EXIT HUMANITY

 

I loved this very introspective Civil War-era zombie movie from filmmaker John Geddes. If I can ever get my foot out of my mouth about it, I may just review it. But for now, a beautiful piece of music from the unfortunately unavailable soundtrack.

TWIST THE KNIFE

Just discovered these guys. I guess I'm way behind the times.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHNNY...

...you cool motherfucker, you.

(And one for fun.)

THE DOOR OPENS

Finally got around to see The Woman in Black. A nice, old-fashioned Gothic ghost story. It was refreshing to see a horror film for adults.

Marco Beltrami's film score work is pretty hit and miss with me, but I rather liked his stuff for TWIB.

My favorite track:

INTO THE FRAY

I have seen The Grey twice now and it's absolutely fantastic. A movie sold as Taken with Wolves is actually a very humbling tale of a group of men struggling to survive against the elements, animalkind, and each other. Do not be fooled. The movie has brains and heart as well as balls.

The soundtrack is great, too. My favorite track, Alpha, is below:

THE THIRD TWIN

 
I won't be bringing this up terribly often, but I was a huge fan of 2010's TRON: Legacy. I loved everything about it, including the amazing visuals and the awesome soundtrack by Daft Punk. Yes, I recognize the film's story itself is weak. I really don't care. I will, however, freely admit that, had I not fallen so deeply in love with the film's score prior to my having seen the film, my reaction to the film might have been lukewarm at best. But that's not important. Bottom line: I love it now.

When the soundtrack was released, an interesting—almost conspiratorial—rumor began circulating; that there was something not on-the-level with the final product of the film's score. Unfounded, unconfirmed, and even downright denied rumors that Disney were unhappy with the famed duo's first musical submission, which was more along the lines of their signature style of crunchy beats and inordinate melodies, exploded across blogs and forums. Allegedly, Disney, expecting something more traditional and orchestral, tossed the music into the trash and told the French robots to start from scratch. (I personally don't believe any of this to be true—any musician who makes the rare foray into film composition ultimately creates something completely unlike anything they previously created under their more famous monikers: ie, Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood; Damon Albarn for Ravenous; John Cale for American Psycho.)

A collection of music silently appeared on the Internets, full of crunchy beats and inordinate melodies, as well as looped vocals and found audio. The music was credited to The Third Twin, a band no one had heard of up to that point. And then the conspiracy became widely known: The Third Twin was actually Daft Punk, who were decidedly unhappy with Disney's treatment of their original compositions for TRON: Legacy, and so were leaking the music they had created. The Third Twin was used as their alias so as to avoid legal ramifications from such an act. This, of course, has been vehemently denied by Disney, as well as by Daft Punk and their representatives. The following statement was actually released after a Spanish newspaper called El Periódico Mediterráneo reported the French duo were scheduled to perform at the Arenal Sound Festival as their new alter ego The Third Twin:

"It has been brought to the attention of Daft Punk's management that the promoters for the Arenal Sound Festival in Spain have recently issued a press release in which they claim that a band called The Third Twin is 'directly connected' to Daft Punk. This is completely untrue. Recent press reports are based on rumors instead of facts. Daft Punk is in no way associated with The Third Twin and the promoters for the Arenal Sound Festival are promoting the show under false pretenses."

Further:

"We never threw out any of their material, ever," says Mitchell Leib, [President of Music and Soundtracks for Walt Disney Pictures and Disney Music Group].  "I want to dispel any of the rumors about that material by that alias group being any derivative of our TRON music, because it's not at all. There's nothing about that music that has anything to do with TRON or any of the original conceptual music that was done."

The conspiracy became quite specific, leading to the claim that one of TTT's songs, Give Us Your Energy, was actually an early test version of Outlands, a track featured on the official TRON: Legacy soundtrack.*

But the rumors don't end there. According to the latest rumor (which is already a year old in what appears to be the now-dead conspiracy), the members of The Third Twin are actually nephews of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of Daft Punk.

Tracking all the rumors can get exhausting after a while, so feel free to Wiki this and see all the additional rumors that have subsisted since TTT first breached American shores two years ago. After that, check this out, because it just keeps going.

The point is this: music released online by The Third Twin remains free, and quite good. Fans of early Daft Punk should dig it, as well as new listeners.

Tracklists for both releases are as follows. You can snag both albums in one handy zip file below.

Homemade (2010)

1. Technolers
2. Evil Minds
3. Chicago Soul
4. Justice Free
5. Ra Men Kepher
6. Americ Family
7. Empty Fire
8. Worm Earth
9. The Time Is Over
10. Arecibo's Song
11. This Is Love

 Direkttt (EP) (2011)

1. Give Us Your Energy*

2. Euphoria

3. The Nightmare

4. Posioned

5. Impulse



GET

Note: This music is being posted here under the assumption that it is to be considered promotional material, as direct links on the band's official website lead to free downloads off LastFM. If this is no longer the case, please contact the blog and it will be immediately removed.

