Richard Penna

I find Bear's themes and scores in general a bit mixed and my current fandom of him is driven almost entirely by RoP and Outlander, with a little bit of TWD (although the album situation for that series is pretty much unacceptable). The theme from Da Vinci is really good though, and a handful of other tracks from that album were interesting. Most of his film work and horror material doesn't do a lot for me really. I'm probably never going to understand the love for Shore's main title piece It's a nice piece but just for my personal tastes it's overshadowed completely by Bear's themes and work overall. I probably wouldn't even have been that personally bothered if Shore had declined to allow it on the release (due to whatever crap went on that he doesn't want to talk about).

Oh, agree completely. I mentioned them more as I was trying to highlight some specific appeal of having this specific release on CD, aside from obvious collector desires. Particularly as it's not like their US warehouse has a ton of the first two sitting unsold and they decided to reduce the pressing volume. Not entirely indicative but discogs has between 40-50 people currently wanting the first and second, and the lowest price is around £60. If they did more in the US store, no doubt they'd sell.

That was quick! If I were advising Powell right now, I'd tell him to forget his end of April streaming date and just put this out digitally now. Such a dumb idea to begin with - there were easily enough fans who wanted it on CD for Varese to get their sales. I know this may be an unpopular rant with some but I just don't buy the idea that Varese needs an exclusive period for a product like this, and it feels very condescending that we're being asked to buy (and wait for) a CD and marvel at some fancy liners before we're allowed the convenience of digital.

"Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear." "Epistemological? What are you talking about?" "You told a lie."

"Actually, I don't think witches are witches at all, just women who don't fit in. Learned, creative, reluctant to accept the repressive social and economic restraints forced upon their sex." "Uh, Kate, the three learned and creative women we encountered on the heath had huge hooked noses, numerous enormous warts, cackled incessantly and wore pointy hats. Exactly what part of not being a witch are you getting at here?"

They were still filming in the UK as of a few weeks ago because it was in the local news that Cruise was filming at Longcross Studios near the M25 (the big motorway car park circling London) but we had a massive planned weekend closure nearby the studio and some news outlets made a thing about Cruise possibly using his helicopter to get crew there (I'm slightly skeptical of that bit of the story - choppers are small and film crews are big).

That's one Middle Earth release I wouldn't have much interest in, mainly as the SEs are reasonably comprehensive for those not massively familiar with the films. It would be nice to hear the film version of the eagles scene from the first one but I can't think of a single moment from the other two scores.

No doubt there's alternate material - we know of one minor one which is a track later on in the series where he recorded Halbrand's theme iirc, with two solo instruments to avoid clashing with dialogue. However, given that with a different release mentality this box could easily have been a highlights release (with maybe half of each score), the fact that it has nearly everything heard in the show is more than good enough for me.

I've made some estimates before and I reckon it's around 5 minutes of proper unreleased cues or prominent sections. No doubt there is a bit more than that when considering edits to shorten tensions/sustains/etc, but in terms of music that's creatively important I don't think there's much at all.

I don't find myself drawn to the complete albums that often, but there are a few set pieces and moments that are abridged or not presented properly on the OST. Plus when you like a score as much as me (and many) you want the entire thing even if it doesn't get a huge amount of playtime. I really didn't want to pay £80 for a bunch of downloaded files so while this set is 30% or so more, it feels like what we get (all the music plus the OST and the book) makes it worth it, and those who just have the downloads don't feel left out with any content exclusive to this box.

If they were the same price, why wouldn't they have one basket option and just give the signed copies to the first 200? I was looking for a change in price when switching between the two while I was out yesterday and got a bit confused.

I wondered this too. A nice deluxe box for collector types, then a slimmed down 8-disc clamshell sort of thing, sans OST or book, with more units.

Well, only four days between "release" and the first potential ship date I'm still really happy I get a hard copy of the OST as a bonus - it's an absolute 5 star concept album. Plus a book I will actually read - what a wonderful package for the entire thing. I was musing over a purchase of the digital albums only a few weeks ago.

I saw that while I was in a waiting room earlier this evening and got a tad concerned about whether this would actually sell out before I got back home. 1000 units feels low for a score for this sort of franchise - it won't just be the McCreary fans.

It's worth trying for just about anything - you just don't get your hopes up if it's anything more complex than dialogue, percussion and high/low frequencies.

Ah cool. I've never ordered from Mondo before, and thankfully they have a status thing based on your email and order #. I tried to register but their recaptcha thing is either broken or impossible to pass. And no waiting to hear the music in this case - quite the opposite. It'll encourage me to listen to some of the episodes more

Ah, you got 'Vinyl only shipping' too - that's what made me suspicious. Actually, you got taxed and I didn't, so despite overseas shipping I paid around $1 less!

I appear to have paid just $17 for shipping, but there was a $30 something option which I suspect may have been the actual int'll cost. I hope they don't notice I doubt I paid more than £10 for the OST and I've barely gotten any LE releases the last 3 years so it's worth it. The page now says it's Almost gone. Maybe this thing really has enough fans to get rid of 1000 copies in just a few hours.

I'd lost all hope! What a random time to do it - could this prove to studios that they don't need to tie score releases to other dates any more? It works out around £40 or so more than downloads but it looks great with a nice book and I didn't expect a set like that to come with a hard copy of the original 2-disc set - I never got that physically so that's a nice extra thing to justify the overall cost. Man, I came sooo close to buying them all digitally, but something was keeping me back.

I remembered that my first exposure to Goldsmith was actually in the very early 2000s when illusionist Hans Klok did a TV special where for whatever reason the producers could get UK TV rights to a whole load of soundtracks, and one of them made a superb use of Basic Instinct. See this clip, particularly from around 17 mins in. (and keep watching after the dramatic bit at the end, for an inspired use of a Jurassic Park cue)

Yes, for music you intend to listen to, it's best for either removal of very simple elements or to make an already polluted soundscape a bit more bearable, but the more it's got to do, the more distorted the result will be. I've come across a few instances where a speciality release presents a cue with its intended mix, and these models can almost entirely remove a synth or solo element that the film removed, but those are solo or frequency distinct elements. It doesn't seem to me to be at that point (yet) where a polluted rip with effects and dialogue can be magically rescued to just isolated music.

I'd see that as a somewhat non-progressive stance, but depends why you would think that. I.e. a female Bond is a change to tradition and I suspect most people don't have an issue with it being a male actor. Some other stuff in other news has just wound me up a bit with regards to general sexism - I'm not suggesting they should be rushing to cast someone non traditional. Whereas if it's the black aspect, that's more of a problem.

Actually not a huge amount of action - maybe 15 mins or so in the 60 minute score - and there are no synths or textures that Goldsmith normally used - a completely organic sound. If you've never heard it before, the OST might be enough, but LLL's (sadly OOP) expansion adds some really nice material - it was a minor grail for me but thankfully it was one of the earlier modern Goldsmiths they did.

Not difficult for me with Goldsmith to at least pick the finalists. It's either The Mummy or The Edge. One's complex, exotic and just damn exciting, but the other's evocative and provides such a unique atmosphere, with a lot of personal meaning.

Yep, that's what I meant. I know existing ones have to meet their goal. At least this one is a reasonable representation of the number interested though.