Category: Music Reviews

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1979 2014 A Alan Parsons Project Artists (by group or surname) Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Year

Alan Parsons Project – The Sicilian Defence

4 min read

Order this CDSome albums become legendary because they were never released, and then the fan clamoring begins until someone, sensing a good opportunity to pay the mortgage for a month or two, relents, and puts out some kind of unfinished, compromised, or finished-after-the-fact-many-years-later version of whatever it was going to be (but hey, enough about the various versions of Pete Townshend’s Lifehouse or Brian Wilson’s Smile out there). (Sometimes something remains unreleased permanently, unless someone just straight up raids the vaults.) The fact that it couldn’t be heard, the fact that the fans were being denied their prize, becomes the main vector of attraction.

The Sicilian Defence was never actually intended to be released, though. Recorded in 1979 between Alan Parsons and his songwriting collaborator in the Project, Eric Woolfson, it was always a negotiating tactic between the two principals of the Alan Parsons Project and their label at the time, Arista. In short, Parsons and Woolfson wanted to alter their deal, and delivered the all-instrumental Sicilian Defence to Arista almost simultaneously with the released 1979 album Eve to give them leverage: they’d delivered the last two albums of the Project’s contract. They were either done with Arista and free to go elsewhere, or Arista could give them more time and money to work on the next album. The Sicilian Defence was disposable. It was Alan and Eric screwing around on pianos and synthesizers in studio downtime. It was a ploy designed to freak out their handlers at the label, not the Project’s great unfinished symphony.

The inclusion of a piano instrumental track from the unreleased album on the 2008 remastered reissue of Eve seemed to portend a change of heart, even though Parsons was public in his desire for the entire unreleased album to stay that way permanently. (As Sony/Legacy was now controlling the band’s back catalog, the label insisted.) And then in 2014, it was included as a bonus disc in a pricey, career-spanning box set. But now The Sicilian Defence has finally become available on its own in digital form, and it’s not without its charms. As the album is named after an aggressive set of chess moves, the tracks are named after moves in that sequence. The track from which three minutes were excerpted for the “Elsie’s Theme” track on the Eve remaster is “P-Qb4”, and is twice the length of the previously released excerpt. It’s a lovely solo piano piece, and “P-Q4” and “KtxP” follow in a similar vein (the latter with a very chintzy late ’70s drum machine in the background). “Kt-QB3”, another piano piece, has a more aggressive pace and feels like it’s threatening to develop into a proper song, but as it noodles on for over eight minutes, it lands as a piece that wouldn’t been well off calling it a day at the four-and-a-half-minute mark.

But the really interesting stuff is a handful of lo-fi synthesizer jams. “P-K4”, “Kt-KB3”, and “PxP” have a percolating, vintage synth vibe that I can be describe with the following ludicrous phrase: “early ’80s Weather Channel local forecast”. That may seem like the most obscure possible descriptor, and yet I can’t think of a better one. They’re not light-years away from “Hyper-Gamma-Spaces” or “Mammagamma”, but they are at least 273,600 miles from them – they seem more like demos than anything close to a finished product. “…Kt-QB3” and “Kt-B3”, the two shortest tracks, have strings and choral vocals probably recorded as warm-ups or outtakes from previous albums’ sessions and edited together. “P-Q3” is a synth piece with a pastoral, classical feel. Rather than building to anything significant, the album – such as it is – just…ends.

None of it was ever developed further for use on later releases, and in some cases that’s a pity, because there are some promising starts – but only starts.

3 out of 4The part of me that loves new wave and analog synths doing analog synth things loves those tracks on this album, but let’s face it: this album should probably be recused from getting a rating because we were never meant to hear it, and wouldn’t have, except that the studio-owned master recordings changed hands and the new label decided that it would be heard regardless of Parsons’ wishes (Woolfson died in 2009). As a standalone listening experience, The Sicilian Defence really doesn’t work unless you know its backstory, even though the Project was renowned for its instrumental pieces. But if you’re looking for that circa-1983 local forecast vibe? I can give this a hearty recommendation.

  1. P-K4 (5:06)
  2. P-Qb4 (6:22)
  3. Kt-KB3 (3:07)
  4. …Kt-QB3 (1:15)
  5. P-Q4 (3:55)
  6. PxP (3:28)
  7. KtxP (4:01)
  8. Kt-B3 (0:53)
  9. Kt-QB3 (8:16)
  10. P-Q3 (3:29)

Released by: Sony/Legacy/Arista
Release date: March 23, 2014
Total running time: 39:50

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2023 D Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Year

A Disturbance In The Force – music by Karl Preusser

2 min read

Order this CDI’ve already raved elsewhere about the better-than-anyone-had-any-right-to-expect documentary about the making of the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened. In short, it’s a better documentary than you ever expected about such an arcane, niche topic. The documentary actually has wider appeal than the subject it’s covering. That’s a neat trick.

