Quando L'amore E Sensualita

Long buried in the vaults and whispered about by crate-diggers, Quando l’Amore è Sensualità is a fever dream of a soundtrack — an intoxicating blend of dark psychedelia, erotic tension, and avant-garde experimentation that captures Ennio Morricone at his most untamed. If Morricone Segreto is a concept, this score is its manifesto.

Written for Vittorio De Sisti’s cult 1973 film — a scathing satire of bourgeois lust and repression — Morricone dials up the contrast between desire and shame, using sound to pull apart the threads of hypocrisy. Masculine urges are rendered as throbbing, looping rhythms — pulsing basslines, mechanical repetition, tribal drum patterns — while feminine innocence (or the illusion of it) is evoked through spectral chimes, suspended strings, and the breathy magic of Edda Dell’Orso’s voice.

Dell’Orso’s contributions are sublime. On “Luce chiara per vergine” and “Curve oscure”, her wordless vocals float like ghostly sighs in a forbidden dream. But it’s “Vie-Ni” that truly defines the score’s eerie brilliance. A woozy synth drones like a broken carousel while a children’s choir chants the title with hypnotic menace. It’s haunting, it’s perverse, and it’s Morricone at his most unfiltered.

Elsewhere, “Nascosta nell’ombra” digs deep into the Maestro’s psych-prog toolkit: wah-wah guitars, swirling organ, and off-kilter grooves conjure a sweaty, hallucinatory mood that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Goblin record. It’s part giallo, part grindhouse, part gallery installation — and all 100% Morricone.

Despite its limited release and long-unissued status, this score stands tall among Morricone’s more radical experiments. It’s not just film music — it’s a sonic theatre of obsession, voyeurism, and fractured desire. One of his most daring and disturbingly beautiful works. A true hidden gem finally getting its due.