Lakeshore Records offers up two striking soundtracks for a pair of documentaries: Peter Golub’s inventive Countdown to Zero, and Christophe Beck’s Waiting for Superman – the latter title is the latest doc from award-winning director David Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). Beck is perhaps best-known for his Buffy the Vampire Slayer scores, whereas Golub has built up a solid reputation scoring diverse documentaries and fiction films.
Silva Screen rides the Stieg Larsson wave with a compilation of themes from the first two film in his nasty Millennium Trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Girl Who Played with Fire. The disc features different material than the Milan CD of the first film, and I’ll have a review of that disc shortly. Silva’s album emphasizes themes with more electronic components, and it’s a good sampler of Jacob Groth’s great writing for such a dour crime trilogy.
Lastly, there’s the pairing of themes and cues from The Lone Gunman (2001) and Harsh Realm (1999), two shows created by Chris Carter during his X Files glory years. Mark Snow scored all of Carter’s shows, and while the series died quick and fast at the hands of impatient Fox, the music lives on with this CD. (Those wanting to check out the series can do so via DVD, as both shows are still apparently in print.)
In brief soundtrack news, Intrada revealed their latest limited edition disc, James Horner’s Uncommon Valor (1983), and Varese Sarabande’s latest Soundtrack Club editions are Jerry Goldsmith’s A Gathering of Eagles (1963), Alfred Newman’s The Snake Pit (1948) coupled with Robert Emmett Dolan’s underrated The Three Faces of Eve (1957), and reissue/CD premieres of Bill Conti’s superb The Formula (1980) and Doug Timm’s Nightflyers (1987). There’s also the DVD/CD combo Fimucite 2: Closing Night Gala 2008, featuring popular film themes and suites conducted by Diego Navarro and Joel McNeely.
And Emmy Award-winning composer D. Brent Nelson has a new website which features MP3 samples of his excellent music for Days of Our Lives. Those wanting a bit more backstory to Nelson’s work should check out my interview with the composer, and review of his 2-disc CD of famous Days music.
Lastly, while I’m getting through FSM’s 5-disc set of TV Omnibus: Volume 1, I can say at this point jazz fans should snap this one up. The dominant composer in this beautifully mastered set is Dave Grusin, featuring score and lengthy theme versions of the 1972 series Assignment: Vienna. There’s also Don Ellis’ dissonant & unsettling score for the serial killer TV movie The Deadly Tower, a 1975 production that Kurt Russell used to quash his image as a lovable Disney teen actor.
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com
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