There’s gonna be a throwdown! At least that was what I thought when I first heard of this release: Parthenon Huxley, the songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist behind the excellent No Rewind album from The Orchestra (formerly ELO Part II), tries on some bona fide Jeff Lynne classics for size. Given ELO Part II/The Orchestra’s storied legal history with Lynne, surely Huxley had some massive brass balls. Not only had he become one of the inheritors of the ELO sound, but he was taking on classic ELO songs written by one of the group’s founders. A gutsy move, to say the very least.

Huxley is, like many modern power pop practitioners, an admirer of Jeff Lynne’s songwriting and production acumen, and so perhaps it was wise for him to do something really unexpected with Homemade Spaceship: in many cases, he almost rewrites the music. Same words, but completely different takes on some of the familiar melodies. There are plenty of hints of the familiar melody of “Mr. Blue Sky”, for instance, but the timing has changed, and Huxley completely changes the trajectory of the main vocal melody. The lush harmonies are gone for the most part too, further confusing the ear that’s accustomed to Lynne’s wall of sound.

Some songs stick very close to their source material: “10538 Overture” is a folkier take on the very first ELO song, and has the added benefit of making the lyrics easier to understand than the original does. The closest any of the tracks here comes to their inspiration is “The Diary Of Horace Wimp”, which is presented in a laid-back way but, unlike many of the songs covered on Homemade Spaceship, preserves much of the harmonies in the chorus. “Showdown” stays close to the original, but trades in the original recording’s layers of foreboding strings for a pared-down, folky western dirge.

Some of the songs that do stray further from the source material are real treats: Huxley makes “Evil Woman” his own via some melodic twists and turns that differ significantly from the original, but it still has a driving beat and a bluesy feel at its heart. “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” is a much softer song than the hard-rocking original, but the changes give the same set of lyrics a compeltely different emotional angle.

My one complaint about Homemade Spaceship is that, like L.E.O., Huxley chooses to parody “Don’t Bring Me Down” instead of doing a more straightforward cover of it. With a faux British accent, he turns it into a song that’s spoken instead of sung, and occasionally reduces it to a Pythonesque farce. After the rest of the album’s thoughtful deconstructions of numerous ELO favorites, this approach struck me as cheap and cheesy, but your mileage may vary. Overall, a very interesting collection – ELO ultra-purists need not apply.

1. 10538 Overture (3:09)
2. Mr. Blue Sky (4:08)
3. Showdown (4:03)
4. Can’t Get It Out Of My Head (4:22)
5. Telephone Line (6:26)
6. Sweet Talkin’ Woman (5:05)
7. Evil Woman (4:54)
8. Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (3:43)
9. Strange Magic (3:41)
10. The Diary Of Horace Wimp (5:13)
11. Do Ya (4:08)
12. Don’t Bring Me Down (3:34)

Released by: Reverberations
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 52:26

Film composer and synth innovator Wendy Carlos’ second disc of restored original score recordings focuses on her attempts to meld synthesizers and orchestral music in the 1970s and early 80s.

The second in a series of releases of “recovered” movie scores from Wendy/Walter Carlos’ library, this disc focuses on collaborations (and sometimes, collisions) between synthesizer and orchestra. Carlos provides her own liner notes both on the music itself and on the painstaking process of recovering it from the damaged master tapes upon which it had originally been recorded, which involved literally baking each reel of tape (quite literally in an oven) at a precise temperature for a precise amount of time; it wasn’t a process where you could put something back in the oven, either – there was one shot at getitng it right and preserving the original material. That same procedure allowed the composer to recover her original master tapes in time for the 20th anniversary release of the Tron score, and so it’s somehow appropriate that more music from Tron – both previously released and previously unreleased – can be heard here, along with music from equally iconic films.

Feel free to call me predictable, but of course what drew me to this volume (not having bought the first CD) was, naturally, the promise of new music from Tron. Fair warning: if that’s the only reason you’re thinking about getting this disc, maybe you should think twice. There isn’t a huge amount of new material presented here for the Tron fanatic, and a goodly chunk of it has been heard before: “Lightcycle Battle” was made available on the 20th anniversary edition DVD, and “Trinitron” – a.k.a. that part of the end credits that was covered up by Journey’s “Only Solutions” – has always been available as part of the end credit suite on the soundtrack releases, going all the way back to the 1982 LP release. (In the liner notes, Carlos makes it sound like this is the first time anyone’s ever heard it. Nope. It’s been my favorite piece of Tron music for 28 years running now!) The various other short tracks, which didn’t even make it into the movie, are interesting to hear…but they’re so short. It’s nice to have track-by-track liner notes for them though.

