Ambition – music by Atanas Valkov
How much musical accompaniment does a single space mission need? When it’s as enjoyable as this album, as much as it likes.
There’s already a full-length album of music by the late, great Vangelis – some of it composed prior to launch for ESA to use as part of its public outreach, and some of it composed after the mission was complete – and of course, since that was Vangelis (who also composed entire albums of music for NASA’s Juno and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions), it was lovely. But ESA also commissioned a short film as part of its public outreach, and rather than a dry, documentary-style piece, we got something a bit more fantastic, which spoke to ESA’s determination to contribute a first to the annals of space exploration and science. Set in an unspecified future in which space exploration is a part of history and yet magic is real (through technological means, it’s hinted), Ambition runs six minutes and change, and is a compact marvel of a decent script, nice visual effects, and two actors (both of them Game Of Thrones cast members who are in their fantasy element here) who aren’t overpowered by either – oh, and Valkov’s atmospheric score, as well. It’s precisely the kind of arty, offbeat piece of public outreach that you’d never get out of NASA these days. But the music score accounts for less than four minutes of the short’s run time, so Valkov had to rework some of his material to fill out the album, hence the extremely specific subtitle Original Soundtrack From and Inspired By The Ambition Film and the Rosetta Mission.
That reworking includes soundbytes from Rosetta’s 2004 launch and other press conferences, woven into extended versions – in some cases, they almost qualify as extended dance mixes – of the score cues from Ambition. The best tracks, however, really just seem like moody, could-be-a-film-score-in-their-own-right pieces of world music with some flourishes of orchestral grandeur. The six-minute piece “Outer Space (Suite for Vibraphone & Contrabass)” has a feel that’s unique on the entire album. Also unique is “Stubborn”, which picks up and develops a story theme from Ambition and builds a nice, somewhat dark, pop song around it. All of this nicely complements the three tracks of music from Ambition itself (which are grouped at the end of the album), managing to feel like it’s all of a piece. It’s a very relaxing, mesmerizing listen, and you don’t have to be intimately acquainted with the subject matter or the film to “get” it. (But hey, the film is embedded below anyway, because it’s neat.)
It’s worth noting that this album exists in two versions: a more recent reissue (an odd thing when both versions of the album are only available digitally) deletes the “Gravitational Slingshot (MarsShake)” track for reasons unknown, and presents the remaining 14 tracks in a different order. The track listing here, as well as the links to purchase the album in theLogBook.com Store, reflects the original 15-track version of the album.
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- Next Generation of Space Exploration (Rosetta Launch) featuring Prof. David Southwood & Alexander Gerst (03:56)
- People’s World (Extended) featuring Marta Zalewska (01:56)
- Probe (Philae Spacecraft) (01:50)
- Outer Space (Suite for Vibraphone and Contrabass) (06:16)
- Key to Life on Earth (Water Extended) (02:31)
- People’s World (A Singing Comet) featuring Manuel Senfft and Marta Zalewska (01:42)
- Gravitational Slingshot (MarsShake) (01:48)
- Agilkia (The Landing Site) featuring ESA Operations (02:50)
- Adrift (Cluster II Satellites) (01:40)
- Stubborn featuring MAVIN (03:54)
- Visitors (Into the Night Sky) featuring Prof. Mark McCaughrean (03:00)
- Prologue (original soundtrack) (01:21)
- Rosetta Mission (original soundtrack) (01:09)
- Water (original soundtrack) (01:16)
- Let There Be Light (Coda) (03:26)
Released by: IDMusic
Release date: January 15, 2015
Total running time: 38:27