Yeah, that's me. I'm really into soundtracks, especially sci-fi (and I'm
proud of it!).
Forbidden Planet is excellent. I plan on trying to rediscover some of the
cybernetic techniques used by the Barrons using my modular when I get enough
modules built up. Like maybe 2 or 3 hundred. Goin' for the big scary sound.
This is why I'm researching chaos, turbulence, neural networks, and so on as
modifiers to the standard modules, to create an organic cross-modulating
effect.
Anything by Penderecki is great (pronounced "pen-der-ETT-ski" by the way). I
also love Gyorgy Ligeti's 'cloud works' that were featured in 2001 when the
monolith appears, for example. I had the good fortune to hear the maestro
speak at Yale a few years ago with live chamber performances of those works.
Real nice guy.
If you can find a copy these days, the only true 'Space Opera' that I know
of, "Aniara" by Karl Birger-Blohmdhal, is a real masterpiece of 20th century
orchestral atonal weirdness. Just recently, the first English translation of
the epic poem upon which the libretto was based was released; I reviewed it
on Amazon if anyone's interested. An opera director at the Sydney opera
house actually read it and emailed me for my opinion of the opera! I wonder
if they'll be putting it on over there.
I can't recommend "Planet of the Apes" too highly, either. This score more
than any other got me into 20th century orchestral music. The only
electronics in it is the use of tape echo for accents, but the orchestral
sounds he got with that soundtrack are weird, eerie, and organic. He told
the brass section in spots to remove their horns and play only the
mouthpieces. He has a section of percussionists playing steel mixing bowls
from his kitchen slightly filled with water for a very cool sound, and so
on. Top notch. It's actually fairly melodic, strangely enough, but
off-kilter and atonal, and there's only one major chord in the entire work,
reserved for the "da-dah!" when Charleton Heston regains his speech. It's
fortunate that this CD has been re-released many times, each pressing with
added tracks and better fidelity. Get the one with the orange cover and
black & red tray card.
The Irwin Allen set is good stuff, but for the more avant garde, I recommend
the 4-CD set of the Twilight Zone music that's been released. It has works
by Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, and other greats.
I recently borrowed a very, very rare copy of the soundtrack to "The
Andromeda Strain" from a local radio station, but their copy is pretty much
destroyed. I committed it to digital and some day I'll try to clean it up.
Really interesting work by Gil Melle, I wish I could find out more info on
this because the liner notes were not helpful, written by some drooling
toady who had his facts all screwed up. But Melle used musique concrete
techniques mixed with electronic instruments that he designed and played
himself (such as the Percussotron III, which he designed for the film). The
album was pressed on hexagonal vinyl (!) and came in a chrome sleeve that
had 6 petals that folded closed over the album like a flower. I took some
photos of it before I returned it. A real collector's item, except as I say,
this copy looked like it had been dragged behind a car for a few miles. I'm
keeping an ear to the ground for a better one. A real important early
electronic work for film.
The Blade Runner soundtrack is excellent and has some gutsy analog sounds.
Unfortunately, Vangelis is a real... he's a complete... well, he has an
'attitude' about this work and keeps releasing debased copies of this music,
teasing us with it. There are bootlegs out there that are 500% better and
more complete than Vangelis' "official" version, even if the fidelity
suffers a little bit.
There's some great music on lesser SF movies, too. I'm working on pulling
what I can of the incidental music to "Colossus: The Forbin Project" off of
the laserdisc's digital tracks, but it'll be a hack job pulling the dialogue
out of there. The soundtrack from "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" by
Leonard Rosenman was very different from the first movie, but excellent.
Another short, rare soundtrack and it's a bit ruined by dialog from the
movie.
Elliot Goldenthal's "Alien III" soundtrack is also excellent. Forget the
movie---the music mix in that film was awful and didn't do it justice. For
the CD, he mixed it into a wonderful, powerful 'space mass' in a way,
starting off with ethereal sounds and a child soloist singing the "Agnus
Dei..." Real moving moments in that work.
I could go on for hours---sorry; I'll stop now.
-----Original Message-----
From:
jwbarlow@... [mailto:
jwbarlow@...]
Sent:Monday, 27 March, 2000 10:03 PM
To:
motm@onelist.comSubject:Re: [motm] Modular Zen.. long and pointless
I also wouldn't mind some discussion (offlist if that's better for the other
MOTM people) about sci-fi soundtracks -- I remember someone (Ken?) was
REALLY
into them and had the Irwin Allen boxed set for example.