Soundtrax

Bernard Herrmann's seminal sci-fi score, rerecorded at Abbey Road Studios by conductor Joel McNeely.
© 2003 Varese Sarabande

The Best of 2003 Part 2

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, January 08, 2004

Part 2: Restorations & Reissues

Apart from new soundtrack releases, archival restorations have played an important part in perpetuating a lot of film music (especially in the fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres) that would otherwise have been lost to the ages. These are my picks for last year's 15 most significant soundtrack restorations within the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.

15. 1981's FEAR NO EVIL, a

Limited to 3,000 copies, the first ever release of Alan Silvestri's PREDATOR score

terse amalgamation of occult horror, reincarnated archangels, zombies, teenage angst that was composed by writer/director/producer Frank LaLoggia, aided by composer David Spear, received its first CD issue this year from Percepto Records (013). The score is a compelling and vividly textured composition that elegantly elevated FEAR NO EVIL into something evocatively rich. Bolstered by Spear's capable symphonic orchestrations, the music is richly melodic and rhythmic, playing on the film's emotions and giving it a sense of drama and sophistication that belied its independent, low-budget stature. Percepto's release expands by a little over seven minutes the 30-minute presentation afforded by the original promotional WEB LP release.

14. John Harrison's music for CREEPSHOW, resurrected this year from La-La Land Records (LLLCD 1007) and enhanced by some elusive, previously unreleased and unheard cues from other George Romero projects, remains one of the most potent and effective piano-and-synth scores of the 1980s, capturing both the tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top ghoulishness of the film as well as its scary ferocity. Without a big compositional background, Harrison proved to be more than capable in creating cinematic chills with his keyboards, and the score has met the test of time. Harrison achieved a remarkable array of sounds and textures from a single Prophet-5 synthesizer, enhanced by the warmth of an acoustic piano. With a different scoring approach for each of the film's five episodes as well as an overarching motif linking it all together, the music avoids the limitations of its spare orchestration and creates an evocative sound design that is as creepy now as it was more than twenty years ago.

13. Richard Band's wonderfully twisted, Bernard Herrmann-tinged score for Stuart Gordon's debut grand-guignol, over-the-top horror visualization of H. P. Lovecraft's RE-ANIMATOR has come out in a lavish new edition on La-La-Land Records (LLLCD 1002). This 15-track edition has been newly re-mastered and contains never-before-released music, presenting the score in fairly complete form. Band had final approval on the sound for the CD, which seems to well represent the score as it was heard in the film. The music is zany. Band chose the familiar PSYCHO riff of Bernard Herrmann as a starting point for his score, and its jaunty, back-and-forth string tonalities creates a highly tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to the film's lavishly graphic gore and violence. Band gives the Herrmann motif a modern drum beat and soon a playfully soaring theme of his own emerges and plays through the riff.

12. THE DARK CRYSTAL

Trevor Jones' excellent score for Jim Henson's THE DARK CRYSTAL - from Numenorean

has arrived on CD in a splendidly packaged, limited edition two-CD set from Numenorean (NMCD 003). The first CD contains the contents of the original soundtrack LP (13 tracks), digitally remastered. The second CD contains the complete original score as heard in the film 28 tracks, 71+ minutes, with plenty of music not present on the first disc. The music is lavish, exotic, and compelling. Trevor Jones has composed a wondrous score rich in orchestral texture, emotive feeling, and exotic sensibilities, developed around the interplay between contrasting motifs for the Pod People and the Skeksis, two thematic ideas that develop and ultimately merge at the film's climax as do the opposing species. Melodically fluent, the recording remains potent despite some audio fluctuation due to the diverse musical sources on disc two.

11. Silva Screen's latest compilation disc is The STAR TREK Album (FILMXCD 368), a two-disc collection of splendid digital recordings of music from each of the TREK TV series and feature films. Performed by the reliable City of Prague Philharmonic under the baton of Silva's Nic Raine, this recording updated previous TREK collections with the latest music, including NEMESIS, in sparklingly vivid and persuasive presentations. If only it was released in 5.1 Surround sound! Still, the performances are splendid and the music, even the tried-and-true cues we've heard before, resound honestly and satisfyingly, reminding us once again what a rich heritage of music the TREK series has left and continues to leave with the film music world.