The material from The Shining, I barely remember, having seen that movie very few times (as opposed to having seen Tron about a zillion times); what I can tell you is that it sounds as sharp as the remastered Tron material, apparently baked to perfection. There’s also a healthy sampling of material from Carlos’ soundtrack to a movie I’ve never heard of, called Woundings.

Included as a couple of bonus tracks are two test tracks Carlos assembled for Dolby Laboratories, and they’re vintage Carlos material – making use of very Bach-like counterpoint in the synth realm, and throwing in just one or two small musical in-jokes (i.e. “That’s all folks!”).

The second volume of Rediscovering Lost Scores is a nice cross-section of Carlos’ movie material, but it’s really not an entry-level album – this one is definitely for listeners who are either already fans of Carlos’ work, or of the movies whose music is included.

The Shining
1. Shining Title Music (3:54)
2. Paraphrase For ‘Cello (3:26)
3. Where’s Jack? (5:24)
4. The Overlook (3:57)
5. Psychic Scream (1:29)
6. Day Of Wrath (1:07)
7. Paraphrase For Brass (1:37)
8. Title Music ‘Dies’ (3:46)
9. Clockworks ‘Dies’ (2:23)

Tron

10. Creation Of Tron Vol. I (0:36)
11. Creation Of Tron Vol. II (0:36)
12. Lightcycle Games (2:06)
13. Anthem (Studio Version) (1:24)
14. Little Interludes (0:56)
15. Trinitron (2:19)

Split Second

16. Visit To A Morgue (1:24)
17. Return To The Morgue (2:50)

Woundings

18. Woundings Title Music (3:12)
19. Angela’s Walk (1:05)
20. Jimmy (1:38)
21. Louise (0:56)
22. Doug Does Angela (1:37)
23. Scattering Ashes (1:33)
24. Angela’s Aftermath (3:47)
25. Jimmy Kills Louise (2:33)
26. In A Cemetery (0:57)
27. Fly Away And End (1:40)

Two Dolby Demos

28. Jiffy Test: Bee Dee Bei Mir (1:25)
29. Listen: Tannhauser (2:18)

Released by: East Side Digital
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 61:55

Released to a combination of applause from Trek music completists and complaints of double-dipping from other observers, Varese Sarabande – not to be outdone by Film Score Monthly’s recent definitive editions of the music from Star Trek II and III – has now made the complete Michael Giacchino score from 2009′s Star Trek available as a swanky, limited-edition double-CD package (in, curiously, packaging normally used for two-disc Blu-Ray releases).

Is it worth going back to the well for every single note from the movie? Put simply and unequivocally: yes. Some of the best moments of the music from Star Trek were omitted from the single-CD soundtrack album that Varese issued at the time of the movie’s theatrical release. Those moments are restored in more or less chronological order here. I thought that both of the shuttlecraft rides to the Narada (Captain Robau’s and, later, Captain Pike’s) were awesomely menacing stuff, with enough harp to give the average John Williams score a run for its money, and those sequences can be found here. The thrilling orbital skydive to Nero’s drilling platform – a major action setpiece that was curiously left off of the original soundtrack album – is a piece of music likely to keep the fans happy.

Some of the best tracks, however, are those which musically signify Spock’s Vulcan heritage, frequently taking the form of a wistful solo ehru. These cues were mixed down in the movie, and left off of the original soundtrack altogether, and yet they’re some of the film’s best music, as well as one of the most interesting and memorable themes Giacchino has composed to date (and I’m counting his work on Alias, Lost, The Incredibles, Fringe and Ratatouille there too).

I’m going to go on the record as saying that I love Giacchino’s self-penned, punishingly punny track/cue titles, but they require a little bit of lateral thinking and a sense of humor: “Dad’s Route To School” (i.e. the “evicted” Kirk trudging through snow, uphill, both ways) and “Galaxy’s Worst Sushi Bar” (Captain Pike having a poor man’s Ceti eel shoved down his throat) are a couple of my favorite titles. The packaging, while it is indeed awkward to slot into a CD shelf, is gorgeous; the discs themselves are top-down renderings of the saucer sections of the Enterprise (disc one) and the ill-fated U.S.S. Kelvin (disc two). My one complaint is that Varese’s sales pitch made a big deal out of new liner notes by founding Starlog editor Kerry O’ Quinn, a man whose columns and writings in the heyday of (tragically now-defunct) Starlog Magazine are largely responsible for inspiring me to be here writing this now; it’s actually more like one page.

