artwork by Ben Didier

extracted celluloid track notes click on track # for realaudio clip please see the illegal art catalog for ordering information track 1 title: SingKingHeart author: Rudjak Manigz sources: Titanic duration: 5 minutes 48 seconds notes: none track 2 title: 3 Kung Fu Pieces author: Huk Don Phun sources: Jackie Chan duration: 2 minutes 13 seconds notes: none track 3 title: Manic author: Joseph Hyde sources: Frantic (Ennio Morricone) duration: 6 minutes 13 seconds notes: "Manic" is based entirely on the soundtrack of the Roman Polanski thriller "Frantic." It uses snippets of the Morricone score as well as snatches of dialogue and sound effects. I wanted to reflect the nature of the film within as short a time-span as possible, to make a fast-forward condensed version which heightens the pace and tension of the film to the nth. degree. I also see it in some ways as an "alternative" version of the soundtrack, seen through a distorting lens. Nothing is quie as it seems--sound effects are combined in surreal contexts, and the music is taken apart and reassembled into something that (sometimes) still sounds like Morricone, but is actually very far from the original. I think I've ended up with the soundtrack to another film, not yet made, which bears a passing similarity to "Frantic," but is altogether more peculiar. track 4 title: Dr. Strangedub author: Andrew Quiné Hayleck sources: Dr. Strangelove duration: 4 minutes 16 seconds notes: Dedicated to Peter Sellers and Stanley Kubrick: "Purity Of Essence" - jack t. ripper. track 5 title: Cut! author: Ed Chang sources: Saturday Night Fever (The Bee Gees), The Black Hole, Treasure Island, Fellini's 8 1/2, Ben Hur, and others... duration: 4 minutes 42 seconds notes: Part of a series of "Compos'T" pieces using 4-track feedback manipulation. The sound source is unprocessed turntable scratching using 4 categories of film material (dialogue, music, cheese and 'family entertainment') track 6 title: Illegal Space Kids author: Alien Heat sources: The Space Children duration: 1 minutes 28 seconds notes: We can thank Mystery Science Theatre for introducing this film and its many classic campy lines to me. Much of the film revolves around a beach, and I kept finding myself trying to turn the word 'beach' into 'beat'. In the midst of working on some Spaceship Eyes pieces, it seemed like a natural idea to do something within the electronica umbrella, but still with a view that's left of center. Reshaped with the Orban Audicy (and one DAT player). track 7 title: Somewhere... author: Kristine H. Burns sources: The Wizard of Oz (Judy Garland) duration: 7 minutes 7 seconds notes: "Somewhere..." is the first piece in a series based on samples of Judy Garland. The only sounds in the piece are manipulations of short samples from the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the movie "The Wizard of Oz." The structure of the composition itself depicts a rainbow. track 8 title: Information Retrieval author: Realistic sources: Brazil duration: 3 minutes 57 seconds notes: Assembled and recorded by James Towning in August of 1998 using dialog, sound effects, and incidental music from the Terry Gilliam film "Brazil." track 9 title: Testosterone author: Pine Tree State Mind Control sources: The Warriors duration: 2 minutes 30 seconds notes: This song was developed and recorded in under two hours. Most of the programming is random. It contains no subliminal messages. track 10 title: Never Ever author: Brain Science sources: As Good As It Gets duration: 1 minute 38 seconds notes: Explorations in micro-looping technology: snippets of film dialogue are extracted from the continuous source material and forced to play back as tiny iterated audio loops. New snippets periodically replace the old, allowing the process output to evolve with the stream of dialogue input. This looping can induce the perceptual phenomenon of repetition pitch, producing a hybrid sound with a pitch determined by the loop length and a timbre related to the spectral character of the underlying source. The entire procedure was repeated several times using different loop lengths and iterations; these individual passes were then combined to produce the coherent stereo signal you have received. Find out more about Brain Science and microlooping techniques at www.ovenguard.com. track 11 title: Before Sundown author: Doug Michael sources: Up in Smoke duration: 3 minutes 5 seconds notes: Taken solely from the Cheech and Chong movie "Up in Smoke." This composition was generated from Strother Martin's voice in the introductory scene where Mr. Martin is yelling at his son Chong. Chong, who is jobless, is given an ultimatum from Strother Martin - get a job Before Sundown. The software programs used in creating this music were