The Blade Runner Thread

Classic. Always takes me to, well, another world when I listen to it. Timeless in a retro-futuristic way, both in 1982 and now.

How can I tell if it's the Esper boot I'm looking at?

Best soundtrack ever.

Definitive edition of the soundtrack is due later in the year to parallel the DVD set.

See also "Los Angeles - November 2019" which I like a lot and is described as so: "It's not a bootleg version of the soundtrack. Instead, it uses ambience and sound effects from the film (and, according to some sources, also from the Blade Runner video game) along with some of the music low in the mix to recreate the atmosphere of Blade Runner's world. It's a kind of aural travelogue through the film's near future L.A., a somnambulic drift through a seedy, bustling, rain soaked moloch of a city. To give you an idea, think of a brooding, nocturnal urbane counterpart to KLF's Chill Out album." More info about it and the various bootlegs here: http://square-dancing.blogspot.com/2006/07/blade-runner-soundtrack.html

Absolutely essential.

Man, I'm going to be dumping a load of money on Blade Runner stuff later this year, aren't I?

fuck, there's a new revamped soundtrack too? SO MUCH SHIT TO BUY ARRRGH OVERLOAD

I wish they gave you the soundtrack with the DVDs instead of, you know, a freaking suitcase.

i'm guessing the new soundstrack is without the snippets of dialogue awkwardly forced into the songs

I wish they gave you the soundtrack with the DVDs instead of, you know, a freaking suitcase.

God, tell me about it. I especially love how the sensibly-packaged versions omit the fifth disc with the workprint just to make fanatics like myself shell out for some flimsy, ugly-ass packaging that won't fit properly on a shelf.

But an expanded soundtrack...! My CD copy is scratched all to hell and I'd been pondering replacing it with the recent UK reissue; now I can't help but think "well, maybe I should pick up both, so I have the 1994 release's running order..."

I am a pathetic junkie and I may need help.

Definitive edition of the soundtrack is due later in the year to parallel the DVD set.

Ned, will we not have to buy the suitcase, then? Is it a multi-disc set?

It's actually cheaper to get the five disc version in HD DVD or blue ray, about the same as getting the four disc in normal DVD. But that requires having an HD DVD or blue Ray player.

According to my quick perusal of Amazon just now, there are a lot of different versions coming out in regular DVD. Basically, there is a two disc version, a four disc version, and the five disc version with the suitcase. The four disc version seems to be the most reasonable of the lot, but it doesn't come with the workprint.

I'm taking the simple approach -- ask for the five DVD set for Xmas. (Since, conveniently, it is released right before Xmas.)

My friends don't like me THAT much.

(I'm talking family in my case.)

Ned - do you have a link for info about the forthcoming soundtrack?

My family doesn't like me THAT much.

Yeah, come on, Ned -- give up the 411 on this "definitive edition" of which you brag...

From a couple months back:

Hi Everyone,

Just finish "BLADE RUNNER" Version 2 project with VANGELIS .....
Three months of works including restoring tape process and new mixes with the last Euphonix Serie 5 desk.

Something's up.

Similar post, found elsewhere:

June 27th 2007 - Blog of Vangelis' collaborator, Frederick Rousseau:
here is a snip from the blog of Vangelis' collaborator, Frederick Rousseau: "Hi Everyone, Just finish the "BLADE RUNNER" Version 2 project with VANGELIS ..... Three months of works including restoring tape process and new mixes with the last Euphonix Serie 5 desk. This Project brings back a lot of memories to Vangelis from that laps of time. During the last weeks we found a lot of unreleased cues and musics composed for the film and never used in it.... ( Interesting moment of discovery ... ) Blade Runner released date: October 2007".

man as much as i love this record i am recently way more into the escape from new york soundtrack

also, if anyone has the new american orchestra version for ysi i would be much olbiged

I highly recommend listening to this while driving around Los Angeles at night!

bonus points if this is your ride:

http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/WarnerTeach/E192/Images/BR.Spinners.jpg

The suitcase comes out the day after my birthday. And I find the Amazon US preorder price to be in fact kinda reasonable.