10. The first ever,

HELLRAISER CHRONICLES - 3-CD set contains the original soundtrack albums to the first three HELLRAISER films, music by Christopher Young and Randy Miller. "We have such music to show you...!"

legitimate release of the oft-requested soundtrack to PREDATOR, John McTiernan's 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger Rambo-Meets-Alien monster thriller came from the Varese CD Club in August (VCL 0803 1022). The music never garnered a soundtrack release of its own, except for an uneven bootleg in 1997. Alan Silvestri composed an energetic and bombastically dissonant action score using an expanded symphony orchestra, emphasizing an enormous battery of percussion. The music is unremittingly furious from start to finish, yet it remains intrinsically coherent and tonal. From the rhythmic chords and harmonic figures that exercise the Main Title, Silvestri's score brims with effervescence, motion, energy, and apprehension. Predominantly orchestral, Silvestri makes the most of each acoustic instrument that passes beneath his microphones, emphasizing an earthy primitiveness that well endows the alien planet as much as it does the alien predator not to mention the down-to-earth soldiers with whom it does battle.

9. Denny Zeitlin's remarkable score for Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS saw its first CD release from Perseverance Records (PRD 003) just in time for the film's 25^th anniversary. Zeitlin provides an amazing score, a perfect accompaniment for Kaufman's claustrophobic exploration of urban terror. Unlike the 1956 Don Siegel classic, which built tremendous anxiety from the plaintive horrors of its rural environment, Kaufman set his film in the urban canyons of San Francisco, emphasizing an equivalent yet different sense of horror from its urban setting. Zeitlin, in his only film score to date, provided an eclectic and innovative score that fits the film like a glove... or a seed pod. The music is a mixture of jazz (notably a recurring saxophone romance theme), experimental electronic textures, and disturbingly claustrophobic sound patterns and layers that create a consistent subliminal uneasiness through its diverse mix of symphonic and electronic tonalities.

8. England's

FEAR NO EVIL, a 1980 thriller marred by post-production studio manhandling, but featuring a terrific orchestral score by director Frank LaLoggia with David Spear

Silva Screen Records, through the PrimeTime label, released a splendid three-disc set containing the original soundtracks to the first three HELLRAISER films, entitled Hellraiser: The Chronicles (TVPMCD 809). In a limited collector's package of only 3,000 copies, the discs come in an inventively packaged box, folding out in multiple directions to resemble the puzzle box that figures so exquisitely in each film. HELLRAISER and its sequel, HELLBOUND, were both scored by Christopher Young, who invested the films with a tremendous orchestral power, the music seething and surging through orchestral textures, powerful crescendos, and bizarrely orchestrated sonic cacophonies. Each disc in the set contains the contents of the original, and now out of print, soundtrack albums to each film (GNP Crescendo's HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II album also included seven cues from HIGHPOINT which are, reasonably, not included here). HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH, was scored by Randy Miller with similar dynamic assurance, and retains a similar musical power that really elevates the sensation of these remarkable films. The music is just tremendous, among the best horror music of the last 15 years, and combining them all works very well.

7. At 61:19,

The limited edition CD of Lalo Schifrin's rare HELLSTROM CHRONICLE score

last year's Deluxe Edition soundtrack for Jerry Goldsmith's POLTERGEIST II from Varese Sarabande (302 066 518 2) more than doubles the amount of music previously available from the film. In some ways a more provocative score than the original POLTERGEIST, working at more levels than the first terror tale, Goldsmith's music is richly textured, persuasively melodic, and genuinely mysterious. With massive chords of orchestra and choir, Goldsmith injects the film with a heightened emotional impact. The score works as potently for scenes of terror as it does when he brought back little Carol Anne's Theme from the first film as an eloquent lullaby for innocence prevailing. This was one of the first scores in which Goldsmith used electronic synthesizers as full-fledged members of his orchestra something many other composers were still resisting. The result is a uniquely textured score that enhances the emotional resonance of the acoustic instruments with the power and sonic capabilities of the synthesizers.

6. Jerry Goldsmith's score for 1978's MAGIC was never released in any form, except for six cues included on a very limited tribute CD produced in 1993. The score has topped many lists of the most sought-after Goldsmith scores, so it's release this year as a limited edition from Varese Sarabande Soundtrack Club (VCL 0403 1018) is most welcome. Goldsmith gives emphasis to strings, harmonica, piano to create a tender tone poem for the shifting personalities of the ventriloquist and his dummy, which are developed as they conflict and eventually merge. The score thereby underlines the descent of the Anthony Hopkins' character into madness with an intricate interplay of instrumentation, texture, and energy. A splendid contrast is achieved between the silken smooth violins of the main theme and the low, growling tonalities of the harmonica. MAGIC may not embody the melodic orchestral flourishes that characterized many of Goldsmith's larger scores of this period, but his expertise nevertheless shines in this compelling and provocative film score.

