{"id":2307,"date":"2011-02-14T11:21:01","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2014-08-05T01:28:12","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T05:28:12","slug":"cd-solaris-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2307","title":{"rendered":"CD: Solaris (2002)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: La-La Land Records \/ Released:\u00a0January 18, 2011<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length:\u00a011 tracks \/ (43:35)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes:\u00a016-page colour booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and closing comments by director Steven Soderbergh.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Cliff Martinez<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Although Cliff Martinez scores about one movie per year, his lengthy association with director Steven Soderbergh has continued to foster a musical style that\u2019s a mix of minimalism, impressionism, and ambient sonic & percussion textures that feel wholly organic, regardless whether the instruments are classical, ethnic, or electronically processed.<\/p>\n

Andrey Tarkovsky’s 1972 version of Stanislaw Lem\u2019s meditative sci-fi novel Solaris<\/strong> was nearly twice as long as Soderbergh 2002 film, yet Eduard Artemiev\u2019s avant garde score was also sparse. Like Martinez, Artemiev\u2019s music was strategically used amid striking visual montages that lulled the viewer into a state of calm \u2013 much in the way the characters have been lulled into a quiet, numb state by the psychotropic planet, which has created interactive impressions of past memories.<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019 music is frankly one of the best sci-fi scores ever written because it\u2019s so perfect in construction and execution, matching the images in Soderbergh\u2019s 2002 dreamy film, as well as the subdued colour schemes and montages that capture Chris Kelvin gradual loss of reality once he arrives on the orbiting station off Solaris.<\/p>\n

There are essentially two themes in Martinez\u2019 score: the opening \u201cIs That What Everybody Wants?\u201d and the gentle ‘dead wife’ lament, \u201cCan I Sit Next to You.\u201d The former is the film\u2019s main theme and is used to propel scenes and enhance the sense of urgency as the drama becomes more strained and surreal. The use of baritone steel drums and the Baschet crystal<\/a> bring forth the chiming theme, under which a driving 3-beat, bass note pulses steadily before a brilliant cascade of melodic chimes – an aural representation of the space craft’s intricate design.<\/p>\n

Those three components collectivel match images of stars, the eerie planet, the dreaminess of Kelvin’s outer space travel, and they provide contrast to the more stripped down tonal textures Martinez applies for the bulk of the film\u2019s final third.<\/p>\n

The secondary theme is a lament – an aural memory blast of Chris\u2019 dead wife Rheya – and it\u2019s an agonizing cue because its simplicity: wafting tones that glue themselves onto romantic chord progressions. Martinez bypasses familiar approaches to melody and lyricism, and goes straight for the emotional core of a passionate marriage that\u2019s destroyed by a cancerous element (Rheya’s suicide).<\/p>\n

The lushness of the strings is both romantic and a cruel cheat, and the theme later reflects Chris\u2019 vicious yearning for Rheya and the agony of being unable to save her. He\u2019s forever haunted by her tragic demise, and Rheya’s reappearance on the orbiting spacecraft is underscored by quiet but coarse tonal textures reminiscent of Ligeti, whose music (also used in 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/strong>) was temped tracked in the film by Soderbergh prior to engaging Martinez.<\/p>\n

Martinez’ Solaris<\/strong> affects listeners in different degrees outside of the film, but it\u2019s not unusual to become ensnared by its haunting beauty, looping playback several times because of the hypnotic writing, and the score\u2019s superb engineering.<\/p>\n

La-La Land\u2019s CD is a reissue of the 2002 Edel & Trauma Records CDs, and many subtle nuances can be picked out on CD \u2013 little acoustic features otherwise buried in the film\u2019s sound mix. Whether it\u2019s peripheral sounds, the slow fadeout of tracks, or the low-end bass notes which fade in and out of cues, the details come through with clarity, and Julie Kirgo\u2019s liner notes provide a solid overview of the film and score – both of which enjoyed renewed attention by film and film music fans after studio Fox had no idea how to sell the film to audiences wanting formulaic sci-fi material.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating: Excellent Label: La-La Land Records \/ Released:\u00a0January 18, 2011 Tracks & Album Length:\u00a011 tracks \/ (43:35) \u00a0 Special Notes:\u00a016-page colour booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and closing comments by director Steven Soderbergh. \u00a0 Composer: Cliff Martinez \u00a0 \u00a0 Review: Although Cliff Martinez scores about one movie per year, his lengthy association with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[301,299,300],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Bd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307"}],"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=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9404,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions\/9404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}