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Released through composer Dennis McCarthy’s web site, the music from the first and last episodes of the first season of Fox’s 1995 SF series Sliders will probably sound familiar to fans of McCarthy’s Star Trek work. It’s more of the same of McCarthy’s signature style, though it’s just possible that he gets to cut loose a bit more here - there are more action setpieces in the music than one would expect to find in the average episode of Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. This CD includes selections from the two episodes McCarthy scored in the first season - the two-hour pilot movie and the season finale Luck Of The Draw.

McCarthy’s trademark foreboding style is all over the pilot; with the exception of a few more exciting than usual action cues, much of his pilot score might as well be a Star Trek score, if a slightly more energetic one than usual. Cues like “The Ice Tornado” are big, bustling action cues of precisely the kind that executive producer Rick Berman discouraged at nearly all costs on Trek; fortunately, though, this isn’t Trek.

McCarthy splits the difference between his orchestral style and something a bit more contemporary with the cues from Luck Of The Draw, the first season finale episode which involved a parallel Earth that uses lotttery-selected suicide as a means of population control. For action cues that don’t have to musically illustrate that society, McCarthy slips back into full orchestral mode, again a little more boisterously than he generally would’ve been allowed to be in that other SF universe.

The rest of the first season was scored by Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo fame), who also composed the series’ main theme; his contributions don’t appear here.

Wrapping up the Sliders CD is a McCarthy original, “Past, Present & Future Suite”, which combines a wild electric guitar intro with some of the composer’s favorite Trek cues, including the heroic opening from the second season opener The Child, and some completely original “rock” material. The opening minute or so of this piece is just awe-inspiring, but its more contemporary middle section peters out about before getting back to business. Still, it’s basically a piece of Next Generation music that hasn’t been heard elsewhere, which is why I’ve got this in the database as a Star Trek soundtrack.

The Sliders soundtrack is an interesting piece of work, and fans of his work (or even listeners who thought he was playing action sequences awfully tame on Star Trek) will probably dig it, whether they’ve seen the show in question or not.

1. Main Title (1:38)
2. The Wormhole (1:56)
3. The First Slide (4:42)
4. The Ice World (3:16)
5. Ice Tornado (4:11)
6. Strange Land (3:33)
7. The Rescue (2:23)
8. Wade’s Death? (1:46)
9. Sliders Escape (2:28)
10. Interlude (1:11)
11. Finale / End Credits (1:38)
12. Slide In (0:29)
13. A New World (1:15)
14. The Girl’s Suicide (2:51)
15. Jail Break (2:26)
16. Wade In Danger (1:23)
17. Slide Out / Quinn Shot (3:12)
18. Past, Present And Future Suite (2:40)

Released by: dennismccarthy.com
Release date: 2007
Total running time: 42:58

While it might be easy to dismiss this as yet another string tribute “Mantovani Mangles Mott The Hoople” train wreck, there’s something compelling about Andrew Powell Plays The Alan Parsons Project - Powell was the orchestral arranger (and in some cases composer) on many of these original songs. He’s not completely removed from the proceedings. In other words, he’s not that easy to dismiss, even though this ultra-obscure 1983 album smacks of “cash in while you can”. (It may or may not be a coincidence that the only Project album with which Powell wasn’t involved as 1984’s Vulture Culture - maybe this is what he was doing with his free time, or someone decided to give him free time as a result of this album. Take your pick.)

The proceedings open in grand style with a musical mash-up combining “Lucifer” (from the Eve album), “Mammagamma” (from Eye In The Sky) and the heraldic opening horns of “May Be A Price To Pay” (the first thing you heard on The Turn Of A Friendly Card). Long before remix maestros were mashing it up for themselves, Powell was doing an interesting job of it himself, and somehow it works. Not everything on the album is so lucky.

“I Robot Suite” and “Damned If I Do” are also interesting listens, with the former in particular covering ground that I wish the instrumental backing track medley on the remastered I Robot CD had covered. My one beef with the “I Robot Suite” is that it really plays fast and loose with the tempos of the original songs, moreso than just about any of this album’s other adaptations - “Some Other Time” becomes almost jaunty, something that the song’s subject just doesn’t lend itself to. “What Goes Up…” also fares well, combined with a very cool orchestral interpretation of its lead-off instrumental, “Voyager”, and, at the very end, some surprising (and neat) musical callbacks to “The Raven” and “Genesis Ch. 1 v. 32″.

