Category: Music Reviews

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1977 2012 Film Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title W Year

Wizards – music by Andrew Belling

4 min read

Order this CDIf anyone was going to put the “high” in “high fantasy” in the 1970s, it was going to be Ralph Bakshi, and that’s really seems like the most likely explanation for the 1977 animated cult classic Wizards, which attempted – successfully in places, it has to be said – to inject earthy (and earthly) elements into the fantasy genre. The movie gets a lot of help from its score, which combines ’70s synths, a funk/jazz/rock sensibility very much of its era, and the kind of instrumentation one might expect of this genre. Andrew Belling’s music for Wizard is the same kind of fearless blending of genres that the movie itself is, fittingly.

If you’re in a mood for something not a million miles removed from a funky ’70s jam, you can’t go wrong with tracks like “War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts” and “Battle & Peewhittle’s Death” – though the track titles read as very soundtrackish, they’re very listenable slices of funk/rock if you’re up for this particular vintage of those particular styles. (One listener’s dated sounds are another’s comfort food. There’s nothing wrong with a good old ’70s jam-out.)

And yet tracks like “Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow” and “Moving Out” give you the more traditional vibe you’d expect from an adventure film (in synthesized form, mind you, but almost always mixed in with some live players, particularly on woodwinds, timpani, brass, and percussion. Some tracks straddle the fence between the two styles, transitioning from traditional to more funk/rock oriented in the blink of an eye. Much like the movie, the music keeps you on your toes, even if it’s purely a listening experience. Interestingly, Belling allows his small ensemble to sound sparse to great effect in “The Elves Are Coming”.

Occasionally the electronic elements of the music get a bit weird with it, as in the final portion of “Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch”; bit of “Fairy Attack” almost sound a bit Radiophonic Workshop-esque. As dated as it may sound now, the Wizards score was actually seriously ahead of its time. The album is opened and closed with two different edits of “Time Will Tell”, both with vocals by Susan Anton, but also stylistically similar to the rest of the score.

4 out of 4The sad news is: Wizards is long out of print. Given a relatively small print run of only 2,000 copies over a decade ago, and La-La Land – which is normally very good about keeping the original pages for its extinct titles archived in an out-of-print section – has scrubbed any mention of it from their site, and there is no digital edition. It’s like the soundtrack is as much of a fever dream as the movie itself was. A pity it’s now hard to get hold of, because it’s a very effective case study in combining traditional and non-traditional instrumentation and styles, from an era where it truly was a revolutionary experiment. This might just be one of those cases where the score outclasses its film.

  1. Time Will Tell (Full Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:11)
  2. The Story Begins / Scortch 3000 Years Later / Fairy Hookers / Peace Goes Forth / Peace In The Valley Of Montagar (7:03)
  3. War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts (2:45)
  4. Jukebox Junky Blues (1:26)
  5. Blackwolf Finds The Record / War & Frog / We Can’t Lose (1:37)
  6. Moving Out (1:54)
  7. Battle & Peewhittle’s Death (2:05)
  8. Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch (1:27)
  9. Fairy Attack (1:43)
  10. Fairy Drums / Jungle Drums / Gargoyle Once A Day (1:42)
  11. Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow (2:22)
  12. Tanks Again & Betrayal / Peace Isn’t, Elinore Doesn’t (1:20)
  13. To All Our Ships / Larry Gets Weehawk (0:52)
  14. The Elves Are Coming (1:30)
  15. Gathering Of The Heavies / The Charge Of The Heavy Brigade / The Battle Picks Up Tempo / The Punchup / The Elves Lose (6:36)
  16. Weehawk Finds Elinore / Elinore’s OK / Blackwolf Bites It / Final History / Bye (3:29)
  17. Time Will Tell (Film Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:00)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: October 23, 2012
Total running time: 42:36

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2023 Film I Indiana Jones Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny – music by John Williams

4 min read

Order this CDFirst things first: I’m listening to this soundtrack without having seen the movie; the track list might spoil something for you, but I won’t. John Williams is still one of those “get the soundtrack sight unseen/unheard” composers for me, and to even be listening to this is a surprise. Wasn’t he announcing his retirement from film scoring not that long ago? What happened? Did Mr. Burns (or Steven Spielberg) tap the “don’t forget, you’re here forever” sign on the wall?

But if the result is Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, I can make peace with Williams’ quick punch-of-the-undo-button on his retirement announcement. Like I said, I have no idea what to expect from the movie itself; reviews have been…colorfully mixed…at best. And honestly, I’m not sure how high my personal bar is set after Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. I’m not sure I’ve even set up a bar, I just want a more dignified exit for Indy than what Han Solo got. In some respects, Williams’ music for The Dial Of Destiny does hearken back to The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – there are major action setpieces that rank among Williams’ Best, but for the most part, we’re getting a somewhat more contemplative take on the ongoing adventures.

The lengthy prologue is a good reminder that Williams’ superpowers extend to building tension and dread, not just big action scenes. It’s followed by “Helena’s Theme”, which is also reprised at the end of the album (and as a standalone single) with solo violin by Anne-Sophie Mutter; this initial appearance is a more widescreen orchestral version highlighting thematic material that turns up later in the score, and it’s a typically gorgeous Williams theme. “Germany 1944” is the first major action piece on the album, and the first time that Indy’s theme shows up on the album as well, and – as intended – it’s a rewind to Indy’s glory days in the ’80s. Never mind the de-aging CGI, Williams is doing the heavy lifting here.

