With custom-made movie trailer music gaining wider acceptance as listening material away from the big screen, E.S. Posthumus is among a handful of trailer music producers who find that their music is suitable for general audiences, and is actually in demand. Their third album, Makara, highlights the big, boisterous orchestral sound that seems to be de rigeur for previews of upcoming attractions. The problem is that Makara doesn’t deviate from that style much from track to track, so it can be an exhausting album to listen to from top to tail.

Where the previous album was skewed heavily toward gentler, less action-oriented music, Makara swings the pendulum hard in the other direction. Highlights include “Kalki”, “Ushas”, “Arise” and “Krosah”, but generally speaking, the action trailer music on Makara isn’t up to the level of similar material on Unearthed; it’s hard to put a finger on, but just as the gentle-and-sentimental material on Cartographer varied between listenable and just plain maudlin, Makara veers between enjoyably bombastic and “just too much” with a handful of quieter tracks (including a strangely flat-but-trying-so-hard-to-be-epic take on “Moonlight Sonata”).

Still, if you’re a fan of trailer music, you know what you’re getting into, and if what you want to get into sounds like the musical accompaniment to a preview that’s thick with gunfire and explosions, Makara won’t let you down.

1. Kalki (3:05)
2. Varuna (4:17)
3. Unstoppable (3:04)
4. Durga (3:41)
5. Manju (4:18)
6. Kuvera (4:05)
7. Ushas (3:55)
8. Lavanya (3:57)
9. Vishnu (3:38)
10. Indra (4:18)
11. Arise (4:12)
12. Saint Matthew Passion (3:38)
13. Krosah (4:50)
14. Anumati (3:19)
15. Moonlight Sonata (5:30)

Released by: Wigshop Records
Release date: 2010
Total running time: 59:47

Perhaps unfairly best known for having his music repurposed into the backing tracks for classic Warner Bros. cartoons, the late Raymond Scott has another claim to fame that often gets overlooked – he was one of the true pioneers of electronic music in America. In this area, Scott was a true renaissance man: not only did he pioneer the sound, but he built his own instruments and early devices that presaged sequencers, and he even did some of the first work on multi-track recording, at roughly the same time that Les Paul was experimenting with similar ideas. In the 1950s and 1960s (at roughly the same time as the ascendancy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop), Scott was carving out his own path in an entire new genre of music.

Not only that, but Scott was trying his hardest to make his experiments pay for themselves: he marketed his unusual new sounds as music beds and jingles for commercials, with some success. The two-disc Manhattan Research, Inc. collection chronicles and archives that material, with a selection of Scott’s finished spots (both with and without announcers/singers) as well as demos and experiments that never made it to radio. The commercials range from obscurely local/regional campaigns (Baltimore Gas & Electric Company) to major national campaigns (IBM, Bufferin, Vicks, General Motors and a Sprite radio campaign that remains famous enough that it’s now become an ironic cover song). In a way, Scott achieved his aim by getting a new style of music into the ears of millions of listeners – but until now, not with any recognition.

While the commercials are a nostalgia trip that goes back even before the writer of this review was born, some of the purely instrumental pieces are startlingly ahead of their time: the “Night and Day” track on the first disc could’ve caught on in the 1980s had it been revived then. “Take Me To Your Violin Teacher” could easily be mistaken for modern chiptunes performed with 1980s video game hardware… and yet it was recorded in 1969. “Ripples (Montage)” anticipates abstract-but-tuneful electronic film scoring. “Cindy Electronium” sounds like late ’80s/early ’90s video game music.

There are a few throwbacks as well; Scott tries out completely electronic renditions of his existing compositions including “The Toy Trumpet” (which becomes almost unrecognizable) and “Twilight In Turkey”, both of which featured in their original, jazzier forms on Reckless Nights & Turkish Twilights. Some of his electronic music beds are also quite obviously very close cousins of the music from his Soothing Sounds For Baby albums. There’s also one very interesting guest star on a few tracks: the voice of none other than Jim Henson graces some tracks recorded in 1969, including “Limbo: The Organized Mind”, a free-form ramble set to Scott’s electronic sounds, and a couple of Bufferin commercials which seem to have sprung from “Limbo” both conceptually and musically.

A lot of this information, incidentally, is included in a book that clocks in at around 140 pages and covers Scott’s entire life and career, not just the material on these two CDs, in a wealth of detail.

