Squid lovers celebrate! Soundtrack music from first three Trancers movies featuring Tim Thomerson as futuristic gumshoe Jack Deth are at last available on 2-CD set! Popular time travel series from Charles Band also featured Helen Hunt, Art La Fleur, Michael Stefani, Anne Seymour. Charles Band directs (I & II), C. Courtney Joyner directs (III). Flavorful synthesizer scores by Mark Ryder, Tim Davies (I & II) and Richard Band (III) add immeasurably to never-ending appeal. Musical themes are highly melodic, action ideas are rhythmically charged, atmospheric material is inventive… with everything supported by unusually tonal, attractive harmonic vernacular. Memorable! First score by Ryder & Davies establishes major themes and motifs, second score reworks many of them, third score uses them as launchpad for aggressive new material by Richard Band. Minor keys play important role throughout, underlining overall melancholy feel of both quasi-film noir plot and saddened love story at heart. Even action sequences are anchored by strong melodies above, minor-keyed harmonies below. While main theme gets center stage, especially in beautiful end title treatments, every melody has moments in the spotlight. Results are unusually strong, accessible sci-fi scoring! In third and longest score, Band gives equal time to original themes, new material. His own contributions add vivid contrast to initial moods by bringing in gritty intensity that reflects much grimmer storyline. The future isn't pretty! All three scores are presented in stereo from 1/2" three-channel masters vaulted in pristine condition. Richard Band supervises production, Daniel Schweiger writes detailed notes, Joe Sikoryak & Kay Marshall offer attractive booklet with Flipper-style cover art. Choose your favorite! Mark Ryder, Tim Davies, Richard Band compose and perform, Richard Band produces, supervises. Intrada Special Collection 2-CD set available while supplies and interest remain!
CD 1 TRANCERS
01. Main Title (2:39)
02. Diner Singe (2:06)
03. City Of Lost Angels (1:22)
04. Ancestry (2:07)
05. Santa Claus Killer (2:47)
06. Tropical Tube Tan (4:04)
07. Ethereal Union Of Two Lost Souls (1:57)
08. The Paper Mill (4:04)
09. Trancer Trooper (1:30)
10. Divide And Conquer (4:53)
11. Deal With Whistler (3:27)
12. The Fortune Teller (1:20)
13. End Title (3:07)
Total Time: 35:34
TRANCERS II
14. Jack Deth (3:49)
15. A Bad Day For Shopping (2:47)
16. Dr. Wardo (6:25)
17. Be Careful (0:37)
18. A Special Patient (2:56)
19. New Clothes (0:28)
20. Jack And Alice (1:03)
21. Exploding Ham (1:20)
22. Herbs Of The Future (3:53)
23. Van Getaway (0:55)
24. Ashby’s Rescue (2:27)
25. Barn Showdown (9:43)
26. Thank You, Jack And End Title (7:35)
Total Time: 44:11
Total CD1 Time: 79:50
CD 2 TRANCERS III
01. Main Title (3:32)
02. The Chamber (1:53)
03. Jack Is Taken (3:01)
04. The Basement Hospital (1:21)
05. Alarm Goes Off (0:54)
06. The Attack (3:09)
07. Club Fight (5:16)
08. The Seduction (1:53)
09. Underground Headquarters (0:54)
10. Jack On Phone (0:45)
11. The Newspaper (0:51)
12. Lena & Jack Argue (1:56)
13. Jack Leaves Lena’s Apt. (0:40)
14. The Pre-Fight (1:23)
15. The Fight (2:50)
16. RJ & Jack Escape (3:24)
17. Muthur & Jason (1:30)
18. About To Meet The Senator (1:05)
19. The Demo Fight (2:01)
20. Jack & Shark To The Kill (9:00)
21. Back To The Future (0:35)
22. Finale & End Title (4:44)
Total Time: 52:49
The Extras
23. Hot Wheels (From Trancers II) (0:32)
24. Christmas Source No. 1 (From Trancers III) (0:43)
25. Christmas Source No. 2 (Trancers III) (1:15)
Total Extras Time: 2:33
Total CD2 Time: 55:32
Tech Talk From The Producer…
The musical voice for Empire Pictures' successful
Trancers franchise was established
by Mark Ryder and Phil Davies for the
first film in 1984. Using an electronic
palette of synthesized sounds, they
avoided the expectant beeps and groove that Richard Band helped draw
from Phil Davies and Mark Ryder. Now
a little over three decades from the day
when Jack Deth landed in L.A. to pursue
Whistler’s murderous cult, the first
three scores for this old-school future
cop remain ingenious exemplars of bleeps of low-budget sci-fi filmmaking
by creating numerous highly musical
themes and motifs with a wide array
of harmonic material to support them.
Equal parts highly accessible melody
and driving rhythms, it was a musical
formula that worked out just right.
So much so that the music from
both composers returned in 1991 for
Trancers II. Richard Band, who had supervised
the music for the first film and
was the leading musical wizard behind
the entire Empire and Full Moon roster
of films, revisited their themes and
confirmed the musical vernacular that
would play underneath the visuals.
When the inevitable Trancers III arrived
in 1992, Band reworked much of the
thematic material used in the first two
films to retain continuity and then
supplemented everything with several
new ideas, in a similar synthesizer style
but thematically all his own.
To present these three scores
for the first time on this Intrada 2-CD
set, we utilized the ½" four-track scoring
session tapes which contained the finalized
two-channel stereo mixes as well
as the pilot tones for synching the cues
directly to picture. The masters for the
first score were encoded with professional
Dolby B noise reduction, the industry
standard at the time. The second
and third scores were mixed utilizing the
then-new Dolby SR encoding process.
All of these elements were complete
and preserved in pristine condition.
It should be noted that for reel
three of the second score, no new
material was recorded. Instead, during
postproduction, the editorial department
simply tracked in portions of
select cues recorded for the first score.
We have not repeated these as they
already appear in our presentation of
that initial score.
As per the needs of these three
highly entertaining but necessarily
limited-budget films, many of the cues
were very short pieces that enter,
play for a mere few seconds and then
fade out, often having no ending bars
per se. They were never designed as
stand-alone listening experiences. In
order to retain all of them and still present
a musically satisfying experience
for listeners, we have assembled many
of these short pieces into lengthier
tracks with thematic ideas, key centers
and other musical devices all taken into
account. The results are highly rewarding
to enjoy.
Finally, at the end of CD 2 are
three pieces of source music. “Hot
Wheels” was a brief instrumental cue
recorded for use in reel five of Trancers
II but subsequently dropped in favor
of a song licensed separately. The two
Christmas source pieces for Trancers III
were arranged and recorded by Richard
Band and do appear in the beginning
of the film but are otherwise unrelated
to the score itself.