Karl Preusser’s score for A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened is just over half an hour long (the frequent clips and needle drops in the movie don’t leave a lot of room for an original score), but there’s actually a lot to love in that half-hour-and-change. I found myself hoping that the whole thing would be drenched with disco cheese, but Preusser shows admirable restraint by containing that style reference to only three tracks (“So Bad, It’s Not Good”, “A Disturbance In The Force”, and “The Lost Treatment”, the first two of which walk right up to the edge of riffing on Meco’s disco cover of the Star Wars theme). The rest of the score riffs on John Williams’ style of arrangement without ever directly quoting any Williams themes. There are passages that are almost the Jawa theme, or hint at other Williams compositions, and this is an impressively sharp-eared feat made more impressive by the fact that it’s all carried off fairly convincingly with samples.

4 out of 4And now that this score, for a documentary about the Holiday Special, has been released? Go find and release the score from the special itself, you cowards. Seriously. I dare you. It’s got to exist somewhere in the files of the late composer Ian Fraser (who shouldn’t be obscure: he was a frequent music collaborator on Julie Andrews’ prime time variety specials, was the music director for the opening of EPCOT, and arranged the accompaniment for Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s “Little Drummer Boy” duet). Because chances are I’ll buy that too. You can bet your Life Day on it.

  1. So Bad, It’s Not Good (1:59)
  2. Charley Lippincott (2:24)
  3. Boba Fett Genesis (2:16)
  4. Fan Outreach (1:01)
  5. It All Started In 1978 (1:40)
  6. Maintaining Momentum (2:46)
  7. The Talent (0:54)
  8. Life Day (1:49)
  9. The Faithful Wookiee (1:36)
  10. The Lost Treatment (1:57)
  11. Costume Difficulties (1:31)
  12. Sell Toys To Kids (1:10)
  13. It Just Was Not Working (1:49)
  14. And They Loved It (2:14)
  15. Fanbase Grows (3:01)
  16. A Disturbance In The Force (3:30)

Released by: Gription Music
Release date: December 4, 2023
Total running time: 31:17

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Categories
2016 Music Reviews R Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Captain Rimmer’s Mandolin: Red Dwarf VI: The Underscore – music by Howard Goodall

3 min read

Order this CDIn 2023, Red Dwarf turned 35 years old. That’s the same number as the combined IQ of 35 P.E. teachers. It’s astonishing that there’s not more music officially available; sure, nearly every note recorded for the series is available in the bonus features of the DVDs, but when you’re talking about some of the major landmarks of the show’s history, it’d be nice to have more music, not less. That’s what makes this 2016 release – focusing entirely on Red Dwarf scores from the 1990s – maddening. I can’t dock it a point on account of the music itself; Howard Goodall’s music always manages to rise above its very ’90s synthesized execution, becoming more than the sum of its parts. The problem with this release is that we only get some of its parts – and it’s misidentified in a big way.

The Red Dwarf VI track actually contains music from Red Dwarf VI and Red Dwarf VII. The distinctive western pastiche of the music from the Emmy-winning Gunmen Of The Apocalypse takes pride of place early on, justifiably eating up nearly half of the almost-12-minute track. But much of the rest is taken up by music from the Red Dwarf VII episodes Stoke Me A Clipper and Blue. (The good news is that the latter is represented by the song sung by an entire gallery of Rimmer puppets, with vocals supplied not by Chris Barrie, but by Goodall himself.) It’s a bizarre choice given that Red Dwarf VII also takes up a separate release.

The second track crams highlights from the fourth and fifth seasons into 18 minutes. The Red Dwarf IV music comes mainly from White Hole and Dimension Jump, including the latter’s instrumental spoof of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” accompanying the audience’s first glimpse of “Ace” Rimmer (and the organ rendition of the end credits theme, signaling that we’re very much stuck with “our” Rimmer and not his more heroic duplicate). Another spoof follows, the Casablanca parody for the B&W opening scenes of Back To Reality. But the remainder of the episode’s unique score gets shortchanged, represented by a percussion-heavy action cue (not the highlight of Back To Reality‘s music), leaving the episode’s thundering piano-bass-note motif off the album entirely. White Hole fares better, as we get most of the music from the climactic “playing pool with planets” scene. Some really incomprehensible choices were made here – and that’s where this release loses a point.

3 out of 4It’s still puzzling that a show with a large cult following the size of the Red Dwarf fanbase – which has always been a bit starved for any merch that’s not a T-shirt – is musically represented only by four obscure EP-length digital releases, so these continue to be criminally underexposed treasures. The music from the episode Back To Reality is really deserving of its own track, and the same could be said of Gunmen Of The Apocalypse – they’re among the most popular episodes of the entire series. While I’m glad to have any kind of official soundtrack release from Red Dwarf, burying brief excerpts from these two in suites of other music from the show does them both a disservice.