SoundHack, Lemur, Alchemy, Peak and Hyperprism. I assembled the final version of "Before Sundown" in ProTools. track 12 title: The Invocation of Heather Nitrate author: Wet Gate sources: 16mm film loops duration: 3 minutes 34 seconds notes: Entirely conceived of 16mm film loops created by students of California State Summer School of the Arts and by Wet Gate. Main loop created by Heather, approximate age 14, consisting of hand-colored clear film leader with patterns carefully scratched on with Xacto knife. Other student loops: artists unknown. Wet Gate-made loops from unidentified educational film about sound, found in school's scrap footage bin. The Bijou Theater was the site of the last great North American nitrate film fire, in the mid-1990s. Recorded live at Bijou Theater, CalArts/CSSSA 7/97. Peter Conheim, Steven Dye, Owen O'Toole. track 13 title: Only Musical author: Wobbly sources: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg duration: 4 minutes 28 seconds notes: The original idea was to structure some kinda tribute to the work of Alan Splet, Edward Artemyev and Walter Murch, three men whose sounds for film seemed to anticipate or even define later directions in music that now seem quite obvious. Many hilarious attempts at making a new piece out of their sounds led me instead to the musical "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg": The soundtrack features neither spoken dialog or diagetic sound; just a completely pre-recorded score for the actors to lip synch to. No sound to get in the way of your pop; yikes. A truly terrifying film that places the accomplishments of those mentioned above in profound relief. It's too late for me. 1/4 dec pre-production: KFJC Upper Production 20 July 98. Edited and mastered on the Orban Audicy Workstation 27-28 July 98. track 14 title: Shootout At Best Western author: Alien Heat sources: Once Upon A Time In The West, Westerworld duration: 3 minutes 12 seconds notes: I've always believed that 'Once Upon A Time In The West' is the best spaghetti western, head-to-head and down to the wire with 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.' Wonderful Sergio Leone direction and some of the best Ennio Morricone soundscapes ever recorded. Plus a pretty good plot. Here, its music is explored side-by-side with the soundscapes of Westworld, to create a menagerie of the western film experience. This track was created in the spirit of Michael Moorcock and his 'Alien Heat' character who plunders living beings from different worlds and different times. Reproduced with the Orban Audicy (and one DAT player). track 15 title: We Wait author: Tim Koch sources: The Party duration: 2 minutes 58 seconds notes: none track 16 title: No Phunk Last Night author: Pechiney Par[k] Heavy Industries sources: Under The Cherry Moon duration: 1 minute 56 seconds notes: none track 17 title:The House She Flew In On author: Natasha Spencer sources: The Wizard of Oz duration: 2 mintues 13 seconds (excerpt) notes: I left home only to find I needed to leave home twice, so I asked the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to take me there. Through the process of demystifying this cultural icon and resituating it in the framework of the personal, I position myself in the domain of author of its meaning. I gave Dorothy back the power of her rebellion and in so doing destroyed the distinction between the young innocent girl from Kansas and the Wicked Witch of the West. I used the witches jaded green skin to paint in the evil of Dorothy's goodness, the ugliness of her beauty, and the trickery of her innocence in order to regain control over the picture of the feminin, and in so doing transform the familiar into the new. track 18 title: ...Just Cartoon Music author: Pedro Rebelo sources: Warner Brothers cartoons (Carl Stalling) duration: 2 minutes 22 seconds notes: The piece is exclusively composed of fragments from music by Carl Stalling, the composer for much of early Warner Bros. cartoons. The compositional process is informed by the discontinuous structure present in many of Stalling's tracks (which were designed mostly by mimicking visual events in the film). Techniques used by Stalling such as collage and quotation are represented here in their digital rendition. "...Just Cartoon Music" was realized at the electronic music studios at the University of Edinburgh. track 19 title: Grange Hall author: Spacklequeen sources: The Grinch duration: 3 minutes 20 seconds notes: none track 20 title: Plastic Job author: Corporal Blossom sources: Dark Passage, Chariots of Fire, Top Gun, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Big Chill, The Electric Horseman, Tron, more... duration: 4 minutes 43 seconds notes: This track creates a new story with an edited Humphrey Bogart dialogue. top