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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - The Now Sound Orchestra

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
The Now Sound Orchestra Presents Music From
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Star Wars, 2001 A Space Odyssey
Peter Pan Records (8205) 1977

Here we have another mystery LP with no information to be found even though the record label is Peter Pan (a reasonably well known company that made audio products for children).

The music is a curious blend of natural sounding orchestrated instruments, synth instruments and fun noises arranged a somewhat classical style to mimic the actual soundtrack. At some point each track shoots off into SPACE to visit Planet DISCO!

I didn't expect much from this project but found myself enjoying this record despite my the disco...

Also, in case you were wondering, like I was, what the giant thing stuck on top of the space ship is? I guess no one at Peter Pan understood what the thing was either, so they added a note to the back cover to let us know that it is a "solar sail".

4 comments:

  1. HA! they had to explain the Solar Sail! I can see the board meeting. "We like the cover art alot but what is THIS thing?" Oh...a SOLAR SAIL. Ok, we'll use it and just point that out. Very fun music, by the way!! Interesting tune that is just all over the place!

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  2. Oh man, I grew up listening to this album, so fun to hear it again. My copy had a different cover but it's unmistakeably the same recording.
    http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/images/cd/large/Star_Wars_V_1116.jpg

    Our parents gave away ALL OF OUR LPs when my bro and I moved to CO. I'd love to get some MP3s of this album if possible.

    - Xiren Kenny
    http://xiren.net/contact.html

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  3. What a rarity !!!

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  4. I just bought this album today at the dollar bin. Fantastic and fun album. Those solar sails... :) - Riki

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