Author Archives: LT

May 09 2013
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Composers, Film Music, Reviews

Soundtrack: The Ipcress File

I’ve been watching a lot of old films lately and I’ve discovered a genre of soundtracks from the late ’50s/early ’60s movies where jazz is the main influence. Instead of sweeping orchestral pieces and music that sounds like the story, jazz-based scores seem to work on a different level. They seem to act more like diegetic music and place the story firmly in the time that it was made, as if Ben Quick himself might be hearing the tune that we can hear as we watch his story unfold, or C.C. Baxter in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) might switch on the radio to hear Adolph Deutsch’s Lonely Room from the film score.

Alex North was considered to be the first composer to write a jazz-based film score for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and indeed it was his music in The Long, Hot Summer (1958) that first captured my attention. However, it’s John Barry’s score to the ’60s spy film The Ipcress File (1965) that I’m reviewing today, not in the least because it stands up as a great record outside of the fact that it was written as an accompaniment to something else.

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John Barry is perhaps the UK’s biggest and best ever film composers. He wrote the music and iconic theme to the James Bond films which is interesting because The Ipcress File was seen to be antithetical to the fantastic and glamourous Bond-style portrayal of British espionage. On the contrary, the real life of a spy is supposedly nothing short of drudgery as the Sidney Furie film suggests. A BBC review describes it as “grimy brutalism, mundane bureacracy and the vividly realistic, morally-empty, quotidian horror of Cold War espionage”. The same reviewer also felt that the soundtrack was supposed to work in contrast to the mundanity of the life of the spy portrayed in Len Deighton’s story, and yet it also hinted to the exotic inner-life of the protagonist Harry Palmer.

And the score is exotic. It might not be as extravagant as Barry’s Bond music, but it is striking and alluring, playing in and around the main theme in a jazz-infused exploration of timbre and tone. Barry uses the mysterious and appropriately Eastern cimbalom to full effect, producing a sound cold and hard, just like the agents in the story. The flutes are playful, reminiscent of the Bond music and some breezy piano and vibes conjures up the jazz genre nicely. I’ve not yet heard a soundtrack that can be played without needing the context of the film to inform it, not like this. Barry’s score is a jazz classic, regardless of the fact that it’s also is a film score.

If you want to read more about jazz inspired film scores and the films that went with them, there’s a good article here at MoMa. You can also listen to each track of the score on Tinfoilunicorn’s YouTube channel, otherwise you can buy it, as with everything else, on Amazon.

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Apr 25 2013
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Film Music, Musicians

Misirlou

I heard it most recently in an old episode of M*A*S*H, the gang were dancing around to it in one of the tents, at the time of the Korean war it would have been a hit song. I’ve heard it on Mad Men, when Don Draper finds himself in L.A and the object of a beautiful, girl’s desire. But most will probably know this song from Pulp Fiction. Dick Dale’s surf rock version is now instantly recognisable as the sound of Quentin Tarantino’s ’90s cult flick. The song is Misirlou. It’s one of those songs that pops up again and again in various guises in various contexts but it’s almost always used to represent the exotic and strangely desirable.

It has no known composer because it’s an old folk song from the Greek rebetiko tradition, back in the day when music was owned by no one and yet by everyone. As was the fashion of newly developing social music of the early decades of the 20th century, songs like this generally took on the ownership of whomever’s band was playing it. The earliest known recording was by Tetos Demetriades in 1927, but it was Michalis Patrinos’ 1930s version that gave it the lyric and title it’s known for today. Misirli in Greek means an Egyptian muslim girl. To Patrinos she is ‘my black-eyed, my wild Misirlou’ with ‘magical, exotic beauty’ whose ‘two lips are dripping honey’.

