Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 13:25:29 -0700 From: Jens Alfke (jens@MOOSEYARD.COM) Subject: Alanis / Exotica And just so this is marginally thislisty, let me recommend the soundtrack to the film "Exotica". The film is terrific and I hope everyone saw it, but the soundtrack album works well by itself too. About half the songs are Arabic/Indian style synth-dance music (tho written by a Canadian, but the vocals and some of the instruments are authentic) and the other half are moody bits of atmosphere, often with a similarly Exotic tone. There's tremendous opportunity for cheesiness in combining synthesizers with world music, Mychael Danna has largely pulled it off (and anyway, a lot of authentic world music such as Rai often has far cheesier arrangements...) --Jens /hasn't imported his .signature into Claris eMailer yet/ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 10:32:03 +0000 From: David Thorpe Subject: Re: 24 frames a second! Emiel Efdee said: >No 4AD artists on the soundtracks this year. I did saw Bjork... >so a bit thislisty.... I think the soundtracks to two of the films there are *very* "thislisty". The music to both <> and <> were done by a Canadian called Mychael Danna, who creates very calming music which is heavily Middle-Eastern influenced as far as I can tell. His soundtrack to Egoyan's <> was discussed here a couple of years ago (see FAQ, in the on-film subdirectory) which was similar, but used pianos [in both their unprepared and prepared forms!]. It's odd that the music works with these more recent films. Atom Egoyan's <> is about a small Canadian town rocked by a disaster, resulting in lots of guilt bubbling under the surface. On the other hand, Ang Lee's <> is about a small American town rocked by a disaster, resulting in lots of the guilt bubbling under the surface. Both have great photography and great music. Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:01:33 +0000 From: ersatz@HAL-PC.ORG Subject: Re: 24 frames a second! His influences are actually more from Indian subcontinent than the Middle-east, but theres so much cultural interchange that the differences can be subtle (as in the vocal scales/timbres and the use of tablas rather than dumbeks). Qawalli artists from Pakistan like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan split these hairs geographically and musically. Anyway, Mychael Danna records some very esteemed filmi musicians in Bombay. Are these two soundtracks to and also Middle-eastern/Indian? It would seem somewhat inappropriate given the plots... Danna also has blissful/bland new age style (perhaps resulting from his tenure as composer for Toronto's McLaughlin Planetarium. "Sirens" and the recent "Celtic Tale" are more in this vein and might appeal to fans of Enya, I guess. I disliked them. More interesting were his soundtrack to "Exotica", which is a must for Transglobal Underground/Natascha Atlas fans and aspiring belly dancers, and last year's soundtrack to the Mira Nair film "Kama Sutra". This one is a far more evocative set of pieces, similar to Peter Gabriel's "Passion" or in particular the soundtrack to "Bandit Queen" by Nusrat Fateh. It creates a suitably erotically charged atmosphere, but with sufficient reserve that one isn't reduced to "part the bead curtain" chuckles. I understand that it is much better than the film it was composed for. Definitely one of my favorite 5 releases from 1997.