Nicolai P. Zwar

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  • in reply to: What are you listening to now? #11175
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Annie Lennox - Songs of Mass Destruction

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11155
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    I didn’t like it much either, though Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar was deserved.

    in reply to: FSM # 29: Why the obsession with trailer music? #11137
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    I don’t really understand the question. Isn’t it perfectly normal that if one hears a piece of music one likes in a trailer, one may wonder what that is and where it originally came from? It used to be that they often used music from one movie in the trailer for another. I guess nowadays, trailers even oft have “original” music composed for them. And there are even soundtrack CDs/digital releases just with trailer music.

    There used to be a list on Soundtrack net back in the day with lots of information which music was used where. Not sure if they moved to filmmusic.com, which is where I see the list now: Trailer Music list on Filmmusic com

    It has a list of “Top frequently used cues”, with ALIENS, for example, listed 24 times.

    I used to sometimes wonder which music I heard in a film trailer, and these sites often helped me to find that information.

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11126
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    I’ve steered clear of the Russell Crowe EXORCIST film thus far, and your feedback doesn’t make me want to change that.

    It’s dull and confused.

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11124
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    THE BOOGEYMAN is pretty decent, agreed. I see I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on MUBI, which is good.

    That’s the equivalent of “6/10” that I gave it. 🙂

    in reply to: Importance of booklets and liner notes #11122
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Liner notes for soundtrack CDs are a bit like the supplemental bonus material on Blu-ray releases. If it’s a (more or less) concurrent release, extras/liner notes/booklets are seldom more then a few flattering promotional notes, if it’s an archival restored release of a classic film (or film score), you often get in depth notes, enlightening making-ofs, etc.

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11099
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Watched two “horror movies” recently… one good, one bad.
    THE EXORCISM by Joshua John Miller (that’s the bad one) and THE BOOGEYMAN by Rob Savage (that’s the good one).

    It’s interesting to compare these and short-review these side by side, because they are from the same era, probably had similar resources, and both try to play around with “spooky stuff that lurks in the dark”, but one is a complete snore-feast and the other is a delightfully spooky take on “monsters in the closet”.

    Let’s start with THE EXORCISM by Joshau Miller (2/10, 2024)
    Russell Crowe plays an aging, alcoholic actor who gets another break when he gets the lead role as the Exorcist an “Exorcist type” movie called “The Georgetown Project” (which is basically “The Exorcist”), but who starts to become mysteriously possessed, so that the movie’s catholic priest consultant has to perform an actual excorcism on the actor. But the movie around him never figures out what it wants to be. It has the budget, the cast, the premise, yet it drifts like a production waiting for someone to call “action.” Scenes stretch without tension. The pacing sags. The film keeps hinting at something clever, something meta, something dangerous, but never commits. What should feel like a descent into madness instead feels like watching someone rehearse for a better movie that never arrives. Professionally made, yes. But dramatically inert. A horror film that forgets to be horrifying, or even interesting. A boring snore…. almost stopped watching it… that’s how boring it was.

    Unlike THE BOOGEYMAN by Rob Savage (6/10)

    Sure, this may not be a masterpiece either, but who cares. As I said, I like it when a movie simply knows what it’s doing. And this one knows. It’s a lean, confident spookfest built on an old Stephen King short story. King’s biggest strength as an author has always been to write about or from the perspective of children. This movie taps into the primal childhood terror of the closet door left slightly ajar. The setup is simple: the two daughters of a recently widowed therapist get haunted by the mysterious titular antagonist after a seemingly disturbed patient commits suicide in their home. Nothing new under the sun (or in the shade), but the execution is sharp. The film moves with purpose. You immediately know what’s at stake. The scene when a seemingly disturbed patient is desperately trying to explain that his three children were killed by a mysterious creature but he is now a prime suspect is well played, and after the patient commits suicide you just know which family that creature will latch on to next (that’s why we’re here and watch the movie). THE BOOGEMAN does well, balancing emotional weight with well‑timed jolts. It understands that the fear of what might be hiding just out of sight is more potent than most big CGI reveals. The result is a horror movie that respects its audience enough to scare them honestly—through craft, rhythm, and a clear sense of what story it wants to tell. It’s the type of movie kids who are officially not old enough to see them yet should love (I know I would have).

    in reply to: The 1 Album Per Post Thread #11094
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Thanks, Руслан32, really great post, exactly what I was “looking for”; namely: Just pick an album you like and put a spotlight on it.

