Music To Destroy All Humans By – Too

By: Randall Larson
Date: Thursday, November 09, 2006

THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS

Composer Garry Schyman’s score for the 2005 THQ alien invasion videogame Destroy All Humans! was a frenzied, lovingly retro science fiction horror score written in the style of 1950’s sci-fi movies such as the classic The Day The Earth Stood Still, using a Theremin as the lead instrument. Schyman recorded his 60-minute cinematic score in Los Angeles with some of Hollywood’s top orchestral musicians. Schyman avoided the game’s inherent humor and played it straight. “I wrote the score as if this was 1953 and I was a working composer of that era,” Schyman said at the time. “With that in mind I played it dead serious, which led to an overly dramatic score and the humor that comes from that approach.”

For the score to the sequel videogame, Destroy All Humans 2, released like the first score on CD by Lakeshore records, Schyman moved ahead a decade and has drawn from the classic sci-fi/horror scores of the 1960s for his highly-emulative yet beautifully effective gamescore. Developed by Pandemic Studios, Destroy All Humans! 2 is set in the 1960s and the game’s music is drawn from scoring styles of that period. Schyman’s musical influences for DAH 2 include John Barry's scores for the James Bond films of the 1960's as well as early Jerry Goldsmith and TV scores such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Twilight Zone. The 60-minute score was recorded with a live orchestra featuring some of the best A-list studio players in Hollywood.

“For Destroy All Humans! 2 I immersed myself in the scoring of that period, listening to dozens and dozens of soundtracks from that time of many different genres,” Schyman said. “However, just as in the original Destroy All Humans! was set in the 1950's, with DESTROY ALL HUMANS! 2 I never attempt to intentionally satirize the game experience with the score. Instead the humor comes from playing it dead straight and letting the irony of the 60's images, witty dialogue and straight orchestral scoring from the period create the fun.”

The result is an amazingly crafted and resoundingly effective score that mimics, pays tribute to, and re-energizes the inventive clarity of 1960s horror scoring. There’s still plenty of the 1950s style that defined the first DAH gamescore, but DAH2 is a little more progressive in its musical palette. and pervasive chords rage in colorful battle while other moments brood in reserved rage, biding its time. “Tunguska Disguised” harkens back to the impenetrable requiems of Akira Ifukube’s Gojira scores, with their irrepressible sadness and funereal cadence. “Moon Base Hunted,” which closes the CD, is a brilliant amalgamation of Barry and Bernstein and Bernard Herrmann.

Drifting throughout the score cues are a series of 1960s era surf and garage-band styled rock songs, also effectively mimicking the music of the decade. The tunes are all new but they sound like they could have come out of The Seeds, The Music Machine, The Surfaris, or any of the other precursors of punk and garage surf who defied the Summer of Love. There’s even a straight-ahead cover of “Satisfaction” – turn up the bass way up on this one. While less of a sequential integration between the score tracks and the songs would have made for better listenability towards really appreciating both forms, the CD is a very enjoyable mix of music and mood, amped-up alien invasion style. Schyman, who has more than a dozen feature film and TV scores to his credit, proves once again to be extremely capable at creating terrific science fiction action scoring that is both nostalgic in its style and tonality, and wickedly effective in building a mood that really makes you want to blast a bunch of aliens.

www.garryschyman.com

www.destroyallhumansgame.com

FILM MUSIC NEWS

Varese Sarabande has announced this season’s limited edition Club releases, available in quantities from 1,000 copies to 3,000. Leading the pack is the Jerry Goldsmith electronic score to Runaway, a 1984 sci-fi movie written and directed by Michael Crichton, with Tom Selleck, Cynthia Rhodes, and Gene Simmons in a futuristic story of technology run amok. Runway was one of only three all electronic scores by Goldsmith (the others were Criminal Law and Alien Nation). Of the three, however, Runaway was the most “symphonic.” The layers and textures which Goldsmith incorporated into the score, (which he performed himself), contained all the hallmarks of his style. Runaway is very much a score orchestrated for synthesizers. Varese released the original soundtrack CD contemporaneously with the film’s release in 1984, and it soon went out of print. For this special Deluxe Edition of the score, the label has rounded out its running time with a number of never before released cues and remastered everything from the original master tapes to make it sound better than ever.

Also announced is the first-ever commercial release of Elmer Bernstein’s score for 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz, the John Frankenheimer directed story of the imprisoned murderer Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster) with a predilection for nursing injured and sick birds back to health (a true story) – which may well be the composer’s most important score never to have found its way to a commercial release. Birdman of Alcatraz comes from a time that could be quite accurately described as the most important two or three-year period of Elmer Bernstein’s entire 50-plus year career. Birdman, along with The Magnificent Seven, Summer and Smoke, Walk on the Wild Side, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Escape, all fall between 1960 and 1963 . For Birdman of Alcatraz, Bernstein composed a magical score, so subtle, and so delicate that he brought compassion to the character of a convicted murderer. “Hearing the hour of music that Bernstein composed for this film, assembled together for the very first time, is sure to bring a new appreciation for this important opus,” notes the label on its web site.
This CD contains many cues in their complete form that were only heard in abbreviated versions in the film. There are also 11 cues that were not heard in the final cut at all.