Not all of these great Alan Parsons Project classics manage to avoid losing something in the translation, though. “Time”, “Eye In The Sky” and “Old And Wise” become - and I mean this in the nicest way - vapid elevator music. “Time” and “Old And Wise”, which leaned so heavily on the orchestra in their original recordings, actually manage to lost something in the transition to purely orchestral music with no vocals. This boggles my mind - I wouldn’t have expected the person who arranged these songs in the first place to misplace the magic. Somehow he does. “Pavane” (one movement of Tales Of Mystery & Imagination’s “Fall Of The House Of Usher” suite) takes some odd turns in its arrangement as well. “Games People Play”, a largely synthesized song that had virtually no orchestral accompaniment in its original incarnation, at least manages to be energetic like its inspiration, but kicks off with a really bizarre, horror-film-style intro.

The truth is, I’ve heard far worse “string tribute to…” albums out there, and this one at least seems to have benefitted - at least in some places - from the involvement of the musician who concocted the original songs’ orchestral arrangements. Still, where this album misfires, that very involvement is what makes the misfires so utterly baffling. Two thoughts spring to mind: I wonder why some of these tracks haven’t resurfaced as bonus tracks on the songs’ respective remastered albums (does the label that owns these recordings want too much money, or is this album a point of contention between Powell and his former Project cohorts?), and despite the misfires, I could easily come up with a second album’s worth of suggestions that could do well in this format. Obviously, 25 years later is probably not a good time to suggest either one (or, for that matter, to suggest a new pressing of this album), but it’s a curiosity that serves as an interesting sidebar to the Alan Parsons Project’s legacy.

1. Lucifer / Mammagamma (5:34)
2. Time (5:07)
3. Games People Play (4:16)
4. I Robot Suite (8:22)
5. Damned If I Do (3:40)
6. Pavane (The Fall Of The House Of Usher) (4:44)
7. What Goes Up… (5:35)
8. Eye In The Sky (4:27)
9. Old And Wise (5:04)

Released by: Disky
Release date: 1983 (re-released on CD in 1997)
Total running time: 46:49

If there’s one giant mystery about Serenity, it’s not the plot, nor even the decision to diminish the Firefly cast by two beloved characters on their first big-screen outing. There’s not even a big mystery as to how the movie came about - to put it simply, enough people loved Joss Whedon’s short-lived Fox TV show, especially its characters and its wild-west-of-the-future setting, that Universal was sold on the idea of doing Firefly for the big screen. If there’s one mystery I’m left with, it’s this: whatever happened to Greg Edmonson? The TV series’ music didn’t beat around the bush in establishing the western-in-space theme, and with its ethnic instrumentation, helped to remind viewers that there was more to it than that. Naturally, the last thing I expected from the movie Serenity was a score steeped in conventional, Star Wars-style orchestral leitmotif.

The Serenity score was composed by David Newman, who was responsible for the simply amazing music of Galaxy Quest. I’m hesitant to say that his assignment to this movie was a trade up or a trade down, but it was certainly a bizarre step sideways. Listening to the soundtrack alone, you’re three tracks in before you even get a hint of the western-inspired music of the series, and even then, it’s not even as authentically western as, say, Copland’s “Rodeo”. There’s almost hope for “Trading Station Robbery”, but then it seems like nobody can decide if the guitar should sound country-twangy or Duane-Eddy-spy-movie-music twangy.

Now, if you don’t care about whether or not it sounds like a musical continuation of Firefly, this is some fine classic David Newman SF action music - again, if you liked Newman’s score for Galaxy Quest, you’ll almost certainly like this. And I can sort of see an argument that Serenity is not just an episode of Firefly projected onto a big screen, but a larger adventure demanding the trappings of a larger canvas, including bigger, more theatrical music (call this the Star Trek: The Motion Picture defense). If that’s your bag, the music doesn’t get much bigger than “Crash Landing” or “Jayne & Zoe / Final Battle”.

