Composed and recorded in 1974, The Internecine Project is a classic Roy Budd score, released here on vinyl for the very first time.

Coming from the “peak” Roy Budd period – post Carter and pre Diamonds - this score neatly bridges the two with Carter-like hypnotic jazz driven cues and superb Diamonds style drama.

The film itself was a slick British thriller directed by Ken Hughes, set in a gloomy London and based around espionage and murder. The plot is simple; former spy Robert Elliot (the ice cool James Coburn – with interesting facial hair and equally as interesting wardrobe) is given a big government job. In order to cut all questionable ties and clean up his rather grubby past he devises a plan in which all of his dodgy associates unwittingly kill each other on the same night – and in alphabetical order. The film’s unusual and often misspelt name comes from the word internecine – the definition of which is conflict within a group.

Before preparing this score for issue I sat down to watch the film. I have vague memories of seeing it on late night TV sometime in the 1980s when such B Movie British productions were regularly rolled out to fill TV graveyard slots, but had no memory of the Budd score. The music on this release comes directly from the original Budd masters, and interestingly a couple of the cues were dropped from the film, some appear in edited form. But here we have all the Budd cues that were made, in their entirety.

The more you listen to this soundtrack the more you realise just how distinctive Roy Budd soundtracks really are. Few composers have such a knack and economy when it comes to tension, even fewer have a genuine voice. It’s great to be able to add this to the growing list of Budd scores now available and finally on wax.

Rest in peace Roy. And we’re still listening.

Jonny Trunk 2019