Submariner Cinema 2: Jean Painleve & Pierre Henry

The link, below, is to the soundtrack of Painleve's Amours de la pieuvre (Eng: Lovelife of the Octopus) - as scored by Pierre Henry, and released on bootleg 45 from maybe a decade ago. Sound quality is tending to indifferent (it derives from a VHS release, and the occasional pitch-shifts are the result of it being played on a sketchy video deck). Jpegs are from my own design; the original B&W photocopy sleeve was a little rudimentary , & I had a lot more discretionary time back then... (not that this isn't also quite rudimentary: glue & scissors paste-up!)

Anyways: the year is 1965. Henry has left the GRM a couple years earlier, a not entirely amicable departure from the Schaefferian fold. This was produced at his own Studio Apsome. The brief except of "Song of the Volga Boatman" was added later by Painleve - something Pierre Henry was apparently less than happy about. (Not sure why; perhaps Painleve'd made a new edit, the film was running a little longer, and he needed to pad the score. Or maybe he figured to enhance the film's popular appeal by dropping some actual "music" into the mix. I don't know.)

This is probably the most outlandish soundtrack produced for a science film to that point - and aptly so, the octopus is a fairly remarkable critter & the ample proof is in the film image.


Love Life of the Octopus - OST bootleg 45