The great thread of electronic/synthesizer soundtracks

[tim gueguen]

According to the entries on discogs.com for the Delta Force soundtrack album it was performed entirely on Synclavier.

[forcedopinion]

Sweet...

[Micke]

Yeah, Alan Silvestri was a big Synclavier user back in the '80s and '90s. He used one extensively on scores such as
"Flight of the navigator", "No Mercy", "Cat's Eye", "Clan of the Cave Bear" and "The Delta Force".

[forcedopinion]

The "No Mercy" theme is EXCELLENT.

[briandc]

Don't know if this was mentioned or not:



brian

[tomorrowstops]

Hadn't seen/heard this one before. Howard Shore for the win!

EDIT: We've talked about it on page 35. Prophet 5 and ARP2600. Killer combo for filmmaking!

[Micke]

If you like the Scanners soundtrack I'm pretty sure you'll like Denny Zeitlin's electronic-orchestral score to
the classic horror/sci-fi movie "Invasion of the body snatchers" (1978).

I very much like Zeitlin's synth work on this score, most of which was done on an early single-keyboard Prophet 10.

Here are some of the more synthy cues (the soundtrack album contains a few more synth-heavy tracks,
eg Rescue, Run and Hide (my favorite track on this album) and Escape to darkness, which feature some earth-shaking
20-VCO unison bass parts).




Those lovely string pads were actually played on another keyboard, can you guess which one it is?





Zeitlin bought the P10 through his musician friend Patrick Gleeson back in the spring of '78. Gleeson had two of
the first single-keyboard P10's that were sent out from the factory (only six units or so were made before Sequential
decided to stop manufacturing the 10-voice version due to excessive over-heating).

quote from Peter Forrest's A-Z:
Sequential had kindly offered Denny to replace his P-10 with a P-5 when they found out about the overheating problem. But he declined this offer because he wanted to be able to put both hands on that keyboard. He didn't care if he had to retune the instrument periodically. Says Denny: "seeing that I had this movie project coming up, I wanted to have all the power that a 10-voice would give".

As far as I know, "Invasion of the body snatchers" is the first movie score to feature a Prophet synthesizer. The music
was recorded in June/july '78.

Here's an interesting artcle on the making of the score (contemporary keyboard, july 1979):
http://www.dennyzeitlin.com/documents/c ... oard79.pdf

[Micke]

Here are some recent additions to my ever growing collection of electronic movie scores on LP & CD:


X-TRO (1983) - Harry Bromley Davenport (Jay productions ltd./CD)


The Boogey Man (1980) - Tim Krog (Howlin' wolf records/CD/2014)


Halloween (1978) - John Carpenter (Mondo records/180 gram vinyl 2LP/2013)


Surf Nazis Must Die (1987) - Jon McCallum (Strange disc records/vinyl/2014)

Now I'm looking forward to Howlin' Wolf's upcoming CD release for Richard Einhorn's score
to the cult horror movie "Shock Waves" (1977).

[tomorrowstops]

Nice call on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Micke - I haven't listened to that one yet! Just ordered a copy

And excellent choice in additions to your collection - I've been waiting for a copy of Xtro (vinyl) to show up for sale on Discogs. The Boogey Man as well. Surf Nazi's must die is an excellent listen!

[Micke]

Nice call on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Micke - I haven't listened to that one yet! Just ordered a copy

I hope you'll enjoy Zeitlin's score as much as I do

[Micke]

Surf Nazi's must die is an excellent listen!

Yeah I agree with you, awesome stuff. Believe it or not but the music was recorded with just two synths
and a 4-track tape deck.

[Micke]

FYI: the "Surf Nazis Must Die" soundtrack was recorded from the fall of 1986 through early spring 1987, using a
SCi Pro-one, Casio CZ-5000, some effects units and a Tascam 4-track tape deck.

This hard-driving synth score really kicks some a*s...I'm loving it!

[Carey M]

I recently watched the Troma 'classic' Surf Nazis Must Die. A rather boring piece of trash cinema, but I did rather enjoy the soundtrack. Not very well produced (nor was the film), sounds pretty crappy in places to be honest, but it still was captivating. A lot of the synth sounds remind me of Casio CZ -series.

Hah! I knew it! Great that someone finally released the soundtrack.

[tomorrowstops]

Definitely sounds like a couple synths and a 4 track! Man I wish I had the balls to work that way!

[tim gueguen]

Operation Daybreak (1975) - David Hentschel

Some kid was sitting on the bus today playing rap on his mp3 player or smart phone. One of the tunes had a sample of the sequencer line from this one. At first I thought it was a lift from the Halloween soundtrack until I heard it well enough. Haven't got a clue what artist it would be, and I'd be curious to know if they lifted it from the movie itself, or the YouTube clip Micke linked to.