OLD APPARATUS

Old Apparatus Music

CROSSROADS

Meeting with the Devil at the Crossroads

A “vision,” as told by Henry Goodman

Robert Johnson been playing down in Yazoo City and over at Beulah trying to get back up to Helena, ride left him out on a road next to the levee, walking up the highway, guitar in his hand propped up on his shoulder. October cool night, full moon filling up the dark sky, Robert Johnson thinking about Son House preaching to him, “Put that guitar down, boy, you drivin’ people nuts.” Robert Johnson needing as always a woman and some whiskey. Big trees all around, dark and lonesome road, a crazed, poisoned dog howling and moaning in a ditch alongside the road sending electrified chills up and down Robert Johnson’s spine, coming up on a crossroads just south of Rosedale. Robert Johnson, feeling bad and lonesome, knows people up the highway in Gunnison. Can get a drink of whiskey and more up there. Man sitting off to the side of the road on a log at the crossroads says, “You’re late, Robert Johnson.” Robert Johnson drops to his knees and says, “Maybe not.”

The man stands up, tall, barrel-chested, and black as the forever-closed eyes of Robert Johnson’s stillborn baby, and walks out to the middle of the crossroads where Robert Johnson kneels. He says, “Stand up, Robert Johnson. You want to throw that guitar over there in that ditch with that hairless dog and go on back up to Robinsonville and play the harp with Willie Brown and Son, because you just another guitar player like all the rest, or you want to play that guitar like nobody ever played it before? Make a sound nobody ever heard before? You want to be the King of the Delta Blues and have all the whiskey and women you want?”

“That’s a lot of whiskey and women, Devil-Man.”

“I know you, Robert Johnson,” says the man.

Robert Johnson, feels the moonlight bearing down on his head and the back of his neck as the moon seems to be growing bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter. He feels it like the heat of the noonday sun bearing down, and the howling and moaning of the dog in the ditch penetrates his soul, coming up through his feet and the tips of his fingers through his legs and arms, settling in that big empty place beneath his breastbone causing him to shake and shudder like a man with the palsy. Robert Johnson says, “That dog gone mad.”

The man laughs. “That hound belong to me. He ain’t mad, he’s got the Blues. I got his soul in my hand.”

The dog lets out a low, long soulful moan, a howling like never heard before, rhythmic, syncopated grunts, yelps, and barks, seizing Robert Johnson like a Grand Mal, and causing the strings on his guitar to vibrate, hum, and sing with a sound dark and blue, beautiful, soulful chords and notes possessing Robert Johnson, taking him over, spinning him around, losing him inside of his own self, wasting him, lifting him up into the sky. Robert Johnson looks over in the ditch and sees the eyes of the dog reflecting the bright moonlight or, more likely so it seems to Robert Johnson, glowing on their own, a deep violet penetrating glow, and Robert Johnson knows and feels that he is staring into the eyes of a Hellhound as his body shudders from head to toe.

The man says, “The dog ain’t for sale, Robert Johnson, but the sound can be yours. That’s the sound of the Delta Blues.”

“I got to have that sound, Devil-Man. That sound is mine. Where do I sign?”

The man says, “You ain’t got a pencil, Robert Johnson. Your word is good enough. All you got to do is keep walking north. But you better be prepared. There are consequences.”

“Prepared for what, Devil-man?”

“You know where you are, Robert Johnson? You are standing in the middle of the crossroads. At midnight, that full moon is right over your head. You take one more step, you’ll be in Rosedale. You take this road to the east, you’ll get back over to Highway 61 in Cleveland, or you can turn around and go back down to Beulah or just go to the west and sit up on the levee and look at the River. But if you take one more step in the direction you’re headed, you going to be in Rosedale at midnight under this full October moon, and you are going to have the Blues like never known to this world. My left hand will be forever wrapped around your soul, and your music will possess all who hear it. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s what you better be prepared for. Your soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads. I put this “X” here for a reason, and I been waiting on you.”

Robert Johnson rolls his head around, his eyes upwards in their sockets to stare at the blinding light of the moon which has now completely filled tie pitch-black Delta night, piercing his right eye like a bolt of lightning as the midnight hour hits. He looks the big man squarely in the eyes and says, “Step back, Devil-Man, I’m going to Rosedale. I am the Blues.”

The man moves to one side and says, “Go on, Robert Johnson. You the King of the Delta Blues. Go on home to Rosedale. And when you get on up in town, you get you a plate of hot tamales because you going to be needing something on your stomach where you’re headed.”

More. 

MUSIC FOR FILM: RAVENOUS

 

Ravenous will be the subject of an upcoming Unsung Horrors post.  In the meantime, listen to one track from one of my favorite film scores. Tonally, the score is all over the place - from goofy to vintage patriotic to adrenalin pumping to downright creepy (like this one).

DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS ABOUT EDWARD?

Edward Mordrake was reportedly the 19th century heir to an English peerage. He supposedly had an extra face on the back of his head, which could neither eat nor speak, although it could laugh and cry. Edward begged doctors to have his "demon head" removed, because it whispered horrible things to him at night.