I don't know which bootleg version of the soundtrack I have on my iPod (it has all the synth music, plus two old 78-sounding love songs and the audio from the movie's trailer) but it's fucking great. I downloaded it after listening to Arve Henriksen's Strjon, because one track from that album was very reminiscent of the BR opening music.

Esper Edition tracklisting:

1. Prologue And Main Titles - 3:53
2. Leon's Voight Kampff Test - Sushi Bar - 1:37
3. Damask Rose - 2:00
4. Spinner Ascent (Los Angeles November 2019) - 1:31
5. Blush Response - 5:45
6. Wait For Me - 5:18
7. Deckard Meets Rachel - Rachel's Voight Kampff Test - 1:36
8. Rachel's Song - 4:20
9. Tales Of The Future (On The Trail Of Nexus 6) - 4:53
10. Bicycle Riders (Harps Of The Ancient Temples) - 2:11
11. Chew's Eye Lab - 1:17
12. Memories Of Green - 5:31
13. Blade Runner Blues (Extended version) - 10:07
14. Pris Meets J.F. Sebastian - 1:41
15. One More Kiss, Dear - 3:57
16. Deckard's Dream - 1:11
17. Thinking Of Rachel (Love Theme Different Take) - 1:17
18. Esper Analysis - Animoid Row Part 1 - 3:59
19. Animoid Row Part 2 - 1:10
20. Taffey Lewis' Night Club - 2:01
21. Salome's Dance - 1:23
22. Zhora's Retirement - 1:42
23. I Am The Business - 1:29
24. Love Theme (Extended Version) - 5:56
25. I Dreamt Music (Alternative Love Theme) - 4:22
26. Morning At The Bradbury - 3:34
27. The Prodigal Son Brings Death - 3:41
28. Deckard Enters The Bradbury - 3:01
29. Dangerous Days - 0:57
30. Wounded Animals - 10:55
31. Tears In Rain - 2:54
32. Rachel Sleeps - 2:01
33. End Titles (Extended Version) - 7:22

I am "on" it. Haven't ever really listened to this without watching the movie, but it's probably as lovely on its own.

I like it. It goes very well with bright blue LED lights.

I downloaded it after listening to Arve Henriksen's Strjon, because one track from that album was very reminiscent of the BR opening music.

Which cut? I'm intrigued...

I want the work print, but I do not want the trinkets and briefcase. You can get the five-disc edition without the crap in HD or Bluray, but not on regular DVD. Bah.

It comes out two days before my birthday! Go figure that.

It should be noted here that SEVERAL themes from this are catchy as all hell.

My current fave: Mary Hopkin's wordless cooing on "Rachel's Song."

> Which cut? I'm intrigued...

Can't remember now, and it could be that there was no actual melodic similarity, just one of those instances where a piece of music psychically triggers the need to hear another piece by someone else.

http://media.bladezone.com/esper.php

i used to put the movie on and just go sit on the doorstep smoking a cigarette and listening to the soundtrack.

theres no other movie I would even consider doing that with.

then the soundtrack came out and the ritual was lost.

off topic but Bladerunner is the one reason Im considering a HDTV this year.

p.s. dont touch the orchestral vinyl soundtrack. it sells on ebay occaisionally for good money and was a blatant cash in.

So I still can't find hide nor hair about an official 25th anniversary release of the soundtrack...

You'll have to steal it.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20056516,00.html

...in a cute supporting role alongside Tom Selleck in the CBS movie-of-the-week Jesse Stone: Sea Change.

This combination is all the more sad when you think about the two of them in the screen test for Raiders of the Lost Ark that's on the extra DVD with the box set.

