MEDIA ROOTS- There are only a handful of electronic or synthesizers musical acts associated with film and movie scores. Clockwork Orange and The Shining’s Wendy Carlos comes to mind as does Tangerine Dream’s memorable scores for Risky Business and The Keep. One brilliant composer who is heavily revered in the world of orchestral film music, yet rarely mentioned amid discussions of film scores is Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith began as an auteur who strived to emulate the likes of Bernard Hermann and later he become a workhorse for Hollywood.

In time he started experimenting with exotic instruments and tried weaving them into a traditional orchestra aesthetic. Two years before Delia Derbeishire made the legendary “synthesizer” (which really was tape splice cutups, not synthesizer) theme for Dr. Who, Goldsmith had incorporated a Hammond Novachord into his theme song for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the last song in this mix).

In the 70s Goldsmith was already beginning to toy with synthesizers, but he didn’t make a fully synthesized score until the film Logan’s Run. His use of strange instruments and synthesizers make brief appearances on some of his earlier scores such as Star Trek the Motion Picture, but when his collaborations with Joe Dante peaked (Goldsmith became Dante’s right hand man akin to Spielberg’s use of John Williams), electronic elements were incorporated into almost every score he made from 1981-87. The results were profound: the samples from Gremlins, Explorers, Psycho II, Poltergeist, Outland in this mix exhibit a mystical hybrid of classical symphony and synthesizer music that has never been replicated since.

We went Goldsmithing for electronic music and this is what we found, so kick back and enjoy a relaxing journey of nostalgic childhood treats from none other than Jerry Goldsmith.

Robbie Martin