All Instrumentals, All the Time (but just this week) | Songs of the Week 06/09/2023

It's that time of year you've all been waiting for, because you knew about it, and I knew about it too, since it was planned all along: all instrumentals week! All instrumentals, all the time. Instrumental all-stars, let's go.

PREHISTORIC PLANET THEME | Hans Zimmer & Andrew James Christie I'm genuinely a little shocked I haven't already gushed about Prehistoric Planet publicly, especially since the first six episodes aired only about a month before I started blogging again. I'll be posting much more about dinosaurs and co. soon, but the world of paleontology and evolution have meant so much to me over the years—the sort of meaning that has some cosmic resonance in my bones and brain; the sort you'd trace back to my center if you cored me like a tree trunk—and Prehistoric Planet, particularly its first season, is one of the few pieces of media that truly encapsulates that spirituality. To find camaraderie, even communion, in dusty bones—to travel back through time immemorial to find life has always been the same, no matter what great and small forms it twists into—feels understood here more than anywhere else in the diverse world of dinosaur media. We are all animals, after all, and to rightfully portray dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters is as inspired as it is intuitive. The sublimity of Prehistoric Planet is not in spite of but instead borne of speculating on the mundanities of these animals' daily lives, otherwise lost to the unfathomable expanse of time. Also, roar, big lizard, etc.

Amidst near-photorealistic dinosaur depictions and their familiar-yet-alien behaviors, one of Prehistoric Planet season 1's only disappointments was its score. While it met widespread praise from many, I wasn't nearly as swept away by what, at the time, felt like generic dinosaur horns. Of course, the bar was sauropod-high, set by none other than Benjamin Bartlett with his trilogy of Walking With... scores. We'll talk about those more in a minute, but if there was a way I could possibly sum up what makes those scores special, it's that they created a sound I don't think I've ever heard before—and certainly not associated with dinosaurs. Granted, the Walking With Dinosaurs theme song has an almost gothic foreboding, but the grandeur of Bartlett's score is set in a different key than most stereotypical music meant to evoke majesty, à la Jurassic Park. Through this framework, Bartlett lends a certain nuance tothe Walking With... soundscape—not quite mystique, not quite nostalgia, but something between the two that approaches genuine, unbridled awe, for me. It was this nuance that I felt was missing from Prehistoric Planet's score—surprising, considering it was a team effort from talents Hans Zimmer, Andrew James Christie, Anže Rožman, and Kara Talve. It turns out, though, I just wasn't paying close enough attention, because beneath Sir David's opening monologue lies exactly the nuance I was looking for. In fact, after listening to all four minutes of "Prehistoric Planet Theme" with solid headphones, I found myself actually sobbing, so... you win this time, Hans.

What did me in, I think, was this song's uncharacteristic tenderness—what Björk might call a "magical sensitivity." So often, the obvious scale of dinosaurs leads composers to pair them with blasting horns, but Prehistoric Planet's brass-and-strings build only evokes these emotions because of the instruments they're juxtaposed with. This may be my violinist bias, but my breath always catches as the bombastic background drops away to reveal the rich string solo at 2:05. The grace and power of what should be a delicate sound not only hits me like a brick wall, but evokes so much more than just a large presence—here, there is suddenly the beauty of dew on scales, sunlight-dappled feathers, a yearning for a past that can never be truly remembered. It reminds me of a quote from All Yesterdays, a book written by paleontologist Darren Naish and illustrators John Conway & C. M. Kösemen that Prehistoric Planet is heavily inspired by:

“Imagine the richness, and the strange wonder of animal life today. The eerie, ululating songs of whales, the elaborate middens of bowerbirds and the surreal spectacle of a peacock’s display could never be deduced from inanimate remains. Likewise, some of the most spectacular sights of the past will never be seen, or even guessed at.”

And, once the string section closes, we're met with an explosion of such diversity as raw vocals almost cackle in. All at once, I'm reminded of humming, tropical biodiversity; of birds of paradise and teeming insects. Only now do the triumphant horns I once thought generic hit their hardest, evoking not the scale of leviathan reptiles, but the scale of Earth's immortal biosphere and the time it twists through; the scale of life, in all its forms, branching across a four-dimensional tree of genes. This might all seem. a little over-dramatized, but anything less would be a dishonest depiction of what I feel when I think about paleontology, and remember my place in all this. I'll definitely be writing more about this, and I sure hope Zimmer and the gang will as well.

