Far Out
One of my most popular mixes is The Farthest Reaches: World Influences on Modern Film Music, which was made almost three years ago. It is one of the oldest of my mixes (and only the first that I archived). Despite its age, and the technical limitations I had when I originally made it, I found that the disc has stood quite a bit of scrutiny and I still listen to it often.
When I made Grace, the sequel to Songs of the Heavens, I used essentially the same approach, but when I created Conquering the Skies, the follow-up to Flight, I determined that it should have a very different flavor than the original. In this case, I decided instead to strike a balance between the two. This disc has a lot in common with the original Farthest Reaches, including general length and overall structure (including breaking the program into two "sides," like an - extremely long-playing - LP), but the tone is slightly more dramatic. It also happens to encompass a broader range of cultures, including more from the Far East. Like the earlier disc, however, all of the selections feature a percussive momentum.
I wasn't even thinking about doing a follow-up to the original, but a few recent additions to my collection (Farewell to the King, Jeremiah and Battlestar Galactica season two among others) got me thinking about it. I felt that there were more possibilities with this concept, but I wanted to keep the same overarching idea as the original. This project was developed along with the new edition of The Philosopher, which will be completed soon - the latter of which hadn't even occured to me just ten days ago when I was contemplating various ideas for new mixes.
Toward the Horizon
More Music from The Farthest Reaches
61:44
Side One
1. Bear McCreary: Lee and Will, Part 1 (Battlestar Galactica) 6:25
Conductor: Bear McCreary
Uillean Pipes: Eric Rigler
Woodwinds: Chris Bleth
Percussion: M.B. Gordy/Johnny Hernandez/Bear McCreary
2. Vangelis: Roxanne’s Dance (Alexander) 3:14
Conductor: Nicholas Raine
Keyboards: Vangelis
3. Bruce Broughton: The First Prophecy (Jeremiah) 3:04
Orchestra: The Sinfonia of London
Conductor: Bruce Broughton
Programming: Ed Kalnins
4. Elliot Goldenthal: Poison of Ivy (Batman & Robin) 2:39
Conductor: Stephen Mercurio
5. Howard Shore: King Stargher (The Cell) 2:16
Orchestra: The London Philharmonic
Conductor: Howard Shore
Percussion: Bachir Attar/Pauk Clavis/The Master Musicians of Jajouka
6. Gabriel Yared: Achilles and Hector Fight (Troy) 2:34
Conductor: Harry Rabinowitz
Vocals: Tanja Tzarovska
7. Jeff Beal: The Mark of the Beast (Carnivàle) 2:55
Keyboards: Jeff Beal
8. Christopher Young: Sail On (The Shipping News) 6:12
Orchestra: The Philharmonia
Conductor: Allan Wilson; Guitars/Psaltries: Robin Jeffrey/Stuart Hall
Hurdy Gurdy: Nigel Laton
Penny Whistle: Tony Hinnegan
Uilllean Pipes: Robert White
Side Two
9. Eric Serra: Akta (The Fifth Element) 1:48
Orchestra: The London Session
Conductor: Eric Serra
Programming: Sebastian Cortella/Eric Serra
10. Michael Convertino: Postlude (Bodies, Rest and Motion) 1:45
Conductor: Marc Falcone
Programming: Tomas Hart
11. Basil Poledouris: Borneo Jungle (Farewell to the King) 4:22
Orchestra: The Hungarian State Symphony
Conductor: Basil Poledouris
12. John Williams: The Bridge (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) 2:00
Conductor: John Williams
13. Laurence Rosenthal: A Chinese Adventure (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) 2:07
Orchestra: The Munich Symphony
Conductor: Laurence Rosenthal
Flute; Bill Douglas
Gu-Sheng: Weishan Liu
14. Jerry Goldsmith: Sandino (Under Fire) 3:27
Conductor: Jerry Goldsmith
Guitar: Pat Methany
15. Patrick Doyle: Kindle My Heart Raga (A Little Princess) 3:48
Conductor: David Snell
Sitar: Craig Pruess;
Percussion: Frank Ricotti/Gary Kettel/William Lockhart/Glyn Matthews/Paul Clarvis/Craig Pruess/Kuljit Bhamra
16. Alan Williams: Bolivia (Amazon) 3:37
Conductor: Alan Williams
Woodwinds: Brice Martin
Percussion: Alan Vavrin
17. Bear McCreary: Lee and Will, Part 2 (Battlestar Galactica) 9:17
Conductor: Bear McCreary
Uillean Pipes: Eric Rigler
Woodwinds: Chris Bleth
Percussion: M.B. Gordy/Johnny Hernandez/Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary: Lee and Will, Part 1 (Battlestar Galactica)
I opened "side one" with a more familiar sound, in this case "A Good Lighter," the first appearance of McCreary's Irish folk-inspired "Wander My Friends" theme heard in the episode "Hand of God" which represents the relationship between the father and son. This is blended into the percussive "The Olympic Carrier" cue from the episode "33." Richard Gibbs established a specific sound for the new Battlestar Galactica which blends all manner of ethnic instrumentation; here Japanese Taiko drums mix with woodwinds playing Arabic lines.
