Binary Bonsai

The sky above the canal is the color of a TV tuned to a dead channel; but that won’t stop you and me from celebrating the small victory that is an ordinary dull friday.

Yesterday I started playing through Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. What’re you up to these days?

The next release of K2 will be called Beta One. We will try and fix all the bugs we know of for that release, which means we need you to report even the smallest of bugs, so we can get it under control as soon as possible.

Feel free to use this thread or the support forums.

If you don’t know scores, don’t pretend you can review them. While sifting through my soundtrack and movie score collection, I came across this piss poor Alien 3 score review, in which the ‘reviewer’ asserts:

“Alien 3: (Elliot Goldenthal) An abundance of noise, with little substance.”

and

“One of the major pitfalls of this score is the fact that it isn’t scary. Nor is it grand.”

Alien 3 was the score that made me recognize Elliot Goldenthal, who in the humble opinion of this blogger, is one of the best ‘new’ score composers out there. Whether you like or dislike his style is one thing. It’s a challenging score, certainly. But to accuse the Alien 3 score of not being scary and not being grand… Well that categorizes as ignorant in my book.

Personally I trust Score Reviews for my ehm… score reviews.

PS: I’m putting together a list of my personal favorites, any suggestions?

Update: Now here’s a guy who gets it:

“What is most worth noting about this score is that it conveys a distinct post-apocalyptic feeling, one of dystopia, devoid of any joy or hope. I think this is what makes Alien 3 repugnant for so many people. James Horner’s Aliens, despite its brutal action sequences and creepy underscore, still had an underlying heroic and adventurous tone to it that listeners accepted. Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien was more desolate, yet you could detect a few hopeful chord progressions nested within the main theme. But Alien 3 banishes all musical warmth, and the result is much like being imprisoned in a nightmare. The only glimpse of hope is achieved at the score’s climax, and it is the hope of self-destruction. Whether this is a good thing depends on what you consider good music, but I consider Alien 3 at least effective, if not uplifting.”