Backward MASKing

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, February 03, 2005

THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATIONS

In SON OF THE MASK, composed Randy Edelman reprises his vibrantly quirky heroic theme from 1994's THE MASK, but only three tracks of score are included on the soundtrack album, released this week by Silva Screen (SILCD 1179). However, they are thankfully generously long cues (totaling almost 22 minutes), and sequenced as the last 3 tracks on the CD they can be.

In "Son of the Mask (History Lesson)" Edelman takes his theme out for a neat reprisal, filling it with bizarre reverberating synth warbles and a cornucopia of Elfman-like musical twists and turns, making for a delightful spin on what was already a quirky theme to begin with. "Halloween Masquerade" is a demented scherzo for full orchestra and a diabolical jazz ensemble that threatens to spin wildly out of control but is held in check by Edelman. The cue is 7-minutes of cartoon-crazy musical mayhem which is taken in every direction almost at once. The direction most often taken is a healthy nod toward Scott Bradley and Carl Stalling, and Edelman pulls it off beautifully, culminating in a massive incarnation of the Mask Theme that itself segues into a sustained rhythm for snazzily trilling synth. "Father And Son" is a poignant cue taking the Mask Theme and gentling it down into a soft and tender cue full of familial warmth. It's really a wonderful variation on the theme's tune, diametrically opposed to the zany embodiment the cue was given in the previous two tracks. But of course things aren't all safe and sound in MASK territory, and after a couple of minutes Edelman starts taking the cue into some more pervasive directions, elevating into a huge orchestral surge that tapers into a filigree for woodwinds and piano over strings, back toward more tender shores, until rousing again into a fastly driven rhythm for strings, brass, and percussion. Changing focus yet again, the cue merges into a deep piano tonality over strings, which is then intruded upon by severe brass chords and then gentle piano. The cue becomes as varied as the controlled chordal chaos of "Halloween Masquerade," only in a far warmer and gently melodic sensibility. It morphs and segues and changes patterns but retains its inherent orchestrally melodic temperament. The cue culminates in a wonderfully classical piano and vibrato violin motif, all prim and proper, as if the zaniness of the previous cues had all been some crazy dream. Even in its brevity Edelman's score is terrifically accomplished and lots of fun to listen to.

Aside from these score cues, the CD emphasizes nine songs, ranging from pop classics by Paul Anka, Chubby Checker, and Neil Diamond to modern tunes by top-40ites like Ryan Cabrera, Jamie Kennedy, Doctor John and the Lower 9, and Marissa Jaret Winokur And the Canine Jazz Band. www.silvascreen.co.uk

FILM MUSIC NEWS

On Carter Burwell's website, the composer announced that he is no longer scoring the film SERENITY, Joss Whedon's feature version of his short-lived, cult favorite sci-fi

Western series Firefly: Burwell writes that "while the project was challenging I thought it was going well. Joss' responses were sometimes positive, sometimes not, but it seemed we were getting to a score he liked. What made the job difficult was that the score needed to reflect whatever was happening on screen moment by moment. And there were a hundred minutes of those moments. This is a traditional role for film music - "what you see is what you hear" - but it's the opposite of my usual approach, which is to find something for music to say which is not otherwise there. Of course I have often worked in the traditional mode, but I do find it challenging."

Burwell also added "Don't know who's going to end up scoring the film -- send in your applications now." Coincidentally, one of the most plausible candidates to replace Burwell is Christophe Beck, who first rose to prominence by scoring several seasons of Whedon's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL series.

The music for Takashi Miike's latest horror film, CHAKUSHIN ARI 2 (a sequel to his 2003 horror show), has been released in Japan by Sony. The score is by Koji Endo, who also scored the first film, Miike's ZEBRAMAN, and many others. Available as an import from www.arksquare.com

Due in late February from Belgium's Prometheus Records is a 2-CD set of John Debney's incredible score to CUTTHROAT ISLAND. Steve Jablonsky (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake) is set to score yet another classic horror remake, Andrew Douglas' THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. The film has an April 15th release date; a soundtrack CD is more than likely although not yet finalized. Jablonsky will also score Michael Bay's science fiction thriller, THE ISLAND.

After CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and

THE CORPSE BRIDE, Danny Elfman will work on two new films for release in 2006, as reported in musicfromthemovies.com. He has been hired to provide the original score for CHARLOTTE'S WEB, Paramount Pictures' adaptation of E.B. White's beloved children's tale, and A DAY WITH WILBUR ROBINSON, a computer animated Disney picture about a boy genius who invents a machine that recovers forgotten memories.

