Gregorio Franco’s ‘Stalker’ gives a score to Atlanta crime circa 1980

STALKER: Scenes From a Slasher Film by Gregorio Franco Gregorio Franco is the alter ego of Dropout guitarist Greg Knap - a persona that he drummed up to facilitate his deep love for Italian giallo film scores, horror soundtracks, and cinematic and electronic ambiance. His debut full-length, a digital only release (so far), titled Stalker: Scenes from a Slasher Film, was born out of his desire to pay homage to the genre’s masters: Goblin, John Harrison, John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder, and the likes.

The album, which arrived via Bandcamp on Nov. 6, follows in the footsteps of the Driving At Midnight EP that Knap released over the summer. As the album unfolds, songs such as “Scene I: The First Kill,” “Scene II: The Knife,” and “Scene V: WaveForm Mutiny” channel an underlying narrative. As such, the songs don’t lend themselves exclusively to soundtrack work, and a few of them are even ripe for a post-industrial dance floor stomp. Each number does, however, traverse all of the heart-pounding highs and lows of a fictitious murder-mystery set in Atlanta circa 1980.

Following Goblin’s first North American performance in Atlanta, which was followed by a sleeper set from John Carpenter cohort Alan Howarth, seem to have kicked up some local interest in embracing the stylings of genre composers. Stalker ... follows a similar blueprint as Ian Deaton’s Atlanta Crime Wave which arrived on Halloween.

Keep your ears peeled for more auditory eeriness.