Whether this song is actually from Greece no one will ever know. According to Wikipedia, the song sounds middle Eastern because it runs up and down the Hijaz Kar or double harmonic scale (E-F-G#-A-B-C-D#) a distinctly Arabian mode. So as to the true origins, it could have been stolen from a middle-eastern minstral or simply come from a time when borders were more fluid than they are today. Interestingly, and I’ll credit www.dinosaurgardens.com for this fun fact, Dick Dale was originally known as Richard Mansour and had Lebanese heritage.

‘In 1960, a ten-year-old boy walked up to Dick Dale at a local show and asked him if he could play an entire song on one guitar string. He said sure kid, come back tomorrow, and then wracked his brain that night trying to figure out a composition that would work. Lebanese-American Dale thought back to the weddings of his childhood and remembered the traditional number “Misirlou”, which fit the bill; he resolved to play it insanely fast. It would become Dale’s signature song.’ – Dinosour Gardens

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Mar 29 2013
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Musicians

Csound and sanity

This is a clip from an old Sega Master System Game called Fantasy Zone. While you might not be familiar with this particular game, there’s likely to be some sort of computer game that upon hearing, takes you right back to your childhood, back to the days when you had nothing better to do with your time. Whether it’s Super Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy or Donkey Kong, computer game music has a way of entering our subconscious without us even knowing. A small group of guys were responsible for the majority of the tunes we came to love. Tokuhiko ‘Bo’ Uwabo composed the music to many of Sega’s big hits including Fantasy Zone, Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog, Koji Kondo was responsible for Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda and then Hirokazu ‘Hip’ Tanaka wrote the unforgettable Tetris tune and various Mario and Donkey Kong spin offs.

A little while ago a musician called Luke Kuzava got in touch to share his story about his music and how it evolved. Upon hearing A Thousand Endless Africas for the first time, my thoughts ran to computer game music and those little tunes played out in a single melodic line in some Csound tone. Like many of us, computer games were a big part of Luke’s youth and his favourite game music came from Final Fantasy, composed by Nobou Uomatsu. For Luke, computer game music exists in a haze of memories from long ago that feel dream-like and so it was with this thought that he wrote his debut album – ‘if your dreams were a computer game, what would they sound like?’

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Luke works as a counselor at a residential group home for schizophrenic patients. The album title comes from one of his patients, who one morning began talking about how maps and globes are a conspiracy, because the true nature of reality is that there are actually a thousand endless Africas, among many other endless things. The phrase struck Luke as a fitting way to describe the way that words and language – much like maps and globes – don’t accurately express the endless thoughts, feelings and experiences that make up life. Working with the mentally ill gave rise to many unusual situations and experiences, and for Luke it got harder and harder to talk about it at all. He found he just couldn’t in the end, and so he turned to music as way of dealing with the indescribable character of his feelings. Luke started making instrumental pop music inspired by what it’s like to communicate with people who experience a fundamentally different version of reality from most of us.

Intrigued? So was I. Check out Luke’s music here, soundcloud.com/luke-kuzava/sets/a-thousand-endless-africas/

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Feb 21 2013
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Uncategorized

Upstream and mainstream

Music that stands on the frontiers of our culture doesn’t often get heard by most people. Whether it’s the product of government funding, arts programmes or the whim of imagination, if music is challenging, it generally gets ignored by the public. In one of the questions we have on the 15Q interview, we ask the artists how non-mainstream forms of music can reach wider audiences?

The answers, like the artists are always varied. Some think fringe music belongs on the fringe, but there are others who have been encouraged by opportunities where their music has reached the mainstream. When this happens it’s often through advertising or film. But why is it that when a band lends their song to a brand it is considered selling out? Perhaps because it strips the meaningful associations we already have with that song and places it in the context of something as unimportant as a television commercial. Perhaps because it removes the cache and makes the song available to everyone. Think what you want about it, it usually means good news for an artist struggling to be heard and even better news for an experimental or fringe musician.

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While a song might arrive at your ears with a pre-ordained association to a brand or even something as vague as knowing you saw it on the telly, it won’t remain that way for long. Music is stronger than any commercial and a good song will transcend any brand. You’ll make it your own eventually.