The Star Trek soundtrack is a much more cohesive listen in this form than it was as the first release’s “edited highlights,” in some places making it very clear that Giacchino’s music wasn’t as uninteresting as some listeners found it from the single CD release. It’s just a pity that it wasn’t released in this form from the beginning – the real good stuff is, once again, relegated to the collectors’ market. Well worth seeking out, though at the time of this writing, the 3,000-copy print run of this edition was very close to being sold out.

Disc One
1. Star Trek (2:28)
2. Narada Boom (2:48)
3. Hack To The Future (1:25)
4. Nailin’ The Kelvin (2:09)
5. Labor Of Love (2:44)
6. Main Title (0:46)
7. Head To Heart Conversation (1:10)
8. One Proud Mother (1:37)
9. Hella Bar Talk (1:56)
10. The Flask At Hand (0:28)
11. Welcome Back, Spock (1:09)
12. Vulcan Gets A Good Drilling (1:30)
13. Hangar Management (2:47)
14. Enterprising Young Men (3:05)
15. Flying Into A Trphlthdl (3:23)
16. Nero Sighted (3:23)
17. Matter? I Barely Know Her! (2:07)
18. Jehosafats (3:02)
19. Chutes And Matter (3:29)
20. A Whole In My Hearth (0:56)
21. I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Beam Up! (1:51)
22. Spock Goes Spelunking (1:30)
23. An Endangered Species (3:09)
24. Galaxy’s Worst Sushi Bar (2:16)
25. Mandatory Leave Of Absence (1:18)
26. Dad’s Route To School (0:35)
27. Frozen Dinner (1:30)
28. You Snowin’ Me? (0:49)

Disc Two
1. Nice To Meld You (3:13)
2. Hail To The Chief (0:51)
3. I Gotta Beam Me (2:02)
4. Scotty’s Tanked (1:39)
5. What’s With You? (2:12)
6. Either Way, Someone’s Going Down (2:43)
7. Trekking Down The Narada (2:32)
8. Run And Shoot Offense (2:02)
9. Does It Still McFly? (2:02)
10. Nero Death Experience (5:38)
11. Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns (2:29)
12. Black Holes Have A Lot Of Pull (0:56)
13. Back From Black (0:58)
14. That New Car Smell (4:45)
15. To Boldly Go (0:26)
16. End Credits (9:11)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2010
Disc one total running time: 55:20
Disc two total running time: 43:39

The announcement that Crowded House was getting back together was nothing short of a major surprise, and the first album following that announcement was a strange mix that started life as Neil Finn’s third solo album and really only included a handful of songs actually played by the reconstituted lineup of the band. Single selection was an even more awkward and political thing: strong songs were passed over in favor of those few that included the full lineup. The new album, Intriguer, has no such issues: the pre-publicity points out that the entire album emerged from band jams, and every track features the new lineup of Finn, Nick Seymour, Mark Hart and Matt Sherrod. Oddly enough, though, the result winds up sounding more like a Finn solo album than a Crowded House album, though at this point it’s probably a given that Finn solo is interchangeable with Crowded House at any given point, sort of like Jeff Lynne = ELO these days.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad album, not by a long stretch. And that’s also not to say that the Crowdies’ sound has ever been frozen in amber: the densely atmospheric Together Alone was a culture shock after the first three Mitchell Froom-produced albums. Intriguer is produced by Finn with Wilco producer Jim Scott, and the result winds up being neither as timeless as the Froom years, nor quite as adventurous as Together Alone. As with 2007′s Time On Earth and its lead single, this album is led by a rather unadventurous single, “Saturday Sun” – not a bad song, but not really attention-grabbing musically or stylistically.

Things get much more interesting with the third track, “Amsterdam”, which laments the city’s infamous reputation as a place where morality gets put on hold, in the form of a pleasant if downbeat ballad. The following track, “Either Side Of The World”, is very off-the-beaten-path for Crowded House, resembling – more than anything – “Paradise (Wherever You Are)” from the first Finn Brothers album. It’s got a jaunty tropical beat in which Sherrod really comes into his own at the drums – it’s a song that I can’t imagine Paul Hester playing, at least not this way. It’s odd that my favorite Crowded House songs these days sound nothing like what most people envision (i.e. Froom’s Hammond organ breaks) when they think of Crowded House. “Either Side” is an anthem to monogamy which goes more than skin-deep on the subject – not exactly a frequent topic of modern song lyrics.

