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JIM CIRRONELLA / CAPITOL HI-Q (2010) - Page 2

 
 
   

MRH: You mentioned in the CD liner notes that some of the NOTLD cues had been altered and edited for the film, but the CD features the complete cues, and for myself, I was struck by the quality of the music, and the incredible atmosphere that they have which runs quite deep.

 

Jim Cirronella: Again, the information is cloudy, as to who picked what.

For example, it’s always been said by Karl Hardman that they manipulated the cues, but at some point George Romero decided to use the stock cues... The cues have not been altered. There are some examples in the film of altered tracks – we don’t have them on the CD - but it’s minor stuff: it’s more or less delaying a stinger with a tape delay so that it will give this strange kind of electronic, mechanical, sustaining ambience over the entire scene that they’re trying to cover.

When Barbara goes up the stairs and is confronted by this corpse [in the farmhouse], it’s a stinger that’s been electronically processed... That’s one of the examples of where they needed something very specific, so they created it themselves. Unfortunately, all that stuff would’ve been on tape, and that’s all been lost, but luckily 95% or so of the music and all the musical ambient things are stock cues, so that’s what I decided to stick with for the CD.

 

 

 

MRH: I think Romero’s use of the stock cues is very strong in NOTLD, particularly when you compare it to The Crazies (1973) or Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Crazies has a lot of stock music that qualitatively and stylistically is all over the place, and some of it is just wholly inappropriate for the chase sequences; in Dawn of the Dead¸ there are vintage orchestral cues (particularly in the “Cannes Cut”) plus the original prog-rock cues by Goblin. NOTLD, though, has an organic feel, and there’s cohesion among all those atmospheric cues.

 

 

Jim Cirronella: Don’t forget, there may be one cue from one of these LPs that is surrounded by another dozen or so cues that sound very similar… Somebody knew instinctively what to pick, and from everything that I’ve seen with this film and researching it and studying it, I have to give that final credit to George Romero... No one cue sounds out of place, no matter how diverse they are.

Some people have problems with some of the choices in Dawn of the Dead because it’s not a horror movie; there’s an underlying horror to the whole thing, but the way it’s scored, some of it’s like a parody. That’s what he chose, but he still has a lot of pieces in there that he really got into editing bits and pieces together to make brand new cues.

Some of the things that he edited together sound like one piece of music, but it’s amazing to hear the actual cue: you would never think any 2 of them would together but he’s stitching together 3 or 4 of them.

Read the CD review!

Read the CD review!

Read the CD review!

   
 
   
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