INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN / IT CONQUERED THE WORLD
© 2001 Percepto Records

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CHUCKY and SAUCERMEN CDs, Warner Bros. cartoon music, and a singing ENTERPRISE

A fistful of blasts from the past can be found on your CD turntables this week, from a couple of the coolest 1950's sci-fi scores to a lavishly enhanced release of the A.I. soundtrack on advanced resolution DVD sound, as well as the unusual assortment of news items... starting with:

SING A SONG OF STAR TREK

Ain't It Cool News reports this week that the new STAR TREK series debuting this month, ENTERPRISE, whose musical attributes have mostly remained undetermined and unrevealed, will dispense with the traditional fanfare main themes which have been a mainstay of the series since Roddenberry's first launch in 1966, and which have generated some of the genre's best science fiction themes of the last 30 years. Well, the demographically-savvy execs in charge of the new series have reportedly decided that STAR TREK can be just as contemporary as Ally McBeal and BUFFY and have chosen a song to be played during the opening credits. And not even a new song but Diane Warren's "Faith of the Heart" (you may have heard Rod Stewart growl it out on the soundtrack of PATCH ADAMS). Don't worry, it won't be the Rodster who will croon the new series launch this month - the producers at Trek HQ are evidently even now seeking a young and hip singer to cover the song for the show. As for the film's orchestral soundtrack, while Dennis McCarthy is doing the pilot (and a soundtrack CD will surely result), an official composer for the series remains unidentified.

THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATION

This week's most unusual release in an entirely must-have way is surely the first-ever original soundtrack CD of two classics of 1950s hysterical science fiction, INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (Percepto 005 - see www.percepto.com). Both films featured scores by one of the kings of low-budget science fiction music, Ronald Stein, whose work for such affectionately bad films as ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN, DINOSAURUS, and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, not to mention more favorably remembered epics as NOT OF THIS EARTH and AIP's THE HAUNTED PALACE, THE TERROR, and THE PREMATURE BURIAL, has left a lasting mark on the film music of the era. Stein never failed to give a film his all, no matter how limited its budget or the creativity of its creators.

In the case of INVASION and CONQUERED, both alien invasion films (although vastly different in tone and style), Stein had a musical field day. INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN, though it didn't start out that way, wound up being shot as a comedy, which, when he wasn't playing it entirely straight, gave Stein the opportunity for some cartoonlike comic scoring and a number of references to classical and popular music. As Stein told me a few years prior to his death, "No matter what you imagine musically, the music had to enhance whatever is happening dramatically. I loved doing INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN, especially the main title theme... [and] I had a chance to do some comedy." Stein said he treated every project "and some of them have been fairly miserable, with the greatest deal of respect. My question to myself, always, in any work I've done, was that my contribution had to be equal to or greater than anyone else's individual contribution." That may have been easier to accomplish on some projects than on others, but his work in the genre has been effective and quite marvelous in films like these.

INVASION opens with a kind of frenetic "Flight of the Bumblebee" for xylophone and brass that intersperses with a pretty, flourishing violins and harps romantic melody for the "Main Title" (come to think of it, Williams did something along vaguely similar lines for LOST IN SPACE a decade later). Stein's music ranges from cool saxophone jazz to bizarre, effectsy acoustics to menacing alien invasion chords and jaunty little figures that bounce around, held together by either the melodic romantic strains or the more dissonant or suspenseful musical elements of the work.

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (IT being, of course, "Beulah" the huge wobbling cucumber monster and God bless Paul Blaisdell for creating out of almost nothing another timelessly memorable creature) allowed Stein to dabble in electronics for almost the first time. Way before synthesizers came into being, Stein recorded an oscillator at varying frequencies in order to generate the musical sounds that accompanied "Beulah's" terrifying attacks. Stein's score is straightforward alien invasion music no romping comedy here - and the music holds up amazingly well, making the most out of its small orchestra and limited budget. Stein again uses xylophone to great effect as the alien visitor arrives; his approach to the invasion-and-panic scenes are effective, the eerie shimmering tonalities of the oscillator creating a claustrophobic and miasmic undercurrent of otherworldly terror beneath the more familiar orchestral sounds.

Ted Newsom's liner notes are extensive and comprehensive, and the 20-page booklet is very nicely illustrated with many small photos and movie ads.

SOUNDTRAX NEWS

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and HUMANOIDS OF THE DEEP two of James Horner's earliest film scores, way before TITANIC and BICENTENNIAL MAN... way before STAR TREK II and III, for that matter finally see the light of laser playback this week in a new release from GNP Crescendo Records. The two scores have been among Horner's most sought-after works on their original LP releases, which have been paired and released together on this new CD.

Speaking of James Horner, Intrada (www.intrada.com) has announced the upcoming release[IMG2R] of Horner's JACK THE BEAR as the third volume of its Special Collection. The 1993 film from 20th Century Fox starred Danny DeVito as a recently widowed TV horror-movie host. While trying to raise his two boys, he often hides behind playful goofiness to mask the pain of loneliness and loss. James Horner's delicate and often dreamy score to JACK THE BEAR is an intimate and understated one, featuring in its "neighborhood theme" a bit of pianistic pastorale not unlike his score for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.

