Alien Soundtrack

For fans of Jerry Goldsmith's score for Ridley Scott 1978 movie Alien, this two-disc Intrada set is the ultimate fantasy. Everything is here and then some. Disc 1 contains Goldsmith's entire score as he originally intended it with every cue in place, including those that were later cut from the film plus his recomposed versions of cues the director made him change (Goldsmith's original main theme, for example, appears without its signature heroic trumpet melody because the director thought it wasn't creepy enough). Disc 2 includes the original soundtrack as issued on LP plus six other bonus tracks of demonstration takes and even the brief except from Eine kleine Nachtmusik used in the film. The stereo sound here is fabulous, the performances definitive, and the liner notes exhaustive. And the score, like the film, is a classic of its genre. With its mixture of the ecstatic chromaticism of Scriabin, the skittering strings of Penderecki, the harmonic waves of Ligeti, and the atmospheric percussion of Herrmann, Goldsmith's score became a template for all subsequent science fiction/horror movies. But as this splendid release so amply shows, the original still can't be beat.

Fledgling film composer Harald Kloser laid waste – musically – to the world for Roland Emmerich's environmental disaster pic The Day After Tomorrow, so it comes as no surprise that he's up to providing the soundtrack for the latest "humans in peril" popcorn diversion, Alien Vs. Predator. Following in the footsteps of previous Alien franchise composers like Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, Kloser brings the symphonic dread through a winning combination of orchestral vastness and tried and true action-film dynamics. He also introduces a myriad of electronic elements into the mix that bring to mind the works of contemporaries like Hans Zimmer and Thomas Newman – the "Alien vs. Predator Main Theme" is particularly striking and serves as a continuous creative source for the composer to dip his baton in. There's nothing groundbreaking here, and why should there be? Kloser is just building his resumé, and what better way to do it than scoring big-budget – and hopefully big paycheck – Hollywood pap.

La-La Land Records, 20th Century Fox and 20th Century Fox TV Records present the world premiere release of acclaimed composer Mark Snow's original score to the 2016 FOX special limited series presentation of The X-Files - The Event Series, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, and created by Chris Carter. The X-Files made an exciting return to television last year, with an event series that marked its first all-new TV episodes in more than a decade. Returning with the show he helped immortalize, composer Mark Snow once again thrills with new music that would ensure the original X-Files magic was still intact. By turns chilling, dramatic, propulsive and emotional, Snow's score leads the show's plot, characters and atmosphere in its unwavering search for the Truth. Produced by Mike Joffe and Mark Snow, and mastered by James Nelson, this special 2-CD presentation, limited to 3000 units, assembles the musical highlights from this six-episode television event!

The original score to Alien: Covenant was written by Australian composer Jed Kurzel (The Babadook, Macbeth). Inspired by elements of the original Alien score, Kurzel’s work invokes feelings of isolation and abject horror in the face of an unavoidable mounting catastrophe.

For REQUIEM, the 2007 sequel to ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, composer Brian Tyler contributes a tense orchestral score that reflects the monster movie's fierce, gory on-screen conflicts. Filled with thrills and chills, the album is a study in ominous mood music, as exemplified by the weighty "Power Struggle" and the foreboding "Predator Arrival."

In large part a reworking of Jerry Goldsmith's rejected score for the sci-fi thriller Alien Nation, The Russia House proves a far more potent effort than its mongrel pedigree may suggest. Despite the film's Soviet Union setting, Goldsmith largely eschews Russian musical conventions in favor of a taut, suspenseful approach utterly American in its orientation. Combining sleek electronics with a jazz trio led by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, the composer creates a series of mysterious, archly sophisticated themes simmering with tension. In short, with The Russia House Goldsmith effectively updates the classic espionage formula for the digital era, composing a score as vital and innovative as any in his long and distinguished career. It's an unexpected and under-recognized masterpiece.

This Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack release is worth extended attention. The album is pulsingly rhythmic from the start, beginning with syncopation driven by whipcrack percussion and a clock-precise digital synthesizer pulse, on which Goldsmith builds ascending orchestra chords that sneakily reference Mars from Holst's The Planets without utterly aping the piece; this builds to a climax and changes, softening before managing to indicate menace without using the easy escape of minor chords. For once, despite the inevitable digital synthesizers and distinctive electronic percussion, Goldsmith has fashioned a score that's primarily driven by the orchestra, rather than being primarily dependent on electronic keyboards. To that extent, it's a rather old-fashioned action/suspense score, building and releasing tension in many varied ways.