Strobe Crystal Green
Original Electronic Soundtrack
The Andromeda Strain
Composed By Gil Melle
Produced by Gil Melle
Engineered by Alan Sohl, Gordon Clark & Terry Brown
Art Direction by John C. LePrevost
Designed by Virginia Clark
Assisted by Joel Shapiro
Photography Collage by Ruth Corbett
Executive Direction of Record Production by Rick Steinberg
Kapp Records
KRS 5513
1971
Apparently Kapp created several jacket designs for this release. The more complex presentation features an elaborate die-cut hexagonal shape on the cover that opens to reveal (on the reverse side of the tabs) stills from the movie, which (in this more modest version) are seen on the disc sleeve.
From the inside sleeve: GIL MELLE, one of the most important composers today, has achieved an impressive landmark in creating the first all-electronic score for a major motion picture, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. The work embodies the most revolutionary techniques in the annals of avantgarde music as well as film literature. Melle's central idea was to compose directly to the film and for this, he designed a special electronic music studio on the Universal lot. It housed a complete rear-image projection facility as well as a number of one-of-a-kind electronic musical instruments. The most important of these is the Percussotron III which the composer designed especially for ANDROMEDA. It is important to note that an instrument has never been created specifically for a film score in the history of the medium. It is indeed percussionistic as its name implies, and is heard throughout the various tracks. Musique concrete also plays an important role here. Many field trips were made by the artist in order to record the natural sounds of 20th century life. Liberally woven into the fabric of this music are the indigenous sounds of the Jet Propulsion Labs in Southern California, buzz saws, wind, bowling alleys and even the railways. Orchestral instruments are also included and many important soloists are represented. All of these elements were eventually electronically transformed to suit the needs of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN score.
As futuristic as all of this sounds, it nevertheless owes its direct ancestry to the very first form of film music, the nickelodeon. The compositional method is essentially one of creatively shooting from the hip and in turn gaining a vast amount of artistic flexibility as well as a very personal representation of the composer's musical thinking.
SIDE A / WILDFIRE 2:41 This is the main theme and also the music heard in the climactic central core sequence of the film. It is a rapid fire display of counter rhythms and polymetric excitement. It employs ten electronically processed pianos in the low undulating section as well as the musique concréte sounds of a bowling alley which can be heard as rhythmic accents...if one listens carefully. / HEX 3:57...for hexagon, the basic shape of the Andromeda crystal. This piece embodies the use of six flutes which are altered electronically and heard during the sequences depicting the search for Andromeda through the scanning microscope. Natural sounds (buzz saws) depicting the microscope scan were recorded at a California lumber mill. / ANDROMEDA 2:33 The theme that is introduced at the moment "a bit of pistachio ice cream" reveals itself to be the deadly organism. The "beat" heard here is utilized in the score to accentuate and characterize the presence of the lethal strain. / DESERT TRIP 4:14 Doctors Leavitt and Dutton proceed through the wastelands to their destination, "Wildfire"... the five-story under- ground laboratory where Andromeda will be eventually isolated and identified. This track features the Percussotron III. Near the end of this selection, the finale music can be heard. This is the scene where Andromeda begins wildly mutating under increasing magnification until the controlling computer overloads causing the readout to state...601... DISENGAGE... PROGRAM ENDED... STOP
SIDE B / THE PIEDMONT ELEGY 2:22 This music underlines the feeling of death and desolation in the Piedmont sequence. This was the town whose populace was all but destroyed by the alien killer. The music is later heard as underscore to the reflections of Dr. Jeremy Stone. In addition to electronic music and musique concréte, there is also heard the electronic piano and string basses as principal voices. / OP 2:43 This rather light electronic piece is heard in a shorter version in the film. Doctor Mark Hall is directed to a small futuristic chamber in which he sees a veritable "light show" with accom- panying music coming through a porthole-like opening. As he sits riveted to the spot by the intriguing display, he receives a "sneak" injection from a mechanical syringe. The music reflects this humorous scene in its closing passages. / XENOGENESIS 2:40... literally meaning "a generation of strangers," it aptly describes the weird life form from deep space whose mutations bear no resemblance to the preceding ones. This composition is heard as a musical description of epilepsy, the ever-present threat to the brilliant scientist, Dr. Ruth Leavitt, as she probes the mystery of the enigmatic organism. Contrabass, percussion and electric piano are heard here in an amalgam of electronic music. STROBE CRYSTAL GREEN 4:55 It is in this piece that the articulate percussotron III can be heard to best advantage. Sounding like a section of otherworldly percussion instruments, it is actually a single performance by the composer without benefit of overdubbing. The rhythmic textures are astounding and endless in their variety as Andromeda itself. This piece serves as background to the crystallography sequence in which Andromeda, bom- barded by x-rays, begins to mutate through a series of kaleidoscopic explosions ending in a myriad of lethal forms. The pizzicato bass is one of the important voices featured and the jarring quality of the music vividly recalls the scene. The "bass clarinet" passages at the end of the composition are electronically produced.
Composer Gil Meile has such a benignly professional look, so calm a demeanor, it comes as something of a shock to learn that beneath this reassuring facade beats the heart of a dedicated revolutionary. Not that he's even thinking of tossing a bomb, but he is doing his impressive best to set an academic time-fuse calculated to shatter most of the time-honored patterns of his musical craft. You don't have to be a musician to understand his radical concepts. He affirms he can conceive of no possible reason why: 1 – A composer should confine himself to the accented tonal scale, the one in use for so many centuries. 2 –Submit only to sounds that have already been heard, that are confined to those produced by existing orchestral instruments. 3 – Write solely for such instruments. Why not, he openly questions, make use of any sound the human mind can imagine?
Impeccably versed in all forms of music writing, classical as well as jazz, he is convinced the time is now at hand for composers to break the familiar mold. To equip himself with the proper arsenal for an attack against the musical establishment Melle taught himself to be an electronics engineer. Where no instrument exists to provide the sound he wants to create he invents his own, with his various devices now including oscillators, modulators, equalizers, synthesizers and reverberators. To the untrained eye his compositional workshop is a tangled maze of wires, consoles, reels, buttons, charts, lights, levers and other bizarre arrangements.
And Melle himself, while at the controls, might well pass for some inspired but no doubt mad scientist. Already appraised in avant-garde circles as a bona-fide musical genius, Melle recently achieved recognition beyond any he had envisioned, considering how far he stands beyond tradition. He was commissioned by producer-director Robert Wise to compose an original score for one of the season's most prestigious motion pictures, "The Andromeda Strain," a Universal release based on Michael Crichton's phenomenal best-seller. – Harold Mendelsohn