But WHOA on that James Woods bit:

Some bitterness dies hard. In a 1992 EW cover story on Young, Woods sounded a note of contrition when he said that ''I love and admire Sean,'' and elsewhere he has been quoted as saying ''Maybe she'll say it's time to bury the hatchet. I can only be a gentleman and say I hope for the best.'' But when approached again for this piece, he struck back at the actress in four angry and raw e-mails sent to EW over the course of 12 hours, cc'd to his lawyer and publicist. He wrote, among other things, that the actress perpetrated a ''jihad of terror'' against him and his now ex-wife, that this all ''was certainly not about spurned advances, as they were most assuredly not spurned,'' and that ''I am sure it is fashionable to bash the guy (yawn) and pity the poor woman.'' (He also stressed that a highly publicized urban legend, wherein Young superglued his penis to his leg, was entirely false and if the magazine suggested otherwise he'd take EW to court. The actress also denies the incident.) His lawyer quickly followed up Woods' eruption with an e-mail saying the messages had been accidentally sent, and insisted EW only quote his client using the following statement: ''These incidents took place over 20 years ago, and I have moved on and would suggest Ms. Young do the same.''

oh man

watching the final cut in the theater really makes the official version of this score seem like an insult

Yup.

When the end credits started I could barely move.

otoh listening to "blade runner blues" from the lame old OST makes me feel like the loneliest man alive*.

* which I might be.

haha Ned when I saw it (twice) it was the opening credits that made me feel like a tiny bastard for having a bladder!

Hahah wow. But I hear you. Talk about how a few sounds just nail you to the wall (or rather the chair).

Rather than spend $80 on the set, ask for a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for the holidays (available in certain sales for $98), then rent the HD Bladerunner from Netflix. Best way to truly enjoy the enhanced picture/sound (if you have a good screen and soundsystem).

here you go! grab it while you can as 'they' keep taking it down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbDOl1QHerE

Funny that this reboot and teh star wars both have a theme of "we found harrison ford and its 20 years later! "

Coffee shop was playing the cut from the soundtrack with Demis Roussos's voice today. Nice way to begin the morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FhEpif1cA

My all-time favorite soundtrack. None of the officially released versions satisfy, though, so I found the 3 disc "EMS Recombination" version. It picks up all the random bits from the film and then some!

Details here:
http://www.vangelis-rarities.com/index.php?methode=methode1&id=191

Well, have spent a lot of fruitless time trying to find a way to download that :(

It's all over slsk.

all those hours will be like tears in rain

The sound design of 'Blade Runner' shaped me as much as the soundtrack--and both were pivotal for 14-year-old-me, circa 1994 and the 'Director's Cut'. And the film and the sound have stuck with me over all these years. Discovering the sound-design-focused bootleg 'Los Angeles, November 2019' some years back, I've wanted to make a mix that treated those sounds as field recordings, to pair with contemporary music that felt like it came from the world of 'Blade Runner' as much as our own world. Now here we are in 2019--and our world is quickly tilting toward 'Blade Runner's, minus the flying cars. But the isolation-in-a-crowd, the paranoiac uncertainty about the meaning of “real,” and oligarchic dehumanization of the oppressed feel intimately familiar. And I realized a lot of my favorite music from this year sounds exactly like what music would sound like in that nocturnal Los Angeles.

So I've put together 'Like Tears, In Rain' as a tribute to today's music and the beautiful squalor of 'Blade Runner':

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/musicophilia_00_various_-_like-tears-in-rain_2019_cover.jpg

Various – ‘Like Tears, In Rain’ (2019)

[Music in the World of ‘Blade Runner’]

I. Chinatown
[00:00] Elucid – “A Great Many Wishes” (‘Every Egg I Cracked Today’, 2019)
[02:30] Hildur Gudnadottir– “Gallery” (‘Chernobyl’, 2019)

