A Fistful of Elfman with MIB II and Spidey's Score CD

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Wednesday, July 17, 2002

This Week's RecommendationS

Danny Elfman

has brought back the familiar DRAGNET-meets-PETER GUNN sensibility of MEN IN BLACK for Barry Sonnenfeld's comic sequel, but he's also invested it with a new quality, inspired by the space worms' bachelor pad/lounge music. Opening with "Worm Lounge #1 (Worms in Black)," the MEN IN BLACK II soundtrack (Columbia CK 86295) introduces this sensibility in a big way and it is entirely terrific. Think of a bizarre combination of Bernard Herrmann and Esquivel. Much of this lounge-ish approach isn't evident in the film, but it really comes to a wonderfully retro life on the CD. Whether or not you like the exotic-poppish-jazz feel of lounge music, Elfman merges it splendidly with his otherworldly tonalities ("Logo"), the dynamic fluidity of his orchestra and chorus ("Titles") and his bomping all-business theme for the MIB, and the result is a fresh and vibrant feel to a familiar subject. The soundtrack CD contains a dozen and a half score cues by Elfman, capped by "Frank the Pug's" gravelly interpretation of "I Will Survive" and the inevitable Will Smith hip hop/rap tune. Elfman's tunes twist and surge and undulate with the same insistently seething quality as Sirleena's wiry tendrils, accentuated here and there by a refreshing "duh-da-duh" from female chorus over electric bass, or marching in time with the pulsating MIB theme. The style is very nice and the result is a thoroughly pleasing composition and one of the composer's best recent works.

A little [IMG3L]over a month since the film's release and its associated song-soundtrack comes the score soundtrack from SPIDER-MAN, featuring a splendidly rhythmic and atmospheric, if melodically sparse, score from Danny Elfman. In a year that will also include RED DRAGON in another couple of months, this has been a huge few months for the red-headed maestro, with a trio of major films and important scores. SPIDER-MAN (Columbia CK 86681) seethes with rhythmic power. The score is built around the swinging Spidey theme, but there is a second motif for Peter Parker that quietly emphasizes his human personality through layered tone progressions ("Revenge"). The two themes are often interrelated throughout the score. As Elfman told interviewer Rudy Koppl in a recent issue of Soundtrack Magazine, "It ended up where every time I played one theme, a few notes of the other would come in. They ended up becoming almost inseparable in a weird way..." The same two score cues ("Main Title" and "Farewell") that appeared on the song soundtrack appear here, along with a number of excellent variations on the Spider-Man main theme, including "Costume Montage," in which Elfman embellishes it very nicely with effervescent electric guitars, and "City Montage," in which bongos, pianos, and heavy percussion give the theme a bristling urban edge. There is also a very pleasing musical epiphany heard in "Revelation," based on the Peter Parker/Spider-Man motifs but given a very sweet tonality through the strings.

Bracketed by [IMG4R]the rampantly energetic EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS and the eccentrically heroic X-MEN II, composer John Ottman has released his score to PUMPKIN (Citadel STC 77133), a poignant and delicately powerful score that invests with strong emotions this comedy-drama of an uppity sorority girl who falls in love with a retarded boy. John's score is intimate and tonal, emphasizing sustained passages for strings, high violins and cello, and low chords from piano, creating a compelling portrait of intimacy and inner love ("Torn Souls" is a fine example). He plays it very straight and gives the story its heart of gold, letting the film play out its own comic elements while he maintains an even posture on the fence between overt sentimentality and disturbing pretention.

John Debney's [IMG5L]score CD for THE SCORPION KING (Varese Sarabande 302 066 368 2) has finally arrived, and the composer's amalgamation of rock and roll with symphonic heroics works as nicely on disc as it did playing sidekick to The Rock on the big screen. The film's scope gave Debney a chance to really flex his musical muscles into Goldsmith/Silvestri/Poledouris territory, and Debney clearly enjoyed the challenge. The pumped-up action music is nicely orchestrated and integrated into a symphonic sensibility, while chorus and ethnic-vocalisms and atmospheres provide a degree of power and evocative atmosphere. Where a score like LADYHAWKE failed to successfully bridge rock-and-symphonic styles, and where Joel Goldsmith's KULL THE CONQUEROR was satisfactory if not outstanding, Debney excels. SCORPION KING is full-blooded and iron-thewed music, full of deep, groaning mysteriosos and brooding choral passages to its percussive, thwanging electric guitar. From the pure rock-and-roll opening ("Boo!") through the heavily symphonic/chorale "Main Titles," Debney's music is as beefy and as stalwart as the massive Rock himself.