“Isolation” seems to have been inspired by the pacing and arrangements of classic 1950s rock ballads, and is the second song to feature vocal contributions from Finn’s wife Sharon. Straight-ahead rocker “Twice If You’re Lucky” is probably the closest Intriguer comes to the early Crowded House sound, and it burrows its way into your subconscious quickly, along with the bittersweet “Even If”. But the experimentation is by no means a bad thing: the glue that holds every song together is Neil Finn’s rock-solid songwriting. (As legend would have it, when asked during an interview what it’s like to be the greatest songwriter alive, Paul McCartney declined to answer on the grounds that Finn should hold that title. While I haven’t been able to source this oft-quoted interview, I’ll just settle for saying: ’nuff said.) No matter how “exotic” the style becomes, the songs at least have that going for them. “Even If” and “Elephants” deliver a double dose of wistful poignancy to slowly wind things to a close – which just means it’s time to start from the beginning again. Intriguer may take a little time to grow on you, but rest assured, it will.

1. Saturday Sun (3:26)
2. Archer’s Arrows (4:04)
3. Amsterdam (3:34)
4. Either Side Of The World (4:35)
5. Falling Dove (4:35)
6. Isolation (4:37)
7. Twice If You’re Lucky (3:33)
8. Inside Out (3:19)
9. Even If (4:02)
10. Elephants (4:30)

Released by: Fantasy
Release date: 2010
Total running time: 40:15

Devo is back, sounding remarkably like they did back in the day (give or take a few advances in technology that showed up in recording studios in the intervening years), and this is one of the most welcome reunions I can think of in recent years. Because the secret to Devo wasn’t just their eccentric synth-heavy sound – it was that they applied that sound to some of the catchiest songs to come out of the ’70s and ’80s.

Something For Everyone brings the original lineup back together, and most of the material here, while brand new, sits comfortably alongside their classic output. One song toward the end of the album, “No Place Like Home”, is about the only song that shows any signs that anyone had even the slightest inclination to modernize the signature Devo sound. Everything else is instant classic Devo.

Highlights include “Mind Games” (which explores another vintage ’80s sound with some quasi-chiptune elements), “Sumthing” (which tackles some clearly modern topics with its lyrics), and a new Devo anthem, “Later Is Now”. These songs – well, just about all of the songs on Something For Everyone – are as catchy as Devo’s ’80s favorites, without being slavish imitations of the material that the group has already done. It’s just about what they used to call “an album full of singles”. If there’s a low point, it’s the goofy spy spoof tune “Cameo”… and even then, it’s not that bad, just not up to the standard of the rest of the material.

If you’ve ever listened to a band get back together and then wondered “What happened to the sound I loved?”, Something For
Everyone is proof that not every reunion is doomed to play out like that. Fortunately for Devo fans of old (or anyone who likes a catchy tune, for that matter), the New Traditionalists are back on the case. Given that it sometimes seems like the band’s old mantra of “devolution” seems to have come to pass in many parts of society, one wonders how we ever got by without them.

1. Fresh (2:59)
2. What We Do (3:17)
3. Please Baby Please (2:41)
4. Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man) (3:26)
5. Mind Games (2:30)
6. Human Rocket (3:22)
7. Sumthin’ (2:46)
8. Step Up (3:00)
9. Cameo (2:49)
10. Later Is Now (3:52)
11. No Place Like Home (3:18)
12. March On (3:50)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 2010
Total running time: 37:50

The soundtrack from Independence Day – or at least some of it – has already seen the light of day in a soundtrack release concurrent with the movie’s 1996 release, but by overwhelming demand, La-La Land Records has revisited this blockbuster’s music, with every note of the final score spread across two discs and the obligatory copious liner notes. The original big-screen version of Stargate may have given Roland Emmerich, Dean Devlin and frequent musical collaborator David Arnold their first taste of the big time, but ID4 all but made them household names. Arnold has gone on to find success and steady work, most recently in the James Bond films (where he’s proven to be one of the few major behind-the-scenes figures to survive the transition from the Pierce Brosnan era to the Daniel Craig era), so there’s gotta be something to all the hype.

