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For Horner enthusiasts, 1988 marked the trailing years of the composer's heavy reliance on synthesizers as the sole instrumental spectrum on his lesser scores; many of his lower-budget efforts in the years to come would feature at least some moderately sized orchestra or more authentic-sounding samples. Even though it is based seemingly entirely in the electronic realm, Vibes does have more individual character than Horner's usual, drab synthetic efforts of the era, such as The Name of the Rose and Where the River Runs Black. While it was reported at the time that Horner employed a traditional string and brass section for some of the more supernaturally scary cues, what you hear are actually rather abrasive, primitive samples of those sounds. What does stand out from the synthetics are the use of a few select woodwinds, including a pan flute and Japanese sakauhachi flute (largely solidified in Horner's career that year). A significant array of percussive sounds, some strikingly electronic and some rattling with a little more authenticity, brings a vivid soundscape to the score during its jungle sequences. These elements are all placed over a rhythmic and early loop-based structure, often utilizing lengthy, repetitious, non-thematic performances improvised on the fly to carry a score heavy on ambience and short on character theme or romance. That said, Horner's Vibes does shine at its best when his melodic material for the score is carried by the flutes. Over the banjos, guitars, clapping sounds, whimsical high range woodwinds, wood blocks, bird calls, mid-range drums, and a vast collection of banging and tapping instruments, these flutes perform a few hopelessly chipper themes. Unfortunately, their exotic fun is restricted to the first half of the film, during which the characters first arrive in the Andes ("Andes Arrival" and "The Journey Begins"), and the score becomes much darker, atonal, and harshly electronic in the latter portions. This sinister half culminates in "Silvia's Vision," with heavy, atonal electronic droning accompanied by simple minor key alternations by synthetic brass and strings, joined by the disturbing sounds of dismembered voices, an unnerving sound remarkably unique to this particular score for Horner.

Despite the score's selling points, Horner allows Vibes to die miserably at its conclusion, with no resolution of ideas in the awful "End Title," which doesn't revisit the film or score's romantic moments at all. He seems to have gotten hung up on the artistically rich atmosphere of the location, for in the final cue, as he does throughout the entire work, Horner wanders from motif to motif, rhythm to rhythm, leaving the only connecting thread in the form of the score's inherently unique instrumentation. Overall, Vibes remains decades later as one of Horner's more bizarre efforts, exhibiting very few of the trademark commonalities that typically connect his other scores. Along those same lines, Vibes is also a score that devotees of the composer can use very effectively to combat arguments about the composer's relative lack of originality. Nothing in the world of digital age film scores sounds remotely like Vibes (though Thomas Newman might be the type to try someday), and Horner collectors specifically will be startled by the stark differences between this and the concurrently written Willow. On album, the awkward and disjointed score exists in short length, but it long endured as one of the most collectible CDs in the history of film music. Standing as the fourth entry in the Varèse Sarabande label's first set of CD Club releases in 1990, the pressing of Vibes was limited to an astonishingly low 1,000 copies. That slim pressing number was even surprising at the time, given that Horner had just stunned audiences with Glory and was sailing to the forefront of the industry. The album sold out as expected and fetched prices as high as $400 on the secondary market even after the proliferation of the score in bootleg form (which featured only the identical musical contents and, usually, the same copied packaging as well). In 2013, Varèse supplied an "Encore" release of another 2,000 copies of Vibes, with the same music, similar packaging, and no improvement in sound quality. The standard Lauper pop song from the film, "Hole in My Heart," understandably does not appear on either product. Despite the score's two melodically enticing cues amounting to over seven combined minutes, the entire work requires a mood of significant funk to appreciate from start to finish, and for most collectors it will reveal itself to be a curiosity rather than a necessity.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

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For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15 (in 108 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.23 (in 203,344 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.