The other three CDs in the Varese Club’s November release, two of which have already sold out its limited run of 1,000 copies, includes the vastly under-represented Hugo Friedhofer’s epic scores for two 1955 historical costumers, Seven Cities of Gold (a 1769 Spanish expedition to find the legendary seven cities in California containing buried Indian gold), and The Rains of Ranchipur the lives and loves of characters tested against the natural disasters of monsoon, earthquake and flood in the rain-soaked countryside of India); Dave Grusin’s eloquent score for the David Seltzer’s 1986 coming-of-age movie, Lucas, and Australian composer Ray Cook’s ravishingly beautiful score for the 1983 family drama about coping with the depression, Careful, He Might Hear You. Cook’s career in film music was blossoming (this was his second score) when he died in 1989 at the age of 63. www.varesesarabande.com

Eloise CD

Intrada has also announced a very limited (1200 copies) collector’s release – a double-CD containing the premiere release of Bruce Broughton’s Emmy Award-winning scores for 2003’s Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime, based on the famous Kay Thompson children's books. The live action shows were premiered on The Wonderful World of Disney, with Julie Andrews and Sofia Vassilieva. Broughton created a wonderfully frenzied musical portrait for full orchestra, anchored by a jaunty sax theme. Plenty of musical vignettes allow the composer moments of tenderness, humor, and excitement plus nods to his trademark Americana. www.intrada.com

Five composers and four scores have been nominated to the European Film Award ”European Composer 2006.” The nominees are Alberto Iglesias for Volver, Tuomas Kantelinen for Mother of Mine, Dario Marianelli for Pride and Prejudice and Gabriel Yared & Stéphane Moucha for Das Leben der anderen. The European Film Awards are handed out by the European Film Academy in Warsaw, Poland, on December 2. – via filmmusicradio.com

This past week, composer Alan Silvestri was at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox recording his score to the upcoming Ben Stiller adventure comedy, Night at the Museum. The film, directed by Shawn Levy, is about a man who takes a job at a museum - only to discover that at night, the exhibits come to life. Along with Stiller, the film stars Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, Dick Van Dyke, and Mickey Rooney. For his score to the film, Silvestri conducted a 101-piece orchestra, which included eight French horns and six percussionists. A choir was also recorded later in the week, heightening the dramatic adventurous material. Checkout the complete scoring session report, with photos, at www.soundtrack.net

John Powell (whose very successful filmscoring year has included such notable compositions as United 93, Ice Age: The Meltdown, and X-Men: The Last Stand) reportedly spent three years working on his music for Happy Feet – the latest Hollywood CGI taking-animals movie in what seems to be a neverending run of cue and edgy animal tales. The Happy Feet soundtrack was released CD this week from Atlantic/WEA but is primarily a song score, featuring musical numbers from the cast as well as songs by artists such as Prince and The Beach Boys. A single track represents Powell’s original music, “The Story of Mumble Happy Feet.” No word yet on the availability of a full score album.

The Return Sountrack

No, it’s not the music to the latest Sarah Michelle Geller horror film (which opens on Friday and features a score by V For Vendetta’s Dario Marianelli), but this soundtrack to The Return is from the provocatively understated and foggy score by Russian composer Andrey Dergatchev to director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s subtle 2005 drama about two brothers who face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father – a man they only know through a single photograph – resurfaces in the remote Russian wilderness. Definitely a far cry from the spooky Geller horrorshow, which does look to have its own charms. Dergatchev’s expressively intricate, very hushed, and minimalist soundtrack is available on ECM records, where it provides a fascinating listening experience as it both underlines and treats as poetic the psychological intonations of the three characters. ECM has also released a pair of notable classical albums with Eastern European film music associations: Elegy of the Uprooting, a concert recording of the music of Greek film and theatre composer Eleni Karaindrou that summarizes her finest music from stage and screen (“an epic journey in colors, sounds, and rhythms, shedding light on the themes of uprooting, exodus, exile and homecoming,” as ECM puts it); and French pianist Francois Couturier's Nostalghia – Song for Tarkovsky, which comprised original concert compositions “inspired” by films of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.

www.ecmrecords.com

According to the LA Times' Tom O'Neil, composer James Horner is no longer on board Robert De Niro's film The Good Shepherd. For months now, Horner's status on the project has been shaky, with reports of him being on it, then off it, then finally back on it when he went to London to record it along with Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Now word is that Horner is off the project due to "creative differences", and as the film is coming out in December, composers Marcelo Zarvor (Hollywoodland) and Bruce Fowler (additional music, uncredited: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) are scrambling to provide the score to the film. – via soundtrack.net

England’s Harkit records has released a selection of music from the famous western series Bonanza, the first hour-long TV show in any genre produced in full-color. David Rose's music for this enormously popular television series made Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker household names. The album comes with a beautifully illustrated booklet which includes David's original notes explaining how he wrote these themes. Upcoming releases due this Winter from Harkit include scores to Return From the River Kwai (Lalo Schifrin) and Pope Joan (Maurice Jarre). www.harkitrecords.com

Recommended Soundtrack sources:

www.buysoundtrax.com

www.intrada.com

www.screenarchives.com

www.footlight.com

www.arksquare.com/index_main.html (Japan)

www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)

www.moviegrooves.com

www.moviemusic.com

For questions or comments, contact the author at

Soundtrax@cinescape.com