  1. Captain Rimmer’s Mandolin: Red Dwarf VI: The Underscore (11:42)
  2. Bach To Reality: Red Dwarf IV & V: The Underscore (18:00)

Released by: Howard Goodall
Release date: November 4, 2016
Total running time: 29:42

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2023 Artists (by group or surname) H Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Trevor Horn Year

Trevor Horn – Echoes: Ancient & Modern

2 min read

Order this CDI wasn’t a huge fan of superstar producer Trevor Horn’s previous album along similar lines, Trevor Horn Reimagines The Eighties, but the list of “guest stars” on this album reeled me in anyway – and I discovered I liked this album much, much better.

While there are some ’80s icons participating in this album of covers (is anyone actually capable of not being at least morbidly curious about Rick Astley tackling Yes’ “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”?), including Toyah Wilcox and Soft Cell’s Marc Almond, the guest artists who emerge from further afield really make this album. Sure, hearing familiar ’80s voices cover songs by other associated-with-the-’80s acts is fun, but hearing Seal take Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” and run with it (with Horn coming dangerously close to turning it into a bossa nova groove), or hearing Iggy Pop do his own thing with Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”, really makes this album for me.

The flip-side of Horn’s recurring theme of covering the ’80s, of course, is that he’s dropping an orchestra on top of most of it (particularly here for his debut on Deutsche Grammophon, a label usually identified with classical recordings) and diluting it down to muzak. And, hey, I get it – those of us who were listening to these songs back when they were brand new and perhaps more innovative are now rocketing through middle age at alarming speed. But if dropping pretty orchestral accompaniment on top of new wave gems isn’t bizarre enough, there’s Tori Amos’ cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools (Drank)”, which is a walloping dose of cognitive dissonance – a song about a troubling subject is suddenly inordinately ornate.

4 out of 4There’s a lot to like here, but after two albums in a similar vein, Trevor Horn is in danger of becoming his own cover band, and I have mixed feelings about that. Any chance of reconvening The Producers and doing anything new, Trevor?

  1. Swimming Pools (Drank) (with Tori Amos)
  2. Steppin’ Out (with Seal)
  3. Owner Of A Lonely Heart (with Rick Astley)
  4. Slave To The Rhythm (with Lady Blackbird)
  5. Love Is A Battlefield (with Marc Almond)
  6. Personal Jesus (with Iggy Pop & Phoebe Lunny)
  7. Drive (with Steve Hogarth)
  8. Relax (with Toyah Willcox & Robert Fripp)
  9. White Wedding (with Andrea Corr & Jack Lukeman)
  10. Smells Like Teen Spirit (with Jack Lukeman)
  11. Avalon

Released by: Deutsche Grammophon
Release date: December 1, 2023
Total running time: 44:26

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2023 D Doctor Who Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Tribute / Reinterpretation Year

Doctor Who: The Survival Mixes – music by Dominic Glynn

2 min read

Order this CDIf the Time And The Rani soundtrack was the alpha of the seventh Doctor’s era on Doctor Who, Survival is its omega, and of course already has its own soundtrack release. But its composer, Dominic Glynn, is back among the cat people, and this time he’s here to get them dancing. The Survival Mixes remixes four key cues from the Survival score, and as with Glynn’s past remixes of his Doctor Who music, we start with the track that changes the least about its source material and the mixes after it gradually make more significant changes to the original tracks.

“Catflap” takes an eerie, piano-based cue and gradually builds an insistent, urgent rhythm around that loop, making for a nicely atmospheric track. “Run Doctor, Run!” has a more aggressive, percussion-driven cue from the original soundtrack as its starting point, and adds to that percussion, as well as new bassline layers and samples of dialogue from the show. (While the dialogue is neat, I kind of wish that maybe the tracks with dialogue had been repeated in dialogue-free form as bonus tracks.) “The Dead Valley” takes a quieter piece of the soundtrack and turns it into a mesmerizing, hypnotic loop, again with some show dialogue toward the end. The dialogue starts almost immediately in “Good Hunting, Sister” and quickly becomes the most radically reworked track of the bunch. Those four tracks are followed by “Indefinable Magic: Podcast Theme”, an original commission for a podcast hosted by Toby Hadoke; while not based on anything from Survival, it has a feel that certainly fits in with the other tracks.

4 out of 4If you’re a fan of classic Doctor Who music, and don’t mind mixing things up a bit, this EP is a nice way to spend the better part of a half hour. That it starts out with bits of one of the best scores to grace the Sylvester McCoy era of the show doesn’t hurt (to be fair, McCoy’s entire final season in the role of the Doctor was full of great music).

