*STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 SOUNDTRACK
John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra
Sony ClassicalIn John Williams’ score for the latest installment in the “Star Wars” saga, the composer/conductor only occasionally leans on the majesty and power of his trademark theme music. Yet the man who lent space adventure the kind of musical dynamics that are usually reserved for swashbuckling movie pirates manages to make his new compositions ring with familiar tones.
It’s important to remember that the film’s director, George Lucas, once said: “I like to think of the ‘Star Wars’ films as silent movies with stories that are carried forward visually and by the musical score.”
Williams accomplished that in the first three episodes and, with the aid of the brilliant London Symphony Orchestra, has realized Lucas’ vision again. On this 17-song instrumental collection, Williams paints the aural landscape with intensely dramatic peaks and valleys, majestic melodies and emotional percussions. He and the LSO are loud, scary and sometimes tender as they render the story of a pacifist queen who must decide either to fight or let her people fall to the evil Empire.
As with silent films, the music is less than subtle, instead relying on bombast and sweeping arrangements. It’s as easy to hear the light sabers clash in “The Invasion of the Droids” as it is to feel the joy of victory in “Augie’s Great Municipal Band,” the disc’s final track before the closing “Star Wars” theme music.
This is good neo-classical music that will give your stereo speakers a workout. William’s is one of the most consistent composers in Hollywood, and if you like his past work, this disc will be another welcome chapter in his song book.
“Star Wars” fanatics take note: The CD’s booklet unfolds into a mini-poster.
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A HANDFUL OF KEYS
Fats Waller and his Rhythm
Buddha RecordsEnter the time machine that is Buddha Records. It’s 1938, Fats Waller has just returned from wowing Europe, and he is headlining the long-gone Yacht Club on 52nd Street. The fledgling record company discovered this 22-song live performance, digitally scrubbed it clean, and has recently released it.
Fats died of his own eat-drink-and-be-merry excesses at age 39 in 1943, and this disc finds the jazz giant at the top of his game. “Handful of Keys” is also special because it is one of the only authorized live performances by the fast-talking, supple-voiced, comic piano great. Rather than coming off as a museum piece, this album – which contains classics such as “The Joint Is Jumping” “St. Louis Blues” “I Got Rhythm” and “Honeysuckle Rose” – is surprisingly fresh.
Also in Buddha’s first round of releases, Sinatra fans will want to seek out two new discs featuring a very young Ol’ Blue Eyes singing for Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra. Those albums are “Learn to Croon” and “It’s All So New.”
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ADIOS
KMFDM
TVT RecordsKMFDM Germany’s hard-core industrial giants release their 10th and final album today. Although the band has been in operation in one form or another for the past 20 years, it’s only in the weeks since the Colorado high-school shootings (where it was reported that KMFDM was a musical mainstay of the killers) that the group has come to national attention.
Too bad. The band has had a fairly illustrious career pioneering electronic dance beats and deserve a better legacy. Yet even on “Adios” – the band’s swan song – the band fuels the engines of Mothers Against Everything with lyrics like: “I’m a mega-man, I’m the falling rain, I’m your brother Cain, I’m a shot of pain right into your brain” in “Sycophant.”
The disc’s wood-cut art cover of a gun-toting uber-man wreaking destruction doesn’t aid their cause. Still, this is a very credible disc, with guest appearances by Orge from Skinny Puppy, Bill Reiflin of Ministry and punk diva Nina Hagen.
Hagen is especially effective on “Witness” an “X-Files” inspired story of alien abduction.
In light of Columbine, keep “Adios”‘ away from the kiddies, but the aggressive, Nietzsche-esque electronic-driven music of KMFDM shouldn’t be dismissed as tunes to go psycho to.