Soylent Green / Demon Seed
This disc brings together the sparse scores for two futuristic ’70s techno-dystopia flicks for their first official release, complete with the usual wealth of knowledge that’s packed into the CD booklet on any of Film Score Monthly’s releases.
In the past, Soylent Green has been mentioned on this site as “a great place to see a pristine Computer Space machine,” but it turns out that, away from the dialogue of this Charlton Heston hand-wringer, the music is another oustanding feature of Soylent Green that stands up over time. Fred Myrow’s music for the movie’s introductory montage is an absolute revelation, blending rhapsodic strings, experimental electric guitars, and an honest-to-God hip-hop shuffle, years before anyone was calling it that. It starts out quiet and rather relaxing, and then builds to a busy, bustling peak about 2/3 of the way in, a musical illustration of the movie’s overpopulation problem. It’s just a great little piece of underscore – I think I listened to that track five times in a row when I first listened to this CD, because it’s just so stunning.
The various themes the run throughout the rest of the score are established in those opening titles as well, though in slightly different forms. It all adds up to a very cohesive score, and quite an impressive musical feat overall. I like the movie itself as a guilty pleasure, but I have no qualms about saying that the music is better than the movie, and I’m glad it can be heard here.
In a completely different vein musically is the 1977 techno-horror thriller Demon Seed, whose score was composed by original Star Trek veteran Jerry Fielding. If you’re expecting it to sound even vaguely like a classic Trek score, think again – Fielding goes largely electronic here, befitting the movie’s theme of a rapacious supercomputer that decides it needs to reproduce (with Julie Christie, no less). Rather like Soylent Green, Demon Seed hasn’t really aged very gracefully, though its sometimes abstract music was ahead of its time. Fans of early ’70s analog synth music should give this one a shot. Heard without dialogue or effects, it’s some very interesting music.
Though one might not normally think of these two films at the same time, this album is one of the best (and naturally, one of the more obscure) gems in Film Score Monthly’s library, and I highly recommend it.
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Soylent Green
- Prologue / Opening City Music (4:20)
- Can I Do Something For You? (1:47)
- Out For A Walk / Nothing Like This / Assassin Approaches / Necessary To God / New Tenant (5:29)
- Stalking The Pad (1:41)
- Tab’s Pad / Furniture Party (3:43)
- Shirl And Thorn (2:08)
- Home Lobby Source (2:58)
- Sol’s Music (6:29)
- Symphony Music (Tchiakovsky / Beethoven / Grieg) (6:17)
- Infernal Machine / Thorn In Danger / Are You With Us? / Alternate City Opening / End Credits (5:13)
Demon Seed
- Birth Scene / Speaking Room / Elk Herd (3:17)
- Proteus Requests / Light On / Your Phone Is Out (8:25)
- Visiting Hours / Probed And Put To Bed (3:24)
- The Gaz Chamber / Rape Of The Earth / How? / Hypnosis / Chimes (8:23)
- Pre-Trip / Big Wind / Sperm / Spirograph / Tetra Waltz (7:18)
- Last Voyage (2:35)
- Closing Crawl (2:03)
- End Credits (3:59)
Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 79:49