Pairs Well With: "New Year's Eve" (Alan Silvestri), "Time of the Titans" (Benjamin Bartlett), "Giant of the Skies" (Benjamin Bartlett)

TIME OF THE TITANS | Benjamin Bartlett Oh, and I'm not even done with the dinosaur info-dump yet. This one's been a long time coming.

As I think I pretty clearly outlined above, Benjamin Bartlett's work on the Walking With... trilogy is what I'd consider the definitive musical portrayal of prehistory. I'm well aware that I'm wearing nostalgia goggles here—if these scores define anything, it's my childhood—but there's an emotionality written here that's unlike anything else I've heard. Like the docuseries that spawned them, these songs are prone to unscientific theatrics, yet this character is what endeared dinosaurs to so many fans and future paleontologists, and the range and heart of this work is impossible to deny.

If there's one piece that embodies the spirit of Walking With..., it's "Time of the Titans," the song that introduces us to episode two, set in Jurassic Colorado, which is my sweet spot in more ways than one. Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rH6_PDBkV2o

I'm sorry, but my God, it's nothing short of awe-inspiring. Now's about the time where I wish I knew music theory, because I'd love to break down the unique, Bartlett flavor that's infused into so many of these songs. To my layman's ears, though, these songs are set in a key that goes higher than other depictions of grandiosity. Like in Prehistoric Planet's strings, there's almost a trembling tenderness in this song's soft start, though it doesn't stay soft for long—the build at 0:40 aims high and climbs fast, sweeping me off its feet from the first drum roll. By the time the titanic trumpets enter, our strings stretch almost piercingly high, as though they're pushing up against the limits of awe itself. Again, that's quite a lofty claim to make about anything, yet I truthfully feel as though this music transcribes the feeling of being awestruck like it was spun straight from my chest. I'd never slight John Williams's classic Jurassic Park score, but Bartlett has bottled the sound I'd feel if I were seeing a live Brachiosaurus alongside Alan and Ellie. Undoubtedly, there are obvious similarities between this song and Jurassic Park's inimitable theme, but in the context of a documentary, I think "Time of the Titans" aims for something different, and achieves a uniquely beautiful mood—a palpable wistfulness alongside the majesty. Like Prehistoric Planet, there's a reverent yearning for this lost past, exemplified best exactly a minute after the first build with tearful, descending strings at 1:40. I've usually got some sand in my eye by that point in the song, and yet this reverence is even further grounded by other emotional subtleties—though it feels like a different song, the mischievous Ornitholestes epilogue goes a long way to infuse these individual animals with personality within the weightiness of their world.

I feel like I could go on about this score and its complex emotionality forever, but I have to cap this off somewhere. "Time of the Titans" is simply the best, and BBC knew it, because they used it to send off the final episode of their final series, "Walking With Monsters: Life Before the Dinosaurs." And like, if the song itself didn't get you, well...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x2lBUyeY7uE

Pairs Well With: "Theme from Jurassic Park" (John Williams), "Prehistoric Planet Theme" (Hans Zimmer & Andrew James Christie), "Battle on the Salt Plains" (Benjamin Bartlett)

ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (INTRO) / ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (START A BAND) | Daniel Pemberton Man... Spider-Verse, man! Man, dude! What a fucking movie, right? Sometimes, I worry that people are going to retroactively hate these movies because social media explodes every time one drops, but when just my individual brain has too many Spider-thoughts to contain, I can understand why even the internet might just about overflow with Spider-takes. While I'm not sure, at the moment, if I have anything new worth stirring into the discussion, I can assure you that this movie is every bit as good as everyone is saying it is, and also that it's going to be my personality for as long as it takes to cook up another hit of this franchise. Even if you're contrarian enough to stand against Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, you'd probably have to be institutionalized if you argued that any aspect of this movie was half-baked. What makes this series art is how much love every frame, every word, and every sound oozes, and Daniel Pemberton's score is just one of many facets receiving just as much praise as it deserves. While I've only seen Across the Spider-Verse twice, while driving for my job, I've listened to the score at least twice as many times all the way through. As someone who had already fallen in love with Pemberton's score for Into the Spider-Verse (DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN LITERALLY SING "SPI-DER-MAN" ALONGSIDE SPIDER-MAN'S LEITMOTIF?? FOR BOTH PETER PARKER AND MILES MORALES??), I knew the groundwork it laid had already set Across up for success, but I wasn't prepared for this next evolution to so thoroughly blow my doors in. Hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about all the heavy hitters in the coming weeks, but for now, what better place to start with than the beginning, one last time? And the end. I cheated, we're doing two songs in one slot today. Sort of. Spoilers from here on for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. Don't do anything reckless.

