Perfection can be improved on occasion. Bearing witness is this inventive mashup of various themes from The Lord of the Rings by Howard Shore and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Avengers by Alan Silvestri:
The mashup was arranged and orchestrated by Samuel Kim. I don’t have enough formal musical education to tell you why it works—both movie scores certainly are epic enough—I just know it does. 🙂 Kudos!
An occasional feature on music and sound-related notions.
For the pure joy of having our sea container finally arrive with our moving goods, I’ve been re-reading all of Martha Wells’ Murderbot books in the past few weeks. That reminded me of a playlist Meghan Ball made to accompany the Murderbot novelNetwork Effect. I gave it a listen, and found it conveyed a very different idea of Murderbot than my impression.
So, I made my own playlist. It starts with a concert version of Darude’s “Sandstorm”, which I thought appropriate due to the reference of Murderbot visiting the Preservation planet for a cultural festival with concerts and operas in the beginning of the book.
Darude: “Sandstorm”, performed by Synthony and the Auckland Symphony Orchestra
Armin van Buuren: “Blah Blah Blah”
Paul Ruskay featuring Kokia: “Strike Suit Zero Main Theme”
Linkin Park: “Numb”
Darude’s “Sandstorm” and Rammstein’s “Du Hast” mashup by Monsterovich
Clint Mansell: “Lux Aeterna” (soundtrack from Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky)
The “Blah Blah Blah” and “Numb” lyrics remind me of the doubts some humans (especially Thiago in this story) have about Murderbot, and Murderbot’s attitude towards those kinds of humans. The mashup of “Sandstorm” and “Du Hast” nicely marries action-paced music with the weirdness that comes with Murderbot finally finding targetControlSystem and the thread of targetContact contamination and the crystalline growth / alien hivemind taking over Murderbot. Ending the list with a piano piece brings some calm again.
Note: the creator’s content warning’s are: blood, guns, scopophobia, slight body horror, and injuries. There are also slight spoilers for Network Effect.
I’m Not Your Hero – The Murderbot Diaries Animatic by mar on YouTube
The animatic is set to Sara Quin and Tegan Quin’s “I’m Not Your Hero”. The song wasn’t familiar to me, but I have to admit it fits pretty well.
And, seriously, someone please buy the rights and develop a fantastic longform Murderbot screen adaptation. Like, now! *standing with money in my outstretched hand*
Most of the bardcore versions I’ve seen are in plain modern English, some in ye olde faux medievale Englisshe, and some even in Old French. But so far there seems to be only one in Classical Latin: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
Game Music Collective is a Finland-based orchestra, band, and studio production company lead by cellist Lukas Stasevskij. As the name implies, they produce and perform game and other soundtracks.
Their latest project is a cover version of Ellie’s song “Through the Valley” from the PlayStation4 game The Last of Us Part II. The music video for the cover was filmed in Helsinki, Finland.
The original song was written by Shawn James; the Game Music Collective version features Mokka Laitinen (vocals and guitar), Sujari Britt (cello), Leonardo Carrillo (oboe), and Eeti Nieminen (drums).
Pretty neat, isn’t it? (Although strictly speaking I would’ve been happier to see outdoor locations, too.) #FinlandNerd 🙂
Anybody else who grew up in the 1980s and remembers the song “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins? Here’s a treat: Jackson McKay mashed it up with X-wing clips from Star Wars movies for a really thrilling video.
Sappho, like many ancient poets, wrote her poems not to be read on the page but to be sung. We don’t know specifically what her poems originally sounded like when performed, but we know enough about the notes, rhythms, and structure of ancient music to make some reasonable guesses. Here’s a version of Sappho’s first poem (my translation here) performed on a reconstructed ancient lyre by artist Bettina Joy de Guzman.
It’s composed by Michael Giacchino, who has an extensive music department background in genre tv, movies, and games (Jurassic franchise video games and movies, Alias, Zootopia, some rebooted Mission Impossible and Star Trek movies, Rogue One and both of the new Spider-Man MCU movies, for instance).
It’s rare to come across a speculative show theme that uses the piano so unapologetically, let alone a story of an FBI agent investigating weird crimes. I’m in no way an expert, but I seem to have noticed that piano has fallen out of fashion these days, so for me the Fringe theme is valuable on those grounds as well.
An occasional feature on music and sound-related notions.
What else is there to say about this video? It’s an orchestra of Lego’s programmable Star Wars droid models playing the Star Wars theme on real instruments. What more can you ask for?
“Watch this awesome droid orchestra! – LEGO Star Wars™ BOOST Droid Commander” via LEGO
This project is the work of Sam Battle. Find more of his inventive musical performances at lookmumnocomputer.com.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Co-Geeking 