Vangelis: Roxanne’s Dance (Alexander)
The locale zeroes in on this Moroccan-inspired track from Evangelos O. Papathanassiou's follow up to his score to 1492: Conquest of Paradise (featured on the original Farthest Reaches compilation).
Bruce Broughton: The First Prophecy (Jeremiah)
This cue from a 1998 telefilm starts off in a similar mode, but becomes more introspective, with a vocal closing off the track.
Elliot Goldenthal: Poison of Ivy (Batman & Robin)
We return to Morocco once again (with a touch of Surf instrumentals!) in this suite of music of Poison Ivy's theme. The track consists of three cues, "Ivy and Bruce," "Ivy's Garden" and "Poison Ivy & Mr. Freeze's Plans" (the latter was also featured on my Gotham Avenger: Screen Tales of the Dark Knight Batman compilation). I rebalanced the frequency response somewhat in order to make the sound quality a little more consistant with the rest of the album, as the source tracks were of less than ideal quality.
Howard Shore: King Stargher (The Cell)
This furious track consists of orchestral surges accompanied by the meterless percussion of the Master Musicians of Jajouka. This gives the piece a sense of great power but instability, a solution to how to portray the tortured inner landscape of a serial killer.
Gabriel Yared: Achilles and Hector Fight (Troy)
The rejection of Yared's score from this film was a very sad one because James Horner's replacement was fairly generic, while Yared's eloquently blended an evocation of the period with a sense of the mythology of the story as a mythic icon itself. This sequence features traditonal percussion for the combat itself, but a choral passage overtakes it as Achilles triumphs and desecrates Hector's body. (Oops, forgot to put a spoiler warning on this piece of information that is part of one of the oldest pieces of literare in Western literature! Sorry!)
Jeff Beal: The Mark of the Beast (Carnivàle)
An ominous opening with exotic touches is gradually revealed to be the introduction to a forbidding blend of the questing Brother Justin theme and cutting percussion as he is tattooed with the tree that identifies him as the Usher.
Christopher Young: Sail On (The Shipping News)
I close off the "side one" on a more upbeat note, Chris Young's delightful score for The Shipping News, which features ethnic instrumentation to illustrate the Newfoundland location of the film.
Eric Serra: Akta (The Fifth Element)
"Side Two" opens with a postmodern potpourri made up of recognizable elements; Middle Eastern percussion, an orchestral line with an Egyptian flavoring and an accordion.
Michael Convertino: Postlude (Bodies, Rest and Motion)
This is a quiet, pensive piece featuring Native American instrumentation.
Basil Poledouris: Borneo Jungle (Farewell to the King)
This is a suite of cues featuring this theme, "Trek," "The Jungle" and "Realization," which incorporates an array of pitched gongs. A shakuhachi is also heard as the track leads to its climax.
John Williams: The Bridge (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
This is an unusual track from Williams in that it consists only of a percussion pattern. It is undeniably effective in the scene it accompanies.
Laurence Rosenthal: A Chinese Adventure (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles)
Going back a few years into Indy's past, we have an Asian interlude. Rosenthal establishes the Chinese location with this attractive composition featuring flute and gu-sheng.
Jerry Goldsmith: Sandino (Under Fire)
For this crackling political thriller, Goldsmith was asked to incorporate the sound of Andes flutes. While the film was set in Central America, the unusual tonalities of that instrument, combined with the Spanish guitar sounds (provided on the album by Pat Methany, though not in the film).
Patrick Doyle: Kindle My Heart Raga (A Little Princess)
Doyle's first collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón was this fetching score which incorporates traditional Indian ragas. Doyle's own theme (which was set to William Blake; not featured here) is a very British concoction, but it is also adapted into the Indian mode as well. The suite here consists of "The Shawl," "Kindle My Heart" "Ramayana: A Morning Raga."
Alan Williams: Bolivia (Amazon)
Two cues from this Imax feature are presented in this track, "Bolivian Village" and "Animal Montage," both of which incorporates jovial indigenous music.
Bear McCreary: Lee and Will, Part 2 (Battlestar Galactica)
This is a conflation of two tracks from Battlestar Galactica. One of the primary Galactica themes, a Middle-Eastern woodwind figure, opens the "Battle on the Asteroid" sequence from the episode "The Hand of God." The theme is developed over mounting taiko percussion and snare drums, similar to that heard in track 1; but here the tone is more hopeful because of the presence of the theme and because the palette is expanded with Uillean pipes, a reference to the "Wander My Friends" theme. This theme is heard in its original form in when it is reprised in "Reuniting the Fleet" from the two-part episode "Home," bringing the album to a close.
The End
¹ Songs of the Heavens, while made earlier, was archived before The Great Computer Crash of 2003, but survived because of a restoration process performed on the original master copy of the disc. While I had made many mix discs before this one, this is the second one that I made as an album (after The Philosopher, the original version of which did not survive The Great Computer Crash of 2003, and the revised edition of which never satisfied me), as opposed to something to just listen to in a walkman or minidisc player.