Roadside Picnic And Piratehairwaves — Star Wars: Chaos Theory
As I mentioned in my opening I’m not too big of a Star Wars fan, and have only really seen the three original films( a few times), and the more recent addition to the series A New Hope- so I’m far from a Star Wars geek/ fan boy. So I come to this whole project in a fairly unbiased standpoint, meaning that I can appreciate this for what it is, with out any expectations. Though on the downside I’m unable to follow any patterns, clever ways the elements are mixed together, or really any meaning( if there is) behind the whole thing. So this just plays to my ears as a collection of layered film recordings.
Anyway lets move onto the two tapes themselves- the first tape ( the C80), is split up into four twenty three minute suites( though I’m not sure if there is any reason for the breaks). The very first track opens with a untouched segment of John Williams dramatic & triumphant score from the first Star Wars movie, but fairly soon another layer of slightly different soundtrack cues are added, and things start to go off-kilter. From here on we move thorough swooping & diving sonic canvas of lightsaber fights, dialogue, robot chatter, spacecraft whoosh, and soundtrack cues- all creating this wonderful overwhelming sonic mass. You can either try & pick it apart, which started to give me a bit of a headache; or embracing it as the crazed & shifting collage it is. Apparently the pairs idea was to create an almost avant jazz like composition, and if one takes it as just that- it’s an exhilarating & shifting sonic rollercoaster. At times it seemingly pares back( a little), and you can clearly pick-out certain singular elements, but mostly it’s just amassed sound. The second track appears suddenly, after the first stops, and really is just more of the same, but with out the pared back soundtrack only opening.
Over onto the second side of tape, and to start with things feel slightly less pared back with the layers of audio matter, as we some nice sweeps of dramatic soundtracking, moody dialogue, and sound effects. But fairly soon thing dense up again with all manner of space bound whooshes, lightsaber slices, and Chewbacca wails. Once again there are two tracks here, and the last of these rather just cuts out…to be continued on the second tape.
So we move on second tape which is a C90, and this features a 37 track per side of tape. And once again it’s another dense & overloading affair, with a few thin backs from time-to time where the films musical score comes in, weaving out some almost dramatic tribal like orchestration ,which I’m guessing must be from the more recent films in the saga, as it did'nt seem recognisable to me.
By the time you flip over to the second side of tape two we have almost totally morph into all out wall noise territory( or near). With Roadside Picnic creating this very thick, violent & juddering structure at it’s textural height- oddly I found this side the least appealing of the whole release. First it just felt at odds with the rest of it, sure I can understand why it might become all out ‘wall’, but for me it just broke the spell of the early sides & went for brutality Secondly the ‘wall’ created( at it’s most dense) just felt rather non-descript & bland, with really nothing really appealing about it. And thirdly I think by this point, I’d just got bored
There is no doubt that this was an interesting idea for a project/ concept, and I did enjoy the first tape most. I think by the second tape I’d already become a little tired of the concept, and then when it eventually became ‘wall’ on the fourth side, it completely lost me. So I can’t say I was a wholly taken by this release as other stuff I’ve heard from the project, but if the idea sounds like something you could get into then try & track down a copy.