Antarctica: Music From Koreyoshi Kurahara's Film

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Free Music Notes for Antarctica: Music From Koreyoshi Kurahara's Film

Free Music Review: Music to drift into a cryogenic vision quest with.
Hit: 5 Stars

1] 'Theme From Antarctica' - the staple sound of the album. Note how the oriental pull to it shows how Vangelis can tailor make his work to suit culturally defined markets, too. 2] 'Antarctic Echoes' - the first 'dreamy' track. The sequences contained herein conjure mental pictures of surveying massive vistas of white desert and distant mountain mirages. It transports you to the terrain but its sweet melodic structure also has the power to insulate you from the hideously cold temperatures. Catatonia prevails. 3] 'Kinematic' - the 'fast' track. In the film, I suppose this would be where the camera shifts to reveal human activity on the icescape, intense and frenzied to battle the harshness of the environment. The montony indicates optimism and work being, if not achieved, at least striven toward. 4] 'Song of White' - Opening with a Native Americanesque wind instrument sequence that soothes the soul after experiencing the energy of the previous track, this song soon (2:48 in) gives way to a reprisal of the theme music. We're now back to the overview of the continent, estimating the challenges we face and goose-pimpling with pride at how advanced we think our species is at being able to overcome adversity in this deadly but beautiful world. 5] 'Life Of Antarctica' - The lullabye sound which begins this track swiftly caves in to display a precarious, pessimistic sequence that is wind instrument-oriented. As much as the feel contradicts the expectation of hope we should get from the track title, here, Vangelis is raising a grandfatherly finger of caution, warning us of the fragility of that life here and how we should be mindful that that existence is tiny compared to the forboding scale of the continent as a whole. Probably the most powerful of all the soundscapes presented on the record up this point. 6] 'Memory Of Antarctica' - Apparently, it's the missing link of the album. A dreamy opening begins a piece that seems to be trapped somewhere between tracks 2 and 5 in style. In the first minute and a half, though, we've defaulted to a slower, wispier rendition of the theme music which treads on tired feet for pretty much the rest of the song. This entry is entirely a lullabye - we can forget the agony of the cold now because we're protected by the numbness of memory (or is that the numbness brought on by the cold?). The mirages, wisps and stark white vistas are still there but we're at one with them. 7] 'Other Side of Antarctica' - The one. I say 'the one' because this is the most powerful track on the album. From hearing the first two seconds of this track we can feel the frustration of having climbed a high body of ice only to find an insanely vast expanse of merciless white greeting our snowblind gaze. We're hundreds of miles from safety, there's no food or shelter and we only have prayers to use now. This is an anthem of nature's triumph over us. The pessimistic, monochromed soundscape rarely lets up. We're doomed now....we can only hope for salvation but intuition dictates that it can never materialise.. 8] 'Deliverance' - The prayer is answered. Our eyes defrost and afford tears while reunion with what we knew before occurs. This is what we are now that we've survived Antarctica - wiser, much worse for wear but touched by the joy of life preserved. That memory lessens the hardship of the environment of the test, thus reconciling us with the continent which we also now hold in a more empirical awe and respect.

Buy it now and save yourself the bother of trying to find a travel agent to go down there.

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