Slipstream – music by Elmer Bernstein
Long coveted by soundtrack collectors, Elmer Bernstein’s Slipstream accompanies a movie that flew under nearly everyone’s radar in 1989. In retrospect, it’s hard to imagine that a movie starring Mark Hamiill and Bill Paxton, and directed by Steven “creator of Tron” Lisberger, could’ve escaped the collective geek consciousness, especially when it’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi western (more Mad Max than Firefly), but admit it: you don’t remember hearing about this movie either, much less seeing it.
Obviously, however, someone recalls hearing it: the Slipstream soundtrack has been one of the most-requested (and therefore, perversely, elusive) Elmer Bernstein scores from the late composer’s catalog. Bernstein himself had even gone through the trouble of selecting and sequencing tracks for a soundtrack album, but the movie’s failure to fly at the box office nixed those plans. After the composer’s death in 2004, the Slipstream master tapes, like the rest of his work, became part of a collection donated to the University of Southern California. When Perseverance Records set out to meet the demand for a Slipstream CD, they discovered that Bernstein had done much of the work for them.
Musically, Slipstream sounds like a spiritual cousin to Bernstein’s music from Ghostbusters. Both movies’ scores lean heavily on the theremin-like sound of the Ondes Martenot, an instrument whose unusual sound Bernstein championed as something of a personal crusade. Two of the best tracks highlighting this unique sound are “Dreams” and “Lost Android”. The movie’s 
post-apocalyptic world shows humans rediscovering flight, and these scenes get big, soaring musical accompaniment.
I’d heard enough rave reviews of this music over the years that picking it up without having seen the movie itself was a no-brainer; fans of Bernstein’s contributions to Ghostbusters and Heavy Metal will like this one.
… Read more
- Prologue and Pursuit (3:13)
- Escape (3:01)
- Dreams (4:07)
- Lost Android (3:02)
- Slipstream People (2:49)
- Avatar (4:53)
- Travel To Dance (5:56)
- Sacrifice (3:11)
- Museum Society (3:54)
- Android Love (2:54)
- Revenge and Resolution (12:21)
Released by: Perseverance Records
Release date: 2011
Total running time: 49:20
found myself wondering if perhaps the movie itself hasn’t gotten a bit of a bum rap, what with its plotline about a madman in a desert trying to manipulate a more powerful body (the Federation, by way of the Enterprise) in his quest to appease his god. With music like this, it’s almost enough to make one consider a rematch with the movie itself.
I’ve always been a casual fan of Chicago. When you’re growing up and both your mom and your older brother are taking turns cranking up the original Chicago Transit Authority double LP at every opportunity, you learn to like it, or you go nuts.
At least in punchier, well-arranged numbers like “Love Me Tomorrow”, “Stay The Night”, and “If She Would Have Been Faithful…”, as sappy and sugary as they may be, there’s at least some vestige of real Chicago in there. Bits of this collection are okay as stand-alone songs, but don’t listen to it right after the pre-80s Chicago hits compilations – the contrast will drive you nuts.
With a little bit of trepidation, I popped the retrospective collection of Duran Duran’s first ten years of hits into the CD player one night, only to come away from it with a reminder of how much I liked Duran Duran’s early stuff. 
With some of his earliest stuff only just recently becoming available on CD, this George Harrison greatest hits collection is just the ticket for those who don’t feel like trying to track down a bunch of out-of-print vinyl (and the turntable necessary to play it). Though it’s heavy on songs from the Jeff Lynne-produced Cloud Nine, which was only two years old when this CD was originally released, there is a lot of good stuff on here.
I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the new double DVD release of James Cameron’s 1989 underwater opus, and that prompted me to dig out my CD of the soundtrack. With other major films such as Roger Rabbit and Contact to his credit, Alan Silvestri is hardly an obscure composer. But The Abyss may be one of his most under-appreciated scores. The opening notes, which accompany the otherwise credit-less opening title of the film, proclaim the main choral figure of the entire score, an inspirational wall of voices that sounds appealingly like a hymn that should already belong to the classic musical canon, but doesn’t. This brief statement quickly gives way to a sustained burst of military snare drums, shattering the moment of wonder as the story begins. The next few tracks take place much further into the movie, as Michael Biehn’s character leads Ed Harris and his civilian divers on a recovery mission into a wrecked nuclear sub. The music takes on foreboding and mysterious atmospheres in turn as the threat of Beihn’s paranoid Navy SEAL character grows, and as the presence of the undersea beings becomes more evident with time. “The Fight” is much more percussive and electronic, and the relentless “Sub Battle” track leads into two of Silvestri’s best works ever: “Lindsey Drowns” and “Resurrection”. Those who have seen the movie will no doubt remember exactly what scenes this music covers.
While I stated in a previous review that Depeche Mode really lost me with Black Celebration, this CD maxi-single contained the only song of theirs that has piqued my interest since then, “Enjoy The Silence” from the 1990 album Violator. This heavily percussive number combines an interesting piece of music with an unheard-of innovation for Depeche Mode: a guitar! Yes, Martin Gore plays a little bit of guitar on this album, which isn’t really all that alien to the group’s sound – prior to recording its first album, Depeche Mode actually had two guitars! – 