The month has truly flown by here and there have been a number of interesting new releases hitting streaming and specialty labels this past month. Jerry Goldsmith's music continues to get a good trickle of releases. Varese Sarabande has added to it with an expanded release of his truly gorgeous score to the underrated Rudy. If you think of the composer as a horror or action score master, you do indeed need to add this work to your appreciation of his talent in subtle shades

Immortality is a new interactive movie trilogy. In this horror genre, players explore “unearthed” footage from three different found movies. A magic mechanic then allows them to navigate the cinematic language to discover more secrets and move the gameplay forward. Composer Nainita Desai (The Reason I Jump; Untamed Romania; For Sama) displays here her excellent capacity for creating engaging thematic material and her ability to also transform that material in some rather in

Spanish film music critic and reviewer Sergio Hardasmal’s latest composer overview focuses on Marc Shaiman. in The Musical World Of Marc Shaiman. The original Spanish edition of this book was released in 2020 but it has now been updated in a new edition in Spanish and translated into English for this new edition by Alex Massana. His enthusiasm and love for film music and Shaiman’s work shines throughout this new overview of the composer. Hardasmal’s book packages Shaiman’s

Cinema Choral Themes From the Movies (BuySoundtrax GD0128) is a compilation from a variety of Buy Soundtrax/Dragon’s Domain releases. It serves as a sort of sampler. Rozsa selections from Ben-Hur and King of Kings are performances recorded with the Brigham Young University A Capella Choir from the label’s compilation of Rozsa choral music released in 2012. The Brian May (Thirst suite) and Tony Bremner (The Everlasting Secret Family) tracks are from an earlier Dragon’s D

Music from SEAMUS 31 Electronics: Jon Fielder; Maggi Payne; Jon Christopher Nelson; Nina C. Young; Becky Brown; David Q. Nguyen. Aleksander Gabrys, double bass and electronics. Anna Elder, soprano and live processing. Eli Fieldsteel and Kerrith Livengood, electronics. EAM 2022 Total Time: 73: 37 Recording: ****/**** Performance: ****/**** The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music of the United States was founded in 1984 and their mission is to provide opportunities fo

Entanglements Deborah Norin-Kuehn, soprano. Conor Nelson, flute. Thomas Rosenkranz, piano. Daniel Lippel, guitar. Nuiko Wadden, harp. Doyle Armbrust, viola. Kenneth J. Cox, flute. Henrique Batista, marimba. Yu-Fang Chen, violin. Mei-Chun Chen, viola. Marianne Gythfeldt, bass clarinet. New Focus Recordings FCR 341 Total Time: 73:02 Recording: ****/**** Performance: ****/**** Entanglements is a new release featuring music by electro-acoustic composer Mikel Kuehn (1

In case it has been overlooked, Amazon is releasing a little streaming series this Fall that serves as a prequel of sorts to Tolkein’s The Lord of The Rings. This new fantasy epic builds from Tolkein’s mythos starting us thousands of years prior to the events of The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy. The series is already noted as one of the most expensive in television history with over $1 billion invested. Bear McCreary brings his thematic sensibility and orchestral skill into

Through Broken Time Jennifer Grim, flute. Michael Sheppard, piano. New Focus Recordings FCR 346 Total Time: 65:27 Recording: ****/**** Performance: ****/**** In this new release of music for flute, listeners have an opportunity to explore works by composers who are part of the musical aesthetic of Afro-Modernism as well as with postminimalism. The former is a merging of concert music with the experience of African American and Afro-Latino culture. Musical expressions

Intrada returns to the space-vampire film Lifeforce (1985) now greatly expanding upon an earlier BSX release. First is a new two-disc remastering of Henry Mancini's score as well as a greatly-expanded disc devoted to work Michael Kamen was called in to do. Previously, just under 20 minutes of Kamen's music was available, but now Intrada has expanded that into a disc that plays for nearly 75 minutes! There is also some additional material from Mancini’s work exploring his e

All Roads Gilles Vonsattel, piano. Escher Quartet; Miranda Cuckson, violin. Anthony Cheung, piano; Paulina Swierczek, soprano. Jacob Greenberg, piano. New Focus Recordings FCR 263 Total Time: 69:57 Recording: ****/**** Performance: ****/**** Composer Anthony Cheung currently teaches at Brown University and has received a variety of awards. One of these was for first prize in the Sixth International Dutilleux Competition (2008). That is somewhat telling as his style