The Georges Delerue score for "Contempt" (Le Mépris) is perfect. A haunting theme that expresses the down mood of the Jean-Luc Godard film. I have so many versions of this particular soundtrack - mostly all on CD, except for this vinyl set. The unusual aspect of this package is that it has the obscure and Italian soundtrack to the film by Piero Piccioni. How did that happen? That, I don't know. I think the nature of the cinema movie world at the time of the 1960s were complicated, and for whatever reason, the Italian distributor decided on the Piccioni score for its Italian release.
I prefer the Delerue music, just because it has been a consistent reminder of this cinematic masterpiece as well as being a great piece of music, with or without the images attached to the work. The Piccioni score is a good listening experience, but nowhere near the genius French take on the soundtrack.
Doxy is an excellent and a very mysterious label. It's a borderline bootleg record company that seems to make use of the copyright laws in Europe. Saying that I find the recordings themselves pretty great, and their packaging, although often vague, is superb. The vagueness comes to solid information, for instance, where did they get their sound resource? From the original tapes, or is it from a digital resource? I don't know. On the other hand, they either take the original packing of albums or do their own take on whatever the album is. I have at least a dozen titles from Doxy, and I'm happy with all of their albums in my collection. Also, they are very much a curated company that they only release albums and artists that are truly great - and, or, very hard to find as an original (official) release. So they're serving a purpose to the vinyl fan, and "Le Mépris" is a fantastic and fascinating double album. To get both recordings in one package is pretty amazing.
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