“To Morocco” is a musical travelogue that leans heavily on “Helena’s Theme”, while “Voller Returns” builds more tension. “Auction at Hotel L’Atlantique” has some moments of whimsy leading up to action, providing a good segue into the next big action piece, “Tuk Tuk in Tangiers”. “To Athens” spins the “Helena’s Theme” motif into something more adventurous, and joins it with Indy’s theme. “Perils Of The Deep” is more contemplative and slightly menacing; “Water Ballet” picks up that menace and runs with it, with some intriguing sounds that are clearly the movie’s big “horror” scene. “Polybius Cipher” and “The Grafikos” pour on the mystery and the swashbuckling, both with Indy’s theme and suggestions of Helena’s theme. “Archimedes’ Tomb” continues the mystery, while “The Airport” and “Battle Of Syracuse” are more action oriented.

It all comes together in “Centuries Join Hands” and “New York 1969”, the latter of which closes things out with the fullest statement of Indy’s theme to be found on the album. (It’s a given that there’s probably quite a bit more music in the movie than we’re getting here, a quandary to be solved by an adventurous soundtrack specialty label at some point in the future, hopefully before the day someone decides that CD reissues belong in a museum.)

4 out of 4Even if the movie isn’t the return to form that everyone is, deep down, hoping it is, John Williams’ score is the real marvel of time travel going on with this movie. It’s a period piece within a period piece: a rewind to his 1980s-style musical accompaniment for characters of an even-more-bygone era. Whether or not the movie successfully delivers that, the soundtrack doesn’t let up, and doesn’t let the listener down. Any five-minute stretch of this score does more to proclaim that Indiana Jones is back – and does more to make you believe it – than the best trailer ever could. And that’s probably why no one’s letting John Williams retire.

  1. Prologue to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (06:01)
  2. Helena’s Theme (03:30)
  3. Germany, 1944 (04:43)
  4. To Morocco (03:21)
  5. Voller Returns (03:06)
  6. Auction at Hotel L’Atlantique (02:59)
  7. Tuk Tuk in Tangiers (03:36)
  8. To Athens (02:18)
  9. Perils of the Deep (02:31)
  10. Water Ballet (04:53)
  11. Polybius Cipher (02:39)
  12. The Grafikos (04:40)
  13. Archimedes’ Tomb (03:02)
  14. The Airport (04:46)
  15. Battle of Syracuse (02:51)
  16. Centuries Join Hands (03:02)
  17. New York, 1969 (04:17)
  18. Helena’s Theme (For Violin and Orchestra) (04:59)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: June 28, 2023
Total running time: 1:07:06

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2022 2023 D Doctor Who Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils – music by Segun Akinola

3 min read

Order this CDWhen the modern revival of Doctor Who brought back the Silurians in 2010, their cousins, the raspy-voiced Sea Devils, were nowhere to be found. Like the Silurians, they were creations of the Jon Pertwee era and were last seen in the all-star indigenous-sentient-repitle team-up Warriors Of The Deep in 1984, joining forces against Peter Davison’s Doctor. But while the Silurians got a 21st century makeover, their cousins, the Sea Devils, remained in the show’s past – until they resurfaced, literally, in one of 2022’s run of special episodes. Interestingly, while the Silurians emerged with a very different look from their ’70s/’80s incarnations, the Sea Devils returned looking much the same as before, with obvious improvements in how their aquatic lizard look was achieved.

And they got a marvelous soundtrack too. The story’s setting deals with piracy in Chinese waters in the early 19th century. Segun Akinola, who wowed with his sensitive musical treatment of The Demons Of Punjab in Jodie Whittaker’s first season as the Doctor, deploys a similar musical strategy here: call in real live players for real live ethnic instruments, and save the synths for the purely synthetic elements of the story. The result is, again, a very nice mix with authenticity where it counts the most. The main thematic material for the episode reveals itself fairly quickly, and is repeated and riffed upon throughout, with a percolating synth bassline persisting in many of the tracks, its role in the tension depending on its prominence in the mix rather than in any changes in key or tempo; the pace really doesn’t quicken appreciably until “This Is Gonna Be Tricky”.

4 out of 4Things take a more sensitive turn halfway through “A Good Legend” with the scene that either launched a thousand gleeful fanfics or launched a thousand middle-aged male fan tantrums, as the Doctor and Yaz skip some rocks across the water and discuss whether there’s any “there” there. It’s a nicely understated closer for the show, though I’m still undecided on whether the Doctor somehow being aware of an impending regeneration (something that started with Tom Baker’s exit) becoming a recurring trope of the show (used in the last run of specials for both David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker). Either way, the music for the scene is easily the standout highlight of this soundtrack.

