Photo credit: Fifty Foot Woman
Barry Adamson’s latest album, SCALA!!!, which scores the anarchic, uproarious, and ultimately heart-breaking documentary about one of London’s most beloved rep cinemas, is out now on limited edition “banned blood” vinyl, CD and digital release via Mute.
Listen to the unmistakable strut of the “Scala Cats” HERE.
“Scala Cats” is a reference to the infamous cats (Warren, Roy and Huston) that lived at the cinema. Curled up on the seats, slinking around legs in the darkness or disrupting the projections, the cats are as much a part of the Scala’s lore as the rowdy all-night screenings, the sticky carpets and the under-the-counter narcotics.
Listen to the full album HERE.
Read and watch Barry discuss his five favorite film scores of all time on Brooklyn Vegan HERE.
Adamson’s music for SCALA!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits (Jane Giles, Ali Catterall, 2023), brings his noir filmic sensibilities to their spiritual home: the legendary Scala cinema in London which ran from 1973-1993. During that time, the cinema hosted truly eye-popping film programming, with double-feature screenings, unforgettable all-nighters, occasional live performances, and frequent showcases for auteurs such as John Waters, Russ Meyer, Derek Jarman and David Lynch. It became hugely influential to generations. The documentary features revealing, hilarious and touching interviews with regulars, staff and artists such as John Waters, Peter Strickland, Mark Moore, Ben Wheatley and Barry Adamson, who talks about the cinema’s impact on his own creative vision.
Dubbed the “soundtrack king” by Uncut, Adamson’s score captures the cinema’s spirit: late night underground screenings that opened up new vistas to its clientele, the intoxicating world of subversive art, sticky floors, dubious stains on the upholstery and, of course, the cinema’s resident cats. Referencing some of the films that screened, the artists that played and the eventual court case that would lead to the cinema’s demise, across 22 tracks Adamson conjures moods that shift from brooding and cinematic to playful and chaotic, echoing the wild programming and cultural rebellion the Scala embodied.
Brought up in Manchester’s Moss Side, Adamson learnt to play the bass overnight for Magazine. When they disbanded five albums later in 1981, his singular style was spotted by The Birthday Party, with whom he played several times.
His establishment as a solo artist came after a three-year stint with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds with the release of his classic first solo album, Moss Side Story - the ultimate soundtrack to an “imaginary film” - which raised Adamson’s name as a composer of diverse complexity; able to tell a story with music, where the images were supplanted in the minds of listeners. Adamson has worked with some of the film industry’s most intriguing mavericks including Derek Jarman (The Last of England, 1987), David Lynch (The Lost Highway, 1997), Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers, 1994) and Danny Boyle (The Beach, 2000).
Having released ten studio albums, including the 1992 Mercury Music Prize nominated Soul Murder, 1996’s Oedipus Schmoedipus, and the album celebrating his 40 years in music, Memento Mori (2018), Adamson’s talents are as much in demand by new generations of artists as after his first solo release, with collaborations in recent years across a variety of art forms, including an Olivier Award winning ballet performance by Sylvie Guillem, and the Ballet Boyz scored by Adamson. His most recent studio album Cut To Black was released in 2024.
SCALA!!! Is out now via Mute on limited edition “banned blood” red vinyl, CD and digitally. Pre-order it HERE.
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