The Best Soundtracks of 2005 Part 2 Game Scores; Compilations, Reissues & Restorations

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, January 19, 2006

FAVE GAMESCORES OF 2005

Video game scores continue to rival motion picture scores, whether they are composed by film scorers or by composers specializing in games music. These are my favorites of those released on CD during 2005:

1.
Advent Rising (Tommy Tallarico, Sumthing Else SE-2019-2)
Tallarico's score for this sci-fi action/adventure game (the score and arrangement is co-credited to Michael Richard Plowman) is an amazing and unique gamescore, a broad, operatic composition flowing in choral melodies. Opening with a blaze of passion for escalating choral textures and striking piano notes, the music proceeds strongly, featuring a full symphony orchestra and chorus; men's, women's, and children's' choirs are featured prominently and powerfully, emphasizing the dynamic and potent drama of the game's cinematics and gameplay. The music is constantly active, moving, reaching new heights, splendidly invigorating, persuasive, and challenging (the melody line of "Aurelia" is simply gorgeous, a scintillating melody that rises and falls quite affectingly). Advent Rising is easily one of the best and most compelling game soundtrack CDs in recent years.

2.
Prince of Persia (Inon Zur & Stuart Chatwood, Ubisoft 992189-BCK)
Inon Zur remains one of gamesdom's most powerful composers, proffering fully rendered cinematic scores and enriching the environments of scores for several fistfuls of major games and not a few TV and film scores as well. His scores for Prince of

Persia: The Two Thrones and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within are joined to that of Stuart Chatwood for the first game, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Chatwood's primarily electronic rhythmic sensibilities are included in Zur's subsequent scores as well). Both composers to a fine job of delineating expressive and expansive musical atmospheres for the mysterious environments of the gameplay and the cinematics. Eloquent ambiances for orchestra, electronics, and voices capture evocations of place and time, while dramatic measures for orchestra and choir, especially in Zur's compositions, really enliven the musical dynamic and pulse immeasurably, interpreting the scope of the game with a magnificent orchestral flourish. Exotic flavorings of voices and Eastern instrumentation provide a majestic blend of atmosphere and heroic musical action that drives the gameplay ever onward. It works just as splendidly on CD as well.

3.
Jade Empire (Jack Wall, Sumthing Else SE-2017-2)
This score is an impressive intermingling of orchestral samples and acoustic Chinese

instruments that presents a pleasing, multilayered pattern of redolent atmosphere. The main theme is an ambient 2-tone motif that recurs, like repetitious waves against a jade seashore, if you'll forgive the obvious evocation. The game's Chinese setting is underlined with the prevalent use of Guzheng, Pipa, Suona, Erhu, and other Chinese instruments. The score is more atmospheric than mightily heroic/adventure, providing an exotic background for gameplay, but occasionally reaches some notable peaks of excitement amid the overarching atmospheric evocations that are so nicely maintained.

4.
Hitman: Codename 47/Hitman2: Silent Assassin (Jesper Kyd, La-La land Records LLLCD 1030)
While the games themselves came out in 2003 and a soundtrack of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin was issued that summer by Lynnemusic (with three tracks from Codename 47; see Soundtrax 07/10/03), La-La Land's 2005 double-CD release contains the full scores from both Hitman games in a fine and pervasive package that unleashes the

rhythmic potencies of these scores in terrific fashion. Kyd's scores are comprised of a tremendous fusion of modernistic, dark electronica and provocative sonic atmospheres. While the first score, Hitman: Codename 47, remains more straightforwardly rhythmic in its vibe (while a different set of cues were provided for each of the game's five main levels), Hitman 2 extended its sensibility both in musical scope, with infusions of Russian, Indian, Japanese, and Middle eastern musical mores, and in musical dynamic, featuring splendid performances from the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir. The result is a terrifically large and bombastic action score. Kyd incorporated electronic elements with the orchestral mix to provide a compelling soundscape for the game, providing a far more provocative mix than that of the comparatively simple first gamescore.