Raymond Scott is still overdue for a reassessment of one of the electronic music pioneers in the United States, to say nothing of being a composer whose works influenced generations of children (by way of Warner Bros. cartoons). Manhattan Research, Inc. really isn’t a “general audience” listening experience, but it’s an invaluable archive for anyone interested in how electronic music gained a foothold in our national consciousness: in little snippets, 30 or so seconds at a time, behind commercial announcers and jingle singers.

Disc One
1. Manhattan Research, Inc. Copyright (0:11)
2. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. (Instrumental, Take 4) (1:14)
3. Bendix 1: The Tomorrow People (1:06)
4. Lightworks (1:52)
5. The Bass-line Generator (3:10)
6. Don’t Beat Your Wife Every Night! (1:44)
7. B.C. 1675 (Gillette Conga Drum Jingle) (3:16)
8. Vim (0:59)
9. Auto-Lite: Sta-Ful (Instrumental) (0:47)
10. Sprite: Melonball Bounce (Instrumental) (1963)
11. Sprite: Melonball Bounce (1963)
12. Wheels That Go (0:50)
13. Limbo: The Organized Mind (4:33)
14. Portofino 1 (2:13)
15. County Fair (1:01)
16. Lady Gaylord (1:02)
17. Good Air (Take 7) (0:38)
18. IBM MT/ST: The Paperwork Explosion (4:31)
19. Domino (0:33)
20. Super Cheer (0:34)
21. Cheer: Revision 3 (New Backgrounds) (0:39)
22. Twilight in Turkey (1:32)
23. Raymond Scott Quote / Vicks: Medicated Cough Drops (1:34)
24. Vicks: Formula 44 (0:46)
25. Auto-Lite: Spark Plugs (1:00)
26. Nescafe (1:06)
27. Awake (0:35)
28. Backwards Overload (6:04)
29. Bufferin: Memories (Original) (0:59)
30. Bandito the Bongo Artist (1:30)
31. Night and Day (Cole Porter) (1:45)
32. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. (“395″) (1:07)
33. K2r (0:19)
34. IBM Probe (1:56)
35. GMGM 1A (1:49)
36. The Rhythm Modulator (3:37)

Disc Two
1. Ohio Plus (0:17)
2. In the Hall of the Mountain Queen (0:49)
3. General Motors: Futurama (1:04)
4. Portofino 2 (2:14)
5. The Wild Piece (a.k.a. String Piece) (4:07)
6. Take Me to Your Violin Teacher (1:40)
7. Ripples (Original Soundtrack) (0:59)
8. Cyclic Bit (1:04)
9. Ripples (Montage) (4:06)
10. The Wing Thing (1:00)
11. County Fair (Instrumental) (1:00)
12. Cindy Electronium (1:59)
13. Don’t Beat Your Wife Every Night! (Instrumental) (1:45)
14. Hostess: Twinkies (0:32)
15. Hostess: Twinkies (Instrumental) (0:32)
16. Ohio Bell: Thermo Fax (0:24)
17. Pygmy Taxi Corporation (7:11)
18. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. (Announce Copy, Take 1) (0:29)
19. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. (0:44)
20. Lightworks (Slow) (1:40)
21. The Paperwork Explosion (Instrumental) (3:30)
22. Auto-Lite: Ford Family (1:03)
23. Auto-Lite: Ford Family (Instrumental) (0:54)
24. Raymond Scott Quote / Auto-Lite: Wheels (1:50)
25. Bufferin: Memories (Demo) (0:44)
26. Space Mystery (Montage) (5:11)
27. The Toy Trumpet (2:15)
28. Backwards Beeps (1:05)
29. Raymond Scott Quote / Auto-Lite: Sta-Ful (1:36)
30. Lightworks (Instrumental) (1:29)
31. When Will It End? (3:14)
32. Bendix 2: The Tomorrow People (1963)
33. Electronic Audio Logos, Inc. (5:23)

Released by: Basta
Release date: 2000
Disc one total running time: 58:48
Disc two total running time: 63:11

As one of the early geniuses who performed, composed and experimented as the legendary (and now sadly defunct) BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the late John Baker created offbeat music and special sounds that fitted in perfectly with the Workshop’s “house style” (if indeed it can be said to have had one), and yet Baker’s pieces have something that make them uniquely his: just a little bit of soul. Which is a good trick to pull off when you’re making sounds by manipulating tape recordings of “found sounds” into music.

This volume concentrates almost exclusively on his output from the Radiophonic Workshop, much of it consisting of work for the BBC’s regional radio stations. The station IDs (or, as they’re called here, “idents”) were different for Radio London than for Radio Sheffield, for example – all giving Baker an opportunity to make music out of things like the sound of water pouring from a bottle, a ruler tapping the edge of a table and so on.

