Even if you remain immune to the dark charms of Joss Whedon's mighty Buffy The Vampire Slayer, you'll have noticed that some of us drone on about The Musical Episode from season six like it was the second coming of Abbey Road, Diamond Dogs and Closer. It is absolutely that and no less. The soundtrack, my most prized possession since someone burned it off a mobile MP3 laptop duck-billed web-pager for me (or whatever), is now officially released by popular demand, the first authentic use of the phrase 'by popular demand' since Disraeli's era.
In November 2001, the owner of Tongue Master records invited Mark Eitzel to fly out to Greece and record an EP with Greek musicians under the guidance of Greek composer/producer Manolis Famellos.
Edgar Froese's Berlin electronica franchise got into gear with this 1972 double, Tangerine Dream's third album, the reissue of which highlights their decisive move away from Baader-Meinhof guitars and into gothic liturgies of mellotron and synthesized abstraction. Not that this neuters the band's still-extant freakout tendency, which grumbles up tectonically to shake the cloud-hung soundscape of cosmic foreboding. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, listen to "Birth Of Liquid Plejades"... This is how you do it, okay?
After the steamy funk of Boogie Nights and the Aimee Mann tearjerkers of Magnolia, PT Anderson's new film basks in heady strings and wonky harmoniums, scored by regular collaborator Jon Brion. It's deliberately dizzying and disorientating, and not always pleasurable. But the borrowing of Nilsson's "He Needs Me" from Altman's Popeye, sung with sugary desire by Shelley Duvall, is inspired. Waiting to interview Anderson in a hotel lobby recently, I congratulated Emily Watson on her singing of this. It's the only thing I've ever said to Emily Watson.
