Del Rey & the Sun Kings - Battleship Potemkin
DEL REY & THE SUN KINGS
Battleship Potemkin
(Trakwerx)
A member of experimental music outfits Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies, instrumentalist/composer Jackson Del Rey pays tribute to the iconic Russian motion picture Battleship Potemkin by contributing a new score. Original composer Sergei Eisenstein claimed he thought the film needed a new soundtrack every ten years or so, and Del Rey has taken up the challenge. He easily rises to it, creating music that’s evocative, sensual and, when the mood calls for it, harrowing. Of course, how often you might listen to it is dependent on your tolerance for music made to accompany visuals (or your fixation on ambient work). That said, if you’ve got a copy of the film lying around, put it on your monitor, turn down the sound and play this disk alongside it for a no doubt fulfilling experience. Michael Toland
Monday, February 26, 2007
New adds on Ear Candle Radio
Fri, Feb. 2nd, 2007 8:17 PM
earcandleproductions.com News
Hi gang,
Usually, we like to slip new songs into our playlist discreetly and let them be a surprise to our regular listeners, but I have to tip my hat to 17 Pygmies for sending this exquisite package in the mail containing three CDs and a vinyl single (which contained a small ornamental card with directions on where to download the single's songs as mp3s). I have not yet listened to everything, but I'm adding a track each from the new 17 Pygmies album (and if you don't remember 17 Pygmies from the 80s, go to their myspace page and get schooled. They were a classically-tinged band that grew out of Savage Republic and are still doing great music today) and a mind-blowing new score for the Russian silent film Battleship Potemkin by Del Rey and the Sun Kings, a 17 Pygmies side project. Got some other good new stuff too:
"Vakulinchuk Acts" - Del Rey and the Sun Kings
"Water Carry Me" - 17 Pygmies
Enjoy, and keep listening.
Ear Candle Radio
earcandleproductions.com News
Hi gang,
Usually, we like to slip new songs into our playlist discreetly and let them be a surprise to our regular listeners, but I have to tip my hat to 17 Pygmies for sending this exquisite package in the mail containing three CDs and a vinyl single (which contained a small ornamental card with directions on where to download the single's songs as mp3s). I have not yet listened to everything, but I'm adding a track each from the new 17 Pygmies album (and if you don't remember 17 Pygmies from the 80s, go to their myspace page and get schooled. They were a classically-tinged band that grew out of Savage Republic and are still doing great music today) and a mind-blowing new score for the Russian silent film Battleship Potemkin by Del Rey and the Sun Kings, a 17 Pygmies side project. Got some other good new stuff too:
"Vakulinchuk Acts" - Del Rey and the Sun Kings
"Water Carry Me" - 17 Pygmies
Enjoy, and keep listening.
Ear Candle Radio
Lunar Hypnosis Review of Del Rey & The Sun Kings
Del Rey & The Sun Kings - Battleship Potemkin
Trakwerx Records - 2006
1. Main Title
2. The Men & The Maggots (Extended Version)
3. The Soup
4. Drama in The Harbor (Excerpt of Alternative Version)
5. Vakulinchuk Acts
6. The Death of Valulinchuk
7. A Dead Man Calls for Justice
8. All For One And One For All: The Rebellion Begins
9. The Odessa Staircase
10. A Happy Day In The City
11. Suddenly The Czarist Soldiers
12. The Ships Guns Roared (Extended Version)
13. Meeting With The Squadron
14. Squadron Sighted: Prepare For Action (Excerpt)
15. Join Us...Brothers!
16. Bonus Track: Original Piano Theme (Solo)
As with the film after which it is named, this music beautifully projects montages of sorrow, hope, and joy. Because I have seen and studied the movie at length at one point in my life, I cannot help but hear this music in black and white, with every tone of grey ablaze in between. This CD is a glorious exercise in just how painterly sound can be.
The music typically placed with the film (which was originally silent in 1925,) tends to be overtly dramatic and almost cumbersome in its desire to over-represent the film sonically. Which is a shame. What Potemkin needs least is bombast. What it gets most often is music that states the obvious. Loudly. From Edmund Meisel's glorious but hurried repetition to the Pet Shop Boys' interesting albeit somewhat sterile exercise, the music rendered for The Battleship Potemkin most often leaves me wishing to hear the film in silence and let the images sing for themselves.
Del Rey and the Sun Kings have achieved a rare feat; love of music, film and painting have interwoven to create a highly emotional juxtaposition of both traditional and contemporary audio articulations for Eisenstein's masterpiece. The accomplishment neither competes with the film nor becomes overbearing. Instead, the music seems to shimmer through the film; not an accompaniment but another facet of the montage. Exquisite.