  1. Catflap (5:15)
  2. Run Doctor, Run! (4:49)
  3. The Dead Valley (5:53)
  4. Good Hunting Sister (4:35)
  5. Bonus track: Indefinable Magic: Podcast Theme (2:30)

Released by: No Bones Records
Release date: November 24, 2023
Total running time: 23:00

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2023 Artists (by group or surname) H Juliana Hatfield Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Year

Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO

3 min read

Order this CDNot much makes my heart happier than seeing ELO get long-overdue recognition – rather than ridicule – for its contributions to the pop culture pantheon. At this point, I’m just as happy to digest a new reinterpretation of ELO’s classics as I am to contemplate anything new Jeff Lynne cares to throw our way. And if the reinterpretations are crafted with the same kind of love as Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO, all the better. If you follow her work at all, you know she alternates between albums of original material and albums of covers and tributes to a particular artist or band she considers formative to her own musical experience (with past tributes including albums of covers of Olivia Newton-John and the Police).

Here, obviously, she’s concentrating on ELO’s past works, picking something from each album from On The Third Day through Secret Messages. (A two-song single, released separately on Bandcamp, adds the under-appreciated “I’m Alive” from the Xanadu soundtrack and a cover of “When I Was A Boy” from Alone In The Universe for good measure.) Though a few of the covers obligingly roll out some of the big hits in the band’s catalogue – “Showdown”, “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head”, “Strange Magic”, “Telephone Line”, and “Don’t Bring Me Down” – I really appreciate Hatfield’s commitment to shining a fresh light on some underappreciated deep cuts. The songs that were originally piano and/or guitar based translate easily, if slightly stripped-down from the more ornate original versions.

But it’s the songs that didn’t start out piano or guitar based that turn out to be the most fascinating listens. “From The End Of The World”, from 1981’s Time album, is almost the least likely candidate for this treatment, as it was originally a solid wall of synthesizers. Now it’s a straight-ahead rocker. Ordinary Dream, from 2001’s also-underappreciated comeback album Zoom, goes from a wall of strings to a gentle rock number with gorgeous harmonies. My favorite thing on the album may be the cover of 1983’s “Secret Messages”, another song whose original version was awash in synths and keyboards, ably translated with its sinewy vocal harmonies completely intact. “Telephone Line” replaces string arrangements with some interesting layers of guitar work. None of the songs suffer or lose anything in the translation.

4 out of 4Hatfield’s liner notes indicate that she wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel (if you’re wanting radical reinventions, Parthenon Huxley’s Homemade Spaceship is still out there), making significant changes where necessary: sometimes the string section’s parts were played by other instruments or even sung, as she had neither the interest nor the budget to record an orchestra and basically make an ELO karaoke album. What she did deliver, however, was an interesting mix of songs given new life, ready to be enjoyed in this new form, and maybe good for guiding the curious toward the originals. But on its own, Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO is a great listen.

  1. Sweet Is The Night (3:30)
  2. Can’t Get It Out Of My Head (4:18)
  3. Showdown (3:31)
  4. Strange Magic (3:56)
  5. Don’t Bring Me Down (3:59)
  6. Telephone Line (4:44)
  7. Secret Messages (3:59)
  8. Bluebird Is Dead (4:24)
  9. From The End Of The World (3:14)
  10. Ordinary Dream (3:25)

Released by: American Laundromat Records
Release date: November 17, 2023
Total running time: 39:00

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2023 B Babylon 5 Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Babylon 5: The Road Home – music by Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion & Lolita Ritmanis

5 min read

Order this CD“Hey, how did everybody like that Babylon 5 animated movie?” Now there’s a question that’s unlikely to bring about a casual discussion. You might as well ask for people’s opinions on the Star Wars sequel trilogy as a chaser. In both cases, you hear – often loudly – from those who hated it, or loved it, but very few saying “well, it was okay.” But for what it’s worth – nice to meet you. I’m the “well, it was okay” guy. I liked the funny bits. (If an entire hollow planet full of multiple instances of Zathras doesn’t make you laugh out loud, you clearly need to be reminded of the time Lennier quizzically repeated “woo…hoo?” to Sheridan, or the time Ivanova did the whole “boom-shaka-laka” dance.)

I think sci-fi fandom, whether it revolves around major franchises, cult classics, or things like Babylon 5 that teeter precariously between those two descriptions, tends to defend a little too vociferously the idea that My Show Means Something, And Don’t You Dare Make Fun Of It. And hey, yeah, I used to be that guy too, when I was younger and had fewer plates to keep spinning and thought that stuff was actually important. Now I can watching something like this, chuckle knowingly at the bits that I know will cause other people’s blood pressure to spike, and say “well, it was okay.” It entertained me. It was like a visit with old friends who brought along some new friends. It proved that – with all due apologies to his voice actor replacement – you can’t just go replacing the majestic, world-weary voice of Andreas Katsulas.

