Power to the Peeps!

When things worth writing about show up, does it mean they always have to be arranged into a pre-formatted "review" meant to summarize as many cliches as possible while selling us on the idea this score or that is something to buy or reshape your opinions around someone's star rating?

That seems incredibly unappealing to me right now. I would prefer to rankle the form police and just scatter this article to the winds. Does it matter what someone else thinks about music? Does it matter to the musicians? I don't know, but I definitely can think of topics worth discussing.

Elliot Goldenthal's score is months old, but sometimes it takes time for music to sink in, establish its presence, and to resonate. I admit to never having seen the film, and that may invalidate my perception to some, but so far no one has settled the issue of whether a movie score must be music only in context or if it can communicate from its own power. I've heard the story involves an attack and the destruction of humanity, in the future (if only) and a woman who must save everyone with her teacher's spiritual approach in competition with the militant "nuke em" strategy of a general.

The soundtrack album on Sony Classical presents a full conception much like this, given in searing emotional terms. I think this work is beautiful. I won't even justify my remarks with musicology (even if I could) or reference to the alleged influences of past composers listed in the composer's liner notes -- Ligeti, Penderecki, the 20th Century Polish school, Strauss Romanticism, I know what those people are about but those are meaningless terms to me -- the music is going to have to fly on its own.

Rarely has a Goldenthal score exhibited as much purity of feeling, beyond the powerful dissertation of style often cited as postmodern music, but going into depths not ringed with irony and concept. The melodic themes are just what they are, and it's not just a matter throwing out a theme to stand for something emotional in the way of standard practices, but bringing it out with a nuanced feel for circumstances at hand, for weighting the fullness of its power; the timing is exquisite in that the accumulation of ideas adds to layered expressivity and a complete world seems to be evoked. The sheer textural sound of the utilized stylistic matter is worth reveling in: the full-throated barbarous dissonances, rhythms and cadences, forming a glistening apocalyptic vision giving way to a haunting sensuousness of intimate concerns -- it's a complete realization beginning to end, "symphonic" in a period in which that idea is ignored or denigrated by weak pundits and film directors.

The playing by the LSO is one of the better showcases for the current generation of a great orchestra, sleek and seemingly a reserve of infinite power -- what better recent recordings are there detailing such incredible brass playing as here, and on Williams' "Phantom Menace"?

Do you like the songs attached to the end of the CD? I do. The Lara Fabian theme song, "The Dream Within," seems, like the one for "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon," part of a new genre of songs given a pure emphasis with composer-participation, and "Spirit Dreams Inside," performed by the Japanese band L'Arc-En-Ciel (Arc in the Sky) is great!

I keep going back to this album. It has a way of ennobling things, a tone poem of humanity vs. encroaching nihilism, or in emotional terms, vs. despair. Maybe the shattering world problems we have around us somehow contribute to the aura, but I think Mr. Goldenthal, as a strong artist of our time, has really made a statement we can live with, and depend on. Rating: 100%

GHOSTS OF MARS

John Carpenter knows what works for his style and his new film is in my opinion distinguished primarily by the high octane energy fueling his soundtrack, done in collaboration with metal artists Robin Finke, Buckethead, Steve Vai, and the former Anthrax (now Basket Full of Puppies?)

Old-fashioned in several ways, the score pulses with a defiant '70s beat that is low-key and portentuous, sometimes registering a Rio Bravo vibe supported by the siege in the film (interesting that Carpenter's decades-old style still never drones aimlessly but is always at work washing over his scenarios with dread or existential reflection, a few good intervals and more rhythm). Action is signaled by full-on metal flame-thrower assaults blasted out in intriguingly complex layerings Glen Branca guitar symphonies would just melt down in trying to match. The technology is techno but the use of it is perversely indigent. 79%

This is a collection on Reprise of Ennio Morricone themes treated with techno enhancements. Though techno, hip hop and new age have mostly replaced all other forms of music, it doesn't all have to be Buick commercials, P Diddy, and "Pearl Harbor," there can still be creativity in even the most commercialized formats.

But this album isn't very good. The themes are some of Morricone's mellowest or they've been reduced to elevator music on purpose. Morricone is always willing to mix it up with transient pop styles and his own soundtracks are sharper and snap with energy. These arrangements are his too, but whether this contributes to the sleepiness or if it's a too-cautious approach by the artists, it makes for only intermittent patches of interest that nevertheless register as sleek coolness and urbane lyricism.

I don't expect any of these to catch on at this week's rave, so the rationale for the album isn't clear. Apollo Four Forty gives "Man with a Harmonica" the feel of a classic theme drowning in syrup. Terranova's "For a Few Dollars More" is beaten to a pulp by a cheesy keyboard arrangement of this I heard over a Vietnamese restaurant's p.a. system.

What do I like? "Here's to you" arranged from "Saccho and Venzetti" by Copasetic Con Vivi e Selda has a haunting vibe that seems exactly what Graeme Revell's Red Planet score was trying to be, punctuated with mordant buzzard sqwauks. Fantastic Plastic Machine takes "Belinda May" and makes a trippy ordeal out of it. "Lizard on a Woman's Skin" by De-Phazz has the obsessive bite of the Fulci experience, and "Clan of the Sicilians" by DJ Dick from Rockers Hifi is a genuine interpretation and has a low-slung dangerous vibe perfect for cruising around in a 1975 Ford LTD. Well, no, that would require Morricone's original "Svolte Definitiva" from "Citta Violenta." If you have that one, be careful! Rating: 52%

I know the Craig Armstrong score album is available on import leaving the domestic album a song compilation, but the question is do you really need it? I loved parts of the film, specifically Jet Li's and Corey Yuen's magnificent hard choreography almost jacking the fun meter to "Commando" levels, and loathed the rest of it.

I think Jet Li started off with a lot of power in Richard Donner's 2/3s great "Lethal Weapon 4" and then lost his way. Nothing has lived up to his best HK films ("Fist of Legend," "Once Upon a Time in China," "Tai Chi Master") but at least there are mainstream features starring Chinese actors now, an advance.

The connection between Kung fu action and lame droning techno doodlings, i.e., clickety-clack noises, hip hop beats and sampled Iron Chef hits, gets very far away from me. I hate that crap. Nothing is as anti-creative as prefab computer music programs pasted on top of everything just to conform to one rule of what is supposed to be commercial. Excuse me, nothing is as anti-creative period. Chinese Martial Arts is about exuberance of movement, spirit and power, not Sprockets drum machine cliches coincidentally identical to Nissan commercials.

Did you know you can buy $40 software for your pc and create techno music every bit as creative or non-creative as the noise pimped out onto almost every movie there is? Point and click and you're a DJ! The empirate has no clothesline. "The One" starts in a couple of days from now, "Music by Trevor Rabin." Maybe you should review it! No, maybe you should score it.

Xie xie!

Michael Ware can be reached at akumascope@hotmail.com.