So it’s with open arms that we should receive new music via these less than perfect channels. If it comes packaged with brands and visuals, it’s better than not having arrived at all. Another way that new or challenging music can gain mainstream exposure is through film. This seems like a lot cooler, more credible way for an artist to be heard by a new audience but it’s a double edged sword. Film music comes bundled with a fixed association that is much stronger than a simple advertisement. Film is a powerful medium. Moving images and sound tell us stories and engage us in meaningful ways. So when music gets heard for the first time in a film, chances are that those associations will stick around.

Do you think Bill Conti’s Rocky theme tune will ever exist outside of the context of that film? In fact the association is so strong it has become part of the sonic vernacular. Quoting that song connotes the overcoming of adversity, struggle and triumph and Sylvester Stallone’s unforgettable turn as the fated Rocky Balboa. The same can be said for any piece of music, purpose written or not, that’s been used in a clever cinematic context. Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries will for some, always be linked to Apocalypse Now.

So is it always a more desirable opportunity for new or challenging music to be delivered to the mainstream through film? Consider the work of Gyorgy Ligeti. A peer with the giants of modern music, Stockhausen and Koenig, Ligeti’s music while perhaps more accessible still wouldn’t have reached the mainstream consciousness if it had not appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A fan of Ligetti, Kubrick also used the Romanian composer’s music for The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, which contributed considerably to the indelible tension and curious unease of Kubrick’s work.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polymorphia has been used in several films including The Shining, The Exorcist, Wild at Heart and Fearless. French composer Erik Satie was part of the early avant garde movement and his music has no doubt reached many willing listeners through film. Both The Gymnopédies and the Gnossienne pieces have appeared in many films. Stravinsky made music that shocked and appalled the public in his day, but now they form part of our mainstream film culture. Firebirds has been used in Shirley Valentine, Crush, Jade, Short Cuts and Fantasia. Even Webern got a look in, his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 was used in The Exorcist.

It’s up to you if you can look past first impressions. Whether you’ve seen it in an ad or at the cinema, if the music moves you, chances are it will stir your interest enough to look further into the artist and their music and that is never a bad thing. Why struggle to swim upstream when you can go mainstream?

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Jan 30 2013
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Composers, Musicians

Beyond listening

If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you love music, and that you use it to help, heal, transcend and enhance aspects of your life. Whether it’s to numb and nullify, to empower, enrage or simply to accompany your walk to work, music has the power to affect mood. For many, music acts as a conductor that enables you to soar outside of yourself or achieve a meditative state. But how often does the power of music extend beyond the realm of listening? Can the act of making music achieve a similar transcendence?

Lubomyr Melnyk thinks so. Up until recently, Melnyk was a little heard of music mystic. A German born Ukrainian, Melnyk spends his life between Canada and Sweden, and is the founder of what he calls ‘Continuous Music’. Continuous Music is a style that developed from his time at the Paris opera, where he was charged with playing the piano to accompany hours and hours of dance practice. Melnyk not only created a new style but a new technique to achieve it. Described as rivers of sound, Melnyk’s hands play two independent melodies as the sustain pedal is permanently held. This technique creates the sonic illusion that other instruments can be heard, an oboe, a string section, basso continuo. The endless flow and accumulation of melody builds to create layers of harmony that defy the limits of a single piano and a single player.

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‘The music and its technique grew together, since the nature of Continuous Music — giving both freedom and time — allowed the player to sink deeper and deeper into both his own body, and into the instrument itself. Continuous Music changes the player physically, mentally and spiritually : the heart beat is altered, the hands and fingers become soft and pliant, even weightless, the arms become totally flexible and water-like.’ 

Holding records for being the fastest piano player alive, and playing the most notes in one hour, the music alone is not the key for Melnyk, it’s the act of playing that truly sets Continuous Music apart from being a mere past time. Much like a monk who has practiced his art for many years, the art of Continuous Music can bring about a meditative state that lets the player reach a sublime state of mind and presence. If ever there was such a thing as a music ascetic it would be Melnyk. He has devoted most of his life to his art and his belief.