But can you go replacing the often-near-operatic sound of Christopher Franke? Should you even try? That’s the dance that The Road Home‘s score does for a little over an hour, positively drenching a 78-minute movie with 68-odd minutes of music. Sometimes it hits close enough for government work. Sometimes it’s pretty wide of the mark. And a lot of the time…well, it’s okay. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that Franke was using a very distinctive, and very customized, set of orchestral samples. The composers here clearly know what they’re doing – we’re talking about the trio responsible for so much of the music of Batman: The Animated Series, the fantastic scores to the two direct-to-video Batman animated movies starring Adam West and Burt Ward, and countless other direct-to-video movies featuring DC Comics characters. I wouldn’t want to bet that the composers didn’t understand the assignment when they have clearly nailed so many other assignments. The folks working on this are some of the best, and most reliable, in the business.

But it puts me in mind of another animated project, Tron Uprising, whose score knocked it out of the park because Joseph Trapanese used the same sample library that Daft Punk developed for Tron Legacy. That makes all the difference. Franke’s samples were very distinctive: you instantly knew his blast of Wagner tubas, his apocalyptic choral samples, and his thundering drums. Melodically, the music fits very nicely within the Babylon 5 universe. But without those very specific samples used in endless combinations in the original live action series, it’s like a SpaceX rocket landing outside the painted circle on the deck of the recovery ship, but it still landed on the ship – the music lands in a bit of an uncanny valley, for lack of a better description. Despite that, it would be nice if fandom would go easier on these composers than the ridiculously xenophobic response that Evan Chen‘s music for Crusade drew.

3 out of 4And yet if you just close your eyes and listen and forget that this was a Babylon 5 project, it’s excellent space opera scoring, and really beautiful in a few places. Some fans will decide this is fitting, because they want to set The Road Home off to one side from what they consider “real Babylon 5“. Me, I’m kind of hoping there’s another animated feature in the works to give the music team a chance to stick the landing. They were so close this time, and it makes for a nice listen.

  1. The Road Home Main Title (McCuistion) (01:10)
  2. Interstellar Changes (Ritmanis) (02:54)
  3. Delenn Love Theme and Tachyon Disturbance (Carter) (01:32)
  4. Thank You (McCuistion) (00:31)
  5. Good for Humanity (Ritmanis) (02:06)
  6. Tachyon Overload (Carter) (02:34)
  7. In the Future (Ritmanis) (00:40)
  8. Consulting the Doctor (McCuistion) (02:04)
  9. Amber Waves of Memories (Carter) (01:31)
  10. Love Shows the Way (McCuistion) (02:36)
  11. Shadow Lair (Ritmanis) (01:56)
  12. Shadows Awaken (Carter) (00:41)
  13. B5 Under Attack (Carter) (02:41)
  14. Sinclair (Ritmanis) (01:18)
  15. This Is a Standoff (McCuistion) (02:09)
  16. Things Going Downhill Quickly (Carter) (02:06)
  17. There’s Another Way (McCuistion) (04:10)
  18. Activate (Ritmanis) (02:53)
  19. Funny Chat (Ritmanis) (00:20)
  20. Leaving Babylon 5 (Ritmanis) (01:18)
  21. Meet the Zathri (Carter) (01:00)
  22. The Big Silence (Carter) (00:52)
  23. It’s Getting Closer (McCuistion) (01:04)
  24. Someone Familiar (Ritmanis) (00:45)
  25. The Approaching End (Carter) (02:14)
  26. The End Arrives (Carter) (03:13)
  27. Time Tunnel Travel (McCuistion) (00:29)
  28. Consciousness and Love (Ritmanis) (04:57)
  29. Back to the Wormhole (Carter) (01:06)
  30. Sheridan Fever Dream (Carter) (00:33)
  31. Unexpected Meeting (McCuistion) (00:26)
  32. Dark Discovery (Ritmanis) (02:42)
  33. Zathras Arrives (McCuistion) (01:49)
  34. Love Is All (McCuistion) (01:59)
  35. Converging Paths (Carter) (02:08)
  36. Here to Stay (McCuistion) (03:12)
  37. Babylon 5: the Road Home End Credits (Carter) (03:13)

Released by: Watertower Music
Release date: October 27, 2023
Total running time: 1:08:31

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2023 Artists (by group or surname) G Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel – i/o

3 min read

Order this CDPeter Gabriel doesn’t do things fast. A decade (or more) can pass between albums. But his fans are legion, and the resulting material is often (if not always) strong enough to justify the wait. But this might just be the best thing he’s done since So. Some of the songs have been evolved over years and decades, some of them originating from the songwriting sessions for 2002’s Up, and some of them older than that, and these are supposedly the strongest contenders to emerge from a pool of over a hundred songs, the rest of which may emerge as post-album singles, or may be thrown back in the water to grow larger and show up on a future album.

