Funded through a Kickstarter campaign, first-time director Paul J. Hildebrandt’s documentary about the Apollo 8 mission, First to the Moon (2018), gives viewers a glimpse into this important historical moment.  The film was released to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission and helps us get to know the three astronauts who were involved in this first flight: Frank Boorman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders.  The film brings us personal experiences from each of them and is combined with archival footage.  Historically, it is framed against the growing political unrest in America, the civil rights movement, ratcheting up of the Cold War, and the Vietnam War.  Against this turmoil, NASA somehow managed to fund and launch what seems like an impossible achievement.  Composer Alexander Bornstein has written for a number of shorts and television projects.  He has worked with Christopher Lennertz (on series such as Lost in Space, Reolution, Agent Carter).  His score here was recorded with the Budapest Symphony and is being released on CD and as a digital download from Notefornotemusic.com.

The album opens with a propulsive cue (“1968”) that has a repeated percussive pattern against brass.  The music takes a more atmospheric turn before a fine heroic statement begins to grow.  The style here overall is a bit reminiscent of the Media Ventures/Remote Control crew with the small, repeated motives in churning strings and brass-led thematic presentation.  The music blends the ethereal atmospherics with acoustic instruments well.  A touching guitar theme appears against the electronics as we move into “Crew”.  Borstein selects a variety of delicate colors against the beautiful backdrops of arpeggios and restrained string writing.  It comes to the forefront of “The Good Earth” which has a gorgeous little idea for oboe and ethnic flute which eventually moves into the action-like suggestions.  This will also inform the rhythmic undercurrent for “Becoming Apollo 8” and “Fireball”.  Later, the longer “The Dark Side of the Moon” serves as another expressive exploration of thematic material with the most Zimmer-esque qualities of the score coming to the forefront here.  An asymmetrical pattern, combined with mallet percussion is also a nice change of pace in “Model Rockets.”  As the score progresses, continual blends of electronic overlays are added to the orchestral score.  This perhaps gives the music its “science fiction” feel while still holding on to a narrative dramatic style that often loops about underneath.

Bornstein’s approach to the score here parallels just the sort of big orchestral drama one might expect out of the Zimmer-influenced scoring style.  His themes are still engaging with big orchestral moments allowing them to soar where needed.  There is a sort of graceful beauty to many of them with the harmony sometimes hinting more at the danger and other impending drama.  Sometimes one forgets this is for a documentary as the music would seem equally at home in a superhero blockbuster these days.  That makes this an equally fascinating release for those who have come to enjoy this particular approach to narrative film music.  Bornstein’s thematic development helps pull things together well with these various soundscapes bringing listeners along for the historical journey.—Steven A. Kennedy

Richard Carr: Places I’ve Walked
Mia Theodoratus, harp. Ben Carr, bass, electronics.
Steve Gorn, bansuri flute, clarinet. Joakim Lartey & Fre Atlast, percussion.
Peter Head, homemade guitar, electric guitar.

Sylvain Leroux, fula flute. Gus Mancini, alto sax.

Joe North, tenor sax.

Ted Morcaldi guitar, electronics.

Richard Carr piano, violin, viola, guitar, electric violin, sampled instruments

Ravello Records 8012
Total Time:  54:30
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

In Places I’ve Walked composer Richard Carr invites listeners to accompany him on a travelogue across the world in a journey that has the feel of a personal soundtrack.  He incorporates a variety of field recordings and other natural sounds that become part of an album whose musical materials sometimes feel folkish with a global sensibility.  Each track being like a meditation of some new visual, or personal, experience.  The music is composed for harps, ethnic flutes, traditional winds and strings, guitars, and sampled instruments as well as piano.

The album is constructed in four parts that each explore differing landscapes.  After a particularly reflective opening (“Fjordland”), we are introduced to the primary guitar motif that Carr uses as a unifying element in this collection of pieces in “Cordillera Blanca”.  The music has a somewhat improvisatory feel with expanded, jazz-like harmonies, and an ostinato technique that adds forward motion.  The use of the bansuri flute, set against the harp, is an equally beautiful color in the “Markha Valley”.  Part three explores a variety of natural experiences framed with the opening “Sacred and Profane” using recorded Moroccan music and a right-wing commentator juxtaposed in a rather unusual blend of sounds.  The other sections of this part have reflections on water, gardens, murals and light.  The  more extensive “Through Streams” and the later "Bowery Murals" have the greatest feel of third-stream jazz.  The album concludes with “Cementerio de La Recoleta”—a famous Argentinian necropolis where Evita is entombed.  As the album progresses, Carr invites us to reflect on our own personal journeys in music that moves us through these moments of the sacred and the secular intersecting throughout one’s life until we all come to an end.  It is a rather fascinating, and often mesmerizing listen that is spectacularly unique.  Carr’s musical language is quite accessible and his often delicate shadings of different instrumental and vocal combinations adds to this seemingly seamless series of musical episodes and scenes.  While the music tends to be mostly tonal, there are some moments that seem to have a more improvisational feel that brings a bit more dissonant exploration, often warmed by atmospheric textures.

Places I’ve Walked is more than just a musical meditation because the journey requires a bit more than that.  Its sensibilities come out of the worlds of global music and New Age qualities blended into an interesting album.