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In 2013 Melnyk, after thirty years of sacrifice for his art, was picked up by Erased Tapes. It is his first release on a UK label. Teamed with the talent of Peter Broderick, Nils Frahm and Martyn Heyne the 2013 release Corollaries will hopefully get heard by many. To buy his back catalogue visit www.continuouspiano.com, to buy Corollaries, visit www.erasedtapes.com in April.

‘During the classes, the dancers would move across the huge floor in long unending and repeated rows, and I had to create music for them, so I took Haydn and Terry Riley and put them together to create these unending spatial sounds in pure and simple harmonic structure. My hope was that the metaphysical character of the music would help the dancers enter the other world.’ Melnyk interview on www.rhythmplex.com

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Oct 25 2012
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Articles, Film Music

Opera in the hands of film makers

There are many lists available online that count the top ten ways in which opera is best used in film. Some good examples that appear on most people’s lists are Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, Maria Callas’s rendition of La Mamma Morta from Andrea Chénier in Philadelphia or my favourite, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana in The Godfather III. Whether these films use the music in one scene or weave it throughout the narrative, the version used remains traditional.

But I’d like to highlight some of the cases where opera has been used in a more unexpected and creative way. The first comes in the form of Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris. In various scenes, the Barcarolle from Offenbach’s opera, The Tales of Hoffmann is used. It’s a really nice reference to the story, considering the opera is about a writer. In the hands of the Yerason Trio, who form part of the New York-based Cuban Charanga Orchestra – the romantic piece with all the beauty and angst of the fin de siècle is transformed into a lilting, rustic and more relatable tune. Click here to listen to the Midnight in Paris version of this song and then Here to listen to the orthodox version. The differences speak for themselves, and illustrate how critical interpretation, context and arrangement is.

The second example is from the Luc Besson film The Fifth Element. I’ll admit I didn’t know this bit of music was from an existing opera and was pleased to discover it was, simply because of the unique and innovative treatment. In the film, the blue alien Diva Plavalaguna, played and sung by Albanian soprano Inva Mula sings a plaintive aria. The aria is actually “Il dolce suono mi colpi’, also known as The Mad Scene from Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor. It’s a performance that is historically famous as a show piece for coloratura sopranos like Maria Callas and Dame Joan who wish to impress their audience with expressive agility.

What begins in the film’s scene as a fairly traditional rendition becomes a hyper-futuristic showcase of extraordinary alien aptitude as the blue diva riffs on the theme and displays unearthly vocal talent. Here is a clip from 1962, with Joan Sutherland singing the Mad Scene from this opera and Here is the same song seen through the lense of Besson’s cinematic vision.

The final example is perhaps less obvious but just as powerful. In Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, the film’s opening credits show a series of flowers unfolding to the opening phrases of Charles Gounod’s Faust. The first scene shows the characters enjoying the opera, as much a part of the evening’s entertainment as the performers on stage. Bernstein and Scorsese together use the music to guide the establishing scene. Bernstein follows on from the Faustian Love Duet with his own score. It is a seamless flow and you’re never quite sure where Gounod ends and Bernstein begins. The operatic vocals slide into a ghostly echo while Bernstein’s score transcends with delicacy and restraint and the film’s action shifts from the protagonists on stage to those in the audience. It seems that Bernstein uses themes from Faust to inform other themes in the film’s score as well, which incidentally, is superb.

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Aug 10 2012
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Articles, Bands

Doom and Gore

This post started out as a profile on Sunn O))) – Stephen O’Malley, Greg Anderson and sometimes Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar. They play doom metal and picked up where Earth left off during their hiatus in the nineties. The unusual name comes from the logo of the Sunn brand of bass amplifiers that were designed and made by the Sundholm brothers, one of whom played bass in the band The Kingsmen. The name also links them to the pioneer of doom, Earth.