While the songs may have evolved from compositions Gabriel has been working on for years, the lyrics feel immediate, very much revealing what’s on Gabriel’s mind as he edges toward elder statesman territory. Songs such as “So Much” and “Playing For Time” address the brevity of life, an increasing awareness of mortality, and both of those things informing what one places the most value on, which is itself a theme that shows up in “Olive Tree” and “This Is Home”. Gabriel’s more global concerns are still here as well, showing up in “Panopticom” and “The Court”, to name just a couple. Whether you’re hear to hear Gabriel’s thoughts on a world in disarray or something more intimate, there’s something for you on i/o.

Interestingly, the entire tracklist is repeated over two discs – the “Bright Side” mixes by Mark “Spike” Stent, which feel a big glossier and more processed, take up one disc, and the other disc is comprised of the “Dark Side” mixes by Tchad Blake, which have bit of punchier, raw immediacy. There’s not much difference in the actual production, but different elements are brought to the forefront in the different mixes. The “Dark Side” mixes feel a bit more like old-school Gabriel, with the rhythm section very much foregrounded, while the “Bright Side” mixes foreground elements like the string sections and synths. Each single was rolled out in both forms, but I didn’t expect the album to include both versions of each song.

4 out of 4As always, Gabriel’s fan base will debate and analyze his work endlessly, but overall, I found i/o to be an enlightening and uplifting listen, awash in the usual layers of detailed production, a hint of funk, and a taste of world music here and there. Not a single song seems out of place – the album is blissfully free of any “Barry Williams Show” missteps – and all of them are thought-provoking. It adds up to his best work in a very long time.

    Disc 1: Bright-Side Mixes
  1. Panopticom (Bright Side Mix) (5:16)
  2. The Court (Bright-Side Mix) (4:21)
  3. Playing For Time (Bright-Side Mix) (6:18)
  4. i/o (Bright-Side Mix) (3:53)
  5. Four Kinds of Horses (Bright-Side Mix) (6:47)
  6. Road to Joy (Bright-Side Mix) (5:22)
  7. So Much (Bright-Side Mix) (4:52)
  8. Olive Tree (Bright-Side Mix) (6:01)
  9. Love Can Heal (Bright-Side Mix) (6:02)
  10. This Is Home (Bright-Side Mix) (5:04)
  11. And Still (Bright-Side Mix) (7:44)
  12. Live and Let Live (Bright-Side Mix) (6:47)
     
    Disc 2: Dark-Side Mixes
     
  13. Panopticom (Dark-Side Mix) (5:16)
  14. The Court (Dark-Side Mix) (4:20)
  15. Playing For Time (Dark-Side Mix) (6:18)
  16. i/o (Dark-Side Mix) (3:53)
  17. Four Kinds of Horses (Dark-Side Mix) (6:47)
  18. Road to Joy (Dark-Side Mix) (5:25)
  19. So Much (Dark-Side Mix) (4:51)
  20. Olive Tree (Dark-Side Mix) (6:01)
  21. Love Can Heal (Dark-Side Mix) (6:03)
  22. This Is Home (Dark-Side Mix) (5:04)
  23. And Still (Dark-Side Mix) (7:44)
  24. Live and Let Live (Dark-Side Mix) (7:11)

Released by: RealWorld
Release date: December 1, 2023
Disc one total running time: 1:08:26
Disc two total running time: 1:08:52

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1987 2023 D Doctor Who Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title T Year

Doctor Who: Time And The Rani – music by Keff McCulloch

5 min read

Order this CDSo, picture this if you can: it’s the end of 1987, and my local PBS station presents the four-part Doctor Who story Time And The Rani in “movie” format during a pledge drive, talking about how viewer support keeps imported shows like Doctor Who on the schedule. Wow! I’m getting to see Sylvester McCoy’s first episode as the Doctor the same year it premiered! And the following week, Doctor Who was no longer on the schedule, leaving my home-recorded VHS tape of Time And The Rani as my only specimen of the seventh Doctor’s adventures until a tape trade in 1991 or so brought the rest of his televised adventures to me. By the time I saw any more of McCoy’s Doctor Who tenure, I had to experience it via Target novelizations and soundtracks such as the 25th anniversary album and the 1991 release of The Curse Of Fenric soundtrack. I’d go back and rewatch Time And The Rani a lot in that time, too, just trying to envision what the rest of the shows were like. Its soundtrack was burned into my brain.

And now, at least, it’s burned on a CD for everyone to hear independent of the dialogue and sound effects. I’ve always held the view that, for all of the awkwardness of Time And The Rani as a whole (not only is there a new Doctor, but incoming script editor Andrew Cartmel‘s influence was hardly felt on the scripts, which were originally conceived for Colin Baker’s Doctor), it holds a lot of charm as well, and one of my favorite elements was the soundtrack. It was Keff McCulloch’s first score for the show, as well as his first film or TV score of any kind, and it’s both identifiably ’80s and very atmospheric. In the CD liner notes, McCulloch pleads guilty on perhaps overusing the “orchestral stab” sample, and while that may be true, he’s hardly the only composer working during that period whose work over-relied on that sound. (I used to have a Yamaha keyboard with “orchestral stab” on it, and I too used the hell out of both that and the “handclaps” which would feature prominently in later McCulloch scores.)

