Now Playing XLI

Out for a Run. Get it right!

-Erik-

Word.

NP: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias)

A little too grim to be a compelling album, but the trembling energy and chamber ensemble are heartening to here when so many scores feel like a fat wad of indiscernible instrumental texture. And the main theme is pretty good.

If you don't like that score, do you have Agoraphobia?

"If I Could Just Unravel This" is one of my favorite Marianelli cues and could probably compete for top 100 of all time in my book.

See the movie too, this is one of the strongest audio-visual experiences out there, absolutely adore the film and Dario's approach. The final 10 minutes of the movie are exceptional.

I started the day with many clips that are posted on Facebook. I also listened to the Hobbit trailer 10 times again today. Good way to start the day!

No Thor you can sit incredibly close to the speakers.

NP : CONAN THE DESTROYER - Basil Poledouris



AWESOME! I can't stop playing this.

KRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

That's more like it!

You don't have to shout it EVERYTIME you know???

Don't be silly now, that's like trying to write BRIAN BLESSED in small letters.

Who is this brian blessed character anyway? I've never heard of him....

STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC - COLLECTOR'S EDITION SOUNDTRACK (MARK GRISKEY, GORDY HAAB, WILBERT ROGET II, LENNIE MOORE, JESSE HARLIN)

I would've expected E.W. to have posted something concerning this new SW score by now...

Anyway, this is the soundtrack to a role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe, and it has been a long time in the making (5 years or so I think). The score is finally here and while it doesn't even come close to John's original trilogy scores, it has a sound that is very similar to the prequel scores, there are a lot of references to Williams' material and the style of every second of music in the eleven cues of symphonic and choral power is undoubtedly Star Wars. Good to know that while John himself may never revisit the universe, there are enough composers out there trying to mimic his sound, and more importantly the SW sound.

A couple of cues stand out after one listen: First track 'Clash of Destiny' is Battle of Heroes all the way, there's no denying that. And there are the OT-inspired cues, 'Justice the Jedi Knight' and 'Peace the Jedi Consular' which have both so many references and alternate versions of the famous Williams themes they are very interesting to listen to. The rest of the cues are atmospheric cues in the lines of The Phantom Menace and action music from Attack of the Clones. It all sounds tremendously complex in the orchestrations but the only thing that is clearly missing is a thematic consistency to hold it all together, too bad really because what has been written couldn't sound any more like Star Wars than what maestro John has come up with. Also missing is a big climactic cue, but due to the nature of the videogame, it's an open-ended online game without a real ending, that doesn't come as a surprise.

I'm going to try this one a few more times, I love it when people come up with the sound of the films I love to death and do their best to pay tribute to the one who inspired them. Because that's really what this score is like. Just do not listen past track 11, because the horrid cantina band-like cues that follow are bloody awful.