music for imaginary films: barry adamson in particular

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tom brought this genre up in the abstract, but it made me think we have never subjected the oovrer of the former magazine bassist to the rigours of ilm discussion

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 2 September 2002 10:14 (twenty-two years ago)

they tend to have titles like "the man with the golden bum"

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 2 September 2002 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Do You See? No wait you CAN'T thats the POINT!

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 2 September 2002 10:21 (twenty-two years ago)

there wasa 19th-century fashion for tone poems (liszt didda buncha them) which were very literalist: bars 110-125 Childe Rowland gets off horse, bars 126-138 Child Rowlande eats mars bar, bars 139-40 Child Rowlande blows nose on curtains etc etc

they are VERY critically derided

(R. Strauss said that in the don juan suite you can tell from the music he wrote for her that the first wronged woman has red hair!!)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 2 September 2002 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I really love Brian Eno's Music for Films. Those films were imaginary as well. I have to pass on Adamson though.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 2 September 2002 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Frames - Music For An Imaginary Film by Keith Tippett's Ark (Ogun, 1978) - greatest album ever made, apart from other ones.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 2 September 2002 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Lacks the rigour of decent film scores because there is no necessity to fit to the beats of the movie. It is certainly an interesting idea to record the soundtrack before anything else is written - and in latter day dancicals often happened (the choreography in The Breakfast Club f'rinstance) but then these are not soundtracks.

However it is equally as pointless to listen to soundtracks without the film so they aren't really all that evil. I just wish they had better storylines.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 2 September 2002 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

as i said before DJ Shadow really seems to follow this idea in his work - it was the admitted concept beind 'psyence fiction'...and i'm still watching Six Feet Under and thinking of The Private Press a lot

― blueski, Monday, 2 September 2002 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Sampler-guy David Shea has created several albums that are SFIF in all but name. My fave is called Tower of Mirrors, and it spans everything from sort of generic action-type cues to Apocalypse Now-style "river music" to faux Asian jazz to the kind of love theme you'd find in a vintage HK film. He did another album sort of dedicated to the late, great director Sam Fuller called Shock Corridor, but Tower is my fave Shea regardless.

― Lee G, Tuesday, 3 September 2002 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

they are all so "atmospheric" though: they wd be much more fun if the scores were really really detailed and mimetically precise (bars 234-47 childe rowland stick penis in apple pie; bars 248-52 explosion causing hero and g'f to hurl themselves forward towards screen; bars 248-52 villain picks up biro in somewhat abstracted fashion; bars 450-580 RUN LOLA RUN etc etc)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I always thought it was a line to feed the media who have great difficulty dealing with more abstract or instrumental music that lacks obvious lead singers personality/drug habit to focus on. As such I don't care much oen way or the other if something's described as as MFIF.

Of course modern film soundtracks sound nothing like the ones that we're talking about. How about doing a MFIF which was a load of crassly commercial songs in different contemporary styles (metal, rap, rnb etc) and a few old motown/ post pulp fiction classics. Not so appelaing really.

― tigerclawskank, Tuesday, 3 September 2002 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

A lot of my fave S/Tracks are just collection of old pop music (Scorpio Rising, American Graffiti, Rushmore blah blah) so best 'imaginary soundtrack' = yr favourite mixtape.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Naked City's Heretic isn't really for a film, though it might have been based on one. In fact, I think there a few volumes of Zorn's filmworks series that weren't actually for films.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

why nobody records imaginary soundtracks for imaginary chris farley / chevy chase movies is a mystery to me. no it isn't, it again is part and parcel of the musician's urge to be all "important" / portentous (sp?) etc etc tedious. "changing rooms" the movie - go ahead adamson!

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 11:17 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

I think it's worth resurrecting a long-dead thread to note that Barry Adamson's "Sounds from the Big House" (off Moss Side Story) is indisputably The Shit. No idea why it took me so long to realize.

― Telephone thing, Wednesday, 19 December 2007 05:49 (seventeen years ago)

four months pass...

i'm not so much for all of his stuff but the beat on 'something wicked this way comes's is gangsta.

― banriquit, Saturday, 19 April 2008 16:34 (seventeen years ago)

The new album Back to the Cat is definitely to be recommended, and he was ace on stage a couple of weeks ago.

― mike t-diva, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:55 (seventeen years ago)

moss side story is ace, and it looks like there are others out there who agree with me for once.

― mark e, Saturday, 19 April 2008 19:10 (seventeen years ago)

I like the new album too, and his show in Glasgow a few weeks ago was fantastic, ruined by my depression as I realised I would never be that cool.

― Sandy Blair, Saturday, 19 April 2008 20:16 (seventeen years ago)

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