II. Police Headquarters
[04:50] Debby Friday– “Indulge Me” (‘Bitchpunk’, 2019)

III. Tyrell Corporation
[08:15] Yosuke Tokunaga – “Cabinet” (‘8 Furnitures’, 2019)
[10:50] Tim Hecker – “Step Away From Konoyo” (‘Anoyo’, 2019)

IV. Apartment 9732
[15:15] Yatta – “Francis” (‘Wahala’, 2019)
[19:35] Thom Yorke – “Dawn Chorus” (‘Anima’, 2019)

V. Downtown
[25:15] Burial – “State Forest” (‘Claustro’ EP, 2019)
[30:35] These New Puritans – “A-R-P” (‘Inside The Rose’, 2019)

VI. Animoid Row
[36:45] Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – “I Own The Night” (‘Ancestral Recall’, 2019)

VII. DNA Row
[42:20] Andrew Wasylyk – “Through The Field Beyond the Trees” (‘The Paralian’, 2019)
[43:50] Nelson Bandela – “Balance 101” (‘Fantastic’, 2019)

VIII. Apartment 9732
[45:30] Sequoyah Murray – “I Wonder” (‘Before You Begin’, 2019)
[49:30] Charles Hayward – “Watching You” (‘Begin Anywhere’, 2019)

IX. Downtown
[53:00] Country Florist – “Outlastr” (‘Outlastr’ EP, 2019)

X. The Bradbury
[57:05] Lealani – “The Mountain” (‘Fantastic Planet’, 2019)
[60:25] Clipping – “Nothing Is Safe” (‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’, 2019)
[65:25] Fran & Flora – “Doina I” (‘Unfurl’, 2019)

[Total Time: 71:00]

If you're curious, stream or download here: https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2019/09/28/blade-runner-like-tears/

wow, thanks!

Will listen
If it were my mix I would sub out thom yorke for some hke or dream catalogue stuff

I'm not huge on solo Thom Yorke, but that particular track just fit irrefutably, to my ears, so I had to include it (given especially I'm drawing entirely from 2019 music). . .

A dodgy fileshare link to 'Los Angeles, November 2019' is here, btw - http://download-soundtracks.com/movie_soundtracks/blade-runner-los-angeles-november-2019-soundtrack-by-vangelis/

(mentioned at the top of this thread)

Well, that certainly puts my half-hearted attempt at a Blade Runner-themed playlist from a few years back to shame!

I think I went at it from a different angle and had a few Kuedo tracks that were indebted to Vangelis’ original end credits and a fair amount of Dream Catalogue material

Two mentions of Dream Catalogue as related to Blade Runner, never heard of it/them, so will have to investigate.

I think the key for me for this mix was thinking of music that seemed like it could come from the world of Blade Runner, not necessarily music that was especially influenced by 'Blade Runner'. Probably a high degree of overlap in truth, but allowed me to escape the shadow of Vangelis somewhat, while still honoring what he created.

Yeah, hke has said that the BR soundtrack played a part in the creation of DC. “Why doesn’t anyone make music like this anymore” or something to that effect

Amazing, thank you

Kuedo's Severance was I think entirely indebted to blending footwork with Bladerunner and one of my favorite records of this soon to be ending decade.

Dream Catalogue I'm familiar with only from 2814, but it appears to be one of the only remaining vaporwave labels with any consistency and credibility. They basically churn out "Bladerunner" style vaporwave music!

DC is not the only “consistent, credible” v wave label around. There’s Geometric Lullaby, My pet Flamingo, pure life, global pattern, virtual dream plaza, BLCR, the Infiniti pool, DMT Tapes FL, just to name a few

BTW, looks like a lossless version based on a hypercomplete 'Esper' edition of recent years is here, though with selections of its own. Assuming the quality's any good -- I'm downloading it now -- this could be it:

http://download-soundtracks.com/movie_soundtracks/blade-runner-soundtrack-complete-by-vangelis/

thanks ned

Thanks, Ned! Lots of cues I've never heard compiled til now.