On Feb 15th, Varese Sarabande will release the soundtrack to the Hellblazer-inspired film CONSTANTINE, starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. The music is composed jointly by Klaus Badelt and Brian Tyler (earlier announcements of the soundtrack did not list Badelt's participation). The film opens Feb 18th. On March 15th, the label will release John Powell's score to ROBOTS, the latest CGI animated feast from the makers of ICE AGE. In addition to his orchestral score, Powell's music includes the work of the innovative performer/musicians, The Blue Man Group. www.varesesarabande.com

Joseph LoDuca (EVIL DEAD, XENA) has two new horror projects in the works, the score to David Winkler's DEVOUR, about a group of kids who discover a game their playing has become horrific and threatens worldwide chaos, and Steven T. Kay's BOOGEYMAN, about an old man returning home to face childhood fears.

Silva America's latest Gerry Anderson soundtrack restoration is SPACE 1999 (SIL-

CD-1157) was released on January 25th. This original TV Soundtrack was Composed and Conducted by Barry Gray, sourced from Year 1 of the seminal seventies series. This is the first time Barry Gray's music is commercially available on CD. Original SPACE 1999 music was previously released under different packaging as a collectable Ltd Edition item for Gerry Anderson Fanclub members. The first recording session for SPACE 1999 took place on December 11th 1973 with a 52-piece orchestra performing the opening and closing title music. For the series' incidental music between 32 and 38 instruments were utilised at any one session, all conducted by Barry Gray. The American release differs from Silva Screen's UK release only in the indexing the content is identical but the American tracks are indexed from 1-15, one for each episode suite, whereas the UK edition indexed each individual cue within each of the 15 episodes also. www.silvascreen.co.uk or www.sbmc-inc.com

Joel McNeely has scored MULAN II, released this week direct to DVD. Disney has released a soundtrack album with five score tracks, three songs from the film, two songs redone by pop singers Hayley Westenra and Atomic Kitten, and one instrumental version of one of the songs. http://disney.go.com/disneyrecords/Soundtracks/mulan2/index.html

Nonesuch Records has released the latest score from French composer Bruno Coulais (THE CRIMSON RIVERS, VIDOQC, WINGED MIGRATION). THE CHORUS (LES CHORISTES) came out and was released in France last year, Miramax gave it an American release last month, prompting the stateside soundtrack CD. The music is classically chorus-driven, and yet another example of this composer's remarkable versatility. www.nonesuch.com

Film Score Monthly's February limited edition soundtrack CDs feature a sought-after WWII adventure score and a classic jazz soundtrack. KELLY'S HEROES (1970) was a WWII comedy-adventure starring Clint Eastwood as an Army officer who organizes a platoon to rob a bank loaded with gold behind enemy lines. Composer Lalo Schifrin responded to the film's shifts in tone with an eclectic score encompassing straight-ahead action, pleasantly anachronistic source music, and a jazzy, whistling march for the film's titular heroes. Previous releases of the Kelly's Heroes soundtrack have been largely a re-recording. FSM's CD features the premiere release of the complete original score, with selected source cues (including three songs) and the re-recorded LP tracks included for good measure -- all in stereo.

FSM's Golden Age Classic for February is Andre Previn's jazz score for THE

SUBTERRANEANS (1960). The film was an attempt to package the Beat generation for mainstream consumption. Based on the novel by Jack Kerouac, the film is best known for its progressive jazz soundtrack. Previn assembled a world-class roster of jazz artists: Gerry Mulligan (who also acted in the film), Carmen McRae, Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, Buddy Clark, Dave Bailey, Art Pepper, Russ Freeman, Bill Perkins, Bob Enevoldsen, and Jack Sheldon. Previn himself appeared on-screen performing with The Andre Previn Trio, and composed an underscore that married his jazz source cues with the romantic aesthetic of the Hollywood symphonic style. The Subterraneans was released on LP at the time of the film. This CD presents the definitive Subterraneans soundtrack (largely in stereo, except for certain selections recorded in mono) running over 79 minutes: the original album program followed a new program of bonus selections, containing all of the previously released music and much more. http://www.screenarchives.com/fsm/

Commotion Records (www.arecordcommotion.com) has announced a forthcoming compilation album of film and television music by Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh. Mothersbaugh cranks open the vault to unveil outtakes from his lauded scores to Wes Anderson's films, as well as other surprises from his some 95 film and television projects. Frontman of the extremely influential new wave band Devo, the multitalented Mothersbaugh began scoring film and television in the 1980's. His innovative, eclectic, and quirky musical style lead to an accumulation of diverse credits including THIRTEEN, THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, THE BIRDCAGE, and the TV series - RUGRATS, PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, and WORKING. Mothersbaugh is well known for acclaimed soundtracks to director Wes Anderson's films BOTTLE ROCKET, RUSHMORE, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, and THE LIFE AQUATIC.