  1. You Have No Idea What You’re Doing (02:48)
  2. Catching A Whopper (03:56)
  3. Pirate Queen (07:33)
  4. Who Wants To Be Next (05:07)
  5. Celestial Navigation (04:00)
  6. Going Up (07:26)
  7. Say Hello To My Crew (05:18)
  8. This Is Gonna Be Tricky (04:49)
  9. A Good Legend (06:07)

Released by: Silva Screen Records
Release date: December 9, 2022
Total running time: 46:50

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1977 2022 C Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Children Of The Stones – music by Sidney Sager

4 min read

Order this CDI discovered that there was a soundtrack for this 1977 children’s fantasy/horror series almost by accident, and when I recovered from the shock that it existed, it was an instant purchase. The opening theme of Children Of The Stones by itself is a classic of TV/film scoring in the horror genre: just the music is scary as hell, starting out with a hush of pleasant but eerie choral voices that becomes disharmonious, breaks up into chanting instead of singing, and then crescendoes in a massed scream before resuming singing something more akin to what most people would think as music. If you’re not ready for it, it’ll scare the piss out of you. That single piece of music is responsible for about 80% of the effectiveness of the show as a piece of scary television.

The soundtrack album then turns into a horror of its own for completely different reasons.

As was often the case with this particular genre of television – at which regional UK broadcaster Harlech Television (shortened to HTV) excelled – the composer behind the music was Sidney Sager, ho also contributed music with choral elements to such HTV children’s series as King Of The Castle and Into The Labyrinth, both utilizing the Ambrosian Singers, who are front-and-center in the Children Of The Stones score. With the story’s heavy reliance on druid lore, the singers spend as much time chanting as they do singing, and yes, the opening titles are not the only place that they reach a fever-pitched shriek. It’s amazingly unnerving music. (And this show was for kids?)

That’s the good horror. The bad horror began to set in with only the second track. At the end of “Mrs. Crabtree Views The Painting”, as the singers again reach an unnerving climax, there’s the sound of broken glass. Because in the show, Mrs. Crabtree drops an entire tea tray as the creepy painting that sets off the story gets into her head. But…that would mean…

Oh no. Yes. It means what you think it does. Later tracks include footsteps, doors opening/closing, rustling graas, rushing wind, even occasional non-musical voices. Yes, they just took the sound from the DVD, did some EQ, and released that as a download and a pricey limited-edition vinyl album with a poster of the aforementioned painting.

I could’ve pulled the DVD off the shelf and done that myself. And since I already bought the DVD, it wouldn’t have cost me seven-and-a-half quid for the privilege. Hell, I probably could’ve run it through some demixing software to at least attempt to remove the extraneous sounds from the show.

It’s not too much to expect that the original scoring tapes might still exist from a show of this vintage; look at the numerous releases of Doctor Who music from the ’60s and early ’70s, or even the BBC’s release, several years ago, of the complete score from the 1975 children’s fantasy series The Changes, also presented without the rest of the show’s sound mix intruding. There may be some notes about the production process of this album in the liner notes of the LP; I don’t know, I only got the download, and there was no warning that this was what the soundtrack collecting world refers to as “archival sound” – dialogue or effects stems that were part of the only available source media for the music. Yes, that is a thing that happens, on official releases, but I’m accustomed to labels warning me about that being the case.

2 out of 4Sidney Sager’s music is stunning, scary work – it’s the only reason this release gets as much as a two-star rating. But the lack of warning that this is basically an audio presentation of the musical moments of the show as-aired is infuriating. Let the buyer/listener beware.

  1. Children of the Stones (Opening Title) (1:15)
  2. Mrs Crabtree Views the Painting (0:06)
  3. Someone Who Is Happy (0:11)
  4. Matthew and Dai (0:35)
  5. Adam Touches the Stones (0:27)
  6. Circle of Fear (I Can’t Wait) (0:17)
  7. Nobody Ever Leaves (0:12)
  8. Being Alone (0:32)
  9. Within the Painting (0:33)
  10. Matthew’s Accident (1:29)
  11. Serpent in the Circle (0:46)
  12. Tom Browning (0:30)
  13. Looks, It’s Jimmo (0:16)
  14. Narrowing Circle (1:14)
  15. Premonition of Dr Lyle (0:22)
  16. Dai Casts the Bones (1:55)
  17. The Barber Surgeon’s Amulet (1:17)
  18. Never, It’s Mine (0:20)
  19. He’s Not There (0:35)
  20. Anger the Fire (0:27)
  21. Such Power (0:23)
  22. It Is Time (0:43)
  23. Squaring the Circle (1:16)
  24. We’ve Lost Them (0:18)
  25. Go Now and Be Happy (0:29)
  26. I’ll Return This at the Same Time (0:34)
  27. We’re Trapped (0:07)
  28. The Circle Is Complete (0:34)
  29. The Circle Is Broken (1:19)
  30. Children of the Stones (End Titles) (0:31)

Released by: Trunk Records
Release date: October 20, 2022
Total running time: 19:33

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2023 Music Reviews Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title T Video Game / Computer Game Year

Tron: Identity – music by Dan le Sac

4 min read

Order this CDI’ve never really understood Disney’s attitude toward Tron as a potential franchise. It seemed to loom large in the studio’s future plans until they purchased Lucasfilm, and then it’s like “Tron? What’s a Tron?” Every so often they actually draw some attention to it – hey, one hears there’s a new ride that’s cool – and then something like this pops up. The soundtrack to a new Tron game? What new Tron game? I’m a fan, I’d normally be pre-sold on this. Why didn’t I know about this?