05's 20 FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK COMPILATIONS, RESTORATIONS, & REISSUES

1.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING The Complete Recordings (Howard Shore, Reprise 49454-2)
By far the most significant restored and revisited soundtrack of 2005 was the magnificent four-disc compilation. For the first time, we are presented with Howard Shore's complete score to the extended (DVD) version of the film more than 180 minutes of music on three CDs. The package also contains the entire score on DVD-

Audio in stunning 5.1 surround sound. Bound in a leather book styled package that includes a new 48-page book with exhaustively comprehensive notes by Doug Adams (culled from his forthcoming book, The Music of the Lord of the Rings) that effectively describes every nuance of the music, its scope, textures, and thematic unity. Shore's inaugural music for Peter Jackson's magnificent LOTR trilogy is a huge, tremendous canvas as akin to an operatic symphony as any score of the last four decades has ever come (with the likely exception of William's two STAR WARS trilogies). The music is incredibly varied, fully heart-felt and astoundingly moving both in its use in the film and its brilliance on CD. The score is beautifully arranged and organized and developed into a wondrous musical canvas, rich in evocation, sonic beauty, and meaningful subtexts. The Complete Recordings is the year's most significant soundtrack release, expanding and preserving one of the finest fantasy scores of all time. The plethora of unreleased material on this beautifully packaged edition is mouth-watering at the least, and the sonic dynamic achieved on the 5.1 surround sound DVD of the entire 180-minute score is simply astonishing.

2.
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (Dimitri Tomkin, FSM Vol 8. No 1).
Color me a Happy Man. One of the best science fiction scores of the 1950s came to CD last year for believe it or not the very first time with FSM's premiere release of the full Dimitri Tiomkin score for 1951's sci-fi classic, THE THING. Previously available only as a single track on "Classic Film Scores" sampler from RCA and Silva Screen's recent Tiomkin collection both re-recordings, FSM has procured the original archival recordings and provided the entire score on disc for the first time. The music is a strange departure from the melodist Tiomkin. This was the composer's only real

science fiction/horror score. He proved more than capable to the task. The score opens with a terrifically aggressive, relentless cadence for strings and brass, embellished by the weird sonority of the theremin, a few months prior to Bernard Herrmann's use of the instrument in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Aside from THING's dominating horror ostinato, there are a variety of suspense motifs from the shrieking, howling dissonance of fluttering trumpets and oscillating theremin that erupts in "Fire Sequence" to the amazing interplay between brass and harp and theremin during "Electrocution Sequence," finally arriving at the climactic scene, where the tentative, uneven gait of the Thing is hit by each stabbing stroke of brass and percussion, until a spherical descent of strings and brass and theremin slowly revolve into dissolution as the alien itself finally disintegrates into nothingness. Because the complete score only lasts 26:50 minutes, the balance of the CD is comprised of Tiomkin's 51:47 minute militaristic war film score, TAKE THE HIGH GROUND!, which of course has an entirely different tone and texture from THE THING, but is also a very worthwhile addition Tiomkin's latter-day discography.

3.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Expanded Edition (Ennio Morricone, GDM 2062)
GDM Music in Italy has re-released Ennio Morricone's seminal score to Sergio Leone's masterpiece, the epic story of a mysterious stranger with a harmonica who joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad. With 27 tracks and 65 minutes of music (versus the original release's 13 tracks/37 mins and RCA's 1999 expanded edition's 20 tracks/49:45) and seven previously unreleased tracks approved for inclusion by the composer, this is probably as complete a recording as we're likely to get of Morricone's magnum opus with the composer's cooperation (there is more music: an Italian bootleg exists with 42 titled tracks and 71:52 minutes of music). The movie contains the composer's loveliest melody as its main theme, associated both with the

widow (Claudia Cardinale), hauntingly intonated by the beautiful voice of Edda Dell'Orso, contrasted with the brutal tonality of Franco De Gemini's harmonica associated with Charles Bronson's stoic gunfighter, the jaunty saloon tune associated with Jason Robard's buoyant bandit, and the twanging, judgmental electric guitar melody proffered for Henry Fonda's ruthless assassin, Morricone's music here is the high point of his collaboration with director Leone. While the inclusion of the previously unreleased "Morton" theme for the first time was the high point of the 1999 RCA expanded release, there is nothing so prominent in the seven cues that are new to this release, which are mainly variations of the four main motifs, a couple of variations on the famous "As A Judgment" gunfight theme (including the version that plays during the final gun duel, which has a slightly different guitar sound than the celebrated previously released version, including the sounds of bells during its musical denouement), a soft cue for Jill's arrival at the station, and a neat, playful variant on Cheyenne's Theme heard during his rescue of Bronson on the train, with the ascending tinkling piano counterpoint to the main melody. Still, they proffer fifteen minutes of new music from one of the most important scores of the 1960s, and new tracks from this one makes for a highly valuable release.

