Album Reviews

Jerry Goldsmith's remarkable 84 minute, 54 second score for Star Trek The Motion Picture here in its entirety on vinyl for the first time is a musical and sonic spectacular that's far more exciting than was the movie itself. This is one film score you can definitely enjoy without having seen the movie.

Bruce Botnick, who produced the original 1979 truncated soundtrack album, here mixed from a 192/24 bit flat transfer of the original 2 inch analog tape and then mastered the final high resolution two-track file. Orchestral sessions were recorded at 20th Century Fox because Paramount's scoring stage could not accommodate the required 98 piece orchestra, plus Fox had a Wurlitzer pipe organ and the studio's head of music Lionel Newman could conduct when Goldsmith wanted to supervise from the control booth the mix of electronic and orchestral instruments. The scoring engineer was John Neal.

Synthesizer performer Craig Huxley had built a "blaster beam" (first heard in Mel Brooks' "High Anxiety") using 24 strings stretched along a long aluminum beam. Hitting it with an "artillery shell" (if the annotation is to be taken literally) produced the stupendous, ominous noise of the "V'Ger", which will scare the living crap out of you the first time you hear it, especially if your system goes all the way down, because the records certainly do!

La La Land Records gets high marks for production and for annotation completeness. Every musician who played in the orchestra gets credited on the inner gatefold. The other side of the inner gatefold gives you all of the original 1979 release's credits as well as a complete rundown of the reissue's credits, right down to crediting MasterCraft in Elizabeth, NJ for metal plating and stamper creation. Now that's complete!

Eric Boulanger at The Bakery cut the lacquers using Stan Ricker's lathe, which he'd purchased and situated on the Sony Studios lot (something you'd know if you watched the L.A. studio tour video posted on analogPlanet and YouTube a few months ago). RTI pressed the records on marbled translucent blue vinyl that was perfectly quiet while looking appropriately "spacey".

The package also includes a nicely produced full-sized full color glossy paper booklet with great production photos and informative annotation by Jeff Bond and La La Land Records' Mike Matessino that includes a truly useful cue by cue description of the action, though you can easily enjoy this sonic and musical spectacular without knowing what's happening on screen. The worst I can say about the package is that the thin jacket is not up to the highest "Tip On" standards. Then again, the limited to 1500 copies set costs a super-reasonable $34.98.

I hope you can find a copy if you're interested because the sound is absolutely spectacular. The stage sets up well behind the speakers and the lateral spread is CinemaScopic. Dynamics are scary and bass extension is subterranean. Yes, this was originally released on CD a few years ago, but there's no way the CD version sounded like this!

Here's the good news: La-La Records is about to press up the final 1/3 of the 1500 record run so it's not too late to order a copy. The record is available only direct from La-La Records.