But hey, I get it, Disney’s a huge corporation with a lot of concerns, such as failing themed hotel attractions and fending off the performative harassment of governors who want to be (but under not circumstances should ever be) presidents. They can’t market everything equally. So there’s a new Tron game that almost nobody knew was coming. How’s the music?

Dan le Sac has a background in remixing and hip hop, but has also started to plant his flag in some soundtrack work, including such games as Subsurface Circular and Quarantine Circular, whose developer is also behind Tron: Identity – aha, mystery solved! What’s interesting about this album is that, from the standpoint of 2023, the sound Wendy Carlos established for Tron is over 40 uears behind us in the rear-view mirror, but to help you feel even older, Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy soundtrack is nearly a decade and a half behind us as well. Is anyone scoring a new Tron project under any obligation to sound like…well…either of them?

It took me a few listens to arrive at an answer, because at first I thought, “well, there’s some vaguely Daft Punk-esque stuff in there, but not even much of that.” The soundtrack from the animated series Tron Uprising noted that its composer (Daft Punk collaborator Joseph Trapanese, who did some significant-but-only-quietly-credited heavy lifting on the Legacy score) was using synth patches designed by Daft Punk. This made sense, since Uprising was telling a story that happens between Tron and Tron Legacy. But where you see credit, you’re probably also seeing someone get paid extra, so that probably answers why nothing since Uprising has gone out of its way to hew to the Daft Punk sound.

And Identity’s score doesn’t do that either. Tracks like “Antiques”, “First Impressions”, and “A Really Big Door” give the strong impression that this game’s music is trying to meet both of the franchise’s films in the middle, where the music inhabits an interesting middle ground with electronics deployed in a manner that reminds you a little of Tron Legacy, but also choral pads that hearken all the way back to the almost-religious sound Wendy Carlos used in key scenes of the original film, when the score was hammering home the “programs regard the users as gods, but they are neither gods nor worthy of that worship” metaphor that the script didn’t dare put into words in 1982. It’s an interesting mix. Tracks such as “Upcycled”, “Last Steps”, “Breakout”, and “Back On The Grid” bring in beats that have more of a connection to the composer’s previous work than they do to anything we’ve heard in a Tron property before. And some tracks – looking at you, “Bloom Effect” – find a mesmerizing middle ground between the two styles.

4 out of 4But when Disney waits so long to do anything with a franchise that clearly has significant fan interest and public recognition, the passage of time makes it a nearly ridiculous exercise for anyone to claim that the “sound of Tron” is thing thing, but definitely isn’t that other thing. The music of each fleeting entry in the franchise has had an outsized influence on defining its universe. Tron can be Carlos, Daft Punk, and trap beats. It doesn’t harm its fictional universe. That makes this soundtrack an interesting listen.

Now to find out what this game’s actually about. Really good job, Disney Marketing Department, really good job. But I know y’all are busy right now.

  1. Opening Up (01:41)
  2. Antiques (03:43)
  3. Upcycled (01:46)
  4. First Impression (03:27)
  5. Last Steps (02:06)
  6. Back On The Grid (02:09)
  7. A Really Big Door (04:01)
  8. Breakout (02:07)
  9. Bloom Effect (03:07)
  10. Imposition (04:40)
  11. Getting Comfortable (01:52)
  12. Consequences (End Credits) (02:16)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: April 11, 2023
Total running time: 32:50

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2023 Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Television Year

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2: Sith – music by Dan Levy

2 min read

Order this CDFor the second year running, Disney Plus celebrated Star Wars Day (i.e. May the Fourth be with you) by dropping a new batch of the highly stylized Star Wars: Visions shorts. The Visions mission statement is pretty simple: hand esteemed animators and animation studios a few minutes in the Star Wars universe, with no obligations to be canonical, or even necessarily serious. Their only obligation is to have some fun with the universe and the lore, in their own unique visual style. The inaugural 2022 batch consisted of shorts all done by respected anime studios; the slots in the 2023 batch (I hesitate to call it a season) were given to studios further afield, not just those in the world of anime.

Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, Sith, written and directed by Rodrigo Blaas, who served as the supervising director of Trollhunters: Tales Of Arcadia, was among the most visually arresting of the 2023 shorts. The entire story is animated in a very stylized, painterly style, befitting the main character – a recovering/escaped former Sith apprentice – who has gone into hiding to lose herself in her art. The score by Dan Levy (a French-born composer who seems to like the short-form animation format; he also die an episode of Netflix’s Love Death + Robots) drenches nearly the entire running time of the short, which is not unusual for the Visions shorts. With so little time, many of the animators and filmmakers contributing Visions shorts make the decision to let the score and the sound effects mix do the talking rather than slowing down too much for mere dialogue.

3 out of 4Levy’s score starts strong – its deceptively quiet opening is a bit more interesting than the inevitable busy chase and fight scenes (because you can’t just quit being a Sith apprentice without some blowback from your former boss). The action music has more in common with The Matrix than with anything in the Star Wars universe, while managing to be less interesting than either of the two. It’s in the quieter, more contemplative moments that this score distinguishes itself as a standalone listening experience; the chase music is best when it’s accompanied by the actual chase.