The most interesting thing about the score for Time And The Rani, in hindsight, is that it brings a pop music sensibility to Doctor Who’s music that hadn’t been heard since, arguably, the last time Paddy Kingsland had scored the show during the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s early ’80s heyday of handling all of the series’ music. The various iterations of “Future Pleasure” have vocal samples that may sound whimsical now, but were still part of the Art of Noise‘s playbook when this music was first heard on TV – pretty cutting-edge stuff for television scoring. But the numerous musical visits to “The Tetrap Eyrie” and especially “Cliffhanger In The Eyrie” have a superbly eerie atmosphere. In an admittedly synthesized way, some of these tracks hint at an orchestral future for Doctor Who’s sound.

Bonus tracks reveal the evolution of McCulloch’s take on the Doctor Who theme from demo to the version used on the show, as well as the evolution of elements of the score. In particular, the gradual cluttering-up of what was a perfectly good piece of music for the new Doctor picking his new wardrobe was eye-opening; I wonder who made the decision that what that scene really needed was the sound of breaking glass as punctuation. (There was no breaking glass as part of the scene itself, where the sound comes across as a comedy affectation that really didn’t boost the scene’s chances of being taken seriously.)

4 out of 4With its mind-bendingly colorful cover artwork and the sounds within, this long overdue release is a reminder that, regardless of what some fans might claim, all was not lost when it came to late ’80s Doctor Who. I still have a lot of love for this score, orchestral stabs and all. It may be a more challenging listen for those who have been raised on 21st century Doctor Who’s less-sampled orchestral sound, but for those of us who watched the show in something not far removed from real time, this was the sound of the Doctor’s travels, and it’s a delightful nostalgia trip.

  1. The Rani Takes the TARDIS (Sound Effects) (0:22)
  2. Leave the Girl, It’s the Man I Want (0:23)
  3. Doctor Who (Opening Theme) (0:54)
  4. Einstein (0:21)
  5. A Nice Nap (0:34)
  6. Urak and Ikona (1:12)
  7. The Death of Sarn (1:05)
  8. Bull in a Barbershop (0:24)
  9. Not Your Enemy (1:52)
  10. The Tetrap Eyrie (1) (0:46)
  11. Landscape (0:25)
  12. New Wardrobe (1:27)
  13. Mel and the Bubble Trap (1:04)
  14. Mel and the Bubble Trap (continued) (1:33)
  15. The Tetrap Eyrie (2) (0:44)
  16. Wait Here (0:56)
  17. Memory Like An Elephant (1:18)
  18. Faroon, Ikona and the Mourning (1:34)
  19. Urak Nets The Rani (1:39)
  20. Pulses (0:26)
  21. The Rani’s TARDIS (1:03)
  22. You’re a Time Lord (0:39)
  23. She’s Coming (0:29)
  24. Cliffhanger in the Eyrie (1:30)
  25. Doctor on the Loose (Part 1) (0:55)
  26. Doctor on the Loose (Parts 2-4) (1:28)
  27. Doctor on the Loose (Part 5 – The Bubble Trap) (0:33)
  28. Faroon Forlorn / Doctor on the Loose (Part 6) (0:46)
  29. Future Pleasure (4:58)
  30. Beez (0:47)
  31. Hologram Mel (1:29)
  32. Just the Expert (0:24)
  33. As Sentimental as He Is (0:17)
  34. Fixed Trajectory (0:48)
  35. Second Bluff (0:47)
  36. All as Planned (0:20)
  37. The Brain (2:08)
  38. The Brain (reprise) (1:19)
  39. Dissidents to Heel (0:40)
  40. March of the Tetraps / Anklet Death (1:48)
  41. The Rani Explains (1:48)
  42. Urak Overhears (0:27)
  43. Loyhargil (1) (0:48)
  44. As You Snore So Shall You Sleep (0:38)
  45. Loyhargil (2) (0:14)
  46. Where there’s a Will (0:27)
  47. Loyhargil (3) (0:24)
  48. The Rani Leaves (0:20)
  49. Undoing The Rani (2:08)
  50. Fingers Crossed (0:21)
  51. Not Forgotten (0:54)
  52. Time and Tide Melts the Snowman (0:15)
  53. Doctor Who (Closing Theme) (1:13)
     
