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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
With Love and Treason came the opportunity for Poledouris to test out the new studio equipment and produce, essentially, a two-man score. If you thought that Poledouris' Kimberly last year was the composer at his smallest level, then you might be frightened by Love and Treason. What Poledouris did is really no different from what the Media Ventures composers have done. They've taken hundreds (I presume hundreds, though they might start with less) of orchestral sounds and transformed them into digital samples that can be manipulated and mixed together on keyboards operated by one or two people. While that concept is not new, Love and Treason functions as a trial run, and is still light years away from the refined sound of the Media Ventures artists (though I suspect that Poledouris, given a few years to master the technique, can prevail at it too). The sound of Love and Treason has all the basic synth cellos, snare, and straight electronic keyboarding that most artificial scores have. But one of the aspects that Poledouris apparently wanted to test out with this project was space, and that's the one problem that he still has a ways to work on in this new studio. The sound quality of the recording is dull and flat, lacking the vibrance that Hans Zimmer, Don Davis, and even the likes of Vangelis, have managed to create. With the finished mastering playing without much life or style, Love and Treason exists as more of a practice run rather than a score that you can site and enjoy in full on its own. The best parts of the score are those in which Poledouris goes back to his roots. The keyboarding as heard in track 10 needs to be expanded upon --it is easy to hear Poledouris' native piano skills punch through in these sequences. Also among the highlights are tracks eight, thirteen, and seventeen, in which Poledouris and co-performer Todd Haberman insert much needed rhythms that carry the suspense and action sequences significantly better than the synth cellos. With these brief moments, combined with a farewell sequence that somewhat breaks the lifelessness of a score devoid of theme, Love and Treason has about five to ten minutes of decent material. But unlike other digitally conceived scores in the modern age, Poledouris has yet to create a synthetic sound that isn't so blatantly electronic (many synthetic elements, such as those in Gladiator pass by 99% of movie listeners without being noticed as artificial). As an ongoing project in Poledouris' ever-expanding career, Love and Treason is an interesting work to listen to in order to study his new techniques, but is certain not a musical piece that many people --even many of his own fans, I suspect-- will enjoy listening to. **
Insert includes a short note from Poledouris:
I saw the film, a suspenseful, darkly romantic, contemporary drama and wanted to find a way to be involved. Over the last two years Tim Boyle, my engineer, and I have been seeking ways to incorporate current digital synthesis and recording technology into our already state of the art recording and mixing studio, Blowtorch Flats. Love and Treason afforded the opportunity to put my theories about fusing orchestral film scoring techniques of traditional orchestration with many devices used in record production (rhythmically insistent drumming, synthesizers, percussion and above all - space). Nick and Allen were supportive of this approach and we are all pleased with the results as I hope you, the listener will be as well." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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