 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Roger F. at Intrada gave a few details when announcing their release of this terrific score:
"While The Andromeda Strain also broke new technical ground with the computer assisted effects by 2001’s Douglas Trumbull, perhaps the film’s most dazzling achievement would be Gil Mellé’s electronic score, the first of its kind truly composed to picture. Pushing boundaries was always in the bloodstream of Mellé. The Andromeda Strain was made even more challenging by Robert Wise’s desire to have electronics deliver the emotional impact of a traditional score without ever sounding like one. Mellé rose to the challenge by creating such new electronic instruments as the Percussotron, the world’s first percussion synthesizer. He also recorded a wealth of organic sounds, from pins being knocked down at a bowling alley to buzz saws in a lumber mill. Such seemingly normal instruments as pianos, string basses and percussion were electronically mutated into new musical forms as Mellé performed live in his temporary studio at Universal.The result of Mellé’s unique synthesis of sound effects and music was a Golden Globe-nominated score, one that not only captured the haunting, suspenseful sterility of Wise’s vision, but also the throbbing, sinister evolution of something truly alien amidst the “sci-fi” scoring that had come before it."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By the way, if this score appeals to you and you don't know the kind-of outsider electronic composer Tod Dockstader, he's worth your time:
A good start is his early album Quatermass (NOT composed for any of the films or tv shows):
http://www.starkland.com/st201/.
Or any of his more recent Aerial albums, that are derived from recordings of shortwave radio static. It's a lot more interesting and varied than the description suggests.
http://www.amazon.com/Aerial-1-Tod-Dockstader/dp/B0007O3920
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks to Last Child for the Desmond Leslie rec. Once in a while, my kind of stuff! Listening now on Spotify. (No, I'm not a Spotify salesperson, I am an ordinary person who loves it when Spotify has these crazy old obscure things I can listen to at will!)
This is the record in question, Music of the Future: http://www.trunkrecords.com/turntable/desmond_leslie.shtml.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