    I actually have THE SHROUDS (I have all of Shore’s scores for Cronenberg movies in my collection), but not yet listened to it (and haven’t seen the movie yet).
    I’m really looking forward to give it a spin now.

    (PS: yeah, separated paragraphs would make for better legibility. But I read it all anyway. 🙂 )

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #11073
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    That’s really cool, I like vintage HiFi… cassettes were my own first way of listening to music, albums or songs dubbed to cassette, before I ever purchased my own albums.
    Have you played them recently to see how they hold up?

    in reply to: The 1 Album Per Post Thread #11069
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    It’s certainly an odd movie. And it’s also an odd score. As I said, I don’t think it’s a score for “everybody”, and the movie isn’t nearly as good as some of its ideas are, some animated scenes are great, yet remain isolated in a narrative mess. Still my personal favorite of Bakshi’s movies though (which are all a bit odd). The trailer contains music from Belling’s original score.

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11068
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    I think CRIME 101 succeeds because it is exactly what the makers set out to make: a good solid actioner for adults. The type of movie that Sam Peckinpah or Don Siegel or Walter Hill might have made in the 70s. Some of their movies like GETAWAY are now considered “classics”, but they were just thought of as taut well made genre fare at best in their day. And that is where CRIME 101 succeeds and why it surprised me.
    There are not a lot of movies of its kind anymore, and if there are, they then try so hard to be relevant, as if they had to trump everything that came before them, that they feel overwrought. This movie is smart enough to not go into that direction and sticks to its guns: it wants to be a clean, confident, grown‑up crime thriller. No more, no less. And it’s no less.

    in reply to: Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen! #11065
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    CRIME 101 (Bart Layton, 2026) (8/10)

    CRIME 101

    Saw this the other day, and what can I say, it’s better than I expected: clean, tight, and stylish without pretending to reinvent the wheel. It’s a solidly made gangsters vs cops vs other gangsters movie.

    So what’s it about? Chris Hemsworth plays jewel thief with a code. He strikes with such precision, that no one gets physically hurt, and he’s done this for some time. Mark Ruffalo plays the cop who starts to connect the dots and closes in on him… and Halle Berry as the insurance agent who finds herself pulled into the gravitational field between them. The setup is classic, but it’s probably “classic” for a reason: when it’s done well, and it’s done well here, then it works. The execution has that 2026 polish: sharp edges, clean lines, there is the sense that everyone involved knows exactly what kind of movie they’re making and know how to make it good.

    Comparisons to THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and HEAT come easy to mind… probably because they are justified. You can feel the lineage: the elegance of the heist, the cat‑and‑mouse psychology, the quiet professionalism of people who are very good at what they do. CRIME 101 isn’t as great a classic as HEAT, but it’s smart enough to know that and so finds its own footing. It’s still a good 2026 take on a classic theme, and as such, it is already a kind of movie that almost feels like a dinosaur in todays MARVEL/FRANCHISE/STAR WARS/MISSION IMPOSSIBLE etc.. .film world. This one is a stylish thriller that doesn’t try to be hip and aim for the kid market, nor does it have any franchise ambitions. It updates the familiar themes and puts its own spin on them.

    What makes it work is that it stands on its own. It’s not a masterpiece, but it doesn’t need to be. Just to be a good movie of its kind is already a lot… something that has become increasingly rare. CRIME 101 is a confident, well‑executed crime thriller that respects the audience’s intelligence and delivers exactly what it promises: tension, charm, a few surprises, and characters who feel like they have lived in this world before the opening scene. In a movie and streaming world crowded with noise, CRIME 101 earns its place by being something refreshingly simple: a good movie made well. That counts for a lot nowadays. Thumbs up.

    in reply to: The 1 Album Per Post Thread #11061
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    There may be similar threads of what I had in mind, and of course there are threads about individual scores, but that’s not really what I was looking for. I thought of this more along the line of browsing through the files in a record store, where you pull out that one album and start talking about it. A thread that tells a bit about the albums and about the people who post about them. And if more people do it, it might just become a thread with all kinds of albums and short (or long, by all means, no one’s stopping anyone) album introductions.

    So not so much a thread about a single score, nor a thread with just lists of scores, but the “pick one album and talk about it” thread. 🙂

    Here’s an example what I had in mind (which I of course already wrote while you replied here).