TNT's science fiction-esque drama series THE PRETENDER comes to CD with plenty of episode music by Velton Ray Bunch in a promotional recording issued on behalf of the composer. You can find a copy through www.intrada.com or www.supercollector.com. The music ranges from jazzy blues to pop vocals to chamber classical to broad lyrical melodies, and the CD includes half a dozen main title demos just to see what Bunch had in mind and how he got there. Utterings of dialog filter into the cues from time to time, but in this case they don't really distract but become a part of the overall rhythmic ambience, in a way that a similar previous attempt, Music from THE X-FILES, failed to achieve, but then its musical style wasn't as conducive to that kind of mixture as this bunch of eclectic rhythms is. And not to be missed by anyone is the unforgettable final cue, "Jingle Bark, Jingle Bark," which I assure you is going to be a perennial holiday favorite in my household.

Another great promo release, Film Music, is available through the same sources. Collecting the hitherto unreleased works of John Morgan and William Stromberg (known as the reconstructionist and conductor, respectively, of Marco Polo's tremendous series of golden age film scores like SON OF KONG and the like), the CD doesn't credit which cues are from which films, but the recording does contain cues from such terrific little films as OTHER VOICES, MUTANT SPECIES, and DEMON IN THE BOTTLE, as well as the atom bomb documentary, TRINITY AND BEYOND, which is just plain one of the best scores of the decade. The music of these two powerhouse composers is classically driven and hugely energetic and musical. The opening cue, "Space Race," starts the orchestra off in a big way, which keeps going straight through to the end.

GHOST WORLD, based on Daniel Clowes comic book, was scored by David Kitay (CLUELESS, SCARY MOVIE, DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR and similars) but only one score cue appears on the soundtrack CD from Shanachie (6056). Most of the album consists of source songs (many culled from 1920/30's era 78s). Kitay's track (3:58) is a tender, attractive theme for strings and piano.

PITCH BLACK finally makes it to CD, paired with BRIDE OF CHUCKY on a promo recording issued by Super Tracks. Graeme Revell's provocative, moody score for the former film makes a nice contrast to the twangy, tongue-in-cheek melodrama of the CHUCKY score, which in places sounds a lot like Duane Eddy meets FRIDAY THE 13TH on a bad hair day. There's just over an hour of music here, well worth seeking out.

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, the final installment in the amazing Kevin Smith New Jersey chronicles (CLERKS, MALLRATS, CHASING AMY, DOGMA), features a score by James L. Venable, a veteran of such TV series as THE POWERPUFF GIRLS, TUNNEL VISION and CLERKS THE SERIES. Look for a soundtrack CD from Varese Sarabande in stores in two weeks.

John Williams' lavishly melodic score for A.I. is now available as an audiophile DVD recording (Warners, 9 48096-9). Content is identical to the CD release, but the sound, on a good system, is notably richer, fully and more dynamic in Dolby 5.1. The recording comes in three playback modes Advanced Resolution Surround, Advanced Resolution Stereo, and DVD-Video Compatible Dolby Digital. You can't select these your system will determine what it's capable of playing back. But as Williams' best score of the new millennium (so far), this is well worth plunking out the extra $25 if you're really into advanced resolution sound.

From Rhino comes a thoroughgoingly daffy new collection of Warner Bros. cartoon music. That's all Folks (Rhino R2 74271) collects the complete soundtracks of half a dozen Warner Daffy & Bugs and Porky cartoons, plus another half dozen cartoon excerpts spread out over two discs. The music itself the work of cartoon maestro Carl Stalling may be better represented in the two volumes of Stalling score material issued by Warners in 1990/95 (surely two of the zaniest and most amazing soundtracks in my collection), but with the addition of the cartoon dialog and song sequences including plenty of impressions and voiceovers by Stan Freberg and Shorty Rogers is a good companion and a lot of audible fun. The release, encased in a plastic slipcover, is packaged in a hardback book that includes 100 pages of background info on these cartoons and their music including a comprehensive track listing of both discs that itemizes each cue and quotation heard in the music.

From Silva Screen we have Apocalypse: Cinema Choral Classics, an all-new collection of re-recorded choral material from contemporary films including such horror and sci-fi offerings as HANNIBAL, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, THE NINTH GATE, DUNE, STARMAN, and THE PHANTOM MENACE. It's a recording of pure choral music from these films (and others), and while it may get to be too much after a while (most of these cues, after all, were elements of otherwise orchestral works to which they stood out and were enhanced as choral motifs) it's an interesting collection. Next time you're in the mood for an opera or a bit of cinematic Handel, give it a listen. You may find yourself in the midst of an entirely different kind of "Messiah Sing!"

Soundtrax is our bi-weekly movie soundtrack column.