No doctor would attempt it. 

He committed suicide at the age of 23.

THE DARK HALF

You've been listening to Christopher Young's music for years, and you've never even realized it. Too often the effort that goes into any film score is disregarded by the general public in favor of what is occurring on the screen. Sure, every once in a while, scores like Titanic (yikes) or Inception (yes) are able to break that barrier and populate the mainstream. Examples like those, however, are few and far between. Film music is a largely dismissed medium - and audiences tend to take for granted that it even exists. Too often, to general audiences, the music is merely present; it affects the scene, and then it vanishes like a quiet wind. Instead of having its own life, it's there to simply service the story, like a badly timed joke.

Having provided the scores for such iconic movies as Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, and more recently the Spider-Man sequels, Young has always (and unfortunately) remained under the radar. Outside of the rabid horror movie fans or soundtrack collecting groups, Young never quite achieved the reputation and celebrity of his colleagues Hans Zimmer, Jerry Goldsmith, or John Williams. And maybe it's because Young has always leaned towards the dark side of the film medium - something else sadly dismissed.

Young's film debut would come in 1982, supplying his untested sound for the dubiously named The Dorm That Dripped Blood. Needless to say, the film was just another in the long line of "dead teenager movies" assaulting theaters following the one-two punch of 1978's Halloween and 1980's Friday the 13th. Young would begin to make a name for himself, however, and would work continuously until 1985. The previous year, Freddy Krueger had been given to the world, and Charles Bernstein had provided what would go on to be an iconic score, the main themes which later surfaced in every Nightmare sequel...except for Nightmare 2. Young, instead, wrote all new themes for the movie, recognizing that the sequel was straying away from the previous established mythology of the first film. Freddy was no longer a dream phantom who could haunt you while you slept - he now had the ability to possess you during your dreams and use your body as a vehicle (to go to gay bars, for some reason).

For this development, Young's new themes - built on sharp, quick jarring noises and eerie ethereal tones - helped to shape Nightmare 2, if not into the most successful sequel of the series, but certainly  into the darkest entry. Whalesong was layered behind the music whenever Freddy was on screen, making the mood that much more surreal and dreamlike.

Young would continue to diligently work on little seen films until the year his career changed forever: 1987. His score for Hellraiser would make everyone - both industry members and general audiences - stand up and take notice. Pinhead, who would appear in consistently diminishing Hellraiser entries over the next twenty-five years, would never be on screen without the theme that Young had created. (Not even Michael Myers can say that, despite his arguably far more famous accompanying theme).   

Young would go on to score Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 - in which he would take the themes he had previously established and place them in the most deranged carnival setting this side of Hell. He would win numerous awards for the score, and it would go on to be considered his masterpiece. Not bad for a man only five years into his career.

And despite the A-list, high-profile movies he has worked on throughout his career (The Shipping News, Copycat, The Core), and all the while continuing to show his diversity (HBO's Something the Lord Made, Wonder Boys, Swordfish), he would never leave the horror genre behind. A self-proclaimed enthusiast for all things dark (he is an avid collector of jack-o-lanterns, horrific masks, and autographs from horror movie stars), he continues to work in the genre which birthed his career. Though the material he scores may be beneath him (Urban Legends and Species comes to mind), he never fails to produce exciting and engaging music.

One thing a fellow film score enthusiast will tell you - NEVER judge any film's score based on the film itself. (TRON: Legacy has gone on to be hailed as one of the greatest film scores of all time. Does the accompanying movie deserve that honor? Not quite.) Frankly speaking, Urban Legends is a piece of shit, and despite its successful box office take, it's a shame that Young's score was never officially released (though can be easily found by anyone with halfway decent Googling skills). It remains one of his absolute best - and would skillfully display one of Young's most famous trademarks - the ethereal choral of voices (later displayed in Drag Me to Hell, The Uninvited, and the Spider-Man sequels).

To date, Young's most recent release has been for the movie Priest, and has presented a new side of the ever-unpredictable composer: a sweeping score akin to Zimmer's work on Nolan's Batman films, but also featuring those Young trademarks fans have come to recognize - a sea of baritone voices; it has wowed not just his longtime fans, but new ones as well. It is being considered one of 2011's best scores, and ashamedly has only seen a digital release.

As a youth, and long before his expansive career, Christopher Young would one day be introduced to the work of another famous composer, known for his more horrific themes: Bernard Hermann (Psycho, Vertigo).  "Here was someone doing everything I wanted to do," Young said. "I fell in love with the music before I realized that it was written for movies." 

Essential Listening:

Drag Me To Hell

Track 01: Drag Me To Hell (Main Title)

2009

Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

Track 07: Hall of Mirrors

1988

Priest

Track 01: Priest (Main Title)

2011

Bonus: 

Music from Young's Copycat kicks in at the 1:00 mark. This has been utilized in several horror/thriller movie trailers. Here is just one of them: