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Just received this and given it three spins already. Absolutely brilliant score and presentation, 10/10. I've purchased quite a few more CDs this year than I usually do (about thirty so far), and this might just be about my favourite. Hadn't even heard it since a BBC showing in the mid-to-late-'70s, but the music - and the film - stuck with me.
Jeff B's liner notes say most of what I'm going to purloin, but I absolutely love the architecture and design of the score/film. The musical "theme" for Colossus is amazing - it's neither hot nor cold. I can't remember offhand if Jeff B says that it's "wry" or "quizzical", but if he didn't he should have done. Anyway, I'm saying it now. Wonderful percussion effects, truly interesting music. André Previn always said - and this was him giving high praise - that such-and-such a score was "really interesting". He said it about some of Goldsmith's scores, but he might as well have said it about COLOSSUS. It's so intriguingly conceived and executed. I can hear the themes (concepts) unfolding almost intellectually, almost as if depicting that Colossus is several steps ahead of the puny characters and viewers. And then that cool, wry and quizzical tone develops in the mid-part of the album into some almost swooningly romantic jazz/string pieces. Track 14, "Forbin's Hi-Fi", is a source piece which sounds almost like Neal Hefti, and when it's developed as (pseudo)romantic underscore in the following track "Peeping Tom", we're very nearly in tragic Mancini-land, especially when the piano solo appears. And while I'm name-dropping, I may as well say that those gorgeous strings are very Fieldingesque, in the sense that they seem to back the main thematic material by going from A to B via Z - but first touching every other note in the alphabet in no particular order. But it all resolves back to the ultimately chilling, clinical perspective of Colossus (and/or Colombier), who seems to be having a bit of a laugh at our expense. Pretty mind-blowing.
From JB's liner notes -
"His score for COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT stands perfectly alongside many of the offbeat, pop-flavored science-fiction scores of the early 1970s, like Jerry Goldsmith's ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES and Peter Schickele's SILENT RUNNING, imaginative, idiosyncratic and perfectly attuned to the films for which they were written."
I can't disagree with that, but I can't resist adding my own titles to the list, even if they're not all "pop-flavored", one is a bit late-in-the-day (1978), and a few aren't even SF. Whatever, when I listen to COLOSSUS, I associate it with (among other things) -
ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (Jerry Goldsmith) and SILENT RUNNING (Peter Schickele) - thanks to JB for the reminder...
THX 1138 (Lalo Schifrin)
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (Gil Mellé)
THE OMEGA MAN (Ron Grainer)
DEMON SEED (Jerry Fielding)
SOYLENT GREEN (Fred Myrow)
DUEL (Billy Goldenberg)
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (Denny Zeitlin)
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (Don Ellis)
KLUTE (Michael Small)
And at the moment, COLOSSUS might just be the most consistently addictive (and flat out enjoyable) of the whole bunch.
I know I'm replying to my own post here, which is a bit dickish, but it's just so you can get the context of what I'm about to say.
If you didn't buy this CD because it's not your kind of music, you're a bit of a twiglet. If you bought this CD thinking you'd like it and ended up disappointed, you're a total nutmeg.
Come to think of it, all of you who haven't got this, and/ or don't like it, are total and complete nutmegs.
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"Guy - it's been a full two days since we played Scrabble naked on the floor."
"Oh Rosemary, don't do that to me again. You always win with your achronims, or however you spell it."
"But Guy, I was thinking about that book we got from Starsky's friend - you know, Hutch."
"Yeah honey, it's a pity Tony Curtis went blind, but that's life."
"Guy, you don't understand! Listen to me! Give me the Scrabble letters."
"If you say so, but I only usually do this under a blue light."
"Just toss them, Guy."
"There ya go doll. Well tossed out."
"Don't you see, Guy? Rearrange the letters of the name Alasteir Crowley, or Dennis Wheatley if it's easier to remember how to spell it correctly."
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, honey. I get CROW'S LEGS ON WHEAT FARMS. Does that mean anything to you?"
"Oh Guy, stop it. Let me toss you off spontaneously on the floor again. There you go. Done?"
"I can't see very well in the dark, honey. Are you rearranging the letters to suit your demented pregnant pre-natal state?"
"Look at the floor, Guy. What does it say. Tell me I'm not imagining it."
"Rosemary, you're exaggerating as always with that new lesbian haircut. Wait - Hang on, that does make grammatical sense, although I'll be damned if I see what it has to do with the nutmeg that Mini Castanet squeezes into your breakfast orange every morning."
"Oh Guy, Guy, don't leave me ever. Look what it says! "ALL OF THEM NUTMEGS!" "
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One word Graham:
'SALE"
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If I play Scrabble naked on the floor, it's a certainty you'll see my nutmegs, if you know what I mean.
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Excellent release..
Goldsmith meets Legrand!
Bravo LLL for releasing this.
Brm
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Someone should write a sequel to see what happens after decades of computer rule!
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Someone should write a sequel to see what happens after decades of computer rule!
The novel upon which the film was based was followed by two sequels, the last one involving ... Martians!
!!!!!!!!!!
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