#Radio silence thomas dolby tv#
(The other is a John Barry score.) For Ken Russell’s equally atrocious Gothic, Dolby composed and performed (on Fairlight) appropriately menacing and dramatic accompaniment, actually using a real orchestra on five of the brief selections.Īliens Ate My Buick, the long-awaited follow-up to The Flat Earth, suggests that the now-LA-based musical artist (married to an American TV actress) may be a little out of touch with the real world. In cinema land, Dolby wrote, performed and produced five unexceptional rock songs for George Lucas’ misbegotten mega-flop Howard the Duck, filling one side of the soundtrack album.
He did film soundtracks, collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto on an EP, played on Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven on Earth and co-produced and played on albums by George Clinton ( Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends), Joni Mitchell ( Dog Eat Dog) and Prefab Sprout. Unfortunately, it also contains the strident “Hyperactive!”ĭolby then put his pop career on hold. The Flat Earth contains nothing really memorable, but does feature nicely restrained pieces of inviting atmospheric charm (including “The Flat Earth” and “Screen Kiss”). (The fourth was an audiohile edition, followed later by a CD.)Īfter that success, Dolby worked on outside projects, producing tracks for Whodini and others before getting around to making a new LP of his own. The album was reissued with that song appended, followed by a five-cut mini-album, combining it with three LP tracks and another lovely new song, “One of Our Submarines,” subsequently appended to the album for its third American iteration. Besides demonstrating an unfailing flair for sharp, snappy compositions, Dolby shows himself unusually capable of getting warm, touching feeling out of his synthesizers and his voice, creating an evocative sound that magnificently straddles nostalgia and futurism.Īlthough his first album contains some really lovely tunes (“Radio Silence,” “Europa and the Pirate Twins”), Dolby followed it with the insufferable “She Blinded Me With Science” (evidently written about his archaeologist father), which became a Top 5 hit. The Golden Age of Wireless avoids the usual tactical error and gives the songs prominence over the instruments. After years of session work and part-time employment with Lene Lovich, Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club, Thompson Twins, Foreigner and Joan Armatrading, Thomas Dolby helped revitalize a largely moribund and redundant synth-pop scene with his own recordings.
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