One of my favorite memories of seeing Into the Spider-Verse in theaters for the first time (besides the entire rest of the movie) was realizing I was seeing something unlike I'd ever seen from the second its opening titles hit. There are so few movies where I feel snapped from a theater to a cultivated, artistic atmosphere—from one universe to another, like teleportation—yet the alternate timeline opening titles glitching across the multiverse to the tune of Daniel Pemberton's record-scratching "Into the Spiderverse" had totally transported me by the end of its shrieking crescendo. It's an opening that, between its visuals and its soundscape, evokes both the overwhelming mystery of the infinite, but also the potential whimsy that lies therein—it's a truly comic-book land of the impossible that, like the colors superheroes boast, is still inviting despite a concept that could turn unknowably eldritch. While I certainly wouldn't call Across eldritch, from the moment its opening titles skittered in, I was equally transfixed by the fact that its score had taken the leap into something far darker. I wish I could remember other examples beyond the Harry Potter movies, which skew "Hedwig's Theme" from whimsical to foreboding as the movies grew up, but "Across the Spider-Verse (Intro)" is easily my favorite "darker sequel" opening track—the kind that tells you things are about to get worse before they get better. Comparing Peter Parker 1610's monologue set to "Only One Spider-Man" in the first movie with Gwen's immaculately angsty drum solo/monologue, the difference is stark from their scripts to their sounds. While I'm not sure any new techniques are being pioneered here, hearing Gwen's drums rampage over the ominous strings and synth was such a stunning mood-setter for this movie—one that even adds to the story told. Having seen the trailers, I knew much of the Miles footage flashed during Gwen's monologue would be from the movie's third act, but one of many returns I wasn't expecting was this song's, which bled from the build of Prowler-42's hair-raising theme. Framing "(Intro)" as either foreshadowing for or an overt connection to Gwen's lowest moments of the movie that spur her to rebel against the Spider Society was not unprecedented, but it was genius. I know many are peeved about this movie's jaw-dropping cliffhanger, but connecting the beginning and ending tracks does a lot to reinforce that, unlike what Twitter says, this is a complete story of embracing disruptive nonconformity, even if it will be continued in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. Seeing as "Across the Spider-Verse (Start a Band)" is something of a suite since it closes out the movie, it touches on many other characters' themes worth praising—Miles's Prowler theme is higher-pitched and sleeker than Uncle Aaron's more ragged version, and Spider-Punk's guitar literally tears through the ominous strings to turn the ending a twinge more triumphant—but these are worth examining more individually, I think, so... stay tuned.

Pairs Well With: "Carrie Wave" / "Waiting on a Wave" (St. Vincent), "The Way Out is Through" (Nine Inch Nails), "Killmonger" (Ludwig Göransson)