Of all the Radiophonic Workshop’s mad acoustic scientists, Baker seemed to have a distinctly jazzy sensibility; some of his tracks here turn his unusual sounds into a whole new sub-genre of “crime jazz” soundtrack music, with a dark, sinister feel to them. Unlike some of his peers, Baker was unafraid to mix “real” instruments in with his radiophonic sounds, and it’s in these darkly jazzy tracks the sound of a sax or a real bass guitar can make all the difference in mood. Many of his radio idents are bubbly and cheerful, and there are a few cues, intended as underscores for radio dramas and other programs, that have their own distinctive feel.

One of the most interesting tracks is a recording of Baker himself, appearing on one of the radio programs for which he’d created some very distinctive music, responding to listeners’ queries about how the music was made. He dissects the piece of music down to individual elements (which may or may not have been on a true multitrack tape – often in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Workshop had to “multitrack” by manually starting different tape playback machines and hoping that they’d sync up – and having to start over if they didn’t).

I’ve eagerly snapped up the various BBC Radiophonic Workshop reissues and retrospectives issued in recent years, and I’m happy to report very little material repeated from those collections; even if you’ve got a fairly exhaustive Radiophonic Workshop collection, much of this material will still be new to you, so volume 1 of The John Baker Tapes isn’t a waste of money. It’s an invaluable archive offering an educational insight into early advances in electronic music, as explored by one of its unsung innovators.

1. Newstime BBC (0:23)
2. Tros Y Gareg (Main Theme) (2:50)
3. Tros Y Gareg (Idents) (0:21)
4. 20th Century Focus (2:24)
5. Vendetta: The Ice Cream Man (1:19)
6. Woman’s Hour (Reading Your Letters) (1:47)
7. Many A Slip (0:58)
8. Look And Read (0:36)
9. Building The Bomb (6:26)
10. Au Printemps (2:28)
11. Big Ben News Theme (0:33)
12. Codename (1:03)
13. Decimal Currency (0:20)
14. Barnacle Bill (0:21)
15. Dial M For Murder (2:25)
16. Farm Management (0:31)
17. Radio Sheffield (News Idents) (0:45)
18. French Science And Technology (0:40)
19. Good Morning Wales (Idents) (0:37)
20. Heavy Plant Crossing (0:59)
21. COI Technology Pavilion (9:31)
22. John Baker Interview (Radio Nottingham) (2:34)
23. Radio Nottingham Idents (0:34)
24. Look North: Newstime (0:50)
25. Man Alive: UFO (1:15)
26. PM – Computers In Business (0:40)
27. Submarines (1:59)
28. Oranges And Lemons (Radio London) (2:37)
29. Orbit (0:47)
30. Places For People (0:47)
31. Sling Your Hook (2:28)
32. Suivez La Piste (0:49)
33. Scene (Never Never) (1:40)
34. Diary Of A Madman (3:54)
35. The Two O’Clock Spot (0:58)
36. Radio London: News Idents (0:25)
37. The Caves Of Steel (3:12)
38. The Locusts (0:47)
39. Square Two (0:30)
40. The Tape Recorder (1:11)
41. Tom Tom (Theme) (0:43)
42. Tom Tom (Idents) (0:15)
43. Trial (Opening Theme) (0:35)
44. Trial (Closing Theme) (1:22)
45. Vendetta The Sugar Man (2:01)
46. Spin Off (0:21)
47. Radiophonic FX C (0:10)
48. Radiophonic FX A (0:54)
49. Radiophonic FX B (0:34)

Released by: Trunk Records
Release date: 2008
Total running time: 72:09

Released free by the composer as a downloadable online demo, this is basically the complete score from the first act of the three-installment semi-pro fan film Star Trek: Of Gods And Men. Composer Justin R. Durban has an extensive resume that includes film and video game work, and so, like many of the stars of Gods, he’s no newcomer to the business.

In terms of how Gods stacks up to other Star Treks musically, perhaps the best comparison I can draw – though I’m not saying they sound a lot alike – is Star Trek VI: dark, subdued music in an orchetral vein, with occasional choral textures and gutturally percussive moments of action. It’s not really like anything else in the Star Trek musical canon, but then neither is the movie it accompanies.

