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It’s kind of sad, really, that I may have already heard the best news all year, what with it being only halfway through January.

A film about, and set in, Los Angeles club Largo is in post-production and slated to be released in the spring of this year.

Featured in the concert film are, among others, Jon Brion, Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, Colin Hay, Flight of the Conchords, Zach Galifiankis, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins.

If I ever felt the need to name my fingers, I would name them in honor of this film’s lineup, starting with Jon Brion (left thumb).

Okay, first of all, check out the full Speed Racer trailer here.

My take :

So Lionsgate wants an Oscar nomination for 3:10 To Yuma in the Best Original Score category, and I gotta say Marco Beltrami’s composition is absolutely deserving (and I’m certainly not allowing my obsession with Christian Bale to affect my opinion in this matter at all).

The studio has posted this promotional movie featuring Beltrami and director James Mangold (Walk The Line), with fascinating bits on how some of the unconventional textures, sounds and instruments were created for this incredible soundtrack :

We’re just not that worried about showcasing creative work that we had no part in. There are some fantastic artists, composers and companies doing good work way under the radar these days, and we figure what comes around goes around. Well, we hope, anyway. It’s a karmic thing, I guess… like if karma were less religious and more of a secular ethic of reciprocity. But I digress.

Browsing some of my favorite inspirational feeds and blogs last night I happened across this trailer for OFFF 2007

Everybody loves music for movie trailers, right?! Well we’ve been hiding away in the Lab trying to come up with something a little unique for you, our dear friends, and methinks we’ve succeeded.

Not only are there soundtracks designed to ramp up the suspense and provide dramatic mood shifts throughout, but each track is available in construction kit form… each segment or mood section of a song is provided as an additional version to use separately.

Check it out :

One of our favorite up and coming indie bands, The Farewell Circuit, have been hard at work playing shows this past summer and gearing up to record their next batch of songs. We had a blast pulling their debut EP together (you can hear some before and after tracks at my producer site), and - line-up tweaks notwithstanding - they’re getting ready for their next few steps (writing, showcasing, yadda yadda…).

For starters, Danny, Geoff, Evan and DJ will be interviewed on Kramp & Adler’s morning show this Friday morning October 5th at 9:30… on the dial at 102.1 in Milwaukee. For those outside the region, or if you just dig the non-terrestrial-broadcast-thing, check out the 102.1 website for a live stream, and make friends with the hosts at Kramp’s myspace page.

TFC will also be playing at the Miramar Theatre this Saturday, October 6th, for Snapdragon Fest. We do like our festivals in Milwaukee, but we’re not sure you’ve ever had an opportunity to take in this much shoe-gazing, parent-loathing emo or petulant and frenetic ska in one weekend. Of course we dig Snapdragon Records… we rep some of their artists for music licensing opportunities at Burst Labs.

And the boys are headed to Nashville for an October 17th showcase with a few major label affiliates after building on the connections that their new guitarist, DJ, brings to the team (he was a member of This World Fair, whose song Don’t Make Me Wait was featured in the thriller Disturbia).

Be sure to check out all of The Farewell Circuit’s songs that are currently available for licensing at Burst Labs, and wish them luck at the Farewell Circuit myspace page… or head over to Third Shift Recording Co. and buy a copy of their debut EP (or grab your favorite song at iTunes). [dh]

1982 was a pretty amazing year if you dug Sci-Fi.

ET. Bladerunner. Tron.

And now Tron gets a sequel.

I want to know about the new soundtrack, though. The original (by Wendy Carlos) had such a great interplay between analog synthesis and live orchestral score (provided by the London Philharmonic). Who would provide such a great musical metaphor for humans/machines these days?

Maybe BT? For my money nobody gets the marriage of human and machine better than Mr. Transeau. His recent 5.1 release, This Binary Universe (get it at Amazon), is breathtaking in it’s emotional depth, which is an accomplishment considering the man is aligning the sound of rain to a mathematical grid at times. But it’s those high-level, cpu-intensive-moments that balance the heart-wrenching and soul-dripping arrangements BT deftly manipulates into one cohesive work. Check out This Binary Universe in surround as soon as you can.