  1. Blank Canvas (2:59)
  2. Sith Apprentice (2:43)
  3. The Chase (1:24)
  4. Light And Dark (2:57)
  5. Destiny (2:11)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: May 5, 2023
Total running time: 12:14

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2016 Music Reviews R Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Television Year

Let It Smeg: The Music From Red Dwarf X – music by Howard Goodall

5 min read

Order this CDHey, quick question: Red Dwarf’s a science fiction show with a loyal cult following, right?

I ask that because it sure as hell isn’t consistently merchandised like one. Sure, there have been novelizationss and DVDs, and for the blink of an eye around the turn of the century, UK miniature model manufacturer Corgi had a couple of die-cast spaceships in the shops, namely the small rouge one itself and the indestructible Starbug. There have been fleeting sightings of T-shirts whose provenance runs the gamut from “officially licensed” to “ha! what’s a license?” with characters and catchphrases. I think an official magazine and a paper-and-dice role playing game were in print for about five minutes each. Granted, Red Dwarf is not really an all-audiences show; the little die-cast spaceships were probably intended for adult collectors from the start, and unless Super7 or Wandering Planet Toys get the action figure license, that’s a product category that’s unlikely to happen, because again, it’s not being sold to kids.

Second question: grown-ups like soundtracks from their favorite genre franchises, don’t they? Arguably, 25% of this entire web site exists because of that notion. So it’s surprising that it took 28 years for official Red Dwarf soundtrack releases to arrive, and it’s surprising that, seven years later, even as digital releases go, they’re still shockingly obscure. Now, to be sure, Howard Goodall has other projects aplenty on his plate; the man’s a respected music scholar with lectures and serious texts on the subject of music to his name. He’s renowned for also scoring the likes of the Black Adder series (and nearly everything else Rowan Atkinson has done, from Mr. Bean to the Johnny English movies), The Vicar of Dibley, and many other projects. Red Dwarf is but one feature on his career landscape, but like Mr. Bean himself, it’s a persistent one.

And there’s an elephant in the room as well: the DVD releases of the eight original BBC-produced seasons of Red Dwarf had sub-menus you could visit and listen to every tiny music cue Howard ever recorded for the show. And yes, enterprising fans figured out how to extract those from the DVD audio tracks and effectively made their own soundtrack albums for the show…none of which paid the composer (or indeed the owners of Red Dwarf as an IP) a single cent. The score tracks on the DVDs were a neat feature for those of us who had longed to hear the music in isolation, but as well-meaning as their inclusion was, they proved that there’s a problem if demand isn’t met with product.

The neat thing about the quartet of albums Goodall released digitally in 2016 is that they’re not the same as the DVD’s deluge of often-near-identical tracks, and they can be heard at better-than-DVD-bonus-audio-track quality. (One suspects that Goodall may have even remastered them just a little bit to sound better than they originally did.) These releases are curated, edited together with some regard for musical flow, and they’re probably the composer’s personal favorites; he has also included some bits and pieces that never made it to broadcast (and therefore probably aren’t on the DVDs). The neat thing about this particular release is that it’s kind of a musical ouroboros (yes, I went there), containing both the music from the show’s better-than-we-had-any-right-to-expect return to producing full seasons of shows in 2012, and the music from the first three seasons, spanning the late 1980s launch of the show. You can’t do much better than that for an exercise in contrasts. The Red Dwarf X music is created with modern tools and samples, and Goodall is one of those composers who makes a virtue of the fact that he has next to no music budget. You couldn’t tell from listening, because Goodall is also a master of judiciously choosing samples and mixing them as if they’re the real thing.

4 out of 4The late ’80s material, on the other hand, is chintzy, cheesy, and very, very late ’80s – and yet it’s also beloved if you’re a longtime fan of the show. And again, it’s down to Goodall’s vast skill in arranging and putting the music together: the show’s theme tune, at its most basic, is a brilliant musical construction, flexible enough to start out as a foreboding, echoing lone trumpet in the void and end up as a jaunty end credit song with lyrics, with stops at “glam disco-going-on-new-wave groove”, “hard rock guitar jam”, “almost a church mass”, “waltz”, and “electro/synth-pop”, all in the space of twelve minutes without feeling forced at any point along the way.

We finally have official Red Dwarf soundtracks, you smegheads. Yes, they’re a bit late. But they’re eminently listenable, and they’re long-overdue on the “paying the composer what he’s due” side of the equation that any official soundtrack release should live up to. The cover artwork is a bit… Microsoft Word?… but that’s not the part you’re listening to. Long awaited, eagerly anticipated, and highly recommended for any Red Dwarf fans out there.

  1. Let It Smeg: Red Dwarf X: The Underscore (14:19)
  2. Red Dwarf Antique Extras (12:00)

Released by: Howard Goodall
Release date: November 4, 2016
Total running time: 26:19

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2023 Music Reviews Other S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Year

The Wonders Of The Universe: Music From The Big Finish Space: 1999 Audio Dramas

4 min read

Order this CDI’m going to contend that if you have a soundtrack with a track title that is both a plot point of its story, and the title of an episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show, you know you’re in for a good time. The great news is that there’s a lot more to The Wonders Of The Universe than “Space Madness”. In 2019, Big Finish Productions – purveyors of many fine audio dramas that have been reviewed extensively in theLogBook episode guides – announced that, as part of their ongoing collaboration with Anderson Productions, they would be rebooting legendary ’70s sci-fi drama Space: 1999 as a series of audio dramas, splitting the difference between adapting original TV episodes and brand new stories. This is top-secret Moonbase Alpha encrypted code for “here’s unfettered access to Earl’s wallet”. Naturally, there have been critics of any project that would dare to recast the roles once played by Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse, and company, but overall the Space: 1999 audio dramas have been well-produced and well-written, offering connecting tissue that shows the writers have been paying careful attention to the original TV series’ weak spots and shoring those up narratively. And, of course, being Big Finish Productions, they’ve commissioned original scores for each one.