    I’m talking about WIZARDS by Andrew Belling.
    Released by La-La Land Records in 2012 (LLLCD 1223)

    WIZARDS by Andrew Belling

    I first stumbled onto the movie WIZARDS decades ago, back when VHS finally meant you could watch strange, culty films at home instead of waiting for some late night TV slot. I had read about the movie in a film book and actively sought it out. The movie mixes fantasy, science fiction, and is a bit of a psychedelic fever dream. The plot is simple: two twin wizards, one good, one evil, leading their nations continually into war, with the good side fending of the bad side, until the “bad” side rediscovers and weaponizes Third Reich propaganda… It was bizarre, bold, and unlike anything else I’d seen. Not necessarily “good”, but most certainly “unique”. And interesting. So I watched the movie several times.
    One thing stood out for me: Andrew Belling’s score.
    It didn’t sound like regular animation music, and definitely not what regular animation music sounded like in the 1970. No Mickey Mousing, no wall to wall orchestral bombast, no musical songs. (There is a song, a nice one even, but it’s not a “musical song”.) Instead you get this odd fusion of jazz, lounge, a surprisingly charming song, touches of classical writing, and a general 1970s vibe that feels both handmade and completely sincere. It is a quirky, and in my view strangely beautiful score. A perfect match for Bakshi’s off kilter world.
    For years I hoped the score might somehow get released, but realistically… who was going to put out the music from a decades old cult film by a composer who wasn’t exactly a household name like Goldsmith or Williams. It felt like a long shot.
    And then La La Land actually did it. In 2012. That was wow, they released one of my old forgotten favorites from my youth days.
    I doubt it was a big seller, which is a shame, because it’s one of those albums that exists almost in spite of the market. For me, it was a small miracle. A piece of my teenage film discovery years suddenly preserved, cleaned up, and sitting on my shelf.
    I even had a bit of contact with Andrew Belling via social media, just brief exchanges, but he came across as genuinely warm, gracious, and delighted that people still cared about his work. He passed away last year at 80, and that makes the album feel even more personal now.
    This isn’t a score for everyone. It’s not traditionally “epic,” it’s not orchestral, and it doesn’t try to be. But if you’re in the mood for a funky, jazzy, slightly psychedelic 1970s concept album meets film score, WIZARDS is a wonderfully unusual little journey.

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #11051
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Sony walkman 😎

    Do you still have cassettes for it?

    in reply to: Let’s talk collections and listening habits! #11050
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Wow, that example got really expensive!!

    If all my investments increased that way, I’d be rich!

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #11048
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Though digital releases make it possible… you could just buy/download the tracks or parts of a release that you want.

    Indeed, although with albums that have more than a few tracks it is often more expensive to buy one or two tracks than just buying the whole album.

    True, but this particular discussion is explicitly not about price; it is not a price issue, it’s about getting the album you personally want. So you could still buy the whole album and exclusively download the tracks or sections of tracks that you personally want. Nothing more, nothing less.

    in reply to: Let’s talk collections and listening habits! #11046
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Yes. I mean, you can currently still find that very album cheaper elsewhere (I just looked), and of course I bought it for a “sale” price (€7.25 is of course a “deal”), but it’s just an example that demonstrates a clear tendency.

    Thanks and good summary! I didn’t meant to indicate that physical media was rasing!

    I know you didn’t, it was me who just read the numbers at first glance and thought WTF!, so at first they threw me off. So I just clarified that for the rest of us.

    in reply to: Let’s talk collections and listening habits! #11041
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Wow, thanks for the link, Malte, very interesting! I’m always interested in statistics (I’m a fact and numbers guy), so this is right up my alley.

    So there is no misunderstanding: the numbers Malte quoted are not indicative of any rise in physical media sales, they are still “shrinking”. However, as they shrink, the average spending per paying person for physical media increased by +49% from 2015 to 2025.

    This doesn’t mean the market or the revenue grew by 49% (the full statistics clearly show the opposite), but that the people who still buy physical media today spend significantly more money per person on average than they did ten years ago.

    Which of of course typical for a niche market. When CDs were a mass product, they were there right and left, and while our specialty label releases had pretty much stable prices through all the decades (ignoring shipping/customs), I’ve bought a lot of cheap CDs over the years in bulk, even new shrink-wrapped CDs were often on sale or priced in stores at times for €5.-. Not to mention that used-CD stores had full bins. That’s all gone.

