Tuesday Tunes: Blade Runner

It must be said that no review of Blade Runner is complete without at least a passing mention of Vangelis and that awesome soundtrack.

And because I love this kind of music, especially for writing to, here's a special extra review for the soundtrack, which was also re-released in 2007, along with the Final Cut movie, in a 3-CD special edition.

Entitled Blade Runner Trilogy, the first CD is the same as the original soundtrack release, the second CD contains previously unreleased music from the movie, and the third CD is new music inspired by the movie.

Of the three, the first disc is still the best; from the fantastically spacey main title, to the chilled out sax of the love theme, to the cool end titles, the best known tracks are all here in full, along with some less well known gems. For me, the best trackshere are those which use smaples from the movie: Blush Response, with its samples about the Voight-Kampff machine, and Tears in Rain, Batty's last words, set to a suitably melancholy piece of music.

Disc two is the usual film score fair, atmospheric pieces with descriptive titles like At Mr Chew's and Deckard and Roy's Duel, but done in a Vangelis way, which is to say, pretty awesome.

Disc three, on the other hand... disc three is where things start to get odd. Good, but odd. Launch Approval and Mail from India are personal favourites for futuristic weirdness alone, but elsewhere the Blade Runner influence comes through in the music - Sweet Solitude has the same chilled sax sound as the original love theme, and Perfume Exotico has the same ethereal vocals as Rachel's Song. It could perhaps be seen as the soundtrack Vanelis would have made had the movie been shot in 2007 rather than just remixed.

For fans of sci-fi music, movie soundtracks, Vangelis, or ambient electronica in general, it's a worthwhile investment.

And for your sci-fi song of the week, you will of course be enjoying the main theme from Ghostbusters.