Sweet and sour notes.

Well, Varese Sarabande disappointed me just like I knew they fucking would. Not only is The Time Machine: the Deluxe Edition the first Club title out this year, but it’s the only one being released this week. To cheer myself up, I’m just gonna talk about the latest releases from a label that still believes in taking chances: Dragon’s Domain.

Dennis McCarthy - Tunes of Future Past - Even if McCarthy's music worked for me (which it doesn't; I've never been a big "Star Trek" fan), this would still be the weakest of the titles. The piano work in the sound clips is nice, but the actual music isn't grabbing me. Oh, well.

Black Scorpion (Kevin Kiner) - Back in the mid-1990s, Showtime aired a series of direct-to-video Roger Corman productions under the banner 'Roger Corman Presents'. Their mix of sex, violence and questionable plotting made them catnip to a 14-year-old with nothing to do on Thursday nights. One of the more prolific titles (having spawned two sequels and a TV series) was this one. I barely remember tuning in, but the sound clips are decent; kind of the same orchestral/electronic hybrid approach that served Kiner well on Leprechaun.

Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story (Ernest Gold) - Following the label’s enjoyably eclectic compilation of the composer’s works from last year comes this release of Gold’s score for the 1985 miniseries about a Swedish diplomat who helped to save Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. The orchestrations in the clips sound quite rich and one can never have enough scores for made-for-TV movies.

The Hummie Mann Collection - Vol. 2 - Two more Mann scores are paired together in a release: his orchestral score for Joe Dante’s riotous (and still timely) HBO satire The Second Civil War and an electronic effort for the director’s cut of the Jonathan Kaplan drama Brokedown Palace. The score was replaced by one from David Newman and I look forward to comparing the two in a future post.

The label is offering a special deal: buy all four titles and get 25% off. Not quite feeling the McCarthy, but we’ll see.