{"id":2451,"date":"2011-03-07T11:34:04","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T16:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2011-03-07T11:34:04","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T16:34:04","slug":"cd-rat-patrol-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2451","title":{"rendered":"CD: Rat Patrol (1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>P to R<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: \u00a0La-La Land Records<\/a>\/ Released: January 18, 2011<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 45 tracks \/ (78:40)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 12-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jon Burlingame \/ Limited to 1200 copies.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Dominic Frontiere<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

The Rat Patrol<\/strong> TV series was the creation of underrated writer \/ director Tom Gries (Will Penny<\/strong>) which lasted two seasons before production partner United Artists got \u2018cold feet\u2019 from the deficit financing arrangement, and canceled the show in spite of its audience popularity.<\/p>\n

According to Jon Burlingame\u2019s CD liner notes, Alex North was hired to score the pilot episode, but after budget overages, both Gries as director and North as composer were dumped, and Dominic Frontiere was brought in to score not specific episodes, but roughly 90 mins. worth of multi-purpose stock music for the series \u2013 enough to last, at the very least, one season.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s remarkable about Frontiere\u2019s custom library music is the immense variation of material that spans action, tense danger, furtive maneuvering in dark corners, and source cues \u2013 all based on the composer\u2019s impressions from printed script pages.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a testament to the composer\u2019s brilliance that this album stands on its own as a vivid portrait of kick-ass soldiers fighting evil Nazis in the Libyan desert without melodrama nor jingoistic attitude. There is<\/em> humour in the series\u2019 theme \u2013 witty, jubilant, and a as tuneful as Elmer Bernstein\u2019s Great Escape<\/strong> theme, or the \u201cColonel Bogey\u2019s March<\/a>\u201d from Bridge on the River Kwai<\/strong> \u2013 but Frontiere\u2019s variations are wildly different, and slanted towards desperate, or in-the-heat-of-the-moment tension.<\/p>\n

The big bonus for series fans is the robustness of the music, as Frontiere recorded his score in Munich in stunning stereo. La-La Land\u2019s mastering is top-notch, and every nuance of Frontiere\u2019s beautiful writing is crystal clear: the multiple groups of lyrical brass, the snappy snare drum and rumbling percussion, and cues with stripped-down instrumentation (\u201cBreaking In and Searching\u201d).<\/p>\n

Among the cues one can hear traces of jazzy rhythms, Spanish harmonics, and little nods to modern masters, such as the Herrmannesque triadic motif in \u201cDesert Sun,\u201d the chromatic patterns in \u201cRats in Action,\u201d and the charged counterpoint between a cascading brass pattern and the series\u2019 merry theme in \u201cRats on Patrol.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CD is sequenced to create a dramatic flow, guiding the listener through various adventures, but imparting a whole level of subtext: Frontiere\u2019s music captures the superficial excitement of a good adventure, but he also captures\u00a0 the emotional consequences of reckless actions, being too cocky amongst one\u2019s mates, genuine mortal danger, and a hunger for a sense the normalcy of home.<\/p>\n

La-La Land\u2019s prior Frontiere release was music from The Outer Limits<\/strong> TV series, a must-have, multi-disc set that captures a more haunting side of the composer. Hopefully the label\u2019s next salute will be music from The Invaders<\/strong> (1967-1968), and the long-forgotten urban western drama Stoney Burke<\/strong> (1962), the latter series co-directed by Tom Gries.<\/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

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0P to R<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ P to R . Rating: Excellent Label: \u00a0La-La Land Records\/ Released: January 18, 2011 Tracks & Album Length: 45 tracks \/ (78:40) . Special Notes: 12-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jon Burlingame \/ Limited to 1200 copies. . Composer: Dominic Frontiere . . Review: The Rat Patrol TV […]<\/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":[326],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Dx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451"}],"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=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}