THE SNOW FILES

MARK SNOW

Rating:

Original Review: Over the last twenty years or so, Mark Snow has become one of the most well-respected composers working in the American television music industry. He scored his first movie, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble starring a pre-Saturday Night Fever John Travolta, way back in 1975, and has since provided music for nearly 100 television series, TV-movies and small theatrical features. The amazing success of the cult TV series The X-Files finally brought Snow's music to a wider audience, and this excellent release of some of his earlier work goes some way to dispelling the common misconception that Snow is only capable of writing dark, moody synth music to accompany the weekly adventures of Mulder and Scully. The album is split into distinct sections, each depicting different styles of music. The first - sub-headed "Darkness and Desire" - can be adequately described as being "seductive" music, featuring as it does five tracks of moodily provocative themes. La Femme Nikita is the TV spin-off of Luc Besson's classic French female assassin movie, and John Beal's specially arranged version of the Main Theme is an amalgamation of throbbing drum n' bass, guitar licks, dreamy female vocals and peculiar sound effects (police sirens, gunshots etc.), making for an intriguing but slightly bizarre opening. The love theme from Conundrum is gorgeous, and features a solo female voice softly wafting above an evocative synth and piano theme. The Dark Waltz cue from Seduced and Betrayed is an obvious but stunningly attractive re-working of Jerry Goldsmith's Basic Instinct theme, and although the descending synth and flute motifs do eventually give way to a darkly beautiful piano melody, the frostiness of the music from the classic Sharon Stone sex shocker is unmistakable. The final selection of the section, the Main Title from the 1994 feature Caroline At Midnight, is described by Snow himself as "pure film noir", and is characterised by a bluesy muted trumpet solo. The "Love and Hope" section sees Snow in full-blown romantic mode, and features four equally gorgeous cues, my personal favourites on the CD. The Main Title from The Substitute Wife is utterly sublime, a lovely Americana theme for oboes, strings and eventually a harmonica which effortlessly captures the beauty and stillness of the vast frontier. The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is a little more introspective and reflective, but equally attractive. Smoke Jumpers is pumped-up macho action music with heavy brass stabs and a rolling percussion element accompanying the heroic fire fighters' scenes of derring-do. The TV movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a big-budget retelling of the classic Jules Verne tale starring Michael Caine as the unbalanced Captain Nemo. Although the full score is already available on the Prometheus label, the cue included here - "Arctic Night Walk" - is wonderful, a hauntingly beautiful theme for the fullest orchestra. The ambient, mesmerising main title from Disturbing Behaviour introduces the section entitled "The Music Is Out There", a twinkly, dissonant piece for heavy synths and bells. Then comes the centrepiece of the album, the music from The X-Files, arguably the score with which Snow will forever be associated. This is where the problems start. Let me say first of all that I have absolutely no compaints about Snow's music. The tone of the piece is appropriately dark, menacing, exciting, ethereal, occasionally frightening, occasionally soothing, and features a stunning version of the now almost-legendary whistled Main Theme which kicks in at about 2:26. In addition, John Beal's performances are impeccable throughout, and the re-creation is true to the original score. The problem is more to do with the piece's presentation - as a 31-minute suite of music with NO BREAKS. As much as I like the music from The X-Files, I admit I do have trouble sitting through several minutes of harsh electronic dissonance in order to hear a specific theme or motif buried somewhere deep within the track. One can easily identify many junctures where a track break could have been inserted to allow listeners to skip forwards and backwards within the music, without breaking up the flow or continuity of the piece as a whole. This ill-conceived "concert suite" idea is what stops the CD as a whole getting top marks. Three bonus tracks, including a version of the main theme from the TV series Dark Justice co-composed by Jeff Freilich, and Snow's rejected main title from the cult classic Max Headroom, are stuck on the end, but are neither here nor there in musical terms. Aside from The X-Files suite, I would certainly have no hesitation in recommending this album to all. Mark Snow is, without a doubt, one of the most talented but misunderstood composers around at the moment, and this compilation is a perfect example of why he scores an average of 8 movies a year for TV and the cinema. I hope it is the first of many releases.

Track Listing: Running Time: 70 minutes 43 seconds

Sonic Images SID-8902 (1999)

Music composed by Mark Snow. Featured musical soloist Richard Allen. Special vocal performances by Darlene Koldenhoven and Cassandra Crossland. Recorded and mixed by Larold Rebhun. Edited and mastered by James Nelson. Album produced by Mark Snow and Ford A. Thaxton.


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