4 posts tagged “spy music”
Taking me even further afield from trumpets and dark cabaret is my discovery last weekend of another whole box of CDs (about 200!) that I hadn't unpacked since moving into this house eighteen months ago. And in that box was The Fluid Soundbox by the instrumental band Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited. The lounge music revival of the 90s (see Combustible Edison) brought with it a revival of "spy music," and The Fluid Soundbox is the absolute best example of that subgenre. Ostensibly Swiss (though everything about them seems made up), they are obviously steeped in vintage lounge, surf, spy, and cop show music, to the extent that Soundbox is practically a catalog of those styles. Even their song titles are genius: "Triple Threat," "Formulator," "Robot A Go Go," "Project QX 5;" here is "Dragon City"--
That was from 1998. One of the best spy-music pieces of this new century was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, of all people, taking a break from scoring nursery-school cartoons to write the original music for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The music accompanying the kidnap-rescue raid on the pirates of Ping Island starts out with the playful motif heard throughout the movie, then adds a brass-and-tympani-heavy orchestra for unbeatable spy-music goodness:
Okay, I kid, Mark Mothersbaugh has done plenty of work outside of his Rugrats meal ticket (including all of Wes Anderson's films up through this one), but with kids of my own guess what music of his I've heard the most of over the last decade?
Just this week some brand-new spy music has dropped into my lap. One of Mrs. Veneer's net pals, Scott Rupp, composes kickin' action themes and has begun uploading them to imeem.com. On "Agent Koto" he combines two of my favorite styles, spy music and breakbeat:
I've been blurring the distinction between cop and spy music because they often contain the same elements, but a good rule of thumb is that, like the TV shows and movies they accompany, cop music contains more action, while spy music contains more intrigue. Illustrative of this distinction are the two theme songs that tower over everything else in their respective subgenres: Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme on the spy side, and Mort Stevens' Hawaii Five-O theme on the cop side. Ultimately this post isn't really about either of them, but I'll lay the groundwork for the real subject with a rarely-heard version of "Mission: Impossible," performed by the Israeli Philharmonic and conducted by Lalo Schifrin himself:
When I talk about James Taylor, some people think I'm talking about some weedy American singer-songwriter from the 1970s. I am not. I am talking about the modern British master of the Hammond B3 organ, the leader of the James Taylor Quartet, the New Jersey Kings, and more recently James Taylor's 4th Dimension. He's been playing cop show and spy music since the 80s, such as this original theme from the imaginary movie of the same name, "The Money Spyder:"
Get it? Spyder, as in spy? The 1990s saw the original quartet grow to a septet (at least) with the addition of horn players and a percussionist, but kept the Quartet moniker. 1997's Creation album included Taylor's first original theme for a real movie, "Austin's Theme" from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Also on the album were two cop music covers, Lalo Schifrin's theme from Dirty Harry, and the theme from Starsky and Hutch:
The JTQ was back down to a quartet in the 2000s, and the new James Taylor's 4th Dimension is a quartet as well. It's on my list of things to get around to.
I haven't been very impressed with many online retailers' recommendation systems. Amazon, for instance, keeps suggesting to me items that I have already bought from them; it's a safe bet that I'll like it, but it's not a safe bet that I'll buy a second one. Emusic, though, delivers pretty well in that regard. What solidified my loyalty to Emusic is that it recommended Skeewiff to me. I'd never heard of them before, but in listening to the online samples I realized I had discovered kindred spirits: they make fake cop show themes! And car chase music! And funky organ jams! And breakbeats galore! Skeewiff is the London-based duo of DJs/producers/songwriters Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland and their circle of musical pals, releasing records and CDs through their own Jalapeno Records label. They've done a couple of explicit fake cop show themes--"Cop Show" and "Farsky and Crotch"--but I think they capture the milieu best in "Light the Fuse" from their 2006 CD Private Funktion (and the Wet Your Beak EP):
That veers pretty close to car-chase music too, so I've tagged it as that as well. Spy music too, to cover all the bases. Skeewiff make simply the best drum tracks around, I think the key to their sound is the liberal use of tambourine. Forget the cowbell, I want more tambourine! And how about that logo--an anthropomorphic jalapeno pepper in a sombrero, playing bongos! Is that super-cool or what? Someone at Murdoch College in Australia must like Skeewiff as much as I do, since they've used them for the soundtracks of several (well, three at least) videos on YouTube. You can listen to more Skeewiff songs on their MySpace page, including, finally, a club version of "Man of Constant Sorrow." Which reminds me of Rednex, but that's a story for another day.