    Bonus Tracks
  54. Doctor Who 1987 (2:40)
  55. The Death of Sarn (part, alternative version without rattle) (0:22)
  56. Two “stings” (1m10 and 1m12) (0:18)
  57. New Wardrobe (original mono mix without overdubs) (0:57)
  58. New Wardrobe (overdubs) (0:57)
  59. New Wardrobe (original mono TV mix as used) (0:58)
  60. She’s Coming (unused version 1) (0:43)
  61. Cliffhanger in the Eyrie (unused version 1) (1:30)
  62. Cliffhanger in the Eyrie (Part Two Reprise edit) (1:18)
  63. Future Pleasure (original master) (4:32)
  64. The Brain (25th Anniversary Album edit) (3:03)
  65. Doctor Who Theme 1987 (original demo) (2:54)
  66. Doctor Who Opening Title 1987 (original demo) (0:43)
  67. Doctor Who Closing Title 1987 (original demo) (1:16)

Released by: Silva Screen Records
Release date: November 24, 2023
Total running time: 76:05

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Categories
2013 G Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Gatchaman CROWDS, Volume 1 – music by Taku Iwasaki

3 min read

Order this CDWhen Bob Sakuma was asked about the musical influences that shaped his brass-with-funk-backing music for the original 1970s TV iteration of Gatchaman (an early anime the western world knows better from the savagely-edited-down Battle Of The Planets), his answer was simple: the American band Chicago, which was a hugely influential sound circa 1972. This 21st century reboot of Gatchaman, which dispenses with virtually the entire backstory of the original series and retains only some iconography and the “band of super-powered young people protecting the entire world from an alien force” premise, is graced with a soundtrack that pulls from a wider group of influences. It’s still brassy and orchestral in places, but there’s a vast pool of other influences – dubstep, J-pop, trip-hop, house, opera, chiptune…and it’s honestly almost dizzying how incredibly well all of this hangs together. Not one note or beat feels out of place or surplus to requirements.

Where there are vocals, the vast majority of them are sung in English, which I found somewhat surprising. “Gatchaman – In The Name Of Love”, despite not being the theme song for the series, makes a bold opening statement, putting the listener on notice that every possible boundary between musical styles and genres will be breached in short order. And by the way, the orchestral component of all this? It’s live players, not synthesizers or samples. It’s just a luxurious, well-orchestrated sound, no matter how much is going on with the more modern, dance-inspired elements.

Instrumental highlights include the techno pulse of “Milestone”, the breezy-going-on-goofy J-pop interlude “Tutu”, the slowly-intensifying downtempo cool of “Phenex”, the beautiful, contemplative “The Bird Can’t Fly”, the kind of dreamy chiptune-infused “Unbeatable Network”, and the four minutes of unrelenting urgency that is “Are You Gatchaman?” The unmissable vocal highlights are “Gatchaman – In The Name Of Love”, which isn’t shy about what the name of the show is at all, and possibly the highlight of the whole album, “Music Goes On”, with its luxurious all-heands-on-deck, every-style-in-one-song instrumentation and a soaring (if auto-tuned) vocal. It’s like someone said “You know, they have dance parties at sci-fi and anime conventions, and we’re going to come up with an entire album of absolute bangers that are as perfect for those as they are for the show itself.”

4 out of 4I think I’ve actually watched Gatchaman CROWDS all the way through once. I’ve come back to its soundtrack a lot. It fits the show perfectly, and yet it’s an engrossing listen on its own. There’s a school of thought which I’m sure would remind me that the anime itself is not aimed at someone my age. Okay, it probably isn’t. But if I’d taken a hard pass on it, I wouldn’t have been exposed to its frankly magnificent soundtrack. I’m going to make this a prime example of why I do expose myself to new sounds even if they’re not nominally “for me” – the fact is, they’re for anyone who enjoys them. And there’s a lot to enjoy here.

  1. Gatchaman – In the Name of Love performed by Yutaka Shinya (3:52)
  2. The Core of Soul (2:52)
  3. Milestone (2:56)
  4. Firebird (3:10)
  5. Tutu (2:18)
  6. Pandaman (2:06)
  7. The Music Goes On (3:39)
  8. Phenex (3:04)
  9. Un Beau Leopard Violet (2:31)
  10. Gatchadance (3:21)
  11. Galax (0:08)
  12. The bird Can’t Fly (3:03)
  13. Are You Gatchaman? (4:07)
  14. Destruction By Rumor (2:54)
  15. Why I Kissed Him? (3:14)
  16. Fat guitar (3:29)
  17. Ziel der Hydra (3:38)
  18. Sacrifice (4:57)
  19. Crowds (3:20)
  20. Unbeatable Network (4:18)
  21. Love (3:28)
  22. Innocent Note performed by Yutaka Shinya and Maaya Uchida (3:53)
  23. Crowds (TV size) performed by White Ash (1:20)
  24. Innocent Note (TV size) performed by Yutaka Shinya and Maaya Uchida (1:22)

Released by: Indie Japan
Release date: July 1, 2013
Total running time: 1:13:00

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