4.
LOST IN SPACE 40th Anniversary Edition (John Williams, Hans Salter, Gerald Fried, and others, La-La Land Records LLLCD 1042)
Despite its rampant and reckless silliness, in 1965 LOST IN SPACE was a rare pleasure on television, an ongoing science fiction series that really tried to take itself seriously. The music for the show was created by some of the best veteran composers leftover from the Universal music factory of the '40s and '50s, and some of the best newly recruited composers then working in television. At least one of them would make a permanent mark on the direction film music would take some dozen years hence, when John Williams returned to outer space with his swashbuckling, unabashedly symphonic music of STAR WARS. But for LOST IN SPACE, his efforts (all of which are included on this 2-CD set, which marries material previously issued on one of GNP Crescendo's Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen with a whole Umbra's worth of previously unreleased tracks) were seminal compositions in his career. His original Main Theme, for example, embodied elements of jazz, pop, and classical while

encapsulating in a single motif of less than a minute's length all the verve, humor, adventure, and excitement the show would come to represent. When he came back in the third season to write a new theme for the series, he shook off the quirky sound of the original theme in lieu of a more self-assured, adventurous musical statement, a motif that as rooted in the gallantry of human ingenuity; less a science fiction theme than a return to the elegant, adventurous, swashbucklers of the Golden Age (something he would revisit frequently a dozen or so years hence). Aside from the themes, William's episode music ranged from weighty, muscular action tonalities to weightless, mysterious suspense textures, all as constantly interesting on their own as they are placed into the context of William's then-developing career. The music of the other composers, from television vet's like Gerry Fried, Alex Courage, and Fred Steiner to legendary studio maestros like Hans Salter, Herman Stein, Leigh Harline, and Leith Stevens (and others), ranges from the sublime to the Rugolo. The show's first season played the music pretty straight, but as the show got increasingly dumb, the music got more inventive and less characteristic. Gerald Fried's score for Season 3's "Collision of The Planets" the show's notorious Space Hippies episode could have been lifted from most any episode of the composer's MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. or GILLIGAN'S ISLAND scores, what with all the raging bongos, amplified electric guitars, and the jazzified beat. Pete Rugolo's "Space-A-Delic" from "The Promised Planet" is pure '60s pop, and about as far from William's premiere, "The Reluctant Stowaway" as you can get, musically. The music was free range and rambled throughout the show's three seasons, but always seemed to be provide the right kind of musical sensibility to match the show's style. Virtually all of the original music written for the series is included on this disc the rest of the episodes were tracked with these and other cues out of the CBS Music Library.

5.
SILVERADO The Complete Soundtrack (Bruce Broughton, Intrada MAF 7096).
Restored from its original 46-minute 1992 Intrada release to a massive 86-minute double CD special edition, containing all sorts of previously unreleased material

including a couple alternate and unused takes, Bruce Broughton's magnificent Western score is given an expansive presentation that allows the more intricate nuances of the score to shine. Broughton's landmark score, his third after the TV-movies THE BLUE AND THE GREY, COWBOY, and THE COWBOY AND THE BALLERINA, infused new life into Western film music much as Lawrence Kasdan's terrific film did for the Western genre. In a day when minimalism and the unorthodox approach of Morricone and his fellows in Italian Western scores, Broughton returned to big budget Hollywood film music and crafted a rip-roaring romantic action score fluent in vibrant melodies and heroic triumph, yet retaining a modernistic flavor and enhancing the action scenes with some terrifically aggressive writing.

6.
THE DEADLY SPAWN (Michael Perilstein, Perseverance Records, PRD 005)
Originally released on LP in the '80s, Perseverance Records remastered Michael Perilstein's idiosyncratic electronic score for this delightfully creative low-budget 1983

science fiction horror film and reissued it along with a new suite "composed and arranged for the purpose of combining the atmosphere of the original film with a hint of how it might have sounded had it been scored for the first time today." Perilstein invested himself wholly into a wonderful score that was neither derivative of previous synth-based scores nor restrained by the limitations of budget. Using electronic instruments and a penchant for composing a terrific melodic hook, Perilstein concocted an appealing, tuneful yet atmospheric score that nicely supported the film and obscured much of its low-budgetness by giving it a neat pulse and punch that really brought it to life. In all of its quirky loveliness, the score is as charming as the clever little film that contained it.

7.
CUTTHROAT ISLAND (John Debney, Prometheus XPCD 157)
John Debney's passionately symphonic score for Renny Harlin's 1995 swashbuckling adventure film, CUTTHROAT ISLAND, is one of the most invigorating and dynamically exciting film scores of the last ten years, a breathtaking amalgamation of high

adventure, intimate pathos, and a splendidly terrific mix of large orchestra and choir. Superbly performed by The London Symphony Orchestra and the London Voices, the score was released by the now-defunct nu.millennia records and has been out of print and sought after for some time. Prometheus's 2-CD set contains Debney's entire score for the first time, with almost 150 minutes of music, including several alternate adaptations that are included as bonus tracks. The music is in the grand Hollywood tradition of large orchestral scores, something that wasn't heard much outside of Lucasfilm in the mid 1990s. Debney proves his mettle with a stalwart, eloquent composition that surges loudly when it needs to, and quiets intimately on other occasions. It's a massive work in its orchestral power, but one that can also reach tender moments of poignancy.

8.
KING KONG (John Barry, FSM Vol. 8 No 8.)
Barry's score for the obnoxious 1976 remake of KING KONG is rather eloquent, with a gentle, majestic theme for Kong that emphasized his mysterious and awesome power. The music composed for the intimate scenes where Kong examines the form of his

captive "bride" is some of the loveliest romantic, even erotic, music Barry has ever written. The orchestral figures that accompany the search for Kong on the island, and the brutal, brass and percussive melodies that attend Kong's violent attacks, especially his roaring rampage of revenge through NYC at the film's conclusion, are beautifully scored, emphasizing rhythmic harmonics and rooted in melodic structure. The dissonant material never falls into chaos, but retains a rhythmic, tonal sensibility, frequently with respect to Kong's great and powerful theme. It's a fine score, so much the better than the film it accompanied, and its legitimate release on CD has been too long in coming.

9.
MAGNUM FORCE (Lalo Schifrin, Aleph 033)
Lalo Schifrin's score for the second Dirty Harry movie is a little more, er, forceful, than his jazz-based score for the first film, centering around a strong vocal theme

introduced in the Main Title. Released for the first time recently on Aleph Records (previously available only through excerpts on compilation CDs such as Aleph's 1998 Dirty Harry Anthology), the MAGNUM FORCE score retains the use of voices, the melancholy motif and Harry's Theme from the first film, but otherwise delineates its story in a different direction. Militaristic snare drums represent the corrupt cops that are the villains of this story, and the thrust of the music is harsher than the more avant-garde fusion of rock and jazz that populated the first film score. As with DIRTY HARRY, the focus is often on creating a claustrophobic atmosphere of psychological discomfort, associated with the threat of the rogue cops and Harry's difficulty in identifying them.

10.
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (Riz Ortolani, Red Stream RSR-0184)
Ruggero Deodata's 1980 film is one of the most notoriously graphic, gory, and grotesque horror films to come out of the Euroshock era of 1970s, yet like many Italian horror films of the decade, the film's soundtrack music belies the infamy of its visual content. Respected Italian composer Riz Ortolani provided a beautiful, eloquent musical score for this film. With a main theme that is a gorgeously lyrical as any he

has written (and he's written plenty), Ortolani remains one step ahead and always contrapuntal to the terrors shown on screen. His main melody is a disarmingly sweet composition for violins and synth that stands in great contrast to the substantial violence depicted on the screen. The beauty of the music makes the brutal terrors encountered by the expedition all the more unexpected and horrific in contrast. With the film's concentration on visual carnage, the audience never has much of a chance to develop any real sympathy towards the characters. Ortolani, through his music, expresses this with delicate poignancy. It is the music that creates the emotional link between the audience and the characters suffering on screen, and that allows the viewer to accept much of the film's over-the-top and in-your-face butchery, because an emotional layer has been affixed through the music that inspires the viewer's empathy and sympathy.

11.
ANGEL (Robert Kral & Christophe Beck, Rounder Records 11661-9067-2)
While a commercial soundtrack CD of Christophe Beck's outstanding scores for TV's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER remains unfortunately lacking, England's EMI (released by Rounder in the US) has done its sister series, ANGEL, right in this excellent amalgamation of underscore music from each of the show's five seasons (Beck scored most of the first season, then Kral came on board and composed the

rest). The musical approach of both composers perfectly mirrored the show's mix of personalities, conflict, tragedy, triumph and lots of cool fight scenes. The album includes a very nice extended version of the show's main theme, composed and performed by the alternative/gothic band Darling Violetta, which sets just the right tone for the show a gothic cello melody enhanced by a modern urban rock sensibility. Kral's underscore maintains an exceptional blend of lyrical introspection and rampant action scoring, well serving the show's mixture of brooding character interaction, humor, and blistering musical action. The musical texture is pleasantly evocative and constantly interesting. The album is a great compilation of the show's best musical moments (three songs are included, performed by cast members on the show), and remarkably in today's song-heavy soundtrack environment, EMI has emphasized the show's underscore. The CD booklet includes excellent track-by-track notes by Kral, which puts each cue into its proper place in the series' musical continuum, and an introductory appreciation by series creator Joss Wheedon.

12.
OK CONNERY (Ennio Morricone & Bruno Nicolai, Digitmovies CDDM025)
Opening with a wonderfully raucous vocal by the Italian singer Christy, this score for Albert De Martino's 1967 spy spoof, OK CONNERY (aka OPERATION KID BROTHER in the USA and Japan) is a terrifically retro example of 60's Italian spy movie music.

Jointly composed by Morricone and Nicolai back when the two formed a powerful film music alliance, the score is a cool mix of lounge-pop and James Bondian spy adventure. Aside from Christy's intoxicating title song (which also appears with an Italian lyric and in an instrumental for electric guitar), the music is quite varied, lots of lush romanticisms for strings and solo electric guitar and a handful of smart jazz and disassociative tonalities. Apart from the score's cooler aspects, in fact, much of the music's sensibility is relayed through blaring trumpets and wild drumming giving the music, and the film, a relentless energy and wild enthusiasm that fit well with the campiness of its storyline. The music is among the best late 60's EuropSpy soundtracks and is nicely preserved in this release.

13.
LE NOTTE CHE EVELYN USCÌ DALLA TOMBA (Bruno Nicolai, GDM/Digitmovies DDM046)
Among the Italian horror "giallo" films scored by Bruno Nicolai in the early 1970s, is THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE, 1971. Just released for the first time ever in a new co-production from GDM and Digitmovies, this is one of Nicolai's

best scores and one of his most provocative horror compositions. Despite the title, there is no zombie or other monster erupting from anyone's burial ground it's a pure psychological thriller along giallo lines. The score balances a lovely romantic theme featuring the incredible voice of Edda dell'Orso against a fusion of stark, avant-garde motifs that emphasize the madness that plays at the core of the film's storyline. The darker music embodies the psychosis that is tangible in the score's texture and tonality, while the lighter material is wonderfully romantic and affecting. The interplay between the two primary themes and a wealth of terrific 60's Europop music that appears between them makes for a wonderful score on film and a terrific soundtrack on CD.

14.
THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER (David Newman, Percepto Records 016)
David Newman, eldest sibling of the Newman composing clan (brother to Thomas Newman, son of Alfred Newman, nephew to Emil and Lionel, and cousin to older composer Randy Newman and youngster Joel Newman, provided a satisfactorily aggressive score for the clever 1987 animated feature. THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER mixes cutesy-pootsie cartoon songs (composed by musician Van Dyke Parks) with the kind of high-adventure Hollywood film scoring that Newman was

beginning to excel at during the late 1980s. This belated soundtrack recording includes all the music, all the songs, and a handful of dialog moments from the film 27 cues totaling just about an hour. The score is a terrific adventure score this was, after all, a kind of INCREDIBLE JOURNEY involving household appliances instead of pets, and Newman provided the perfect blend of larger-than-life heroism and hyper-dramatic tension that the story needed. The music opens with a variety of awakening cues, which gradually emerge from gently rhythmic, Morning Symphony-esque motifs which eventually solidify, as the appliances join together and determine an objective strategy to rejoin their former master in the distant city. Once the journey begins, the music is strident, self-assured, ripe with confidence, resting occasionally to reflect character or support suspense or danger, but constantly moving the story forward with forceful orchestral rhythms and captivating melodies. BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER is a powerful and potent work - much more than a cartoon movie score. Newman plays it totally straight and proffers the kind of high-adventure Hollywood score that could have graced most any Warner Bros or MGM action film of the '30s or '40s. Its availability on CD from Percepto is a most welcome entry, filling a notable gap in David Newman's early scoring discography.

15.
STARGATE: ATLANTIS (Joel Goldsmith, Varese Sarabande 302 066 700 2)
Varèse Sarabande has released the original television soundtrack for the hit Sci-Fi Channel series that debuted in 2004, the latest incarnation of the STARGATE franchise. Joel Goldsmith, son of the legendary Jerry Goldsmith, has composed a

thrilling, epic and beautiful score for STARGATE: ATLANTIS, centering around a magnificently orchestral (and Emmy-nominated) heroic theme. Goldsmith's music is massive and rich in orchestral scope and tonal texture, whether providing accompaniment for battle sequences or encouraging the underlying motivations of characters and subtexts of plot to become emphasized musically. The episode scores bristle with excitement, anticipation, and finally aggression, while gentler melodies enhance the human element that remains at the heat of this series, linked by the running thread of the sparkling tonality of the main theme. The scores from several episodes have been nicely preserved on this recording.

16.
ROSEMARY'S BABY (Krzysztof Komeda, Harkit, HRKCD8135)
Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda's music for ROSEMARY'S BABY comprised one of the best horror scores of the 1960s. The composer's background in jazz provided some truly unique frightening moments while the soft, soothing lyric of the main lullaby theme is also one of the decade's most poignant melodies. The score drifts between

that mesmerizing lullaby and the strident keyboard raps, reverberated intonations, and other tonal disturbances both hushed and dissonant. The score is moody, its lullaby whispering with false innocence while brimming with hidden malice. Several disturbing vocalisms from the witches' coven featured in the film are included, along with several diabolical interpretations of the lullaby mixed with the chanting of the coven; the lullaby theme is interpreted in several other guises throughout the score. The Harkit reissue of the DOT soundtrack LP contains three bonus tracks, including a terrific new arrangement of the lovely lullaby theme, played by an avant-garde jazz ensemble in 1989 with a stunning vocalization by Urszula Dudziakj and Walk Away, and two piano demo tracks Komeda recorded of various versions of the main theme, which are insightful into glimpsing Komeda's compositional process at the piano.

17.
BURKE'S LAW (Herschel Burke Gilbert, Harkit HRKCD 8146)
Herschel Burke Gilbert's highly original and jazzy score for BURKE'S LAW, a snappy detective series that ran from 1963 to 1966was the perfect accompaniment for the witty repartee of Amos Burke, and the baker's dozen cues that make up this CD reissue of the 1964 Liberty LP comprise some wonderful jazz. The original mono LP

has been lavishly restored into stereo by England's Harkit records for this premiere CD release. The music set the stage for the style of the show, providing an array of pure jazz that became the underscore for the character's adventures and interactions. From the sexy woman's bedroom voice that intones "It's Burke's Law!" before the music begins, the main theme is an orchestral melody over jazz combo, taking the jazz style into quasi-Hollywood territory. It's appeared on several compilations of TV music and is a very recognizable motif. Most of the jazz flavor of BURKE'S LAW maintains a bluesiness that runs throughout the entire score. It's in effect a jazz-blues composition despite some of its more raucous leanings. There have been a handful of notable jazz scores for feature films; for some reason the musical form seemed to thrive better on television, and Gilbert's work for BURKE'S LAW is among the finest riffing the genre has proffered.