But instead of highlighting one example of this genre, I would rather share the path of my research as it unfolded. It’s fascinating when you see the connections of the musicians and artists involved in all kinds of bands and genres. As I read about O’Malley and Anderson and Csihar I realised that they were all involved in various forms of art, music and production that reveals so much about the people who make this kind of music. O’Malley is involved in visual arts, having contributed to the cover art for bands like Earth, Melvins and Burzum. Anderson is involved, like O’Malley with the Southern Lord Label, being a co-founder and curator. Csihar I discovered is involved in all kinds of vocal acts from as mainstream as Jesus Christ Superstar to his solo act Void ov Voices which supported Bohren & der Club of Gore who I read were inspired by Dutch instrumental band GORE.

If you’re interested in the doom genre, then here five bands that are good starting point, Earth, Sunn O))), Burzum, Gore and Bohren and Der Club of Gore. While that last choice is very different from the others it is essential in demonstrating my theory that the musicians who create this deeply dark and moody music are not the beastly, hard men that their alter-egos assume but are extremely sensitive and imaginative individuals. In fact I’ll go as far as saying that the harder the music, the softer the person is behind it. The references used and made by so many of the musicians in this genre reveal where their inspiration lies and how they interpret the world around them.  While creating loud, dark and dramatic audio doom might be considered negative, it is in fact, a positive and creative outlet. You know what they say, it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.

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Jun 20 2012
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Composers, Film Music, Reviews

Soundtrack: The Long Goodbye

I watched a film over the weekend called The Long Goodbye. It was a chance pick on a quiet Friday night; the fact that it was a Robert Altman film was the main reason I gave it a chance. It turned out to be an unexpectedly amazing flick. I can’t stop thinking about it and it was one of the best films I’ve seen for ages. It’s Altman’s take on film noir, transposing a genre typical of the fifties and plopping it into modern day California (circa 1973). He plays with the cliches of the genre twisting it a little because instead of offering the self-assured, morally incorruptible gumshoe that audiences expect, Altman turns Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe (played nicely by an unlikely Elliot Gould) into a lost and conflicted man.

When I saw John Williams’ name listed in the opening credits, I scoffed, wondering what a guy like that is doing scoring a film like this. Williams is Hollywood legend responsible for scoring E.T, Star Wars, Superman, Jaws….you get the idea. This film doesn’t even make it to his discography on Wikipedia, and I would assume it was one of his first scores. Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics.

What makes this an unusual soundtrack is the fact that it consists of only this one song, The Long Goodbye – a composition that is reinterpreted several times in different ways throughout the movie. It appears in the title as a jazz piece, performed by the Dave Grusin trio, sang by Jack Sheldon and later as a hippie chant, supermarket muzak, radio music and so on. This treatment of the title theme was Altman’s idea and supposed to reflect the mood and culture of the different kinds of people that Marlow encounters on his travels.

Another reason this soundtrack is unusual is because it occurs purely as diegetic film music. This is music that appears as part of the narrative or within the world of the character in the story. The music we hear in the film, is the music that Marlow hears, it’s not an underscore, or, in similar terms, non-diegetic. It creates a unique mood during the film and really adds to the appeal of the entire production. I love this soundtrack and I love this movie. Seek this one out.

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Jun 10 2012
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Composers, Film Music

Giorgio Moroder

While Giorgio Moroder might not be a household name, his music certainly is. His discography boasts an impressive list of offerings to both the mainstream and underground music scenes. I know of Moroder because he wrote the score to a film I love, Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983). The film is famous for Al Pacino’s portrayal of a Cuban drug lord and these days is also well known for it’s unique, disco-inspired soundtrack. Tony’s Theme, a classic from the film, plays as a blimp, in flashing lights, tells Tony – ‘the world is yours’. Words he takes to heart. Moroder’s music gives that scene power and gravity and lends the film a dark edge that gets softened at times with lighter songs like Push it to the Limit (Engemann, a frequent Moroder collaborator).

