Keith Emerson's OST albums of the early 1980s

This is a guy who, for sure, doesn't need any introduction here, so here's the introduction:

British musician and composer. Born November 2, 1944 in Todmorden, Yorkshire, England, Keith Emerson is best remembered for his role in the groups The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Emerson died on March 11, 2016 by suicide at his home in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, USA aged 71.

Throughout the years, Emerson has consistently won the Overall Best Keyboardist award in the annual Keyboard Magazine Readers' Poll, since the magazine's debut in 1975 and holds a seat of honour on their advisory board. He was recently honoured at The Smithsonian Institution, along with Dr. Robert Moog, for his pioneering work in electronic music.

Imagine such a genius dying in this manner... can you believe it?  Part of the 'deal with the devil' artists make to create great art is the extreme and inevitably negatively tuned emotions, as I've talked about many times before, like with Lenny Breau, or my favourite songbird Radka Toneff with whom I so identify.

This is some of the best music I've heard in ages (and by that I mean in the last week), as good as any in the library style we have heard so much of throughout the lifespan of this blog. I admit I never would have imagined Mr. Tarkus being capable of such ingenious compositions, elaborate orchestral arranging in the entire dramatic range of loud and soft as befits these soundtracks, and funky dynamic and exciting material resembling maybe Francis Monkman in his best passages as on everybody's old favourite The Long Good Friday, (one of the most downloaded albums on this blog being the reason I say this), or the underrated 1970s Herbie Hancock OSTs Death Wish and The Spy, etc.

I checked out the first 6 albums which all came out in the early 1980s and without a doubt the first, 1980's Inferno, is the best, by a long shot.  Subsequently in 1981 with an unpromising name like Honky you can bet that we have a throwaway, I don't know what possessed me to even listen to it unless it was late at night and I was half asleep.  Then as you progress more deeply into the 1980s (hopefully in waders to avoid getting your whole body covered in mud) you'll note the gradual introduction of those classically nauseating sounds like digital drums, casio keyboards, jumpy and choppy rhythms, etc., all of which were absent from Inferno.  Turning our attention to imdb as we (btw who's we?) always do, I can see it's a Dario Argento movie--I used to just love his stuff.  Great director / filmmaker.

First track and titular track off Inferno:

Those who are looking for ELPic material will be disappointed though, this is a whole different kettle of fish, fresh and unstinky at least until you get to the later ones.  Here and there you can detect flashes of the old style, which recall became hugely unpopular even by the end of the decade, e.g. the title track to Nighthawks: