Giorgio Moroder has a special place in the history of electronic music, because of his genre-inspiring classic track I Feel Love, with Donna Summer and Pete Bellotte.

When Brian Eno first heard I Feel Love, he told David Bowie “This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years,” which it did. The track has been covered by dozens of artists and imitated, either directly or indirectly, by thousands.

Moroder’s version of the original Battlestar Galactica soundtrack, on the other hand, has been lost to obscurity.

Until now:

Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

via TMI

Based on this MTV interview with Olivia Wilde, it looks like French electronica duo Daft Punk may have a cameo in the upcoming Tron Legacy movie.

Daft Punk is doing the soundtrack for the sequel to the 1982 original, Tron, which broke new ground in computer animation.

Anybody else overly excited about the new Tron movie?

It’s been a while since we heard from Goldfrapp – but they haven’t been sitting on their laurels or dancing with the dog-headed bikini-madchen.

Alison Goldfrapp writes that they have been working on the soundtrack for a John Lennon biopic:

we have finally emerged from an intense period of work and i’m pleased i can now tell you about it (as it is official). we have written the score for a film called “Nowhere boy”. it’s about John Lennon as a boy and stars Aaron Johnson, Kristen Scott-Thomas and Anne Marie Duff. it’s Sam Taylor-Wood’s first feature film and it’s truly amazing that they gave us the oppotunity to do this.

we are all really excited about going to abbey road studios soon to record the strings with the full orchestra. the film is closing the london film festival and is premiered on 29th october at odeon leicester square. now our work on the film is almost finished, we will carry on writing the Goldfrapp album.

Goldfrapp could be a really interesting choice for the soundtrack – their Felt Mountain was especially cinematic.

What do you think? Can Goldfrapp do John Lennon justice?

In this official Cakewalk video, Robin Kelly gives a presentation on using Sonar 8 for creating a soundtrack to a video.

Sunday Synth Jam: Retrosound created this ambient soundscape, Sound Clouds, to showcase the Kawai K5000R.

The track transcends the goal of being a demo of the Kawai K5000R, though, to be a lovely ambient soundscape synth jam.

via retrosound72:

vintage synth demo by RetroSound

Kawai K5000R Additive Synthesizer – used the additive synthesis and internal PCM waves
FX: reverb and delay (Lexicon)

Sunday Synth Jam: This is an awesomely atmospheric synth jam, in the style of Desolation Path, from Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack.

via mik300z:

Uploaded this a couple of weeks back, and removed it, apologies!! Anyway , here it is, the feedback from my other vangelis covers prompted me to take another view…

Here it is – the Vangelis Blade Runner cover that will make you weep.

This is the first time I’ve seen someone really nail the lushness and quirkiness of Vangelis’ soundtrack for Blade Runner. It’s not an exact sonic match, but it’s extremely close, it’s live, it sounds great and and it’s a very musical performance, too.

Give it a listen, crank it up and let me know what you think!

Gear-geek details below.

via mik300z:

The Stars of this video are the ESQ 1 for the Cs80 brass leads and the Juno 6 for it’s authentic sounding electronic beeps. The bells and percussion from the Korg x5 and Juno G. Microkorg on strings.

Really enjoyed this and amazing how a few affordable synths can re-create the unique bladerunner sound.

This wired video looks at how Amon Tobin and the Sony Music team used found objects to create a dark and grimy video game score for Infamous.

This track, Cosmos, features Roland D-550 + JD-800 + TR-808, and was inspired by Carl Sagan’s classic TV series.

via retrosound72:

“COSMOS theme”
Inspired by the cosmos tv series by C.Sagan

pads, sweeps, chimes and other sounds: Roland D-550 and JD-800
drums: Roland TR-808

Jeff Rona discusses the use of Rob Papen synths while making a new film score.

via robpapen

Boing Boing has come into possession of some wicked footage of an anonymous Atari Computer Camp excursion that has everything you could ever want from grainy stock video: namely, yellowed and over-saturated money shots of retro-tech, and a bevy of over-eager and still-innocent pre-teens banging out BASIC to make crossword crosses out of the words Van Halen (no joke!) and gawping at the awesome limitless power and future of computers.

Here’s the catch: neither of the videos — the first clocking in at about seven minutes, and the second coming in at seven and a half — have any sound at all.

And so: given Offworld/Boing Boing’s sizable audience of chiptune/junk-tech musicians, we thought we’d throw the score open to you. If you’re interested in submitting some of your music for the videos, which will be broadcast on BBtv at a later date, send an email to brandon@offworld.com with the subject line “Atari Computer Camp” and we’ll dig through and select our favorites from there. Bonus points awarded for (but certainly not limited to) composing on actual 8-bit Atari tech.

