Continuing the four-volume set of music from the updated Cosmos series, Volume Two gives a very strong impression that all four volumes should be heard together. The main theme from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey doesn’t appear on the second volume, which instead kicks things off with “S.O.T.I.”, the theme for the show’s Ship of the Imagination, which starts out playfully before embarking on a more adventurous theme. Some tracks, such as “Interspecies Partnership” and “Living In An Ice Age”, almost sound like horror film material, as the music continues to do some heavy lifting in conveying the drama behind what would otherwise be somewhat dry scientific descriptions. There are some lovely lyrical pieces as well, including “Natural Selection”, “Family Tree”, and “You And Me And Your Dog”.
There are hints of the show’s main theme in “Titan”, but the real heart of this second volume is a recurring, percolating theme first heard in “The Eye”. Though that piece eventually simmers down into something almost resembling Paddy Kingsland’s music from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, that rapid-fire theme reasserts itself forcefully in “Tardigrades” a few tracks later. It almost evokes clockwork with its precision – it’s kind of mesmerizing, and it’s really this volume’s “recurring theme”. Of the many themes that recur throughout the series’ music, this really emerges near the top for me.
There are three pieces presented on CD that weren’t included in the original digital release: “Interstellar Clouds”, another theme played out with clockwork precision and hints of the main theme from the series, the big-screen drama of “The Hardships Of Space”, and an alternate take on “S.O.T.I.” (with a slightly different middle section) to bring things full circle.
As much as one might expect the music for a science documentary to end up with well-intentioned synthesizer acrobatics (I still love you, Space Age), one of the best things about all of the music from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is that… it simply wasn’t that. Especially with Seth MacFarlane and his love of real live music on board, the budget and the resources were allocated to getting a full orchestra to play this stuff on the epic scale warranted by, well, the story of all life everywhere. The resulting lush music – and, one hopes, an increase in scientific literacy – are the real lasting gifts of this series.
- S.O.T.I. (1:29)
- You And Me And Your Dog (2:27)
- Interspecies Partnership (2:23)
- Artificial Selection (3:09)
- Living In An Ice Age (1:08)
- Genetic Alphabet (2:41)
- Natural Selection (3:05)
- Family Tree (3:49)
- The Eye (3:55)
- Theory Of Evolution (2:52)
- The Permian Period (5:11)
- Tardigrades (1:53)
- Titan (2:57)
- The Story Of Life (3:08)
- 4 Billion Years Of Evolution (1:03)
- Interstellar Clouds (3:17)
- The Hardships Of Space (1:39)
- S.O.T.I. – Alternate (1:29)
Released by: Intrada
Release date: September 11, 2017
Total running time: 48:20