It seems Moroder can’t help but be iconic. He is responsible for Take my Breath Away and Danger Zone (Berlin/Kenny Loggins resp., from the film Top Gun), Flashdance – what a feeling (Irene Cara, from the film Flashdance), Call Me (Blondie, from the film American Gigolo), The  Never Ending Story (Limahl and Beth Anderson, from the film The Never Ending Story) and scoring films including Midnight Express, Scarface and Cat People. He has produced countless songs for everyone including David Bowie, Barbara Streisand, Freddie Mercury and Bonnie Tyler, to name a few. Moroder produced Donna Summer’s hits Love to love you and I feel love – songs that many consider to be the birth of disco.

Prolific and influential composers like Moroder are often involved in film scoring and soundtracks. Perhaps it is the ability to create emotive music, perhaps it is just a cross-over interest in film, in any case, Moroder’s interest is more than fleeting. He has been involved in the making of several short films that incorporate images and music like A Special Tree, Vorticoso and Metamorphosis. He also created a retrospective soundtrack for Fritz Lang’s silent film Metropolis (1927) which involved his original compositions being performed by artists including Pat Benetar, Freddie Mercury of Queen, Loverboy and Adam Ant.

It seems Moroder was not happy to share his talent exclusively with film, he has also turned his attention to create several sporting anthems, like “Reach Out” for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, “Hand in Hand” for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and “Forever Friends” for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Moroder founded Musicland studios in Munich which recorded bands like Led Zeppelin, Queen,the Rolling Stones,Electric Light Orchestra, The Three Degrees, Marc Bolan & T.Rex, Deep Purple, Freddie Mercury and Elton John under the supervision of engineer and producer Reinhold Mack. Mack was a huge influence and friend to Freddie Mercury in particular, who spent personal time with Mack and his family, his third son being named by Mercury.

And finally, in an unexpected but perfectly suitable turn, he also helped design an Italian Super-Car, The “Cizeta Moroder,” a 16-cylinder sports car that set new records for Italian High-Performance Technology.

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May 01 2012
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Composers, Musicians, Reviews

Prosodi J – Ichi (One)

Always keen to support people who put it out there, I thought I’d share an album sent in by Prosodi J (clever play on prosody & DJ?) called Ichi (One). Listen here to find out what happens when a British born composer creates music in California with a Japanese flavour. Prosodi J describes what he does as a ‘blend of old and new instrumental Hip-hop, Breakbeat, and Jazz’. When I listen to it I can kind of hear old school electro and yet the beats feel a bit loser and laid back like some of Moby’s tracks. The samples are less obvious and more integrated when compared to the more experimental hip hop of someone like Kid Koala who lets the stop-start influence of turntablism inform the sound.

I feel like I shouldn’t really be talking about hip hop and break beat, because while I do love some of the classics from the genre, I have no informed opinions about it. However, I am a big believer that music doesn’t need to be explained or categorised all it needs is to be heard. It does make it easier to talk about music by describing it in terms of what already exists, but I guess my point is that you don’t have to be an expert of hip hop to enjoy hip hop, all you need is ears to enjoy music.

I like the way Prosodi J has borrowed the modal elements of Japanese music, reminiscent of the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto (film score composer and former member of from the hugely influential Yellow Magic Orchestra)and the epic theme from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence or the theme from Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, which was a Hans Zimmer score. These tunes were popular in the eighties and actually made a big impact on electronic music and the early days of hip hop.

I would love to know where Prosodi J found his influences because they seem to be pulled from all kinds of places ranging from Eric Satie to Cyndi Lauper with some crazy syncopated beats from the jazz era thrown in for good measure. It’s a great example of how sampling has impacted post modern composition. Some musicians might copy sounds but I guess hip hop is kind of honest and just borrows them.

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