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Posted: |
Nov 28, 2015 - 3:45 PM
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By: |
Washu
(Member)
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By obscure I mean smaller countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, North Korea and I guess most of Africa too. Just not South America, North America, Europe, China, Japan and Australia. I am interested in most of Africa and especially most of Asia/Oceania, basically just not Australia, China and Japan because when it comes to these countries, I can just find too much on my own to explore. I'm interested in good orchestral scores and electronic scores, just not cheap sample scores that don't go anywhere or sappy and bland piano tinkering.
I'm particularly interested in the smaller Asian countries but African scores could be interesting to explore as well. Currently exploring Japanese and Chinese film music, also South Korean film music (but to a much lesser extent), but the rest of Asia seems harder, at least when it comes to quality scores (I have not started for real yet, so I could very well be wrong), not quite sure where to start yet when it comes to these smaller countries. Some scores from Indonesia and Thailand that I have randomly checked out have just been cheap samples and/or some sappy piano tinkering and quite a few scores from South Korea seem to feature samples and sappy piano too even if some stuff have been good.
The music should be composed by a composer from that particular country too (or from a country nearby I guess), not by a big or known composer "branching out", like for instance Howard Shore's score to the Korean game Soul of the Ultimate Nation. Television and game scores are perfectly fine to mention as well.
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Posted: |
Nov 28, 2015 - 4:17 PM
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By: |
pete
(Member)
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By obscure I mean smaller countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, North Korea
I have a few North Korean friends I can ask as I live in Seoul and volunteer with defectors. I haven't spoken to them about North Korean cinema, but there are a few references in some of the many recent books written by defectors of going to see movies in cinemas before the famine of the 1990s. As expected, North Korean cinema is state controlled and always praises the leadership and highlights the importance of obeying the leadership and fighting its enemies. As such the music is usually described as loud, militaristic, and patriotic.
I've never heard of North Korean film composers, but I have heard of other artists (poets and painters) who worked on propaganda material and later defected. And I heard of a pianist who also fled. It might be getting off topic, but I'd be happy to share links if interested.
I did just Google "North Korean music" and there are certainly lots of examples of music there. Since it's all propaganda, I guess you could argue that all music produced by the state for propaganda purposes bears some similarities to film music as it's designed to illicit certain reactions and emotions.
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Posted: |
Nov 28, 2015 - 4:57 PM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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Excellent topic!
Of course I'm sure people will give the OP flack for the term "obscure" in reference to any country, but the point is taken, we're talking largely "non-Western" countries.
South Korea has produced some very interesting composers and scores - I love for example the orchestral portions of OLDBOY and A TALES OF TWO SISTERS, such tuneful scores with beautiful melodies that seem totally at odds with the genres they were written for - But work so well in the films regardless. SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE also has a great baroque-flavored score that plays a large role in that film.
It should be noted those three films are horror/suspense/action-revenge thrillers, and scored in a highly intelligent and classically-rich fashion that one would never hear in Western scoring these days.
Croatian composer Alfi Kabiljo did a small handful of tremendously exciting, boldly symphonic scores in the 80's, with GYMKATA being an unreleased fan favorite and SKY BANDITS featuring one of my favorite "flying" themes ever (the end title in particular is just ridiculously good listening!). He's been active in Croatian and sometimes French film scoring for decades though, with the Sharon Stone-starring oddity SCISSORS from 1991 being a true must-see for fans of weird cinema. His score for that one features a lush and sultry love theme for piano and strings, creepy music-box melodies a la CHILD'S PLAY (complete with Morricone-esque vocals), several lush classical-pastiche interludes and and extremely dissonant, Penderecki-esque symphonic suspense. Diverse, to say the least!
And though Japan is *hardly* obscure, it must be noted that composers Michiru Oshima and Yoko Kano are truly the "modern day" John Williams. These two ladies have written, in my opinion, some of *the* best impressive symphonic music for film from the late 90's onward that you're ever likely to hear, but it seems next to impossible to get people to discuss these composers in any great detail on this board despite both of them having insanely lengthy filmographies choked full of great scores. They usually record with the Warsaw or Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, and the results are usually SMASHINGLY awesome. Like, sometimes Rozsa-level awesome.
Naoki Sato and Yugo Kano are also modern Japanese composers who have also written some wildly impressive, if sometimes uneven, scores as well - Sato in particular in his earlier work from the mid-2000's or so was clearly, uhm, "Influenced" by American temp tracks from Waterworld, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and a number of Doyle scores. However he's really found his own voice and his scores for PRICELESS, K20: LEGEND OF THE MASK, HIDDEN FORTRESS 2 and especially DINOSAURS VS. MAMMALS are absolute must-hears. Big, bold, lush, heroic and memorable stuff that still somehow wouldn't sound out of place in a modern "Hollywood" epic somehow.
I look forward to seeing who else people contribute here. There's tons of great composers out there surely in need of discovery, many of whom have been, I have no doubt, wildly prolific in their own countries.
Great topic, thanks OP!
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Hi, Washu.
I'm not up on current cinema and/or recent examples, so I'm unable to contribute towards what you seek.
There do exist some unusual/atypical items within the history of soundtracks.
Hope the 1960s are no too early for you and that you will be interested in some vintage material?
One which comes to my mind is the 1969 Filipino horror movie Mad Doctor of Blood Island...
http://www.timferrante.com/elysee/place_order.htm
... which utilizes the mono master tapes from the original sessions.
Another specimen I can recall is a joint-effort, such as Saladino which has music by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino to accompany an Egyptian production.
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Posted: |
Nov 29, 2015 - 9:28 PM
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By: |
Kirkinson
(Member)
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You can find a compilation of Loris Tjeknavorian's Iranian film music on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/album/0l7ALEwtOEaoO0QouJbSAQ), iTunes, and Amazon MP3...I'm not sure if an actual disc was ever produced. It's mostly performed with traditional Persian instruments, though structurally the music isn't always steeped in that tradition. In fact, there are some tracks on that album where he uses melodies from his (orchestral) concert work. I really like it.
Several years ago I encountered some MP3s of an album of Tigran Mansurian's music from Armenian films, but I've never seen a disc of it anywhere. Someone uploaded the whole thing to YouTube, though: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF2CC75F4CAB9ADEB. I've never seen a proper track listing, but I know a huge chunk of the album is devote4d to his score for the 1980 Henrik Malyan film A Piece of the Sky (youtu.be/yeF81jkoDM4). Some of it is really cheesy in the way lots of Soviet scores from the late 70s through early 80s were, but there are some really beautiful cues, too. I really like tracks 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, and 13.
Back in the 90s Olympia released a CD of Giya Kancheli's music from Georgian films, although that CD had some problems. It was entirely in mono, and more than half of the music attributed to Don't Grieve (1969) was not actually in the film and in some cases was not by Kancheli (either because it was folk song or another unnamed composer—if you dig through Gramophone's archives at some point he wrote in to clarify, as the album was made without his consultation). More recently, ECM put out a wonderful album ("Themes from the Songbook") of his film and theater music arranged for vibraphone, accordion, and violin. It also has an orchestral rendering of a song ("Herio Bichebo") from his 1980 score, Earth, This is Your Son: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQJJnKBRsvndIwHoJGtBqOilSkhgJbTbc.
There's a decent compilation out there of Estonian composer Lepo Sumera's film music. It pops up on eBay now and then and it's also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1Uhl8hEf43LhfYFx3ogWJS.
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