Суббота 12 Апр 2008, 6:22

Last year, I wrote 25 pages of bad music blog on Facebook, where no one cares, rather than here, where there are MEAN PEOPLE! I've been intending to trim & transplant for a long time. Here's some stuff.

The content is going to be whatever I wanted to get off my chest at the time, which at the time would generally be about film scores and Christian music.

The most I've ever paid out of my own pocket (well, bank account) for an album was $17 for The Ocellus Suite by Martin Kiszko. I heard this music in a 1996 documentary about insects in about 1999. It was a dream of mine to own it from then on, but when extensive online searches last year turned up only listings with nothing in stock, I left a standing bid on Amazon.co.uk; the documentary was originally a BBC production, and Amazon.com didn't even know the soundtrack existed. Two months later my bid was taken up and the CD arrived in pristine condition.

I didn't originally know it, but this was my introduction to minimalist music. The themes fit incredibly well with the insects they match. Very memorable.

I recently bought the Collector's Edition of Dark Passion Play for $18. That's a new record.

I've also bought the complete scores to three IMAX documentaries, none of which I've seen, from eMusic; and I bought the Winged Migration soundtrack ("a beautiful expression of graceful strength" and "evokes feelings of dutiful endurance against hardships not of one's own making" -Me) from Amazon.com. If you liked March of the Penguins, you NEED to see Winged Migration. It's more of a tribute than an honest-to-reality documentary, and all the more beautiful for it.

Unfortunately, the rest of this note was about the life soundtrack thing. Notable excerpts follow.

Fight Song: Basil Poledouris - Robocop. Haha, that works. Another track from a movie I've never seen. (I have dozens of them.) Good theme.

I have since seen RoboCop, and it is a great film.

By the way, a lot of my film score singles are suites covered by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra for Hire, and don't correspond with actual album track titles, especially when such would be Main Title & such. This is starting to sound like my first "journal."

Prom: Vassilis Saleas - First Approach. Heh. I don't know what this track is about, but the performer is an excellent Greek clarinet player who works with with Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, etc.).

I'm not sure if the clarinet on My Winter Storm should remind me of Vassilis, but it does.

Driving: Sixpence None the Richer - Easy To Ignore. I looked this group up in Fall 2006. I bought their self-titled album for $1 total without even knowing they had a female lead singer. I liked it, then "Kiss Me" started and I was like "Oh, THAT song!" Fortunately, I really like it. But it's a funny counterpoint, because I was mostly buying Christian death metal at the time.

Flashback: Knowdaverbs - Action Figure. Verbs has kinda gone downhill since The Syllabus IMHO, but this is a solid song with sonar pings in it. My rap-disliking friend speaks of annoying pinging noise usage/dependence, and here they are.

I don't understand what makes me like certain works of hip-hop. The Syllabus by Verbs and The Art of Translation by GRITS are awesome; other works by the same artists just don't measure up so well.

It's kind of annoying that most metal fans claim to hate rap. Both have appealed to me since childhood.

Wedding: Jean-Michel Jarre - Chronologie 4.

I was listening to a MIDI of it at the time. Now it's in my playlist, but I still don't own it.

It's quite possibly my favorite of his compositions, but it's not on iTunes yet. Of course, the free MIDI is so beautiful on its own!

(Aside from free tracks and computer game music, my early repertoire contained a number of MIDIs from Swotto's Grotto , which I found on Download.com. This was how I got into Pink Floyd. I now own a total of two original Pink Floyd songs, one of which [High Hopes] was a featured MIDI . I downloaded all the other Pink Floyd MIDIs I could find, and the other purchase [Learning to Fly] was one of these.)

http://www.google.com/search?q=swotto%27s+grotto+midi

(Swotto's Grotto also introduced me to the wonders of Jean-Michel Jarre, plus such standards as Robert Miles and Mike Oldfield .)

I'm currently listening to MP3s made from MIDIs of the Victory celebration theme in the Return of the Jedi special edition, and Young Lust by Pink Floyd. The MIDI of Young Lust is by far my favorite version of the track. Why? Hating the lyrics is always a good start, and the midi replaces the vocals with what is apparently supposed to sound like a real-world instrument… it sounds like a giant war horn being played by an elephant. The Vitamin String Quartet version of the track CANNOT measure up to this.

(A second go at the gimmick)

First Day At School: Craig Safan - The Last Starfighter. "Girls dug guys who were good at pinball! *I* was good at pinball!" -a friend

Prom: James Horner - Legends of the Fall. I don't even know what this movie is about!

Apparently, it has Brad Pitt in it. Still don’t know anything else about it.

Flashback: Science Groove - R3. Recurrence Risk Ratio . This is from "My Dissertation," an album released online containing the whole thesis of a genetic researcher's doctoral dissertation as set to music by himself with the aid of his friends and prior music experience. This was how I first learned of alleles, the null hypothesis, and all that jazz. Flashback certainly, this was pretty much the first album I ever had on the computer, way back in 2001. Now I have about eight days of music on it.

Now I have 20 days. Not bad considering I don't use p2p filesharing.

Getting Back Together: Mortification - Journey of Reconciliation. YES! The aforementioned Christian death metal. (Also the pinnacle of everything that is wrong with Christian music, according to extreme traditionalists and antiChristians alike.) The lead singer typically uses a throaty growl which is quite pleasing to listen to. This is a song about the passion of Christ. (Not the movie.) Not as intellectual as Tourniquet, but it doesn't need to be.

Final Battle: PAX217 - Fly Away. I always used to get this band confused with Project 86, which I didn't like in 2003. I'd probably like them now. Any way, I got Engage for $1 and was pleased by most of the songs on it.

Apparently, I started listening to P86 in April of 2007. Feels like longer. They are one of my favorite artists now. I started with Songs to Burn Your Bridges By, which is still my favorite album of theirs.

Death Scene: Enya - Paint the Sky with Stars. I bought this last year. It was the first album I ever bought featuring a female vocalist. In years gone by, I had avoided female vocalists at all costs because I was afraid someone would think I had a crush on them. :-P

Wow… at the above paragraph.

The note closes with the following statement, which rings ever true: Evroklidon is awesome.

Hmm. This isn't as horrifically long as it looks in the entry box.