I could also make a case for Imogen Heap, if only for her stunningly perfect specimen of the humanization of technology, Hide And Seek (iTunes link). She manages to use only synthesis (with her voice and lyrics as an input source) to extract tears from my eyes every single time I hear that beautiful song. Could she do an entire movie score (I’m not aware of anything she’s done other than have her songs licensed in movies and television shows)? But imagine Ms. Heap paired with someone as emotive and orchestral as James Horner (who comes with a ton of sci-fi cred, having done Star Trek II and III, Cocoon, and the Academy-Award-Nominated score for Aliens), or Eliot Goldenthal. I like the sound I’m hearing in my head.

We have other votes from our studios here today (Old Man Malcolm and Kyle are exploring Logic together and Matt is putting the finishing touches on some new chilled out tracks for our production music catalog). We’re all vibing pretty hard on Justice and MSTRKRFT. Who could they pair with on the symphonic side to create a hybrid dream-score for the new Tron? Drop us your ideas in a comment below. [dh]

This feels a bit like Spinal Tap + American Idol + The Office.

I hope the full movie is as good as the trailer - check out Great World Of Sound :

Moby is offering his catalog of production tracks as a free music library for student film projects and non-profits.

We’d put this in our “Wish We’d Thought Of That” category, but, ahhh, yeah…. we already did. Check the last question at our FAQ.

All of our production music is available, for no fee, if you are a student or a qualifying non-profit… and a few of you have taken us up on our offer. We’re simply hoping to make friends and fans, and, as always, we’re on the lookout for quality productions in which to place our music.

To offer any commentary beyond this announcement could be a tad precarious, as we’re on record for being less-than-interested in producing a Moby-esque track ever again (or Coldplay, for that matter) at the behest of yet another ad agency looking to help their client align themselves directly with 1999.

And the charity angle he’s tying in is certainly noble and worth some sort of karmic credit.

But we’ve been fans of Moby… for his (former?) punk aesthetic, for his commercial success (in both meanings of the word ‘commercial’), and certainly for his outspoken and candid views on politics, the environment, animal rights, and religion (frequently still offered at his blog).

Our frustration with his music stems more from the lack of imagination that some of his fans in the ad world appear to have when looking for music for their latest spot. We realize some of the blame lay with their end client, whose capriciousness and indecisiveness have doomed campaign after campaign, skyrocketing their commercial right to the juicy, safe, mediocre, mid-america middle.

And now we say this… (to further ensure that Mr. Richard Melville Hall will never take our calls - unfortunately - because as we said previously, we’re fans) :

The music he’s offering for free just ain’t all that good. The majority of the songs sound like lifeless demos that couldn’t even find a home on a collection of B-sides.

Oh well… that’s been our opinion of the vast wasteland populated by music library after music library after music library for the past decade, as well.

Welcome to the party, Moby. You’ve successfully distributed a few dozen “songs” in an effort to join the world of free production music. Now the real work begins… getting inspired to write something emotionally engaging… keeping your catalog up to date… dealing with the endless requests for tracks that sound like Moby… er, wait… you’ve got that one covered. [dh]

UPDATE 3/12/08 - Moby speaks on his Gratis project at SXSW. More at LA Times Extended Play.

When success hits, everybody wants a piece.

Back when Zach Braff was a semi-unknown actor in a moderately successful sitcom, he had time to write movie scripts and concoct indie-cred soundtracks, making mixtapes for starlets he could never have.

Then came Garden State.

Gone were the lazy days of thumbing through his favorite vinyl and posting blogs about The Shins. Zach’s time was now a valuable and sought-after commodity. A small army of young and nubile personal assistants now nurture his every whim and satisfiy his every need.

Soundtracks are being outsourced.

I got a call from the Braff camp last week. It seems Zach had heard of my work and wanted me to sprinkle a little friggin’ pixie dust on his next project. I played it cool.

“Sure, Zach, no problem. Only one catch, though. BurstLabs.com handles all the licensing.”

Caught between a rock and a proverbial hard place, he relented.

“Matt, you drive a hard bargain, but I have confidence that you can concoct a soundtrack that will make indie darlings of no less than 2 previously underground artists, while at the same time maintaining the mixtape-style looseness that has come to define not only me, but my entire career.”

Official Tracklist Below:

1. The Real Efforts Of Real People- Second Life
2. Owen Sartori- I Knew You’d Come Along
3. New Sense- There Is No Magic
4. Julie Moffitt- Blue & Green
5. Truth in Fiction- Fireflies
6. Plural Z- Shine
7. Nick Pipitone- The Perfect Girl
8. The Farewell Circuit- Hold On
9. John McCarty- Plans We Made
10. Northern Room- Waiting

[ms]