5. Among the more than two dozen limited editions released by the FSM label during 2003 came the first-ever soundtrack to George Lucas's inaugural film, THX 1138 (FSM Vol 6 No 4). The film, a sterile and Orwellian examination of a future society, was scored by Lalo Schifrin in a far different style than the jazzy, urban and bucolic feelings he has become best known for. The THX music shifts patterns and styles, from the eerie emptiness of its opening to disturbing and disoriented sound mixtures and dissonances, emphasizing the bleak disparity of Lucas' vision of the future. Perhaps more diversified and contrapuntal than any other single score, Schifrin's music ranges widely from baroque and clerical (Gregorian chants, etc.) influences to atonal sounds of alienation and very bizarre avant-garde associations each element deliberately chosen to emphasize one aspect of the film's inner psychology or another. In addition to the underscore, Schifrin also provided several examples of intentionally bland Muzak melodies used as source pieces in the film. It's a fascinating exploration into musical psychology and how music can play up a film's subtexts in a variety of manners.

4. Easily the equal

POLTERGEIST II, the deluxe soundtrack edition.

of THX 1138's rampantly bleak world, Lalo Schifrin composed an absolutely unique and breathtakingly exotic score for the science fictionesque insect documentary, THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE. Schifrin used his imagination to concoct a musical fantasia of the insect world, using synthesizers, keyboard-controlled chimes, exotic percussion devices, and unconventionally-played conventional instruments to create a genuinely otherworldly musical sound design. After more than 30 years, the soundtrack is finally available in a limited edition from Schifrin's label, Aleph Records (029). HELLSTROM remains an utterly unique score, almost purely atonal but consistently interesting in its musical impressions, reverberations, and textures. An exquisite experiment that has produced one of the most unique scores in film music history.

3. From Silva Screen came the first two releases in a new series of full-length score CDs containing Barry Gray's wonderful music for the Gerry Anderson SuperMarionation series for British television. THUNDERBIRDS, released by Silva Screen (FILMCD 606) afforded Gray the opportunity to compose a variety of music both heroic, outer-spacey, romantic, exotic, adventurous, and suspenseful. While small orchestras hindered somewhat the power of what Gray could accomplish musically, the thinner sound seemed to fit the marionette characterizations and miniature effects, giving them a unique charm that a larger orchestra may not, in fact, have been able to accomplish The result was a plethora of charming and splendid adventure music, oftentimes freely tracked throughout different episodes. Second in line was CAPTAIN SCARLET & THE MYSTERONS (Silva Screen FILMCD 607). Gray's unique compositions gave the puppet characters much of their hyper-reality through tuneful, hummable melodies while also underlining the story's dark undertones with brooding mysteriosos, exotic orchestrations, and rich, heroic musical measures. Gray was an innovator in the use of electronic music, and his combination of early electronic machines with his orchestra gave the futuristic series a comfortable and clever 1960-ish science fiction musical design. Both THUNDERBIRDS and CAPTAIN SCARLET were previously available only in theme collections, so this first ever compilation of the actual underscore, all carefully restored and edited from archives provided by the Gray estate, is a major delight.

2. FSM followed up last

The second volume of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. music.

year's "Silver Age Classic" soundtrack, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) with a second volume (FSM Vol6 No17). Once again the intrepid researcher Jon Burlingame has unearthed some of 1960's televisiondom's most memorable and effective spy music. Like the first volume, this one draws on music from all four seasons, avoiding a chronological compilation of music but instead sequencing it in a pleasing arrangement for home listening. Again these are all original soundtrack cues, rather than the jazzified rearrangements for record that dominated previous U.N.C.L.E. CD incarnations before Burlingame got his hands on the true gold. There's nearly 30 minutes of previously unreleased music from Jerry Goldsmith's pilot and episode scores, plus terrific efforts from his colleagues who shared the series' musical requirements, Lalo Schifrin, Nelson Riddle, Gerald Fried, Morton Stevens, Walter Scharf, Robert Drasnin, and Richard Shores. The music, as it was originally recorded, is mostly in pristine mono, but it sounds terrific all the same.

1. Varese

Bernard Herrmann's seminal sci-fi score, rerecorded at Abbey Road Studios by conductor Joel McNeely.

Sarabande's vibrant new recording of Bernard Herrmann's classic science fiction score for 1951's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (302 066 314 2) expands the previous original soundtrack recording (20^th Century Fox 11010-2, 1993) with an additional 15 cues, although there is really only one cue that didn't appear on the Fox CD Varese has chosen to separate several tracks that Fox's recording ran together. But the dynamic of the new recording, transforming Herrmann's original monophonic arrangement into vivid stereo really gives the score a new dimension, allowing its depth and detail to shine in a far richer fashion than ever before. The score itself is brilliant, and in many ways this is the archetypal science fiction score, fluent in its use of the theremin as a powerful component of the orchestra, crafting unforgettable tonalities and rhythms and orchestral surges that will forever be linked to any utterance of the phrase, "Klaatu, Barada, Nikto."

Soundtrax is our weekly Movie Soundtrack column.

For questions or comments, contact the author at Soundtrax@cinescape.com.

The Best of 2003 Part 2

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