    Now CDs occupy the same kind of niche vinyl occupied two decades ago and has ever since. A small but dedicated group of collectors, who cherish their releases and want their music on physical media. And like vinyl, that leads to an increase in price.

    All I need to to is scroll through my Amazon list for some of the classical recordings I’ve bought over the years there, and compare the price I paid then to what the same release would cost me now. It’s often tripled or quadrupled in price, sometimes even more. Sometimes, there are offers of used CDs way more expensive than they were when I bought them new.

    Just an example from my own Amazon orders:

    I bought this album on November 9th 2020 via Amazon for €7.25. A perfectly “normal” mainstream classical music release by a big label that I bought “on sale”.
    Yuja Wang - Transformation - 11/09/2020

    Now I just took a look at what that same release would cost me today, not even six years later:

    Yuja Wang - Transformation - 05/13/2026

    I could mention quite a few such examples. Of course, I also find some CDs that cost more or less the same, and you can still find good deals, but chances are, in a few years those good deals will cost a lot more or will be hard to find as well.

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #11036
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    This is how it often looks when I listen to music, it’s usually evening. So it’s a snapshot from where I’m just sitting right now.

    Evening Setup Listening

    I posted once a video on the How Do You Live? thread, but since I had the display of the T+A turned off (which I sometimes have… as I said, I like it “minimal”, just a glowing orb emanating music without a body), it wasn’t visible.

    On the pic here you can now see what I’m listening to as I post this.

    in reply to: All things STAR TREK…. #11020
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    There’s often the STAR TREK vs STAR WARS angle, so let’s get the most important part out of the way: If I had to choose the music of only one franchise for the rest of my life, every series, every film, every game, I’d choose STAR TREK. OK, now that that’s out of the way….

    STAR TREK was — I’m pretty sure — my first encounter with science fiction. I was a small kid watching Kirk, Spock and McCoy navigate the universe with a mixture of swagger, logic and exasperated medical ethics. It felt important, even if I couldn’t yet articulate why. It still does. I don’t know how often I built the NCC 1701 USS Enterprise with my Lego blocks. It’s still perhaps the most beautiful spaceship I know.

    STAR WARS is cinema, STAR WARS is mythic, operatic, built for the big screen and the big gesture. STAR TREK is television. It is conceptual, discursive, and at its best when the Enterprise crew is essentially doing what we were doing at home: sitting in chairs and staring at a large screen. The bridge is, in a sense, the universe’s most expensive living‑room setup. STAR TREK is television… even the characters in STAR TREK watch television most of the time. 🙂

    I adore the original series and THE NEXT GENERATION. I’ve seen every episode. What made these shows tick? Perhaps the pleasure of watching familiar minds wrestle with unfamiliar problems. STAR TREK works because it’s built for that rhythm. There is an encounter with a strange culture or phenomenon, followed by the triangulation of perspectives: Kirk is action, Spock is logic, McCoy is humanity. TNG refined the formula with Picard’s liberal‑arts gravitas and Data’s ongoing quest to understand the species that built him and Worf’s “Klingon’s don’t cry” attitude.

    This is where the STAR TREK’s heart beats: in the scientific, moral and philosophical discussions that unfold around the conference table. The special effects were always secondary in STAR TREK. There are some who decry STAR WARS for being “space fantasy” (which of course it is, nothing wrong with that), yet consider STAR TREK more scientifically sound… hahaha… yeah, and STAR TREK has interspecies offspring! Sorry, but that is just way more “fantasy” than Yoda juggling stones with his mind.

    There is, of course, one glorious exception to my “Trek belongs on television” thesis: STAR TREK – THE MOTION PICTURE. I remember seeing the Enterprise on a cinema screen for the first time, bathed in Douglas Trumbull’s effects and propelled by Jerry Goldsmith’s glorious, all time favorite score, and feeling something close to awe. The film is slow, contemplative, occasionally self‑indulgent… and unmistakably aligned with Gene Roddenberry’s original vision. It’s the one Trek film that feels like an actual science fiction movie…

    The rest of the films? Well, they try. Some succeed more than others. I have seen them all, some I like more than others (my second favorite STAR TREK movie is actually not THE WRATH OF KHAN but INSURRECTION), but the truth is that STAR TREK’s conceptual architecture is theatrically-stagey in the old sense. It is built for episodic exploration, not blockbuster escalation. When the franchise leans too hard into action and space battles what not, it usually falls flat. STAR WARS is much better at action scenes than STAR TREK.

