Yet another Jason Falkner solo album that has so far only been released in Japan (as of this writing, his previous album, I’m OK You’re OK, still has yet to hit our shores as anything other than an import), All Quiet On The Noise Floor may well be the best thing Falkner’s done since Can You Still Feel? Still drenching everything in a guitars-at-the-front-of-the-mix 1970s power pop style, Falkner’s songs are better this time around. Tunes such as “Maybe The Universe”, “Doin’ Me In” and “Emotion Machine” are instantly catchy and hard to get out of your head.

I also have to give a recommendation to the mostly-acoustic “Counting Sheep”, one of the most infectious melodies Falkner has graced us with since his first album. Another catchy number, “My Home Is Not A House”, dates back to Falkner’s well-circulated demo tapes and originated during his brief stint as one of The Grays. “Doin’ Me In” is a fast-paced, talky rocker that lands somewhere between The Clash and The Knack in style (and that’s not something one can say about just any song).

If there’s a single problem with All Quiet On The Noise Floor, it’s that, once again, one has to blow a lot of money (relatively speaking, for a single CD) to get a Japanese import. Falkner himself has implored his fans to hold off an wait for a domestic release, which he assures us is coming – his logic there is that he’ll only land a North American tour if a domestic release generates significant sales. As if his fans are going to hold off that long (and as if his fans won’t go ahead and buy any eventual U.S. release anyway, just for a shot at that tour).

1. Princessa (4:20)
2. Emotion Machine (3:12)
3. Counting Sheep (3:58)
4. Evangeline (4:02)
5. The Lie In Me (5:17)
6. Maybe The Universe (5:17)
7. Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus (4:02)
8. My Home Is Not A House (3:51)
9. Doin’ Me In (3:49)
10. Y.E.S. (5:40)
11. This Time ‘09 (4:40)

Released by: Noise McCartney Records / Phantom
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 48:08

It’s almost easy to forget, now that we’ve been getting the pan-cultural ethnic musical stew of the recent remake of Battlestar Galactica for so many years, that SF movies were routinely being scored with ethnic percussion and instruments for quite some time before that – it was in vogue as Hollywood’s stand-in sound for “otherworldly”. But the score for District 9 actually has a reason to use African-inspired music: it actually takes place in Johannesburg and deals, at least allegorically, with apartheid. If anyone can get away with it, District 9 and its composer, Clinton Shorter, can.

But the District 9 score isn’t exotic to the bone – underneath it all is an orchestral base, usually rumbling in the lower registers and filling out the bottom end of the mix with slightly more traditional musical portrayals of the darkness running through the story. (And it must be said that it’s pretty dark, but for more on that, check out theLogBook.com’s Movie Reviews.)

I don’t want to dismiss the more contemplative moments of either the movie or its music, but the real highlights are where the ethnic percussion and traditional orchestral backing meld together: tracks like “Exosuit” and “A Lot Of Secrets” show this combination off to best effect. The quieter moments are nice too, but Shorter really shines in the movie’s action scenes. Fortunately, much of the soundtrack draws from the latter 2/3 of the movie; the beginning of the film leans heavily on a documentary “fly on the wall” style and, aside from the opening titles (which are presented on the CD) is a bit light on music. Because of that unusual balance of where/when the music falls in the movie, you can rest assured that most of the cues you remember in the latter half of the movie are present here too.

The music from District 9 may not be the most breathtakingly original melding of western and non-western music for a film score, but it’s an enjoyable one, and it services a story that actually pays off its more exotic elements. It’s an interesting listen away from the movie’s visuals, especially if you’re in the mood for dark, thundering percussion.

1. District 9 (6:30)
2. I Want That Arm (2:14)
3. She Calls (1:36)
4. Exosuit (3:17)
5. Harvesting Material (1:47)
6. Heading Home (1:16)
7. A Lot Of Secrets (2:29)
8. Back To D9 (1:47)
9. Wikus Is Still Running (2:58)
10. Get Him Talking (2:07)
11. Prawnkus (4:01)

Released by: Sony
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 30:02

Long before Murray Gold drenched the adventures of the TARDIS with lavish orchestral arrangements, and even long before John Debney et al. did the same with synthesized orchestral bombast, there were tales of the Doctor and the Daleks that were accompanied by unabashed, full-bodied symphonic splendor – only the Doctor wasn’t David Tennant then. The Doctor wasn’t even really the Doctor. Doctor Who was played by none other than Peter Cushing, and the Daleks graced the big screen in full color. The latest – and perhaps least-likely-to-ever-exist – Doctor Who soundtrack on the shelves brings together music from Cushing’s oft-derided pair of outings in the TARDIS, Doctor Who & The Daleks (1965) and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966).

