One o' these days...

Currently in earphones: "Ironclad" from the Sahara soundtrack by Clint Mansell, "Blind Pew" from the Treasure Island Soundtrack by The Chieftains, "The Fighting Donellys" and "Fighting for Dough" from the Far and Away soundtrack, composed by John Williams and performed by The Chieftains.

An update wouldn't go amiss.

Finished off the Jenny Lin Summer Music program tonight. The usual bunch of pop and showtunes with some gutted classical thrown in the mix. I do it because there are some good people and friends and the great Mrs. Meier conducts.

On a slightly different note, my chicken-itude never ceases to amaze me. I see the same few girls that I wouldn't mind talking to for the third year in the row, and I still don't work up the nerve to go talk to them, even though some of them are stand partners with good friends of mine. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid! On the upshot, there's a nice violist/alto (voice) who wants to collaborate with me next year for a chamber piece. However, she seems to already be attached. I'll take what I can get.

In other news, I got some more Chieftains music (as my above Now Playing list attests). The first is their sparse contributions to John Williams' score to Far and Away, which like many of the soundtracks I buy, I have never seen. It's pretty basic Williams, easily identifiable and very hummable. He composed all the music, has some pretty good Irish in the mix, and has the blessing and performance of The Chieftains to bolster it. The two tracks I mention are the only ones featuring the Irish group, consequently my favorites, along with a great action cue titled "The Land Race."

The second of three discs new in my collection is simply titled "Film Cuts" and is a collection of all the compositions/arrangements of Irish stuff done by The Chieftains for various movies. I was disappointed to find that most of the stuff they'd done were copy and pastes of tracks from their albums, obviously done at different recording sessions. The only stuff of note that I enjoyed was their score to Treasure Island, which, although not stunningly original, featured more interesting variations on old trad. Irish tunes as to make them interesting. My favorite being the track mentioned above and an interesting arrangement of "The Morning Dew," otherwise known as "The Hare in the Heather."

And finally, what arrived today, the soundtrack to the movie Sahara scored by Clint "Requiem for a [Atonal] Dream" Mansell, and yet another movie I threw money at for the music and not the film. Here's how it went down. I had purchased the soundtrack to that awesome piece of cinema, Batman Begins, and shortly thereafter received an e-mail from Amazon.com going something like this: "We see you've purchased X, and since we've noticed that not only do the majority of people who buy X buy Y as well, but seeing that Y is just coming out and will be on sale, we were wondering if you'd fancy a listen?" X being the Batman Begins soundtrack and Y being the Sahara soundtrack, I decided to listen, knowing how much the former rocked my socks.

One listen to the first track and I was sold. I didn't know ol' Mansell had it in him do to the kind of sweeping, bombastic, horns-blaring-sexy-James-Bond-themes, having only sampled his score to "Requiem for a Dream" featuring the very modern and atonal Kronos Quartett. Suffice to say, I've only listened to the big action cues since the soundtrack had arrived at my doorstep, being that kind of junkie. The only comparison I can make is the "Kingdom of Heaven" soundtrack with its combos of pounding action interlaced with ethnic, though not nearly as fun as this soundtrack right here. Once again, having never seen Sahara, I can't pass judgment on the movie, but a good friend of mine told me that it was fun. From the sound of the music (and various reviews I've read), I can guess that this was a rollicking romp that didn't take itself too seriously, and all the more power to it. This music is gonna be on my playlist for a while.

And that's enough of that, I've got a 9 am call tomorrow morning for the Zoo, and seeing that it's now 11pm, I should get some sleep!

Enough. More Later.
- James Keith