    As for the later series, I’ve seen quite a bit of DEEP SPACE NINE and dipped into VOYAGER, and the newer shows beyond that barely register beyond a polite nod. Haven’t seen any of the TV shows of recent years, though I’d probably find LOWER DECKS entertaining. The J.J. Abrams films were… forgettable. Pleasant enough for two hours, then gone from memory like a transporter beam that never bothered to reassemble. STAR TREK in name only. Best thing about them, once gain, was the music by Michael Giacchino.

    So we’re back to the music! That is where STAR TREK becomes something else entirely. Goldsmith, Horner, Rosenman, Eidelman, McCarthy, Chattaway, Jones, Courage, Giacchino… a lineage of composers who treated the franchise a canvas for orchestral storytelling, Star Trek seems to get the best out of composers. All Star Trek scores are great (just some are “greater” than others, if you excuse the Orwell reference). I pretty much love them all. Even when the scripts wobble, the music stands tall.

    In the end, STAR TREK is best when it invites discussion about who we are, who we might become…. So that’s a lot going for a small TV show that was cancelled after two, then three seasons.
    So STAR TREK will always have a special place in my heart, even though I’m not at all interested in watching any of the new shows… from what I hear, they are all bad anyway.

    in reply to: FSM # 28: Piano virtuoso #11014
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Can’t a violin (or any string instrument) actually play more than one note with some advanced technique? 😉

    Yeah, ok, let’s get the violin get away with it… but not a flute. 🙂

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #11012
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    think ‘real world’ is the key word here. My suggested compromise solution of having two separate soundtrack releases does not belong in the real world. It’s simply not feasible. It’s easier for labels to include everything in the same package.

    Though digital releases make it possible… you could just buy/download the tracks or parts of a release that you want.

    I think the thing is: desires and preferences are what they are, they are neither “altruistic” nor “anti-altruistic”, it’s when you want your desires fulfilled at the expense of other people’s desires, especially when it’s most other people’s desires, then it might be time for a moment of self-reflection/evaluation. (Not saying that you do that.)

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #11010
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    The T+A plays just about anything you throw at is… CDs, WAVs, FLACs, ALACs, AIFFs, MP3, UPnP/DLNA, it’s got Qobuz/Deezer/Tidal/Roon “built in”

    Hopefully you get updates many years to come for the services supported… That’s the kind of dependency on these devices that would puzzle me if I had such.

    I definitely understand that, we are living in a world were some things change fast… I bought the device in 2017 (there were few comparable units out there at the time), but so far, there have been regular updates and if I have any questions or issues, T+A has reliably answered. Can’t really complain about the service. I have a Qobuz subscription and use occasionally Roon (I had used Tidal for a while, never had a Spotify or Deezer subscription anyway) and so far it all works fine. But who knows what tomorrow will bring? Who knows if any of these streaming services will be there in five years, or even in two, or even next month… If I had to rely on updates to keep the device useful, yeah… I understand those worries.

    However, my previous Technics system played for 20 years and never got any updates. Because obviously amps and CD-players usually don’t need updates. Classic HiFi devices did not require updates, there was no Internet, no way to even get updates, and the “bulk” of the T+A device is simply “classic HiFi“.

    The thing that’s update relevant would be obviously music services like Qobuz/Deezer/Tidal/Roon. Now even if all of these went out of existence and the T+A would get no updates at all anymore… even then it would still be an excellent amplifier and CD player and Network streamer, it would still be an excellent amp for the Blu-rayplayer and TV set, and it would still be an exceptionally good DAC where I could hook up any additional devices I want, so it’s still quite “future proof”.

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #11008
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    hard to explain.

    Which is probably why it’s hard to understand. 🙂

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #11007
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    That’s now more a philosophical discussion… are preferences inherently self‑centered? Do they carry moral weight?
    I don’t really think so, so again, I don’t think “egoistic” is the right word. Sure, a preference is purely “personal“, you can “prefer” anything you want, it’s a personal thing… it may be subjective, it may be unreasonable, it may be all kinds of things… I think some preferences can obviously lead to egoistic or anti-altruistic behavior/actions, but a “preference” in itself seems rather value neutral to me. I can prefer coffee over tea, that’s a personal preference. If I declare all tea illegal and demand that everyone drinks coffee, now that would be something else. But whatever, no need to belabor the point, as I said, I think anyone can prefer anything they want anyway (which is why I’d say La-La Land releases are about as close as possible in the film score world to get anyone whatever they want as seems humanly possible in the real world).

