Intrada announces an expanded reissue of Christopher Young's sci-fi/horror score to the 1995 MGM film Species. The album features the program Young put together in 2008, where he chose to present the score not in strict chronological sequence but rather in an intricately edited re-imagining of the cues to create the strongest musical listening experience. Several cues were dropped, and many others were trimmed to facilitate the new sequence. As is customary for this most creative and talented composer, Young judiciously married several otherwise-unrelated cues into longer pieces that were musically satisfying while still retaining the overall shape and architecture of the film itself. In some cases, he pulled bars from one take and inserted them into other takes as well as remixing everything to obtain the specific sound he desired. This release features that magnificent program.
Additionally, for the collector who wants everything, we've also included the complete unedited score in chronological sequence, making this the last word on Young's brilliant work. The music for Species is written for large orchestra plus synthesizers and choir. Christopher Young scored some 90 minutes of music using these forces both in full and in part, and his compositional gifts are on full display.
In the film, a seemingly human child is held in a government facility, yet the girl is actually the product of an alien transmission that enabled Earth scientists to combine extraterrestrial and human DNA. The head of the project, Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) orders the destruction of the young creature, Sil. But Sil escapes before the execution can take place, quickly grows to adulthood and begins a rampage in Los Angeles. Fitch gathers a team of unlikely experts to track down and kill the creature. The personnel include an “empath” who can read others’ thoughts and feelings (Forest Whitaker), a sociologist (Alfred Molina), a biologist (Marg Helgenberger), and a government contract killer (Michael Madsen). The twist in Species is that Sil is by all appearances a beautiful human female, played as a young girl by Michelle Williams and as an adult by actress and model Natasha Henstridge.