If ID4 was the audition for a stellar career, Arnold passed with flying colors. The music from ID4 is epic, with a capital EPIC: nothing is downplayed, and to be honest, very little is played with subtlety. But even the interviews with the filmmakers in the booklet confirm what I’ve always felt about ID4: it’s a big and largely un-intellectual popcorn movie which delights in blowing stuff up real big and dishing out crowd-pleasing one-liners, both visual and verbal. (C’mon, there is something humorously satisfying about Will Smith beating the crap out of a crashed alien pilot in hand-to-tentacle combat.) ID4 isn’t a movie that demanded subtlety from its musical score. Arnold knew exactly what kind of movie he was working on, and delivered music worthy of a blockbuster, loaded down with instantly identifiable leitmotives and themes.

The new album spreads the complete original score, note for note as heard in the movie, across the first CD and about a quarter of the second CD. The rest of the second CD includes unused alternate versions of many scenes, as well as stripped-down versions of cues that originally featured choir. These tracks are fully orchestral, but let you focus only on what the orchestra’s doing. It’s a neat trick, and an economical one since musicians’ union rules charge even more for a recording featuring a choir than an orchestral recording alone can charge. The original single-CD release from 1996 was no slouch and featured a generous amount of music from major scenes, at a time when many soundtrack CDs were starting to clock in at about 40-45 minutes due to the costs of paying every orchestral musician and every singer for every minute of their music being published. La-La Land took a real risk on reissuing the complete soundtrack: it was a far more expensive proposition (for the label), and it’s not exactly a new movie. (It’s not an obscure movie either, though, which is probably the saving grace of the new ID4 soundtrack.)

It almost goes without saying that the highlights on either disc are the major action setpieces. Few of the quieter moments are nearly as memorable: in going back to listen to “The President’s Speech”, the music wasn’t quite as inspirational as I seemed to remember. The alternate takes are interesting stuff, though: if you own the DVD of ID4, you know that a very different ending was originally planned before the producers decided to go for a more credibility-stretching (but, again, crowd-pleasing) conclusion, and the music for that rejected sequence can be found here. The other alternate takes range from minor differences in musical emphasis and arrangement, to more major changes that are likely the symptoms of constant changes to the movie in the editing room.

It’s good foreground listening material, and well worth the purchase price. ID4‘s soundtrack isn’t subtle, but neither was the movie. Sometimes you just need good accompaniment for big explosions. That would be this soundtrack.

Disc One
1. 1969: We Came In Peace (2:01)
2. S.E.T.I. – Radio Signal (1:53)
3. Mysto Bridge /Satellite Collision / Destroyers Disengage / Russell Casse, Pilot (2:17)
4. First Sighting /AWAC Attack (2:18)
5. The Darkest Day (4:14)
6. Moving Day / Countdown (2:12)
7. Cancelled Leave (1:46)
8. Commence Lift-off / Parabolic Indenwhat? (1:17)
9. Evacuation (5:48)
10. Firestorm (1:24)
11. Aftermath (3:36)
12. Base Attack (6:11)
13. Marilyn Found (1:29)
14. Area 51 / The Big Tamale / Formaldehyde Freak Show (4:12)
15. El Toro Destroyed (1:31)
16. Slimey Wakes Up (5:24)
17. Target Remains / Rescue (5:56)
18. The Death of Marilyn / Dad’s A Genius (3:34)
19. Alien Ship Powers Up (1:46)
20. International Code (1:32)
21. Wedding (1:50)
22. The President’s Speech (3:11)

Disc Two
1. Just In Case /Attacker Fires Up (3:10)
2. The Launch Tunnel /Mutha Ship / Virus Uploaded (8:27)
3. Hide! / Russell’s Packin’ (The Day We Fight Back) (4:44)
4. He Did It (1:33)
5. Jolly Roger (3:17)
6. Victory (3:40)
7. End Credits (9:07)
8. 1969: We Came In Peace (Alternate Take) (2:11)
9. Destroyers Disengage (No Choir) (0:34)
10. Cancelled Leave (Alternate Take) (1:43)
11. Commence Lift-off (Alternate Take) (0:55)
12. Base Attack (Segment – Film Version) (2:27)
13. Marilyn Found (No Choir) (1:28)
14. Target Remains/Rescue (Alternate Take) (2:40)
15. Dad’s A Genius (Alternate Take) (0:45)
16. Attacker Fires Up (Original Version – No Choir) (2:01)
17. Virus Uploaded (Alternate Take) (2:35)
18. The Day We Fight Back (Original Version) (5:48)
19. Jolly Roger (Alternate Take) (3:22)
20. End Credits (Segment, No Choir) (2:47)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2010
Disc one total running time: 65:31
Disc two total running time: 63:34