UNSEALED

Assembling both of composer Jerry Goldsmith's collaborations with director Peter Hyams, GNP Crescendo's Outland/Capricorn One two-fer contains some of the most influential and innovative action movie music ever created. Although the film in question is largely forgotten, Goldsmith's Capricorn One work looms as arguably the most imitated action score of the late 20th century. An exhilarating work that evolves with masterful purpose and precision, its densely percussive arrangements remain synonymous with adventure and suspense decades after the fact. Where followers like Alan Silvestri and James Horner rely almost solely on sensory assault to convey danger and dread, Goldsmith sculpts the music of Capricorn One via complex orchestration and meticulous sound effects, building and expanding his central themes to create genuine drama. Tightrope-taut and brilliantly paced, the soundtrack is more vividly cinematic than its accompanying celluloid images themselves. It's a virtual master class in the art of film music.

Issued three years later, Outland can't help but suffer by comparison. Recalling Capricorn One in its dense, foreboding arrangements and evoking Goldsmith's landmark score to Ridley Scott's 1979 classic Alien in its atmospheric electronic textures, Outland represents an ambitious but largely unsuccessful attempt to meld the two approaches. Goldsmith's formal complexity notwithstanding, the music makes only minimal impact when experienced separately from Hyams' onscreen narrative, lacking the dramatic exactitude that characterizes the composer's finest efforts.

Outland
01. The Mine (3:52)
02. Early Arrival (4:09)
03. The Message (2:07)
04. The Air Lock (4:42)
05. Hot Water (4:49)
06. The Hunted (5:14)
07. Spiders (2:29)
08. The Rec Room (3:23)
09. The Hostage (4:18)
10. Final Message (3:27)

Capricorn One
11. Main Title (2:47)
12. Bedtime Story (3:01)
13. Docking (2:55)
14. No Water (2:26)
15. The Message (4:33)
16. Break Out (3:13)
17. Kay's Theme (3:17)
18. The Station (3:30)
19. The Snake (3:37)
20. The Long Climb (3:53)
21. The Letter (2:52)
22. The Celebration (3:04)