Barry Adamson - SCALA!!!

A Closer Listen

As an original member of Magazine and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Barry Adamson is the perfect choice to compose the OST for SCALA!!!  The documentary film traces the history of the infamous countercultural movie venue in King’s Cross, which from 1978-1993 attracted more than its fair share of outsiders while screening a cornucopia of niche films: horror, kung-fu, sexploitation, LGBTQ+ cinema.  From sticky floors to wandering cats, live concerts to customers shagging on the floor, the venue became infamous for more than its movies.

The soundtrack is as seedy and grungy as its source material, but it is also vibrant and raw.  Adamson has prepared 22 miniatures, which seem like trailer music for 22 classic indie films.  While the timbres may vary, the sense of time and place remains.  The gaudy blood red vinyl seems perfectly fitting for the LP.

The shortest track is 46 seconds long, and only one makes it over four minutes.  Each evokes a certain type of cinema, a time period and a mood.  The opening title is pure surf rock, with steel guitar, rolling drums and echoes of “Wipeout.”  Although the venue opened in the 70s, the music seems beamed from a decade before.  “Timelines” has more of a British spy feel, like Emma Peel and the Avengers.  “Scala Posters (Mondo Bongo)” shares its four-chord bass progression with The Fratellis’ “Creepin’ Up the Backstairs,” which was itself referential. “Babs Johnson is Divine” is as slinky as Henry Mancini’s “Pink Panther Theme,” while “Iggy and Lou and Mick Rock Too” is bar rock, complete with handclaps, redolent of its title.

Adamson has a lot of tricks up his sleeve; it’s apparent he’s seen a lot of indie films, but even more apparent that he’s felt them.  “Acid Celluloid” has an electronic synth edge, reminiscent of mid-80s horror films.  There’s inner city funk (“Scala Cats”), new wave (“Spandau Politics”) and even disco (“Barry’s Iranian Embassy Blues”).  The more one listens, the more one feels the desire to look in a newspaper to see what might be playing downtown, only to remember that most no longer read physical newspapers.  “Another All Nighter” vibrates with danger, but with an alluring appeal.

If you knew that every strange and unusual outsider would be gathered in one place at one time, would you go?  Devotees of Scala went every time, becoming as much a part of the cinema as the movies themselves; and now finally they have become characters in the film they were always meant to inhabit, with the score that was always meant to accompany them.  A tear comes to the eye when the tender “The Party’s Over” begins to play.  Adamson’s score is far more than an OST; it’s a love letter to a time, a place, a people, and the history of cinema itself.  (Richard Allen)