Speaking of Mothersbaugh, he is set to score HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, the 2005 Lindsay Lohan-embedded sequel to the Disney's LOVE BUG films. Look for the film around June 24th.

Michael Giacchino's score for THE INCREDIBLES has won great critical acclaim

and now he has won prestigious acclaim by the International Film Music Critics Association. This week, he was named the 'Film Composer of the Year' by the association and his score for THE INCREDIBLES won two awards, "Best Original Motion Picture Score" and "Best Original Action/Adventure Motion Picture Score." The International Film Music Critics Association was recently formed by Music from the Movies' Mikael Carlsson and is a follow-up to the Film Music Critics Jury that was active a few years ago. The members of the association are active film music reviewers and journalists (including your Soundtrax columnist) who write about film scores and soundtrack on a regular basis. For a full list of the 2004 awards, see: www.musicfromthemovies.com/article.asp?ID=463

GAME MUSIC NEWS

While it hasn't received a commercial CD release, Vivendi-Universal has released parts of Inon Zur's outstanding score to the MEN OF VALOR game on its web site. Readers can download tracks for free from: http://www.vugames.com/downloadfile.do?gamePlatformId=1706&mediaid=12592 or directly via this URL ftp://ftp.vugames.com/pub/sierra/menofvalor/other/mov_music_soundtrack_mp3.zip Zur's score is a terrific score, beautifully textured and highly emotive. Certainly the equal of any Hollywood film score of similar style.

Jack Wall's score for MYST IV: REVELATION will receive an international CD release later this year. A limited run is scheduled to be available at www.Ubi.com shortly. In the meantime, cues are available on Wall's web site at www.jackwall.net/music.html

Music from SPLINTER CELL #: CHAOS THEORY will be released on CD by Ninja Tune on February 7th however the CD contains 10-tracks of in-game music by Amon Tobin, but none of the additional or cinematics music composed by Jesper Kyd. The CD is available at amazon.com

Artist/producer Tom Salta has written the original soundtrack for COLD FEAR (www.coldfeargame.com), the first action-horror title from UbiSoft. Developed by Darkworks, the game will launch simultaneously for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and PC-CD Rom in early March. Salta's music has been featured on HBO's MAKING OF SPIDER-MAN 2, Cinemax's MAKING OF ANACONDAS, and on television's THIRD WATCH, JOAN OF ARCADIA, and MTV's TOUGH ENOUGH. He also created the main theme for The Discovery Channel's "Wild Discovery."

Danny Elfman's Main Title music for the video game FABLE will be included in a soundtrack CD scheduled for release on February 15th from Sumthing Else Music Works. The game soundtrack includes Elfman's title music as well as music from Russell Shaw. "There are a lot of great game composers out there who deserve to see their efforts released on CD and more and more fans are demanding these soundtrack albums," Shaw told the Music4Games.net web site. "I think it could take off in a big way."

FILM MUSIC ON DVD

In the extra's that appear on the Touchstone KING ARTHUR DVD, released last month, is a short (17 minute) documentary that includes about a minute's worth of attention to Hans Zimmer's terrific score. "It's not rock and roll, but one of the things

I've been trying to do is make Arthur and his Knights more like a sort of a biker gang," Zimmer says. "They're not quite as squeaky clean as you'd expect." Zimmer says he found the idea of translating the King Arthur myth back into the Dark Ages an appealing one, although he realized that as soon as his music came in, it mythologized the characters all the same. "Everything should revolve around Arthur," Zimmer says. "As the apex of the characters, [the theme] is based on a tiny little 3-note motif. Everybody gets handed those three notes at one part of the score or another, in different disguises, and of course we have a love theme. I got Moya Brennan in from Clannad to sing she's got such a great voice. You just want to enhance the emotion, really. You want to put a framework around the scenes so it gives them a flow and a structure and hope something informs the characters in some good way."

Recommended Soundtrack sources:

www.buysoundtrax.com

www.intrada.com

www.screenarchives.com

www.footlight.com

www.arksquare.com/index_main.html

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