Me And My Rhythmbox, from the low-budget movie Liquid Sky.

Me … me and my … me and my … me and my rhythm box … me and my rhythm box … are you jealous fox? (folks?) are you jealous fox? … my rhythm box is sweet … never forgets the beat … it never eats … it never shits … it never sleeps … it only beats … it’s always high … so am I … do you wanna know why? … it … it is … preprogrammed … so what … so what … so what … who of your friends is not? … who of your friends is not? who’s not?

Liquid Sky is a strange movie about intergalactic sex aliens and coked out people in the 80’s.

It’s an interesting cult film and it features a unique synth-heavy soundtrack!

via poisondoor:

My favourite scene from my favourite movie – Liquid Sky. Adrian Sings in the club while Jimmy’s looking for the Drugs in Margaret’s room.

[Both roles played by Anne Carlisle!]

——————————

The producer of the film took full credit for everything they really did not do anything but put up the money. He and his wife ( who got the credit for the costumes) needed green cards and that was the way for them to get them.

Anne Carlisle ( wrote the entire script ) and Julia Morton were responsible for almost everything. Iit was Jjulia that brought in marcel and nanxy from cinandre, who did the hair and make up.

The star of this bizarre and violent film is Anne Carlisle, a fomer LaRocka model who has a screenwriting credit and plays the dual roles of New Wave fashion plates Margaret and Jimmy. ´ I had already experimented with changing gender,´ says Carlisle, perhaps the only woman in film annals to give herself a blow job, ´ dressing as a guy just as a provocative thing. Slava Tsukerman saw me going out in these costumes and thought that a UFO would find them attractive.´ To cinch the role, Carlisle dressed up as a boy and escorted Tsukerman to the New York club Danceteria – where she then proceeded toland a female date.

Anne Carlisle went onto minor parts in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Crocodile Dundee (1986) and played the lead in Larry Cohen’s Blind Alley/Perfect Strangers (1987), but has since vanished from sight, although she did apparently write a novelization for Liquid Sky. It is a genuine shame that Carlisle has never gone onto any other parts of any note as she certainly has talent. The idea of aliens coming to harvest humanity for the opiates in the brain was also borrowed for the entertaining action film Dark Angel/I Come in Peace (1990)..

The theme has been in use in various forms since 1963. The music was composed by Australian Ron Grainer and arranged by vintage synth hottie Delia Derbyshire at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. Derbyshire made use of test oscillators, primitive filters and tape manipulation to realize the piece.

For some, the Dr. Who theme is a key piece of electronic music history. For others, it’s a guilty pleasure. No matter what you think, though, it’s one of the most recognizable and memorable themes ever created.

Other themes that came in high in the poll included Star Trek, Thunderbirds, The Twilight Zone, Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Gratuitious embed of the original Dr. Who credits below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

AudioLemon found this video which may be the first use of an electronic instrument in a film soundtrack – L’Idee (1932).

It features prominent use of the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument, in a score by Arthur Honegger.

Maurice Alexis Jarre was born Sept. 13, 1924, in Lyon, France. He studied music at the Paris Conservatory, where his teachers included the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, the timpanist Félix Passerone and Joseph Martenot, the inventor of an electronic keyboard, a predecessor of the synthesizer.

Jarre married four times; he is survived by his wife, Fong, whom he married in 1984. Other survivors include two sons, synthesist Jean-Michel, and Kevin, a screenwriter; and a daughter, Stéfanie. Though Mr. Jarre had lived in the United States for decades, the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, issued a statement after his death, calling Mr. Jarre “a great composer” who, by working in film, “broadened the public for symphonic music.”

“He showed everyone that music is just as important as images for the beauty and success of a film,” said French President Nicolas Sarkoz.

While Jarre’s son Jean-Michel Jarre is better known for his synthesizer music, Maurice Jarre helped pioneer the use of synthesizers in film soundtracks.

Here’s a segment from the German dub of Witness, 1984, that demonstrates Jarre’s use of synths in soundtracks:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maurice Jarre’s electronic scores included:

• After Dark My Sweet
• Apology
• Dreamscape
• Enemy Mine
• Fatal Attraction
• Firefox
• Ghost
• Gorillas in the Mst
• No Way Out
• Witness

Billboard reports that Daft Punk has been signed to score the soundtrack for Tron 2 (TR2N):

Daft Punk, the French electronica duo known for their robot personas, have been tapped by Walt Disney Pictures to compose the score for “TR2N”, an update of the studio’s 1982 science fiction classic “Tron”, Billboard has confirmed.

