One Way Static
In 1972 horror movie king Wes Craven unleashed his sadistic grimy and ultimately disturbing film The Last House on the Left . But with it came a soundtrack courtesy of actor/musician David Alexander Hess that effectively counterbalanced all that was evil in the film with some truly gorgeous music even if Hess did play the role of psychopathic killer Krug Stillo. Unfortunately the recordings sat relatively ignored for decades until One Way Static stepped in to give them the respect they deserve via a lavish reissue.
Complete with new liner notes art and bonus tracks the release is a stunning reminder that the late Hess was as talented a musician as actor as his work on The Last House on the Left runs the creative gamut offering everything from poignant pastoral folk tracks jubilant ragtime instrumentals fuzz-loaded psych burners and even electronic experimentation.
It’s the crestfallen folk songs though that makes the score so essential with originals like “Now You’re All Alone” “Wait for the Rain” and “The Road Leads to Nowhere” all displaying the kind of A-grade ’70s folk-rock songwriting you’d expect from a Neil Young or Gram Parsons. It’s also because of these that the soundtrack is just as much for straight-up music fans as snotty film-score buffs making it downright criminal that Hess’s Last House on the Left has remained in obscurity for so damn long.
