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Composed and Produced by:
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Mark Isham
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Orchestrated and Conducted by:
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Ken Kuglers
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Release Date:
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September 8th, 1998
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release.
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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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| | Isham | |
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Blade: (Mark Isham) A rare horror venture in composer
Mark Isham's career, Blade is a 1998 adaptation from a comic strip
which features the battles on and under our city streets between vampires
and Wesley Snipes' Blade character (a half vampire/half human "daywalker"),
who is intent on stopping the pureblood vampires from raising evil gods,
beginning the apocalypse, and increasing everyone's insurance rates. Being
British director Stephen Norrington's first American film, Blade was
also a first of sorts for Isham, whose career is highlighted by scenic drama
projects and classy urban jazz. For Blade, Isham would drop all of
those sensibilities, for the film would replace Isham's usual delicacies
(heard with great popularity in Fly Away Home and A River Runs
Through It) with the imagery of considerable property damage and nasty
deaths. While many people may classify it as a horror/action film only,
Blade is also a vampire flick, opening realms in which Isham could
explore the romantic, though deeply troubled minds of the title character
and his opponents. Isham's choice for the film would be one of total
atmosphere and minimal description. There is very little romance to the
music at all. Nor, interestingly, is there much in the way of action.
Instead, you hear a highly textured, mood-driven score. It treats the film
much like the film treats it location... you can never really get a grasp on
either. The vagueness of the music, therefore, do little more than establish
the basic mood and then continue with that gloomy affair for the entirety of
its length. The most interesting moments of the score are provided by an
interpretation of 'Rainbow Voice' from "Hearing Solar Winds," written and
performed by David Hykes, which introduces the only emotionally constructive
cue with the help of a moderate orchestral string section.
The remainder of the score is presented through electronic
soundscapes, with vast, wandering notes of disharmony taking seemingly
aimless steps in any convenient direction. The very basic electronic droning
of the bass occasionally shifts at fast speeds, but these lengthy cues fail
to stir up adequate emotion to represent an action on screen. Isham does
offer some accompanying instrumentation that saves other cues in
Blade. A rare acoustic rhythm, ranging from the barely noticeable to
the more forceful rap variety, arise in two or three cues, but never long
enough to fully situate the score in an urban setting. Synthesized
representations of metallic clanging sometimes battle with each other, as
though a sword or knife fight was taking place on screen. The noises
themselves aren't highly original, but their use in a heavily metallic film
is a welcome diversion from the doom of the low-intensity electronic
droning. The eerie inclusion of a choir is not in your typical fashion; the
choir often performs with the same disregard for harmony and direction as
the electronics of the underscore, with several branches of the choir
conflicting with each other in some cases. This effect is original in its
texture, especially in the lengthy "Bleeding Stone" cue, but is extremely
difficult to tolerate on album. In that cue, as well as the "Blood God" one
that follows, Isham utilizes a minimal presence of the fuller orchestra
(with organ) to introduce very simplistic motifs in between his continued
electronic meanderings. Those cues do finally begin to provide some emotion
behind the troubled story, using a series of slowly rising (though
unharmonious) notes to crank up the attention to the music. On album, there
are a handful of short cues near its end when Blade begins to build
momentum. But it dissipates too quickly to sustain itself, leaving the
listening experience as one of little notice or importance. While it was a
worthy genre to test for Isham, it wasn't one that captured the spirit of
either vampires or combat action. **
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Intruder (4:52)
• 2. Daywalker (4:10)
• 3. Somebody's Gonna Take You Out (1:40)
• 4. Top of the Food Chain (3:47)
• 5. Temple of Light (6:14)
• 6. The Bleeding Stone (9:42)
• 7. The Blood God (2:56)
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Insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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