listen

Using our console. To order Reliant. To lower her shields.

As geeky as this sounds, there was once a point in time when I could recite the accompanying dialogue and sound effects in sequence with this composition. It’s music from The Wrath of Khan, the scene where the Enterprise has been crippled by Khan’s surprise attack and Captain Kirk must stall for time in an attempt to deliver a retaliatory blow to the Reliant (the ship Khan has commandeered).

It’s an exciting scene through-out and the tension slowly builds to an explosive climax, helped to tremendous effect by a near-perfect score. From a James Horner album that’s actually good, here’s Kirk’s Explosive Reply.

[audio:061215KirkExplosiveReply.mp3]

Isotope 217: Now you’re fusing with jazz

Originally called just “Isotope,” the band changed its moniker to Isotope 217 to avoid confusion with the 70s experimental rock/jazz outfit of the same name.

But whether by direct inspiration or after-the-fact realization, I-217’s modus operandi is remarkably similar to its nomenclatural predecessor, specializing in a kind of improvisational, “experimental” jazz, similar to the jazz+rock fusions of the 60s/70s, but updated for the late 90s. Released on Thrill Jockey, the group forms an intermingling triumvirate with Tortoise and the Chicago Underground Duo/Trio/Orchestra as well as a number of other Chicagoland side projects, sharing members, ideas and in some cases, melodies and song titles across multiple records and banners. It also shares those groups’ ethos of merging the compositional prose of post-rock with the expressionism of jazz.

Though Isotope 217’s later albums are somewhat less accessible, the group’s 1997 debut The Unstable Molecule features some compelling grooves and is heavily centered around percussion, as is evidenced by Phonometrics below.

[audio:061210Phonometrics.mp3]

The Unstable Molecule at Amazon

Francis Lai – Vivre Pour Vivre

vivre pour vivre

French composer Francis Lai is perhaps best known for his breakthrough song Un homme et une femme from the 1966 film of the same name.

Lesser known, however, at least in the States, is the film from the next year called Vivre pour Vivre (Live For Life). It was the second collaboration between Lai and Un homme et une femme director Claude Lelouch.

This film is incredibly hard to come by in America; Netflix doesn’t offer it. Amazon offers a Russian! import. And, at the time of this writing, eBay has a single listing for it on PAL DVD. It’s entirely possible that it hasn’t seen any kind of release in the U.S. since the original 1967 debut, which seems odd since it was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe.

The music itself was also nominated for a Golden Globe but lost to Camelot. For this score, Lai composed a specific theme for each of the main characters: Robert, newscaster; Catherine, his wife; and Candice, his mistress (played by Candice Bergen of all people).

Without having seen the film, I can’t comment on how it works on screen, but Candice’s theme evokes a kind of troubled, but determined passion:

[audio:061210ThemedeCandice.mp3]

A Specialized Nutcracker Suite

Specialized bike parts has released an intriguing holiday card for the 2006 season. It’s an excerpt of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite, a perennial Christmas time favorite.

The catch is that the piece is played entirely on bicycle parts. From createdigitalmusic.com:

Glockenspiel & Clarinet melody = spokes.
Cello & Violin pizzicatos = plucked derailleur cables.
Triangle = disc brake hit.
Percussion = shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, chain pulls, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, air out of tires.

[audio:specializednutcracker.mp3]

The Breeders – The She: This song is meandering funk

aka “rhythm by arithmetic”

title tk

The Breeders disappeared for a very long time, taking nine years to release a follow up to their 1993 breakthrough Last Splash. But when they returned, they did with gusto, submitting a stellar album that proved that Kim Deal could still write some compelling music.

The following is a mellow groove, its steady rhythm demands your attention. It’s unlike anything the band had attempted before and, I gotta say, it works. For your consideration, from Title TK, The She.

[audio:061208TheShe.mp3]

the full thing on plastic at amazon

Everywhere the signs

Here’s the main title for M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 film Signs. Composed by James Newton Howard Shyamalan’s personal composer it seems, the titles are appropriately cacophonous and dissonant, but also unified and cohesive.

Tense.

[audio:061205Signs.mp3]

Oddly enough, a number of remixes were created by luminaries of the trip-hop scene and released as a single around the time as the film. Most of them weren’t that special, but the version by Morcheeba is worth checking out if you can track it down.

Pearl Jam – Faithful: We all believe, we all believe

Over the years, I’ve come to understand Pearl Jam’s 1998 album Yield as perhaps the group’s finest recording. There’s not a single bad note on its entire length and it is one of but a handful of records in my library with nothing but 4- or 5-star ratings.

At the time of its release, rock music was steadily being displaced in my mind with college-era explorations of the electronic and the experimental. But Yield hung around, receiving occasional plays here and there, slowly but steadily drilling deep into my subconscious, earning its street cred in a way that no other Pearl Jam record has done, until one day I suddenly appreciated its brilliance.

To this day, I have to credit one song, Faithfull for triggering that appreciation. It’s not the group’s catchiest, or its most rocking or even especially popular, but it does have a certain spark of soul and genius that makes it one of my personal favorites from their entire catalog.

[audio:061205Faithfull.mp3]