Harmonic 33

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More About

• Roger Manning
• John Barry
• Dick Hyman
• Barry Adamson

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The title of this album is more wishful thinking than factual description. Each of the luxurious pieces on Harmonic 33's second LP could'veserved as soundtrack fodder for film, television, and radio programs -- if such programs actually existed. Other people have tried this kind of faux score before (see Barry Adamson's Moss Side Story, the blaxploitation foundtrack Soul Ecstasy, and Roger Manning's "sequel" to Logan's Run), but never with such spot-on results. These English producers' tracks are nigh indistinguishable from the work of '60s composers like Dick Hyman, John Barry, and Kryzstof Komeda -- a range of trippy, retro-synthstrumentals that seem beamed in from Mars. Highlights include the Jean Jacques-Perrey-ish bell-and-wolf-whistle boogie of "Funky Duck," the classical piano noir of "Marionette," the late-night-graveyard synth-hop number "Shadow," and the jaunty Latin hustle of "Bossa Nova Supernova." Throughout, there's a Space Age bachelor pad vibe, suggesting that even if a zombie were waiting around the corner, he'd be wearing moon boots and drinking a martini. Now, that's the kind of TV show I'd like to see.