That’s where Kraemer, a veteran of such movies as Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation and Jack Reacher and countless other scoring assignments, comes in. Not just a talented composer, Joe is, deep down, a fan like the rest of us. That gets laid bare in the liner notes, not just where he talks about being a fan of Barry Gray’s original TV scores, but approaching the audio drama scores as if they’re at the same remove from Gray’s work that 1970s animated Star Trek had to be from the live action Star Trek’s scores. When someone makes a reference like that, it’s safe to start chanting “one of us! one of us!” in the background. Without directly, note-for-note quoting Gray’s season one theme, Kraemer manages to still do a stylistic homage to Gray’s despair-laden season one scores. The distinctive sound of Space: 1999’s first year on TV is echoed especially well in the aforementioned “Space Madness”, the first half of “Intentions Revealed”, and “A Chilling Discovery”. There are also some stylistic homages (some of them pretty in-your-face) to John Williams in tracks like “Time Is Running Out” and especially “Eagle One”. But Gray’s music remains the touchstone for most of what’s on this album. (Derek Wadsworth’s funky, near-disco stylings from Space: 1999’s season TV season are not referenced in the selections heard here, other than an orchestral-style rendition of his season two end credits.)

4 out of 4All of this is accomplished with synths and samples that do a reasonable job of mimicking the sound of a large orchestral ensemble, which is something that simply isn’t within the budgetary reach of Big Finish. In some ways, this means there’s actually a “bigger” sound than even the original TV series could have gone for, though the trade-off is that the orchestra is clearly a synthetic one, especially when you’re hearing it away from the dense mix of sound effects and dialogue that normally competes with the music in the mix. The unique demands of an audio drama mean that this music is seldom foregrounded the way it might be on TV, so if an orchestra of sampled instruments strikes you as a shortcoming, keep in mind that in its original (and, it must be said, intended) context, the music is jostling elbows with a dense, world-building layer of sound design. Kraemer’s original themes start to jump out after just a couple of listens, and that’s indicative of the approach of Space: 1999 a la Big Finish overall: it’s the story we already know, but now with more connecting tissue that reinforces the story as an ongoing saga and something less randomly episodic. I recommend both the soundtrack and the audio productions for which it was created.

  1. Theme From Space: 1999 (Season One) (2:30)
  2. Stellar Intrigue (2:26)
  3. Space Madness (1:56)
  4. Mysteries In The Dark (2:21)
  5. Escaping Threats (4:09)
  6. Scheming and Plotting (2:41)
  7. Time Is Running Out (2:31)
  8. The Coldness Of Space (2:18)
  9. Moonbase Mystery (2:10)
  10. Aboard Eagle One (3:30)
  11. Koenig Investigates (3:03)
  12. Intentions Revealed (4:19)
  13. Flight Into Peril (2:13)
  14. The Wonders Of The Universe (2:32)
  15. A Chilling Discovery (2:49)
  16. A Fitting End (0:55)
  17. Theme From Space: 1999 (Season Two) (1:32)

Released by: BSX Records
Release date: May 11, 2023
Total running time: 43:54

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Categories
2022 Music Reviews O Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Wars Television Year

Obi-Wan Kenobi – music by Natalie Holt, William Ross, and John Williams

5 min read

Order this CDWho scored this? The credits on the cover seem to make that an interesting question, as does the timeline of the public reveal that John Williams – who, we had already been told, was retiring from scoring Star Wars and from scoring films altogether – was contributing a new theme for Obi-Wan himself. Most of what is heard in the show and on this release is by Natalie Holt, who had already made a splash on another Disney Plus streaming series, Marvel’s Loki. But top billing goes to John Williams for the Obi-Wan theme, and the cover then tells us that theme has been adapted by William Ross. Anywhere Williams’ wistful new theme for the aging Jedi Knight appears in the show itself, it’s in a cue credited to Ross. One begins to suspect that Williams’ involvement (and therefore Ross’ involvement as well) happened at a very late stage, replacing work that had already been done by Natalie Holt. (A bit of research – and a bit of reading between the lines of all the industry-speak – reveals that this is precisely what happened. It’d be neat to hear Holt’s original theme and the replaced score cues to hear what the show would’ve sounded like before the guys dropped in to do a little of the work and claim a lot of the credit.)

Williams’ theme is nice, I will give it that. It does fit Obi-Wan where we find him in this movie – noble, but subdued. In the end credit rendition, there’s a big orchestral build-up that seems a little out of place, but otherwise a nice theme, and a bit more distinctive than the theme Williams penned for inclusion in John Powell’s Solo score (of which more another time). Its first major appearance as a piece of the score arrives in “Thr Journey Begins”; Ross’ adaptations of the Williams theme takes up five more tracks in the soundtrack outside of the opening titles and end credit theme.