SOUNDTRAX NEWS

Varese Sarabande will issue John Ottman's EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS and Edward Shearmur's REIGN OF FIRE on CD on July 23^rd. Released this week is Danny Lux's HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION score. Unconfirmed word has it that Varese Sarabande will be releasing a deluxe edition of ROBOCOP by Basil Poledouris in the near future, as well as an expanded edition of Jerry Goldsmith's GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. According to good sources, in the coming months Varese will also release (as part of their CD club) collectors editions of PREDATOR by Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore's BIG (both currently available only as elusive bootlegs), and a number of other goodies. Sources within Varese note, however, that sometimes anticipated releases change.

Pioneer Entertainment [IMG6R]has released a deluxe soundtrack album to Kasuhito Akiyama's deluxe anime, ARMITAGE: DUAL MATRIX (Pioneer PIO-CD-5180-2). The new film (released on DVD in several editions) is a sequel to 1994's ARMITAGE III, a four-part OVA series that was also released as a two-hour feature called ARMITAGE: POLY-MATRIX (the III in the earlier title is not the mark of a sequel but a reference to a class of cyborg featured in the film). Son of music producer/engineer Mack (Queen, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc.), Julian Mack makes his soundtrack debut with a synth-driven but symphonically-oriented score, persuasively rhythmic and organically designed, with not a few heavy guitar instrumentals too. The deluxe edition two-CD set includes a second platter with Hiroyuki Namba's score for ARMITAGE III presented in remastered format.

Shag it all! There will reportedly be no score album for AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER. Fans of George S. Clinton's rousing score will have to be content with the older RCA soundtrack CD from the first two films.

Christopher Nolan's [IMG7L]compelling and inventively-sequenced MEMENTO has finally spawned a soundtrack album (Thrive Records 90520-2), featuring eleven score cues and nine rock songs. There is a little dialogue included over some of Julyan's score cues, but it's not too much, and the music is ambient enough that it doesn't distract from what the composer is otherwise doing. Julyan's music is somber, low key, and sustained, creating enough of a sense of disturbed creepiness, with plenty of "musique concrete" and spooky atonalities. The music is low key, inactive, tonal, the songs (Bjork, Moby, Paul Oakenfold, etc.) rhythmic and percussive.

Guitarist Steve Vai [IMG8R]has compiled his occasional work for cinema into an impressive CD compilation called The Elusive Light and Sound Volume 1 (Favored Nations FN2220-2). The "Volume 1" suggests there may be additional material unearthed for a second volume some time in the future. Compiling "all the cues and soundtrack cuts that I have composed for films up to June 20, 1998, even the short little non-sensical splatters that hardly even stack up," says Vai in the CD booklet, the CD's 40 cues run the gamut from heavy metal glissandos from BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY to Vai's guitar dual with the devil (pairing up as the Evil Dude against Ry Cooder's hero) in CROSSROADS, plus a couple of short tracks from ENCINO MAN, and the complete guitar score for a 1994 20^th Century Fox campus party film called PCU. Much of the music on this collection never made it into their films, and Vai introduces the release with a newly-recorded and very fine version of  the Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes" and a previously unreleased song ("Love Blood") inspired by, but never used in, INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE. For guitar instrumental aficionados and obscure soundtrack collectors, this compilation is a must have. The 3-D holographic cover image of Vai's face will haunt you for days.

Coming up from Percepto Records in August/September is a pair of swingin' '60s Vic (ADDAMS FAMILY) Mizzy scores, THE BUSY BODY and THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, two comic gems filled with ghosts n' gangsters, and directed by the late great gimmickmeister William Castle. Percepto just released Mizzy's THE NIGHT WALKER, following up a collection of his unique comedy scores, and has a few more in the works. See: http://www.percepto.com/.

Graeme Revell (DUNE, RED PLANET MARS, TOMB RAIDER) has begun work on the DAREDEVIL movie. According to Revell's web site, the score will feature performances by guitarist Mike Einziger of Incubus. See: http://www.graemerevell.com/.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Marvel superhero universe, Mychael Danna  (HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, BOUNCE, GIRL INTERRUPTED) is scoring Ang Lee's interpretation of Bruce Banner, THE HULK, scheduled for release in June, 2003. See http://www3.sympatico.ca/mychaeldanna/index.html.

Soundtrax is our bi-weekly Movie Soundtrack column.

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