The musical intrigue and darkness pile up quickly in the opening scenes that depict a low-level Starfleet member’s death at the hands of a mysterious visitor. Things lighten up a bit for the visit to the museum ship Enterprise, but when the story’s timeline is altered and we wind up in something like the Mirror Universe a la the Klingon Empire, things turn dark and stay that way. The percussion and rumbling low brass aren’t a million miles away from the music the accompanied the Klingons in several Star Trek movies, though that theme isn’t quoted at all – we’re talking similar instrumentation and stylistic choices.

Everything sounds convincingly orchestral, and the choral vocals pass muster as well. If anything strikes me as something that even comes close to a weak point here, it’s that the music often drops back to a low drone, which is great for dialogue, but a drone is a drone. I’m the kind of guy who’d like the composer to keep something going in the background, and let the sound mixers worry about how much sonic space the music and the dialogue are occupying, but Gods’ director (Voyager star Tim Russ) and producers may have had different ideas during spotting, in which case the composer’s just following instructions/suggestions.

It’s an interesting contrast to most other music you’d associate with Star Trek – even compared to other fan films. Then again, that seems to hold true for everything to do with Of Gods And Men, not just the music.

1. Main Titles – Act I (1:15)
2. Data Clerk’s Demise (1:47)
3. Uhura’s Log (1:31)
4. Home Again (4:11)
5. Charlie’s Revenge (1:28)
6. Capturing The Fox (3:26)
7. The Needs Of The Many (2:59)
8. The Calm Before The Storm (2:57)
9. Approaching The Planet (1:58)
10. Vulcan’s Last Gleaming (1:58)
11. End Credits – Act I (2:30)

Released by: Edgen Music
Release date: 2007
Total running time: 26:00

Star Trek: Intrepid is a fan-made Star Trek spinoff, set in the post-Voyager 24th century and shot entirely in Scotland, which certainly gives it – quite literally – a unique voice. It also has a unique musical voice, with an original score for the pilot episode, Heavy Lies The Crown, by David Beukes – a score which doesn’t use one note of any established Star Trek themes, and it’s a half-hour of good music at that.

With everything from the death of the ship’s original captain, to big space battles, to moments of whimsy, to political intrigue, Intrepid would’ve forced anyone who was doing the music to run the gauntlet and prove themselves worthy. David Beukes passes the test with flying colors with music that would’ve done an actual televised Star Trek episode proud. The big fights are exciting, there’s some quiet menace going on as the plot thickens, the humorous scenes are well-done with an economy of plucked strings and woodwind samples, and there’s a kind of sweeping, panoramic, noble sound that’s almost a prerequisite if you’re going to put the words “Star Trek” on the cover.

One thing I do have to say about the Intrepid score is that Beukes knows how to get the biggest bang out of whatever sample library he’s using. With the fan-made Trek productions, it’s almost a given that your music is going to be done on synths, with samples, or a combination of the two, but in this case, there are very few places where I hear anything that instantly earmarks something as “not orchestral.” There are things you can do with samples – adding room reverb, etc. – that make them sound a bit more real, and the composer seems to have that technique down pat here. Tracks such as “Navar On The Bridge”, “You’re Making Fun Of Me” and “Conference” sound, for all intents and purposes, like he’s got real musicians and instruments miked up in the studio.

Two tracks that really mystify me a bit are “Battlestations” and “Garth’s Gambit”; they’re basically the same thing, only “Battlestations” has dialogue from the show included. I normally scream “argh!” at dialogue on a soundtrack album – even a free one! – but since the music is repeated without dialogue in the next track, I’ll let this one off the hook. I just thought it was a slightly odd choice to include a dialogue version at all, but thankfully the “clean” version is available too.

Overall, the Star Trek: Intrepid pilot score is a real treat for the ears (and at just the right price, too!). It manages to sound “big” in all the right places while being its own animal; there’s nothing here that sounds overly influenced by previous music under the Star Trek banner, aside from a sweeping orchestral sound. Composer David Beukes has, according to his blog, landed a real live composing/arranging/producing gig at a professional recording studio, and listening to this, I can see why. Here’s hoping he’s still got time to venture into the final frontier now and again in the future.

