What are you listening to now?
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Don’t laugh! I was suddenly in a nostalgic mood, and decided to play one of the cassettes that I had as a kid — a Christmas gift from someone, I think, can’t remember who. Alas, the cassette itself (one of the few ORIGINAl cassettes I owned) has been lost to time, but the album is still on Spotify. Is it cheesy? Oh hell, yeah. But is it somehow appealing? Yes, I think so. I have a weird attraction to Stock, Aitken & Waterman songs.
Peaked a little into, didn’t really grab me, but nevertheless will take a close listen later.
Just re-disocvered this (I do have the original LP of it):
“Terra X” is a documentary series running since the 80s and this was the soundtrack of a mulitpart documentary about Atlantis from around 1988 obviously. “Alliance” is actually Jörn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen who probably does not ring any bell. But he is mainly active in pop music and for example the composer of Nena’s 80s hit “99 Luftballons (99 Red Ballons)” that probably some one outside Germany do know (btw. that song was co-produced by Reinhold Heil)
Speaking of “Terra X”: In the 80s it had nice electronic title themes. The first one seems to be just tracked (sounds a bit like Jarre to me…) and I was always fond of the 2nd 1986 theme and never found out who actually composed it:
But is it somehow appealing? Yes, I think so. I have a weird attraction to Stock, Aitken & Waterman songs.
Stock Aitken Waterman for sure had a very distinct style… “Never gonna give you up” 😉
I had actually heard MYTHIC GARDENS in 2014, three years before this release – as part of a radio broadcast concert that also included Williams’ “For Sejii!”, Goldenthal’s “Symphony in G Minor” and Horner’s “Flight” (I was sent the audio of this from an acquaintance in the industry at the time). But RUIN & MEMORY, I hadn’t heard before. Both of these surprised me in a positive sense. I had expected wild and weird “brood fests”, but they’re surprisingly accessible and mysterioso.
The only album to contain a legit release of Scorsese’s AFTER HOURS, one of my favourite Shore scores (love that mix of quirk, synth, baroque, jazz, pop and ticking elements). Also several tracks named after types of coffee (don’t know the origin of these) and a cue from Diane Keaton’s HEAVEN.
For those who can access them, arte still has two Shore concert movies online that Shore didn’t conduct himself but was there. Among some film suites there are also some concert works included: The Forest (guitar concerto), Fanfare for Organ and Brass, Mythic Gardens and Ruin and Memory.
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/114846-002-A/howard-shore-toedliche-versprechen-the-song-of-names/
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/114846-001-A/howard-shore-der-herr-der-ringe-die-fliege/You’re always on top of those arte things, Malte. Thanks for the heads-up.
Nick, I saw MARS EXPRESS a few months back (a few, Google-translated words on Montages). Wasn’t totally sold on the film itself, but I’d be curious to sample the score.
This 1986 score shows that Shore could write fine electronic scores like the best of ’em (OK, it has several acoustic elements too). Love it.
Nick, I saw MARS EXPRESS a few months back (a few, Google-translated words on Montages). Wasn’t totally sold on the film itself, but I’d be curious to sample the score.
I didn’t even know the movie, this ran through my Qobuz suggestions page, and I liked the cover. 🙂
Good heavens, great Scott… just watched the trailer…. there were elements in the MARS EXPRESS trailer of a science-fiction novel I wrote maybe thirty years ago (only the first half was ever finished, and it has rested somewhere among my files since then…); though my story took place on Earth, not on Mars. For some reason, MARS EXPRESS triggered my memory of that quite a bit… even though of course this movie has nothing to do with my novel, which no one even knows, as it’s just an unfinished manuscript no one’s ever read.
I’ve encountered that situation quite often. Wrote a lot of fiction in my late childhood and early teens, even two books. But one story had as its premise a man waking up on a space station/ship without knowing where he is. Of course, that is a trope that has been explored in various media now and then since I wrote my story, most recently in PROJECT HAIL MARY (although my story takes a different, more serious turn than that film). Always a bit odd when stuff like that happens.
MARS EXPRESS is a very talky film, by the way, lots of of information you need to process in dialogue and story. And lots of close-ups. Do not expect a film that gives you a sensation of “being there” and absorbing the atmosphere. And few signs of Mars, it could basically be any futuristic city. But if that still suits your fancy, feel free to give it a go. I’m sure it’s on some streaming service.
My novel, which I had given the working title “Charon’s Fare” if I remember correctly, opens with the investigation of a possible homicide in a pleasure-dome brothel, where a client has accidentally killed a real human being, being in shock and insisting that he didn’t know that she was real, believing her to be a pleasure droid. It turns out, the killed human was the daughter of the CEO of a software company that provides chips for the artificial intelligence programming of droids (including the semi-legal “pleasure droids” used in certain contexts). The daughter had gone into hiding for reasons not quite clear (in the first chapters, various theories are from people who knew her when questioned by the investigators, but none of them quite fall into place… on their own.).
One of the investigators (and one of the main characters) was a cop who was widowed three years prior to the happenings of the novel, and who is herself increasingly estranged from her daughter. That contrasts with her colleague, who is a happily married family man, yet not with a secret of his own… it was a mix of a psychological sci-fi detective story, or if I look back at it from today, a sort of “BLADE RUNNER meets CITIZEN KANE” with sex-robots, written in the style (of my then heroes) Harlan Ellison and William Gibson… Note: I’m not saying my writing was as good as theirs, only saying I was trying to be as good as them. It was one of several aborted attempts I made at writing an actual novel (I still have an non-aborted attempt in my figurative desk drawer).Intriguing storyline. I can definitely see the BLADE RUNNER inspiration in that. And of course that goes back to this thread, which is about our own creative writing (or attempts thereof), inspired by film music, but could really be any kind of sources. Might ressurect that with some thoughts on the subject later, now that it’s been brought up. That thread died way too soon.
That thread died way too soon.
You could move the last comments then it does look more active 😉 And you should sell the scripts to Hollywood 😉
I always knew about that score (was it the only one he did? And did he really conduct?), but I never really got around to sampling it.
The liner notes mention that Douglass Fake had experience with conducting and writing/orchestrating for larger ensemble, but that he had never written a film score. The score is written for chamber ensemble, a prominent clarinet, piano, violin, marimba, but since it’s a film score, I can imagine that Douglass Fake set the tempos.
It’s a short — the complete score is just 20 minutes long — but very charming score, stylistically perhaps a mix of Janáček’s “Pohádka” and Stravinsky’s “Soldier’s Tale”, works fully as a self contained “classical” chamber piece.
I got it years ago from Intrada… It is still available at Intrada for the reduced price of $2.99, so that’s certainly more than worth it. (But shipping… yeah, I know.)It must be available digitally as I have it on my libary’s streaming service (have marked it but not yet listened to it…) and just see Quobuz has it, too.
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