18.
The Best of THUNDERBIRDS (Barry Gray, Silva Screen SILCD1195)
England's Silva Screen Records culminated their issuance of music from Gerry Anderson's "Supermarionation" TV shows with this sumptuous a 2-CD set, culling the

best from the label's previous two THUNDERBIRDS soundtrack releases along with a healthy handful of previously unreleased tracks. Barry Gray's enchanting and evocative music to this two-year TV series that spawned a pair of feature films is a remarkable mixture of pop melodies and orchestral heroics, from sultry night club jazz to energetic and aggressive overtures, exotic tonalities to ominous, suspenseful patterns. Gray was a notably melodic composer who could catch a hook and deliver it forthwith, and the episode scores are terrific examples of his craft. The CD also includes CD-ROM content that celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the show with a series of promotional content from the show.

19.
ATLANTIS: THE LOST CONTINENT/THE POWER (Russell Garcia/Miklos Rozsa FSM Vol 8 No.2)
While not as celebrated as the composer's THE TIME MACHINE score for George Pal (which FSM issued a few months after this one), this premiere release of Russell Garcia's swashbuckling adventure score for George Pal's ATLANTIS: THE LOST CONTINENT is a thrilling and swashbuckling affair far to long denied the luxury of a complete soundtrack release. Previously available as a 6:59 re-recorded suite on GNP Crescendo's premiere release of Garcia's THE TIME MACHINE and with 14:32 worth

of excerpts on last year's The Fantasy Film Music of George Pal from La-La Land, FSM provides the complete 46 minutes of what is arguably a better and more accessible score than his previous effort for Pal. At the producer's insistence, Garcia treated ATLANTIS like an epic adventure film ripe with full-blooded melodies, intimate orchestral soliloquies, compelling nautical travel motifs, and a recurring action motif that is delightfully grandiose. Like Paul's Smith's theme from Disney's rather similarly mounted epic, 20,000 LEAGUES BENEATH THE SEA, Garcia's ATLANTIS theme is one of the best adventure themes of the period (mid/late '50s/early '60s) and has waited much to long to be so well preserved. Coupled with ATLANTIS is the Miklos Rozsa score for Pal's 1968 THE POWER, proffering the same five tracks that have been available previously; they make a fitting companion to ATLANTIS. Rozsa's music is darkly provocative and creates a superb texture through the prominent use of the cimbalom. It's a frantic and compelling score that creates an unusual tone poem for megalomania. The score's latin-flavored Love Theme for acoustic guitar is one of Rozsa's most sublime compositions. The CD's main draw, though, is the previously unavailable ATLANTIS material.

20.
Music from the films of Steven Spielberg (Silva Screen SILCD 1182)
One of a number of themed film music compilations issued by England's Silva Screen during 2005, featuring thunderous digitally recorded performances of the City of Prague Philharmonic in very faithful renderings of music by John Williams and others from Spielberg's long legacy of music-significant films, this release is especially notable by

including, for the first time, music from Spielberg's first hit, the TV-movie DUEL. Veteran TV composer Billy Goldenberg provided a miasmic, atonal, sound collage kind of score for DUEL that really helped establish the TV-film's haunting and disturbing mood. Its multiple layers of creepiness really contributed to the increasingly nightmarish atmosphere evoked by the film. The 5-minute suite from DUEL is the only music on this compilation not to have been previously released (John William's Main Title from SUGARLAND EXPRESS, Spielberg's first feature, which also appears, is elusive but has been on several compilations previously). It's a fine collection of terrific symphonic film music, most of which is exceptional John Williams scoring, but the inclusion of the premiere recording of even a short bit of music from DUEL gives this release a very notable edge above the norm.

Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.buysoundtrax.com  
www.intrada.com  
www.screenarchives.com  
www.footlight.com  
www.arksquare.com/index_main.html  
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviegrooves.com  
www.moviemusic.com  

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