The film, currently in production, is tentatively scheduled for a 2011 release.

The “TR2N” score marks Daft Punk’s first foray into the studio since 2005’s “Human After All.”

The musicians, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter split their time between Paris and Los Angeles, where they have have assembled a new recording studio for the TR2N project.

“We’re always trying to do something that hasn’t been done, or ultimately, that we aren’t doing ourselves yet,” notes Banglater.

The original Tron featured an original electronic score by synth pioneer Wendy Carlos.

What do you think about Daft Punk doing the score for Tron 2? Do you think that they are up to the task? Should they have gone back to Wendy Carlos to score the sequel?

Here’s another vintage look at remaking the Dr. Who theme!

Peter Howell shows how he used Yamaha CS-80 & ARP ODYSSEY sounds to remake the classic Dr. Who TV theme.

via radioshaolin

With The Quantum Of Solace coming out this weekend, it’s a good time to take a look back at the electronica side of James Bond music.

Here are ten of the most interesting electronica takes on James Bond:

Duran Duran’s View To A Kill

Click here to view the embedded video.

Where else to start but with Duran Duran’s View To A Kill?

The James Bond series may have bottomed out in the eighties, but at least Duran Duran had a hit with the theme song. Just don’t think too much about the lyrics.

The World Is Not Enough By Garbage

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shirley Manson made the most of her chance to take on James Bond, with not just a killer theme, but a convincing performance as a killer fembot.

James Bond 007 – Die Another Day ( Madonna )

Click here to view the embedded video.

A lot of people hated Madonna’s AutoTune’d theme for Die Another Day, but it’s the most electronic Bond theme ever.

It worked well with the awesome credits sequence, above, and Madonna was at her peak in her version of the video, below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The company is providing a 2-minute downloadable movie for you to score using Eastwest or Eastwest/Quantum Leap instruments. The winer will receive all PLAY products released before April 30, 2008. For each PLAY product the winner already has, they can substitute another EW produced product of equal of lesser value (based on the list price).

The Prizes

• Quantum Leap Pianos – The most detailed collection of the world’s finest grand pianos, recorded in one of the ‘temples of sound’, EASTWEST Studios (more RIAA certified platinum and gold records awarded than any other recording studios) with 3 mic positions for each piano.
• Quantum Leap SD2 – The Next Generation – The sequel to Stormdrum, SD2 is a stunning collection of exceptional acoustic percussion instruments. The exclusive selection of drums and percussions exceeds all other existing libraries.
• Quantum Leap Goliath – GOLIATH includes the entire 32 Gigabytes of content from Future Music magazine’s VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT OF THE YEAR – COLOSSUS, plus an additional 8 Gigabytes of new content from the latest collections.
• Fab Four – A virtual instrument inspired by the sounds of the Beatles, using the same kind of instruments and recording equipment the Beatles used to create their music.
• Quantum Leap Gypsy – A collection of detailed virtual instruments capable of playing completely realistic performances. This product is mostly intended for film, tv and game composers.
• Quantum Leap Ministry Of Rock – A HUGE 20 gigabyte collection of Rock Drums, Basses and Guitars recorded in the famous EASTWEST Studio 2.
• Quantum Leap Voices of Passion – A virtual instrument of Female Vocalists from Wales, Syria, India, Bulgaria and America. Ethereal, Passionate, Flowing, Mysterious, Wailing and Whispering vocals for Film, TV and Game composers as well as Songwriters, New Age Artists and Zen Horticulturists.

Oakenfold follows a long string of electronic music artists, including NIN & Amon Tobin, to score video games.

“It was a rewarding experience to score The Bourne Conspiracy video game — I have always been a fan of the series and the pace of the game is an ideal match for my musical tempo and style,” says Oakenfold.

Here’s the official description:

Oakenfold’s intense soundtrack features his distinct style of up-tempo music and adds another tremendous layer to the game’s cinematography techniques, presentation and pacing inspired by the Bourne films. As an added feature to the game, players will be able to unlock original tracks
scored by Oakenfold and play them on demand by completing levels and achievements.

The Bourne Conspiracy is a companion to the blockbuster series with an original story that uncovers the details of Jason Bourne’s past. The third-person action game, developed by High Moon Studios, blends hunter-prey game play through a seamless mix of hand-to-hand fighting,
gunplay and dramatic escapes. The action in the game is designed around Jason Bourne’s signature combat style, with a combat system co-designed by renowned Hollywood stunt choreographer and Bourne fight coordinator, Jeff Imada.

It had better not be another A Lively Mind, is all I can say.