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This year Intrada returned to Scotland to record its fifth Kickstarter-funded album, Jerry Goldsmith's 1969 political-thriller score for The Chairman. Backers have already received a digital version of the album and the feedback has been unanimously filled with praise. "Just heard the complete recording and it's stunning," said one contributor, summing up the overall sentiment. Performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of William T. Stromberg, Intrada considers this the finest of all our crowdfunded projects to date.
The assembly of musicians represents one of the largest assembled in the Scotland studio, featuring a vast array of percussion crowded in the back of the hall. Some of the percussion were modified, including rice poured on the bass drum turned horizontal for a singular rattling effect and the piano being muted with towel-wrapped copies of Shostakovich and Mahler biographies dampening the wires. Even instruments not traditionally used as percussion instruments were used—as percussion instruments.
While a soundtrack album was released concurrently with the film on the Tetragrammaton label, the album masters and film recording sessions both vanished over the years. Subsequent CD reissues were limited to rips from vinyl sources, amplifying the limited range and distortion inherit in the format. While a short mono selection of cues in superior sound were released on the prestigious Goldsmith at Fox box set from Varèse Sarabande, it only included one previously unreleased cue less than a minute long. The demand remained for a brand-new recording of the otherwise unattainable score in complete form—which our team, led by producer Leigh Phillips, delivered in spades. To round out this impressive package, the cover is adorned with new artwork by Stéphane Coëdel and in-depth liner notes by Jon Burlingame.
As a bonus, Intrada has recorded a suite of previously unreleased Goldsmith compositions otherwise lost to the ages. First, Intrada includes the end title to Rambo II, the original of which only exists on a poor-sounding cassette dub. Then there's "Alex's Death" from Under Fire, the film's set-piece action cue omitted from the original soundtrack. Listen to "The Flag" from Not Without My Daughter, the previously unreleased film version that features a militaristic trumpet solo (a favorite Goldsmith sound of our late founder Douglass Fake) also missing from the original soundtrack. This album also includes "Homer Writes" from Lilies of the Field—another track long since lost and not included on the original soundtrack. And as a surprise, Intrada recorded the demo Goldsmith composed for The Game of Our Lives, never heard anywhere before.
- Intrada
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