Lockdown Escape Music Dept.

Re-ups of my own mixes/whatevers. I know what you're thinking - it's all been done before, mostly badly, and it's pointless because these fan assemblages never take the place of the originals, which we're perfectly happy with. Yup?

The Monkees Head soundtrack album has been a personal favorite since it was impossible to find back in the early 'seventies. It's seen various alternate versions since the internet destroyed its rarity value, and all of them are basically slung-together song playlists, avoiding the sound collage sequences, but that's what I wanted more of. So I assembled all the available soundtrack and related studio source material - it's a vast sonic motherlode - and created one long, filmic soundtrack in Audacity, editing and overdubbing parts at granular level. I used alternate recordings where they were better, added contemporary songs that fit, and basically stripped out Davy Jones, which people didn't like. Boo hoo.

There's a lot going on here you need headphones and time and patience to appreciate, which makes it a tough sell (nobody likes the single track thing much, either - the attention span is too demanding). But the result - for me, at least - was worth it. A continuous, shifting Technicolor paisley swirl that's as different from their albums as the movie is from the T.V. show. Original album: 30 minutes, more or less. This: 36 minutes, more or less.

Burning Bridges is the soundtrack to Obscured By Clouds "re-imagined" (as the Young People like to say). This is an album well-loved by Floyd fans, but which never quite hit the spot for me. It lacked the cohesive feel that makes an album more than just a collection of tracks, and the sequencing was unsatisfactory. It always sounded like a potentially great album they just didn't spend enough time putting together. And the interminable P.N.G. native singing at the end? Oh - you like that.

The song sequence is changed, there are new segués and edits, but it's nothing like the drastic remake of Head. And again I went for the "immersive" (as the Young People like to say) single track approach. You're not going to cherry-pick songs, and movies aren't cut up into mini-movies, are they? The result is - according to my wild claim - an album that now directly and clearly prefigures Dark Side, and stands on its own as a greater work of art than the movie. Original album: 40 minutes. more or less. This: 40 minutes, more or less.