{"id":11171,"date":"2015-03-26T15:20:27","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T19:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11171"},"modified":"2015-03-26T15:24:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T19:24:30","slug":"a-chat-with-craig-safan-the-return-of-the-last-starfighter-and-warning-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11171","title":{"rendered":"A Chat with Craig Safan + reviews of The Last Starfighter and Warning Sign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just posted is my lengthy Q&A with Craig Safan, a film composer I\u2019ve frankly wanted to interview for decades. His music was among the first I bought on LP, and the experience of seeing The Last Starfighter<\/strong> (1984) at the York Cinema<\/a> remains a sonic highlight.<\/p>\n

The movie was fun, but the music in a Dolby environment was highly impressionable, because his score was probably the first that made my ears take note of good bass, or what I call the boom factor. Not bombast, but music that\u2019s designed to envelope the audience and exploit the potential of multi-track audio, especially the subwoofer.<\/p>\n

As Safan states in the Q&A, he\u2019s primarily known for his big orchestral scores \u2013 especially Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins<\/strong> (1985) \u2013 but there\u2019s also his interest in electronic music which makes him a pioneer in applying synths to orchestral and all-synth scores just as instruments like the Synclavier<\/a> were being adopted by Hollywood composers.<\/p>\n

\"WarningSing1985_InvadaCD\"<\/a>This wasn\u2019t a simple plug & play keyboard which allowed anyone to easily mimic an orchestra and deliver a cheap score; as Safan notes in the liner notes to Invada Records\u2019s new LP and CD editions of Warning Sign<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(1985), there was much to learn and fiddle before one realized both the potential and limitations, and figure out ways to perform music and meet the dramatic needs of a film. Not something for amateurs, but certain creative problem-solvers would thrive in such circumstances.<\/p>\n

The proof lies in the score\u2019s resilience, because Invada\u2019s album, augmented with a hefty amount of previously unreleased cues, sounds great and may be one of the most clean representations of the Synclavier\u2019s emulations and sound manipulations. There are sounds many have heard in subsequent film scores, yet Safan\u2019s creation and usage still seem fresh \u2013 a testament to the sublime recording and mixing of Dennis Sands.<\/p>\n

\"LastStarfighter_Intrada2015CD\"<\/a>In addition to a review of Warning Sign<\/strong>, there\u2019s also Intrada\u2019s own expanded and remastered CD of The Last Starfighter<\/a><\/strong>, but prior to reading the reviews, I\u2019d suggest listening to the 35 min. podcast that\u2019s available on iTunes<\/a>, Libsyn<\/a>, and YouTube<\/a>.\u00a0(Because of time constraints and a tight film editing schedule, it\u2019ll be a while before I can create and add some supplemental visual material to the YouTube version, so for now, it’s just audio-only.)<\/p>\n

Also discussed in the podcast are \u2018baking\u2019 and mastering analogue recordings, a lengthy section on my favourite of his scores, Son of the Morning Star<\/strong> (1991), and some details on his new project, Rough Magic<\/strong>, a recording of sounds from caves featuring ancient Paleolithic paintings that\u2019s slated for release in May via Perseverance Records.<\/p>\n

Coming next week:<\/em> Part 1 of the delayed Fabio Frizzi podcast, and coming shortly, another set of film reviews<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Podcast Interview with film composer Craig Safan + reviews of newly remasterd \/ expanded releases of The Last Starfighter (1984) from Intrada Records and Warning Sign (1985) from Invada Records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[3567,2562,2563,3568,3570,3569],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/LastStarfighter_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2Ub","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11184,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11171\/revisions\/11184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}