reward you with love.
I also like think that one day I may just tell the full story of the moon people and their mysterious spaceship.
You can hear three tracks from it on YouTube on this Playlist. That’s tracks 1, 2 and 9.