This is a hard one to rate - it’s great music, but it just doesn’t mesh with the movie and the sonic universe that had already been established. And in the end credits of the movie, Newman even quotes the original Firefly theme, and that didn’t even make it to the CD. If you just pull the booklet out of the jewel case and pretend this is the soundtrack to a movie that has nothing to do with Firefly, you’re in good shape.

1. Into The River (3:11)
2. Escape (1:33)
3. Serenity (0:51)
4. Going For A Ride (2:24)
5. Trading Station Robbery (3:21)
6. River Goes Wild (1:28)
7. River And Simon In Locker (1:00)
8. Population: Dead (3:56)
9. Haven Destroyed (0:56)
10. Shepherd Book’s Last Words (1:00)
11. You’re Not A Reaver (0:57)
12. Mal Decides (3:09)
13. Truth / Mal’s Speech (3:27)
14. Space Battle (3:21)
15. Crash Landing (2:00)
16. Run To Black (2:58)
17. Generator Room (3:06)
18. Mal & Op Fight (2:10)
19. Jayne & Zoe / Final Battle (2:49)
20. Funeral / Rebuilding Serenity (2:01)
21. Prep For A Flight (1:33)
22. Love (1:06)
23. End Credits (1:37)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 49:54

You’ve seen the movie, now hear the music - well, not quite. In this case, you’ve seen the movie trailer, now hear the music. E.S. Posthumus’ Unearthed is an unorthodox release by a group of producers and musicians whose “day job”, if you will, is to create music for movie trailers. The music is as epic and sweeping as anything you could probably find on the movies’ individual soundtracks, but this music is born in and lives in entirely commercial airspace. And frankly, the idea of marketing movie trailer music on its own is sheer genius. Three million people might see a movie on its opening night, but in the weeks and months leading up to that, between trailers attached to other movies, TV spots, and web exposure, you can bet that six million people have seen the trailer. Even if they don’t bother with the movie, they’ve been exposed to the imagery and the music. You’ve probably heard as much at least as much E.S. Posthumus in the past two or three years as you’ve heard John Williams - you just didn’t realize it.

Things start strong with the mellow-but-epic “Antissa”, while “Tikal” resides a little bit closer to Matrix territory musically. “Ebla” is another winner, with a rhythmic chanting anchoring the entire piece. “Nineveh” and “Pompeii” almost sound like background music from a video game, while “Menouthis” starts out apocalyptic and, again, moves into The Matrix’s neighborhood.

For me, the crowning glory of Unearthed is “Estremoz”, a mournful choral piece set to a gentle breakbeat. I don’t recall having heard this on a trailer for anything, but perhaps there’s a reason for that - it’d have to be one hell of a depressing movie. The music itself is very relaxing and serene, however, if just a little bit of a downer. “Isfahan” closes out the album on a similar wistful note.

Now, of course, the real question is: will you like it? That’s a good question. If you’re predisposed toward soundtrack music, you’ll find something to like here, but keep in mind that many of these pieces are expanded versions of musical compositions that originally only needed to be 30 or 60 seconds; even with running times in the 4-5 minute range, things get a bit repetitive with some of these tracks. And enjoyable as they are, their original function also doesn’t leave a lot of room for subtlety - the full-blast epic pieces throw a massive choir and orchestra at you, and the quieter pieces fall back on every other musical cliche you can imagine, from Irish drums to uilleann pipe. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those instruments or the styles usually associated with them; it’s just that when they show up on this album, the tunes go exactly where you’d expect them to go. It’s almost a “stop me if you’ve heard this one before” phenomenon - a song you could swear you’ve heard before.

1. Antissa (5:11)
2. Tikal (3:46)
3. Harappa (4:36)
4. Ulaid (5:09)
5. Ebla (6:09)
6. Nara (4:51)
7. Cuzco (4:02)
8. Nineveh (3:42)
9. Lepcis Magna (3:27)
10. Menouthis (3:55)
11. Estremoz (5:06)
12. Pompeii (3:40)
13. Isfahan (4:34)

Released by: 33rd Street
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 58:08