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| CD Reviews: King of the Ants and Maigret |
| Posted By: Steven A. Kennedy on April 3, 2005 - 10:00 PM |
CD Reviews: King of the Ants and Maigret
By Steven A. Kennedy
King of the Ants ***
BOBBY JOHNSTON
La-La Land LLLCD 1024
19 tracks - 34:03
Stuart Gordon's latest film, King of
the Ants (2003), made the rounds of a few film festivals before
appearing on video in April. Gordon's most familiar film, Re-Animator (1985), has a big cult
following. Other more recent projects like Fortress (1993) and Dagon (2001) did well at specialty
festivals. Gordon is something of a modern day Roger Corman, creating
entertaining independent films for unusually low budgets. With King of the Ants, he turned to
Bobby Johnston for the music.
Bobby Johnston is a new voice in film. At the time of his hiring for
this score he was still a kindergarten teacher. He uses all acoustic
and "found" instruments to create his unusual sounds. He provided music
for several short features before scoring his first film, A Little Crazy (2003). This is then
his "second" full-length feature film score. The main title track might
leave you a bit amazed -- it's refreshing to hear real instruments
instead of a lot of synthetic percussion, even if you can't necessarily
tell what any of the instruments are! Many of the ensuing tracks are
multi-layered works with Johnston performing everything himself. The
music has an urban sound appropriate to the film's setting. If you can
imagine something like Gregson-Williams' score for Spy Game stripped of all its
Hollywood gloss, synthesizers and drum machines, you'll begin to get an
idea of what's going on here. No single instrument stands out on its
own, but there are sections of guitar background solos, high piano
melodic lines with rhythmic accompaniment, unusual bell/bottle tones
that sound like a cross between a steel drum and a marimba, and much
more. The more traditional drum loops are fortunately used less than
the more experimental textures.
Johnston is currently at work on Lee Shallat Chemel's family film, Greener Mountains, another
independent feature. But if King of
the Ants is any indication, Johnston should be able to soon find
a comfortable niche in larger productions.
La-La Land is commended for allowing this music to be heard. The score,
however, is relatively brief, with four minutes devoted to a remix of
the music by the score's studio mastering technician.
Maigret *** 1/2
LAURENT PETITGIRARD
Play Time 5785572
14 tracks - 55:02
Georges Simenon's Maigret is one of the great literary detectives,
standing next to Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and many others. There have
been a multitude of adaptations of these novels and over the past
decade or so, French TV has produced many telefilms featuring the
detective played by Bruno Cremer.
Laurent Petitgirard has provided the music for most of these films, and
now fans of the series have the pleasure of revisiting the music on a
marvelous disc that collects themes from several of them. Most of
Petitgirard's work has been in television (with an occasional film to
his credit), so he may be somewhat unfamiliar to soundtrack fans. On
the other hand, he is an accomplished musician and composer who has
released a recording of his Violin Concerto and his Cello Concerto. For
this disc, he has pulled together performances from three different
orchestras (France, Monte Carlo and Prague) to provide a survey of his
work from Maigret, beginning
from its inaugural "episode" in 1991.
The opening "Generique" is instantly likable and appropriately spans
the kind of mystery and humor that's an integral part of the genre of
detective fiction and film. The inclusion of a accordion/bandoneon adds
character to each track. The music is an intriguing mixture of musical
influences with strong roots in French impressionism, so if you enjoy
that style of music this may become a favorite. Many tracks have a hint
of a dark side mixed in with a delightful playful quality. The music
definitely captures this great character of Maigret. After a series of
brief tracks from various Maigret episodes,
the disc concludes with an extensive symphonic suite of over 20
minutes.
The disc is attractively packaged in a cardboard case that foldouts for
notes by the composer. The disc is available through FGL music at www.fglmusic.com.
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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Today in Film Score History:
December 2 |
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| Aaron Copland died (1990) |
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| Artie Butler born (1942) |
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| Cyril Ornadel born (1924) |
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| Eddie Sauter born (1914) |
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| Francois-Eudes Chanfrault born (1974) |
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| Gerald Fried's score to the Star Trek episode "Shore Leave" is recorded (1966) |
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| Harry Sukman born (1912) |
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| John Williams begins recording his score for Midway (1975) |
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| Lennie Hayton records his score for the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode “The Monster from Outer Space” (1965) |
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| Michael Whalen born (1965) |
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| Milton Delugg born (1918) |
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| Richard Markowitz begins recording his music for the three-part Mission: Impossible episode “The Falcon,” his final scores for the series (1969) |
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