1. Theme From Intrepid (1:22)
2. Introduction (1:16)
3. Captain Talath (2:07)
4. Conflict / You Can Live With It (1:58)
5. Brothers (1:35)
6. Power Down (0:17)
7. Conference (2:17)
8. You’re Making Fun Of Me (0:54)
9. Heroics (2:42)
10. Wrong Again (0:22)
11. Sealed Orders (0:43)
12. Duty (1:58)
13. Five To Beam Down (0:33)
14. Chiron IV (0:58)
15. Navar On The Bridge (1:27)
16. Battlestations (2:13)
17. Garth’s Gambit (2:22)
18. Victory (0:37)
19. Consideration (1:04)
20. Intrepid Theme End Credits (1:16)
21. Intrepid Trailer Theme (1:35)

Released by: David Beukes
Release date: 2007
Total running time: 29:36

Just as I was mightily impressed with the debut installment of the Star Trek fan series Odyssey (see that review here), I was also impressed with its music – and lo and behold, San Francisco-based composer/multimedia producer Dexter Craig has made it available for free. I find myself missing the sound of the final frontier from time to time, and the Odyssey soundtrack hits the spot nicely.

Though it’s synthesized, the music from Iliad is done in an orchestral vein, and nothing here is written in such a way that an orchestra couldn’t theoretically play it. About half a year ago, I reviewed Dennis McCarthy’s CD release of the music from the 1997 CD-ROM game Star Trek: Borg, and I commented on the quality of the synth-orchestral elements available at that time; the music from Odyssey is at least on the same level from a technical standpoint.

Musically, Odyssey is graced with a stately, noble main theme that can best be described as not a million miles away from the Star Trek: Voyager theme – not stunningly similar, but there’s a definite resemblance in terms of feel. The Odyssey motif permeates the entire score, and unlike the Voyager theme, it’s designed to play well in major or minor keys. As the ship’s fate gradually becomes more dire, so too does its music – it’s all done quite cleverly. One lengthy cue, “The Attack Begins”, clocks in at just under ten minutes and puts the theme through quite a few permutations, as well as adding percussion that’s both contemporary and feels a little “ancient” at the same time. “I’m In Command!” builds on that cue’s momentum and begins throwing dark choral textures into the mix. For music that was made for an amateur film, it’s not shabby at all.

The story’s lighter moments are played well too. “Ro And Aster Get Lucky” accompanies a humorous/romantic scene with a piece that eventually breaks out into a tango. At the opposite end of the scale, the music for the scenes on the Archein homeworld and that race’s ships is dark and brooding without going overboard.

Overall, it’s well worth a listen, and quite a commendable effort. There are a few places where the music’s synthetic nature is obvious, but as with the rest of Star Trek: Odyssey, this is a project done without millions of dollars, for the sheer love of it. In that context, it’s good stuff and well worth the download time.

1. Overture (0:14)
2. Archeina (1:08)
3. Odyssey Theme Opening Titles (1:16)
4. Locations; Archeina To DS12 (0:45)
5. The Briefing And In Quarters (1:45)
6. General Morigu And Seram (0:28)
7. We Need A Little Luck (0:39)
8. Majan Gets Bitchy (1:36)
9. Ro And Aster Get Lucky (1:37)
10. Coming Up On Odyssey (0:40)
11. Engineering And The Ceremony (0;58)
12. Departures (2:53)
13. I’m Dying, I Have A Headache (0:35)
14. Doc Vaughan And The Romulan (2:28)
15. The Attack Begins (9:10)
16. I’m In Command! (2:58)
17. The Conference Room (3:08)
18. T’lorra Gets Bitchy (0:35)
19. Stadi’s Mistake (0:41)
20. Personal Log (2:01)
21. End Titles (1:04)

Released by: DexFX.com
Release date: 2007
Total running time: 36:38

One final note, a sidebar to the above review: as I write this review of the Odyssey soundtrack, which was released free of charge, I’ve also been gathering other Star Trek fan films’ soundtracks to review – and I’ve been watching a controversy kick up around another fan-made series, Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase II, which disturbs me deeply, as it involves dancing around wording regarding whether or not the film project is making any money (if Paramount is to continue to quietly turn a blind eye to the project, it can’t make so much as a red cent). I have noticed – and I’m not going to drop names here – that there are a few composers who are charging for the music they’ve composed for these projects. I understand that sample libraries and the software and gear used to make music with them do not come cheap, but while I’m not going to try to tell them what to do, I would suggest that these composers – by flying in the face of the rest of the project of which their music is a part and trying to make a buck – may be recouping their money at the cost of putting the non-profit projects giving them exposure at risk. As an occasional amateur composer myself, I can tell you that the whole reason to attach oneself to a project such as a non-profit or student film – for which one isn’t being paid – is to gain valuable exposure, possibly including exposure to producers who will pay you to work on commercial projects. As such, I will not be reviewing any “paid downloads” of music from otherwise non-profit fan films. I’ll be happy to support the composers by giving them additional exposure through my reviews, but only if their music selections are, like the films themselves, free. – EG