The first score cue, “Order 66”, lurches from pastoral to relentless action on a dime for the prologue in which we see the moment that the Emperor’s order to rid the universe of the Jedi affects a class of young padawans. That same propulsive action then shifts down a gear or two into lurking menace as the show jumps to the present day for “Inquisitors’ Hunt”. Tracks like “Young Leia”, “Days of Alderaan” and “Bail and Leia” have a different feel entirely as, for the first time since a fleeting glimpse in the epilogue of Star Wars Episode III, we get to see Alderaan as a utopian world that somehow hung onto its idealistic identity well into the reign of the Empire. The tone darkens significant;y as Obi-Wan leaves the safe obscurity of Tatooine to begin his mission (“Daiyu”, “Cat And Mouse”). There’s an unexpected bit of electronic instrumentation in “Ready To Go” that almost sounds like something that escaped from the Tron Legacy soundtrack; it’s not unwelcome, but does stick out a bit in a score that’s doing its best to stay in Star Wars‘ traditionally orchestral wheelhouse.

Some more exotic flavors creep in as Obi-Wan’s quest takes him further afield (“Spice Den”, “Mapuzo”, “The Path”), and things again take a dark turn as master and apprentice once again find themselves in the other’s proximity (“Sensing Vader”, “Stormtrooper Patrol”, “Hangar Escape”, “Empire ARrival”), the latter of which introduces a strident march that screams “the Empire is here” without just quoting Williams’ “Imperial March”. Holt even sneaks a quotation of Williams’ series theme into “Dark Side Assault” – see, she didn’t need outside help with that, did she?

After Ross shows up to drench another major Kenobi/Vader confrontation with buckets of synthesized choir in “I Will Do What I Must”, Holt gives us a brief reprieve from the action music with the quieter “Sacrifice”, before resuming the chase and finally getting a hint of “The Imperial March” in (“No Further Use”). As is typical, the major action setpiece (“Overcoming The Past”) is handed off to Ross’ arrangement of Williams’ theme, elevated to a grand level as Obi-Wan finally finds his footing within the Force again, leaving Vader in a weakened state both physically and emotionally. Two more Holt cues (“Tatooine Desert Chase”, “Who You Become”) tie off the story of Reva, an Imperial Inquisitor obsessed with tracking down Obi-Wan, with Ross again getting the last word with “Saying Goodbye”, which quotes both Williams’ newly-minted Obi-Wan theme and the original trilogy’s theme for Leia.

4 out of 4It’s all fine music. Despite the number of cooks in the kitchen, it does all integrate better than one might expect. Some of you reading this are probably shouting at your screens something along the lines of “We’re privileged to be getting even one new piece of Star Wars music from John Williams!” And there may be something to that, but as solid as Holt’s work is throughout, why was it not good enough for nearly a quarter of the score, if the soundtrack’s track listing is any indication? It’s a little unsettling to think that while the casting of the Star Wars steaming shows is growing more diverse (though, as the unfortunate pushback against the amazing Moses Ingram demonstrated, not without difficulty), other elements of production very much present the appearance of keeping the glass ceiling in place with Imperial zeal.

  1. Obi-Wan (4:06)
  2. Order 66 (1:40)
  3. Inquistors’ Hunt (3:09)
  4. Young Leia (1:04)
  5. Days of Alderaan (1:38)
  6. The Journey Begins (2:57)
  7. Bail and Leia (2:19)
  8. Nari’s Shadow (1:14)
  9. Ready to Go (2:26)
  10. Daiyu (2:25)
  11. Cat and Mouse (3:10)
  12. Spice Den (1:10)
  13. First Rescue (3:10)
  14. Mapuzo (1:17)
  15. The Path (1:35)
  16. Sensing Vader (2:49)
  17. Parallel Lines (2:12)
  18. Some Things Can’t Be Forgotten (4:47)
  19. Stormtrooper Patrol (2:34)
  20. Hangar Escape (2:33)
  21. Hold Hands (1:39)
  22. Empire Arrival (2:04)
  23. Dark Side Assault (2:37)
  24. I Will Do What I Must (2:48)
  25. Sacrifice (1:41)
  26. No Further Use (3:39)
  27. Overcoming the Past (4:28)
  28. Tatooine Desert Chase (2:19)
  29. Who You Become (3:36)
  30. Saying Goodbye (5:26)
  31. End Credit (4:02)

Released by: Disney Music
Release date: June 27, 2022
Total running time: 82:34

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Categories
2023 Music Reviews S Soundtracks Soundtracks by Title Star Trek Television Year

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Season 1 – music by Nami Melumad

5 min read

Order this CDIt seems like every new Star Trek series that comes along in the streaming age has its own slightly different sound. All of them stay in the orchestral film music wheelhouse, but do something a little bit different within that wheelhouse: Discovery started out more contemplative and piano-heavy, Lower Decks plays it very straightforward so its music isn’t part of its jokes, Picard eventually settled into Jerry Goldsmith jukebox mode, and Prodigy – probably the best of the bunch and yet simultaneously the most overlooked because it hails from Nickelodeon, which seems to be a signal to some adult viewers to steer clear of it – is big, bombastic, larger than life, and yet fun when it needs to be. Prodigy composer Nami Melumad, a Michael Giacchino protege who had previously scored one of the shorts from the now-apparently-extinct Short Treks series, quickly gained notice for her work on Star Trek’s most recent animated incarnation, and was tapped to provide music for the eagerly awaited Strange New Worlds.