    Speaking of THE FURY, I ended up with several copies of that score, including two of the 2CD Varèse Sarabande CDs you have. I also had two La-La Land 2CD sets (basically the same as the Varèse Sarabande set), and two “regular” soundtrack editions. I traded some of these away over the years.

    THE FURY is one of those cases where I personally love and need “both” versions, as they are substantially different. John Williams made a great original soundtrack album for THE FURY, the tracks are well selected, excellently performed, and both the performance and the music itself are significantly different from the film tracks. The soundtrack recoding has the wonderful “Epilog”, whereas the film recording contains action music from beginning of the movie and the Fog Scene, music I always wanted to have before I even had my first CD. “Gillian’s Power” is more aggressive on the film tracks and has the theremin, which Williams didn’t use in the re-recording. So THE FURY is one case where I like the original film tracks recording and the soundtrack album recording equally.

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #11001
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    The T+A plays just about anything you throw at is… CDs, WAVs, FLACs, ALACs, AIFFs, MP3, UPnP/DLNA, it’s got Qobuz/Deezer/Tidal/Roon “built in” (no Spotify though for some reason); all my music is on a NAS in our “utility room”, so it’s out of the way, and from there it gets served to wherever I need it.

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #11000
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    My preference does not encompass pleasing other people’s preferences. A preference is by nature anti-altruistic.

    Fair enough, though I don’t think that is so. Actions can be altruistic or anti-altruistic, but preferences cannot be either.

    in reply to: What’s your HiFi setup? #10997
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Haha, that’s great, I just gave that into the A.I.: glowing orb in the middle of the living room, out of which all music emanates, and voila, there you have it, that’s how I listen to music:

    Glowing Orb of Music

    Looks kinda nice really.

    I used to have a Technics Setup, with Technics receiver, CD player, Tape Deck, and turntable, with I.Q. floor standing loudspeakers. I found an old image of at least the turntable.

    Technics SL-1200 turntable with John Williams THE RIVER

    I sold all of that (except the tape deck, I kept that), and since I don’t have a dedicated “listening room” but it’s all part of our living room, I have a very streamlined, minimalist but capable setup.
    I have a T+A R1000E, which is basically the equivalent of a “Swiss Army Knife” HiFi unit. It’s an all in one unit, a fully integrated amplifier, streaming/Network player, and even has a built-in CD player, and also comes with digital and analog inputs (and our TV and Blurayplayer are connected to it). I had been skeptical with these types of devives but that one I found quite convincing and extremely well built when I bought it years ago and it hasn’t let me down since. My speakers are a pair of Audio Physic Avanti.

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #10992
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    Which 2CD set of THE FURY do you have? Do you want to trade against a single Varèse Sarabande CD?

    in reply to: What is your favourite soundtrack record label? #10990
    Nicolai P. Zwar
    Participant

    I don’t believe I ever argued that. I just said that LLL is “not a label for me”. It clearly is a label for most fans, since most fans prefer C&C.

    Not directly, no, but the way you tend to belabor the point makes it at least appear that way at times. I’m all for anyone listening to music in any way they see fit, and the more people are able to listen to the music they want in the way they want, the better. And Labels like La-La Land are about as good at providing that as I can see would be possible.

    A good example is THE FURY, which I just relistened to a couple of days ago. I had the original Varese release for many years, but then someone sent me the 2CD set that included both the OST and the film recording. I proceeded to SELL the old CD, since the OST was already in the set, and in remastered sound. I’ve regretted it ever since. I just want it to be an entity that contains the OST, nothing more, nothing less. I put it on, press play and let it play out. And when it’s over, that’s it. There’s nothing more to be had or be found anywhere on the disc. I find that more compelling.

    See, that’s what I mean. THE FURY already gives you the original album on its own disc even, just like you said… you can press play, enjoy it, and never touch the second CD. So when the mere existence of additional material on a release becomes a complaint, it stops being about your listening habits and starts sounding like an objection to other people having options you don’t personally use. Since THE FURY allows you to already do exactly what you describe: put on the album disc, let it run, and call it a day. Nothing about the expanded set interferes with that. Which is why the complaint about the second disc comes across, intentionally or not, as something else entirely: not a matter of listening, but a matter of limiting what others get to hear.

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