Like the film, the music progresses in five well-constructed episodes; "Men and Maggots", "Drama at the Harbor", "A Dead Man Calls for Justice", "The Odessa Staircase" and "The RendezVous with a Squadron". This is typical of other soundtracks for the movie. What is not typical is the depth of consideration for the prose of the film itself in relation to the music. It is as if the lighting and atmosphere of the movie have been captured and remanufactured audibly. They seem inseparable; 'probably the truest mark of whether or not a soundtrack "works" for a movie.
It's nice to hear music expressed in so many layers and with such texture. Del Rey and the Sun Kings are masterful at painting sound like Anselm Kiefer's dark hopeful landscapes and Dali's endless bright horizons; Potemkin's images are a perfect fit for the heavy daubs and dashes of light at which Jackson Del Rey excels. The profound agony and the roaring aspiration of Eisenstein's masterpiece are represented here with great tenderness and respect; to have heard these recordings is to have seen the movie again with new eyes. Highly, highly recommended.
February 20, 2007
By Ginnie Moon
10 of 10
Trakwerx Records - 2006
1. Main Title
2. The Men & The Maggots (Extended Version)
3. The Soup
4. Drama in The Harbor (Excerpt of Alternative Version)
5. Vakulinchuk Acts
6. The Death of Valulinchuk
7. A Dead Man Calls for Justice
8. All For One And One For All: The Rebellion Begins
9. The Odessa Staircase
10. A Happy Day In The City
11. Suddenly The Czarist Soldiers
12. The Ships Guns Roared (Extended Version)
13. Meeting With The Squadron
14. Squadron Sighted: Prepare For Action (Excerpt)
15. Join Us...Brothers!
16. Bonus Track: Original Piano Theme (Solo)
As with the film after which it is named, this music beautifully projects montages of sorrow, hope, and joy. Because I have seen and studied the movie at length at one point in my life, I cannot help but hear this music in black and white, with every tone of grey ablaze in between. This CD is a glorious exercise in just how painterly sound can be.
The music typically placed with the film (which was originally silent in 1925,) tends to be overtly dramatic and almost cumbersome in its desire to over-represent the film sonically. Which is a shame. What Potemkin needs least is bombast. What it gets most often is music that states the obvious. Loudly. From Edmund Meisel's glorious but hurried repetition to the Pet Shop Boys' interesting albeit somewhat sterile exercise, the music rendered for The Battleship Potemkin most often leaves me wishing to hear the film in silence and let the images sing for themselves.
Del Rey and the Sun Kings have achieved a rare feat; love of music, film and painting have interwoven to create a highly emotional juxtaposition of both traditional and contemporary audio articulations for Eisenstein's masterpiece. The accomplishment neither competes with the film nor becomes overbearing. Instead, the music seems to shimmer through the film; not an accompaniment but another facet of the montage. Exquisite.
Like the film, the music progresses in five well-constructed episodes; "Men and Maggots", "Drama at the Harbor", "A Dead Man Calls for Justice", "The Odessa Staircase" and "The RendezVous with a Squadron". This is typical of other soundtracks for the movie. What is not typical is the depth of consideration for the prose of the film itself in relation to the music. It is as if the lighting and atmosphere of the movie have been captured and remanufactured audibly. They seem inseparable; 'probably the truest mark of whether or not a soundtrack "works" for a movie.
It's nice to hear music expressed in so many layers and with such texture. Del Rey and the Sun Kings are masterful at painting sound like Anselm Kiefer's dark hopeful landscapes and Dali's endless bright horizons; Potemkin's images are a perfect fit for the heavy daubs and dashes of light at which Jackson Del Rey excels. The profound agony and the roaring aspiration of Eisenstein's masterpiece are represented here with great tenderness and respect; to have heard these recordings is to have seen the movie again with new eyes. Highly, highly recommended.
February 20, 2007
By Ginnie Moon
10 of 10
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Retro Red-Eye Express Plays 17 Pygmies
February 2, 2007
Random Duo
Lotus (Electric Mermaid Mix) - 17 Pygmies - 13 Blackbirds
13 Blackbirds
Random Duo
Lotus (Electric Mermaid Mix) - 17 Pygmies - 13 Blackbirds
13 Blackbirds
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
WUNH 93.1fm
WUNH 93.1 FM Duham, NH
ADDS to PLAYLIST JAN. 2007
The Spirit Girls "Forever Free"
17 Pygmies "13 Blackbirds"
http://newserver.wunh.org/index.php?menutype=Charts&page=charts.php
ADDS to PLAYLIST JAN. 2007
The Spirit Girls "Forever Free"
17 Pygmies "13 Blackbirds"
http://newserver.wunh.org/index.php?menutype=Charts&page=charts.php
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