RELIC | Aaron Cherof Minecraft is collecting composers like music discs, which is a little baffling, considering they struck gold on their first try. What was once meant to be a substitute position while C418 (creator of Minecraft's definitive sound) was on hiatus is now a spot that has been filled by a rotating cast of composers like Lena Raine, Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, and now, Aaron Cherof. While I hope it's clear after my exhaustive Lena Raine defense that I'm no puritan ready to exclude any newcomers, with so many attempting to emulate a single artists' voice, I can't help but worry some dilution is bound to occur. With Cherof now taking the torch from Raine, we have now travelled at least two degrees from C418, and Minecraft's once uniquely mysterious soundscape has since undergone far more clarification. I can't believe I'm bringing up Harry Potter a second time, but one of many mistakes those movies made was shuffling directors—and, by proxy, composers—so frequently, totally muddying the foundational leitmotifs that John Williams brilliantly laid. By changing composers so often, I worry that the alienness of C418's vision—to create music that the true inhabitants of this empty, pixelated world might create—might be lost, but listening to Cherof's music in conjunction with playing the new update has given me some solace. In a way, this evolution mirrors the game's own changing of hands, once a stroke of genius from an indie developer with skeletons in the closet, now the multimillion dollar property of Microsoft which, while still dutifully true to its roots, now wears a far more marketable face. Where C418's work is placid but at times totally disquieting, more distinct emotions have now coalesced from this musical, primordial soup, and they're friendlier than one might have imagined. Tracks like the opening "Echo in the Wind," while not the Minecraft I fell in love with, are beautifully serene, evoking Studio Ghibli softness like Spirited Away's "One Summer's Day." However, perhaps the best of Cherof's work so far—"Relic," a music disc which can be found in-game amongst the buried potsherds of now-decrepit civilizations—works so well because it, like the archaeology of the newest update, reflects this game's musical story. In "Don't Trust Horses"-esque synth crunch, the song begins with lowering its main riff through a series of octaves, at once toy-like and operatic—something very much in line with the stylings of C418's work, like "Chirp." However, through this cute uneasiness, a beat suddenly drops—a really good one, at that—that evokes the more pop-oriented leanings of Lena Raine's additions to Minecraft, like "Otherside." It's a simple yet poetic trip through Minecraft's musical history, one which has convinced me to look forward to its future. Hearing 1.20's newest batch of songs has left me hopeful for the game's future—even if it will sound unrecognizable years from now, at least its creators still have one eye aimed towards the achievements of the past.

Pairs Well With: "Chirp" (C418), "Otherside" (Lena Raine), "One Summer's Day" (Joe Hisaishi)

LO BAR / THE CUBIST CASTLE / HENLY CASTLE | Alan Roberts & Steven Wareing "Alan Roberts" may not sound very familiar for many readers, but he's a Max Todd Dot Com Regular (Max! Todd! Dot! Com! Regular!) in disguise—actually, his disguise is the Max Todd Dot Com Regular. In another Patreon peek at his atmospheric past, Jim Noir—alias Alan Roberts, alias Omission Sound, alias The Dook, etc.—has released another early collaboration album with close friend Steven Wareing, and though I wasn't a huge fan of Omission Sound's first outing, this instrumental album has far more flavor. There's a lot of lore for longtime fans to uncover in this missing link album, The Cubist Castle—many of Noir's wonderful instrumental outros have their roots here, with songs like "Politet" being an early version of "How To Be So Real"'s outro—but what interests me most is this album's distinctly eerier mood. Split into four parts with three to four songs each (I'm cheating again), this unsettling sound—distinctly alien from its composition to its instrumentation—doesn't solidify until Part 4, with the titular "The Cubist Castle." While not outright spooky, there's something almost reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails's instrumental album Ghosts I-IV or their cover of Queen's "Get Down, Make Love" in the breathing and groaning sampled here, warped well beyond recognition with a backdrop of discordant synth. Like Omission Sound's "Hell's Bathroom," there's a roughness, too, in the sudden scraping noises that shove the beat forward. Add Some Music To Your Day wrote that The Comet is Coming's experimental jazz reminded them of space walruses, but to me, that image is apt for whatever weirdness is happening here—that, or ungainly extraterrestrial livestock on grazing by that barn they always show you at the eye doctor. Maybe also those sideways, cliff-walking aliens in Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking, which are apparently so obscure or so coveted by Discovery that I can't find them on Youtube? Whatever lost and liminal sounds these may be, they're totally new in Noir and co.'s catalogue, and I'd love to see more in this spirit from him.

Pairs Well With: "Don't Trust Horses" (Randy Goffe), "Hell's Bathroom" (Omission Sound), "15 Ghosts II" (Nine Inch Nails)

And what better way to summarize this week's hodgepodge album colors than a character whose entire art style is defined by collage? Seriously, this movie is so good, you guys. Please see it, and see it again.