My gosh, Ned, that version is even more "complete" than the thirty-something track version on the 'Esper Edition' bootleg from a few years back. Thanks!

Yeah, it's remarkable. At this point I'm assuming we'll never quite get it better than this.

so…the 2007 25th anniversary set is flawed? I have the 1994 set via Picture disk, but there's so much else I recall that's not on there, and I think the 1994 set is what's on the streamers? Somebody tell me if I should or shouldn't get the 2007 version… I have the scarface release from a few years ago, it has everything —including not only foreboding Moroder stuff, but the dance pop/Debbie Harry/"She's on Fire"/Latin shit— and that approach is what I would want from Blade Runner.

Well, I'm glad I have that 2007 set -- I view a lot of the bonus/'new' stuff on the third disc as just interesting elaborations/interpretations, why not -- but if the link I posted back in 2019 above still works, I'd snag that for sure.

well, define "flawed"

it's good

flawed in the sense that the 2007 set doesn't include every recording vangelis made for the film, when it would seem that a release that does include every recording vangelis made for the film, since his score is universally regarded as among the best film scores ever made, would be warranted…

wouldn’t that be an audio release and not a blu-ray? I get that bundling the score/soundtrack would be nice but that’s an outlier on video releases

OK yeah, in that sense (being incomplete) it is flawed. what you want is called the esper MR3 edition of the soundtrack, which is a two-CD bootleg available online that is as complete a collection of what was actually recorded for the movie as exists. that is also included as the first two discs of the esper retirement edition... do not pay money for these, they're not too difficult to find online.

Right, and I'll share this again! It's the link I just mentioned!

https://download-soundtracks.com/movie_soundtracks/blade-runner-soundtrack-complete-by-vangelis/

(that said, I always end up returning to the 1994 CD version because it's what I grew up listening to and unlike the purists, I love the integration of dialog and SFX from the movie into the soundtrack and don't care that some of the stuff on the CD isn't from the movie at all... fans of Popol Vuh soundtracks laugh at the idea this is even to be expected)

Yeah I like that they kept that as the first disc on the 2007 set. It's a nice reimagining, and was definitely better than the original weird version.

I think I have about six reimaginings of the soundtrack that I downloaded eons ago. It was a thing people did in the early 00s

Literally found out only a few weeks ago, thanks to this video, that there are some lingering shots of the photos on the piano which are missing from every other cut except the '82 theatrical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK8gSbIaNhM

I was delighted to find about about the 'deckard is gaff' theory last week: https://steemit.com/cinema/@starlight8888/blade-runner-deckard-is-gaff

I like it.

The part of fandom that comes up with little plot speculations you can tease out that are neither true nor false in the presented fiction is so much more fun than the people arguing that something is specifically true or false when the art left it intentionally vague

Ha! I'm imagining Edward James Olmos reading it and nodding his head then pointing at his ipad going "this guy gets it!"

that's a fantastic theory, i love it

Wonder if that plot strand made its way through by stealth from an earlier draft of the script?

edward james olmos put an astounding amount of work into developing the character of gaff on his own - he even devised the polyglot 'cityspeak' that gaff uses himself! - so i think a lot of the stuff like gaff's limp came directly from him rather than being a planned script element

reminding me I never finished Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner Revised & Updated Edition

that book was a bible to me as a teen

holy moly @ Gaff theory

I do like the idea of EJO himself planting the clues unbeknownst to Scott, Ford, Fancher as part of some ego-driven ethos that every role should be played as if it was the most important character in the movie.

I don't think 2049 has anything that would explicitly break the theory. Other than Gaff using newspeak and Deckard speaking in standard English. Almost adds an additional wink in that they go to Gaff on their journey to find Deckard.

https://i.imgur.com/5PtJ4ke.jpeg

Thanks for the rec, this book looks great

It's very good. That's the earlier edition IIRC; there's a later one with a blue color scheme for the cover and more info.

Revised & Updated Edition