Cinematic: Classic Film Music Remixed

Mission accomplished. Cinematic is full of creative and often provocative arrangements of music by some of the greatest film composers ever – Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, and Henry Mancini among them. Of course, this music was never satisfied with being accompaniment in the first place; like the best music in any style, these scores suggested their own stories and their own landscapes. No surprise then that they work so well apart from their films. What is surprising is how adaptable these classic scores are, at least when the right producers get hold of them. When Duskis first brought the idea to King Britt, underground hip-hop hero from Philadelphia, he says the immediate response was "Are you kidding? They Call Me Mr. Tibbs is one of my favorite songs of all time!" King Britt then came up with two different remixes. The first is instrumental, full of James Brown horns, a funky groove, and a Sam-and-Dave-meets-the-London-Symphony-Orchestra vibe. The second is a vocal version, where the texture is thinned out to make room for some typically memorable word play from one of underground hip-hop's most fierce rappers, Mr. Lif (Definitive Jux).

Cinematic includes hip-hop, but is not a hip-hop record: it ranges stylistically from Zeb's electro-tango remix of Mancini's "The Tango I Saved For You" (from the film Gaily Gaily) to a deep ambient recasting of Inherit The Wind by Tom Middleton (of Global Communications and Jedi Knights). But as Duskis points out, "hip-hop has been sampling movie music for a long time – just think of Wu-Tang Clan and the way they used music from the old Blaxploitation films and the fact that RZA is now an in demand film composer." So Mark de Clive Lowe contributes an inventive arrangement of the music from Hour of the Gun, featuring Ohio rapper Replife – who name checks both Wyatt Earp and Tupac, in the same line. "Hour of the Gun is a Western," Duskis explains; "and Mark heard it as a gangsta piece. So the words are political, about how this is a violent time, the hour of the gun."

Cinematic's pairings of producers with film scores yielded some inspired results. Partly that's because musical elements that were hinted at in the original were dragged and dropped into the spotlight in the remixes. The "Love Theme" from Ben Hur already had an exotic, vaguely Eastern cast to it, but when the Bombay Dub Orchestra got hold of it, a full range of Indian instruments, electric instruments, and dance beats helped turn it into a completely new, but still familiar, piece. And Ennio Morricone's music for A Few Dollars More was full of grand sweeping vistas and odd instrumental timbres. So when Shrift (aka British producer/instrumentalist Dennis Wheatley) remixed the "Goodbye Colonel" section of the score, pairing English horn and strings with bass and drum programming, it echoed the originality of Morricone's soundtrack and suggested the lonely, dust-riddled towns of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.

One of the most cinematic producers working today turns in a Cinematic high point: The Real Tuesday Weld (British singer/producer Stephen Coates) offers a typically evocative remix of Duke Ellington's music for Paris Blues, complete with cool sax, vinyl surface noise, and other sound effects designed to suggest a mid-20th century film noir atmosphere, all supported by a sturdy downtempo groove. "Swing is a big part of Stephen's sound," Duskis says, "and for him to get a real Ellington tune to work with, that was great." Ellington's name is invoked on what sounds like a scratchy old tape, and a big band horn break recalls the Duke's legendary orchestra. As with so much of The Real Tuesday Weld's music, there's a strong sense of story, but one that's hinted at, not told.

Another highlight of Cinematic is The Taking Of Pelham 1, 2, 3, in a remix by up and coming Philly producer Phillip Charles. Sample-and-hold techniques quickly build to a clattering, metallic sound, like a train picking up steam. With the addition of some brassy flourishes that sound straight out of a James Bond film, plus electric organ and band, the music hurtles along like the runaway subway car of the title. And the electro-ambient duo Bent offers a remix of Nino Rota's music for Fellini's Roma, a masterful score that somehow keeps its musical DNA intact even through the heavy processing and the strong steady rhythm programming that Bent employ.

The basis for Cinematic was a re-recording of all the original scores by the Czech Phillharmonic Chamber Orchestra. The remixers were not given individual tracks, just the full orchestral recordings. "It was definitely challenging," Duskis admits. "Everyone had to keep the thematic elements as they were. They just had to get creative. I got a few emails from producers saying, I didn't know it was gonna be this challenging!" You couldn't have faulted Shawn Lee (Ping Pong Orchestra) if he'd sent one of those emails: the score for Birdman of Alcatraz is full of subtle instrumental touches that seem to leave little room for remixing. But Lee's arrangement is cunning enough that it's hard to tell where the orchestral strings end and the synthesized sounds begin. And in terms of getting creative, it'd be hard to top Gaudi's remix of the theme from Carrie. The Anglo-Italian dub producer uses natural sounds, South Asian percussion, and glitch electronica – as well as spoken phrases in Hawaiian – to create an epic, ritualistic piece that is almost unrecognizable. But Gaudi's take is just as unsettling and dramatic, in its own way, as Pino Donaggio's original.