Strange New Worlds is a series that was, for all intents and purposes, created by fan demand to see more of the pre-Kirk-era troika of Captain Pike, Number One, and a younger Spock, established in Star Trek’s original 1964 pilot The Cage and revived (and recast) in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. Set aboard the Enterprise years prior to Kirk’s command, but well after the events of The Cage, the series leans into its retro construction booth figurative (mostly-unconnected adventures to different worlds every week) and literal (its greatest gift to the younger members of the audience may be introducing them to mid-century modern furnishings). It’s a return to Star Trek’s roots – a message-of-the-week space opera, a modern formulation of the original series without the baked-in issues of the original series. It also has a bit of a retro sound, at least in the opening credits – there are hints and near-quotes of the Alexander Courage theme, and when the full quotation of that theme finally happens, it sounds like a theremin – a bit of a stylistic wink to the audience that, if the Star Trek was all started with was from the sixties, this is from even before then. The theme is by Jeff Russo, who previously created the opening themes for Discovery and Picard.

But the scores accounting for most of the album’s (and show’s) runtime are by Nami Melumad, and they boldly get down to business. The pilot episode (which was unafraid to very clearly state the series’ entire mission statement unambiguously) is represented by four tracks, three of which accompany the big setpieces of the episode: “Everyone Wants A Piece Of The Pike” accompanies Captain Pike’s retreat into a wilderness cabin, while “Eyes On The Enterprise” sets the backdrop for Pike’s return to his ship, and “Home Is Where The Helm Is” covers the aftermath of Pike revealing the Federation’s existence to a planet on the all-too-familiar brink of world war. (“Put A T’Pring On It” is the quietest of the four pilot tracks, as Spock has to decide between a call to duty and a call to somewhat more domestic duties.)

Generally speaking, the big musical setpieces of each episode of the season are represented here, with some episodes getting more coverage than others (I was surprised to see only one track for the fanciful late-season episode The Elysian Kingdom.) The album’s musical focus, perhaps quite rightly, is on the music from the cluster of episodes that represented a mid-season series of storytelling slam dunks: three tracks each from Memento Mori and Spock Amok, two from Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach, and four from the Orion pirate romp The Serene Squall. Yes, Spock Amok‘s deceptively low-key riff on Gerald Fried’s immortal Amok time fight theme is here (“Are You A Vulcan Or A Vulcan’t?”); somewhat surprisingly, the season finale seems underrepresented by comparison, so we don’t get that episode’s take on Fred Steiner’s “Romulan Theme” from Balance Of Terror, the original series episode whose story A Quality Of Mercy spents much of its runtime riffing and remixing.

4 out of 4As was the case with her work on Prodigy, Melumad’s superpower is in her ability not just to kick butt with major action setpieces, but to make each episode’s more introspective moments memorable as well. Tracks like “Comet Away With Me” let her show off some less-percussive, non-action-oriented fireworks marking inner turmoil for the show’s characters. The solitary track from The Elysian Kingdom, “You’re My Mercury Stone”, is another track like that, and it’s simply gorgeous. Overall, the season one soundtrack hits a nice balance of music from action scenes and music from revelatory character moments as well. I look forward to hearing more of Nami Melumad’s work on both this series and Star Trek: Prodigy in the future. I don’t think it’s much a stretch to say that her work is the current sound of Star Trek at its best.

  1. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Main Title Theme) by Jeff Russo (01:52)
  2. Everyone Wants a Piece of the Pike (03:51)
  3. Put a T’Pring On It (02:56)
  4. Eyes on the Enterprise (04:42)
  5. Home is Where the Helm Is (04:17)
  6. Space Cadet (01:01)
  7. Comet Away With Me (02:36)
  8. Romancing the Comet (03:23)
  9. M’hanit and Greet (07:01)
  10. Since I First Saw the Stars (03:55)
  11. A Holding Pattern (04:44)
  12. Gorn With the Wind (05:29)
  13. The Pike Maneuver (02:03)
  14. Gorn But Not Forgotten (03:25)
  15. Are You a Vulcan or a Vulcan’t? (03:00)
  16. Spock Too Soon (02:03)
  17. Chris Crossed (03:44)
  18. Looking For Ascension in All the Wrong Places (03:04)
  19. Ascent-ial Questions (02:01)
  20. T’Pring It On (01:43)
  21. Pirates in the Sky (02:55)
  22. Will You Be My Vulcantine? (02:45)
  23. Won’t You Be My Pirate? (03:38)
  24. You’re My Mercury Stone (02:05)
  25. Don’t Leave in Uhurry (02:55)
  26. When the Hemmer Falls (04:09)
  27. No One’s Ever Neutral About Spaghetti (02:54)
  28. Throw Plasma From the Train (05:29)
  29. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (End Credits) by Jeff Russo (00:58)

Released by: Lakeshore Records
Release date: April 28, 2023
Total running time: 94:23

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