Monday, December 2, 2013

An Alternate Soundtrack


Here

This is the latest release from those whacky guys over at This Place Records.  Check the comments for details.  

5 comments:

Dr. Forrester said...

RON GEESIN & ROGER WATERS - Soundtrack From The Body
[ This Place Records TPR CD 009 ]

London studios, January-March 1970

01. Sea Shell And Stone
02. Sea Shell And Soft Stone (short version)
03. Breathe
04. The Womb Bit
05. Chain Of Life
06. Embryo Thought
07. March Past Of The Embryos
08. Embryonic Womb-Walk
09. Bridge Passage For Three Plastic Teeth
10. Bedtime-Dream-Clime
11. Hand Dance - Ful Evening Dress
12. A Gentle Breeze Blew Through Life
13. A Gentle Breeze Blew Through Life (reprise)
14. Epidermal attacks
15. Hair Raising Experience
16. Lick Your Parners
17. Sea Shell And Soft Stone (long version)
18. Piddle In Perspex
19. Mrs. Throat Goes Walking
20. Heat Waves
21. The Endless Run
22. Old Folks Ascension
23. Asleep And Still Moving
24. Feed The Children
25. Red Stuff Writhe
26. More Than Seven Dwarfs In Penis-Land
27. Keep Pumping
28. Dance Of The Red Corpuscles
29. Air Syncopation
30. Brain Convergence
31. Give Birth To A Smile
32. bonus: Food For Life (Roger Waters narration)

Music recorded by Ron Geesin in London, Notting Hill, 208 Ladbroke Grove, except
tracks 1,3,5,31 recorded by Roger Waters in London, Isington, 186 New North Road
(with Floyd members helping on track 31).

Source: "The Body" DVD, released in October 2013.
All tracks taken from the DVD bonus footage with isolated music, except
tracks 1,3,24,32 taken from the main film.

Dr. Forrester said...

Details:

This is the soundtrack from the 1970 documentary film "The Body", as it appears
in the film but without the dialogs/narrations. It was recorded early 1970 and
is different from the EMI album "Music From The Body" (for the album, Geesin and
Waters re-recorded the music in August and September 1970, adding two songs that
were not part of the original film: "Our Song" and "Body Transport").

This audio release features the original versions, before the re-recording
sessions. Furthermore, tracks 14,15,20,21,23,24,27,29,30 are compositions that
were not included in the "Music From The Body" album.

The main source for this release is the audio from the bonus footage included
in "The Body" DVD, where 38 minutes of isolated music are available. However,
this is not a simple audio rip from the DVD track, because the DVD bonus track
has 4 problems: speed, completeness, fluctuations, crackles.

1) Speed
The audio on the DVD suffers from the well known problem due to the process of
transferring motion picture film into video, resulting in an increase of audio
pitch by about 0.679 of a semitone. In other words, the music on the DVD (both
the main film and the bonus footage) is too high compared to the real pitch.
This is obvious when you compare the music with the tracks on the official
"Music From the Body" CD. Therefore, the speed was corrected for this release.

2) Completeness
The bonus footage on the DVD with the isolated music does not include the first
3 tracks that can be heard on the film (the suite "Sea Shell And Stone" - "Sea
Shell And Soft Stone" - "Breathe"). The suite has been restored here, by taking
the audio from the film itself for tracks 1 and 3 (hopefully there is no dialog
during these songs) and by rebuilding track 2 from track 17 ("Sea Shell And
Soft Stone" that appears at the beginning of the film is an edited version from
the one that appears later and was available on the bonus footage of the DVD).
A small musical portion that can be heard during the film when children are fed,
is also absent from the DVD bonus. It has been restored here, in its correct
place (track 24).

Dr. Forrester said...

3) Fluctuations
The isolated music available on the DVD has the advantage to avoid any dialog
or narration, but the levels fluctuate very often: there are plenty of moments
when the volume suddenly drops, because it corresponds to portions on the film
where someone speaks above the music. All these fluctuations have been manually
corrected for the present audio release, in order to have a constant volume for
the musical content. Note that, as a result, some parts are more hissy than
others (they correspond to the parts where music levels were low and had to be
boosted).

4) Crackles
There were some crackles and drop-outs in the DVD audio tracks. They have been
manually cleaned. Note that the soundtrack from the main film had more crackles
than the audio on the bonus part, and needed more cleaning than the rest.

Even if most of the music was composed by Ron Geesin (Roger Waters only wrote
"Sea Shell And Stone", "Sea Shell And Soft Stone", "Breathe", "Chain Of Life"
and "Give Birth To A Smile"), the work on this soundtrack had an impact on
Floyd's history. The most obvious one is the involvement of Ron Geesin in the
arrangement of "Atom Heart Mother". There are also two elements on this film
soundtrack that were later used by Pink Floyd. First, the child's laughter that
can be heard at some point during "Chain Of Life", was later used by the Floyd
during their performance of "Embryo" at the 16Jul70 BBC concert. But most
importantly, the technique of Ron Geesin using multiple voices during several
of his pieces ("whooo's") clearly influenced the Floyd for the effects at the
very end of "Echoes", the next year.

This audio release is the perfect companion to the official "Music From The
Body" album. It is based on the isolated music available on "The Body" DVD,
but runs at correct speed, is more complete (46 minutes instead of 38), and
has been carefully cleaned and remastered. The last track is offered here as
a bonus, and contains the narration of Roger Waters during the film sequence
about the amount of food that can be eaten during 50 years of life.


Enjoy!

MOB
November 2013

neonknight said...

Really looking forward to listening to this - thank you!

Anonymous said...

thanks MOB, anxious to hear this...and Dr. F. , a hug from this far land.

goa