It’s an unlikely release because we’re talking about music from a pair of 40+ year old movies which are generally considered irrelevant by Doctor Who fan canon-keepers. There’s just no way to slot the Cushing movies into the TV series continuity, and between that and the movies’ off-the-scale campiness, the two films tends to be disregarded, perhaps a bit unfairly: even recent Doctor Who has displayed elements influenced by the movies (not the least of which is the beefed-up look for the Daleks themselves). Just as there’s no story continuity with the TV series, there’s also no musical continuity: the two films’ scores sound nothing like anything that had been heard on TV Doctor Who up to that point. Ron Grainer’s immortal TV theme music isn’t even hinted at. Malcolm Lockyer graces Doctor Who & The Daleks with a hypnotic, languid mysterioso theme with an incredibly long melody line. Most of that movie’s score, which takes up the majority of this album, is built around two or three motifs, with the result being that quite a few cues sound similar to one another.

Made a year apart, the two movies don’t even share musical continuity with each other, never mind wishing for any nods to the TV theme. Bill McGuffie takes over the composing duties for Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. and gives that movie’s music a completely different sensibility – generally darker and more aggressive, and yet in some scenes the music plays up farcical comedy. There’s one other issue with the Invasion Earth tracks: they’re drenched in sound effects from the movie. Classic Who remixing and sound restoration maestro Mark Ayres has said that he’s been unable to locate anything but the “music + FX” tracks from the movie; this odd sound mix was kept by the studio so foreign actors could dub the dialogue in their own language, while preserving the rest of the sound mix. As such, the music is interrupted by explosions, spaceship take-offs, breaking glass, and so on – it’s very distracting…but perhaps better than having nothing from that movie.

Things are rounded off by a selection of “related” tracks: vintage singles tied in to each movie, including upbeat “single” versions of the respective theme music. There are also sound effects from each film as well, including a TARDIS interior ambience that’s so typically “’50s/’60s B-movie sci-fi lab sound FX” that it’s nearly laughable; interior FX from the Dalek city are marginally more interesting.

The remastering job undertaken by Ayres for all of the music presented here is impressive, resulting in crisp, clean recordings, marred only occasionally by brass swells which sound like they were “overdriven” (i.e. too loud for the limitations of the recording gear) at the original sessions. Aside from just a few instances of that, it sounds pristine – it could’ve been recorded yesterday. And maybe that’s the best reason to pick up this album: as the first full-blooded orchestral Doctor Who music, it’s not a million miles away, frankly, from the unashamedly bold sounds used by Murray Gold today. Elements of the music act as sonic time stamps: James Bond-esque bass guitar (and equally John Barry-esque brass blasts), for example – but then, doesn’t the “Westminster Bridge” on the first modern-era Doctor Who soundtrack CD have both of those sonic signatures too? But this was the first time that Doctor Who had been taken into an orchestral context, as opposed to electronic abstraction or the low-key small ensemble sounds of Dudley Simpson and his contemporaries. Perhaps it’s another way in which the two Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies have proven to be influential (if not downright prophetic).

Dr. Who & The Daleks – music by Malcolm Lockyer
1. Fanfare and Opening Titles (1:48)
2. TARDIS (0:48)
3. The Petrified Jungle (1:58)
4. The Petrified Creature and The City (0:52)
5. Four Return to TARDIS (1:06)
6. The Medicine Box and The Climb To The City (2:24)
7. City Corridors (1:54)
8. Captured By The Daleks (1:19)
9. Susan Leaves The City (1:17)
10. The Jungle At Night (2:13)
11. Susan Returns To The City (1:12)
12. Escape From The Cell (3:05)
13. The Trap (3:44)
14. The Swamp (2:37)
15. The Mountain (2:34)
16. The Cave (1:57)
17. The Jump (0:54)
18. The Thals Approach The City (1:40)
19. The Countdown (2:39)
20. The Countdown Stops (2:17)
21. Finale and End Titles (1:12)

    Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. – music by Bill McGuffie

22. Smash and Grab (1:43)
23. TARDIS Departs (0:12)
24. Opening Titles (1:59)
25. TARDIS (1:15)
26. London, 2150 A.D. (0:50)
27. Daleks and Robomen (5:01)
28. Message To Grandfather and The Dalek Saucer Takes Off (1:26)
29. The Mine Workings and The Cottage (1:25)
30. Preparing the Bomb Capsule (1:22)
31. Smash and Grab (Reprise) and End Titles (2:09)

    Bonus Tracks

32. The Eccentric Doctor Who (2:25)
33. Daleks and Thals (2:09)
34. Fugue for Thought (2:17)
35. Fanfare and Opening Titles (with effects) (1:48)
36. TARDIS Effects (3:06)
37. Dalek City Effects (6:31)

Released by: Silva Screen
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 75:08