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With Bond back in action at La-La Land Records, some of our favorite soundtrack reissue labels are also starting the new year off with a bang! Quartet Records has just reissued a ’90s favorite score on CD, while Intrada has revisited an early classic by James Horner with an all-new approach.

The name Cutthroat Island would shiver the timbers of any Hollywood enthusiast in the mid-’90s. The infamous pirate epic, starring Geena Davis, Matthew Modine and Frank Langella and directed by Davis’ then-husband Renny Harlin, was plagued with unbelievable production issues, from casting (Michael Douglas walked away from the hero role, allegedly unhappy with how underdeveloped his role was next to Davis’) to filming (cast and crew injuries, script quibbles). A month before its failure to make the top 10 of the weekend box-office reports in 1995, the film’s production company Carolco had already filed for bankruptcy.

Yet one thing that critics and fans worked swimmingly was John Debney’s swashbuckling score – capturing the magic of the high seas and compared to the work of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Debney, best known at the time for scoring various Disney films and theme park projects, burnished his reputation off the orchestral-and-choir swells of the Cutthroat Island soundtrack; today, he remains a dependable, in-demand composer, scoring his first Oscar nomination for The Passion of The Christ in 2004. This 2CD program of Cutthroat Island was previously issued by the Prometheus and La-La Land labels; it’s produced by Neil S. Bulk, with mixing and mastering by Mike Matessino and updated liner notes by Jeff Bond. This reissue is limited to 1000 units, with a 2LP construction of the original 1995 soundtrack album also available from the label and limited to 750 copies.

A similarly troubled production befell the making of 1983’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s dark fantasy novel. The acclaimed author had diligently worked on adapting his book for decades – at one point, Kirk Douglas expressed interest in starring in a film version – and ultimately found a home for the project with British director Jack Clayton (who’d helmed an adaptation of The Great Gatsby in 1973 and was attached to the project for some time) and Walt Disney Productions, in a bid to make a picture that wasn’t solely for young children. Disney ultimately got cold feet about some of the scarier aspects of the project, and took drastic steps to course-correct, forcing the project into a major reshoot/re-edit cycle that delayed the release of the picture by five months. (Critics were mixed on the final results, and the film failed to turn a profit.)

One of the many casualties of post-production: a score by Georges Delerue that was hastily replaced by one from James Horner, fresh from bold contributions to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 48 Hrs. the previous year. Intrada first released an album of Horner’s score in 2009 (Delerue’s unused work came from the label six years later); now, 15 years later and more than eight years since the composer’s untimely passing, Intrada has again partnered with Disney to remaster and expand the score. Working with Horner’s longtime engineer Simon Rhodes and editor Chris Malone, several more cues are presented on this new disc, sourced from the original masters. (A fun bit of trivia: the score was recorded on early, now-obsolete digital mastering system made by 3M – Disney Imagineering kept a playback system in working order to source the cues.) Notes from Intrada’s Roger Feigelson offer an in-depth look into the recording of this early Horner classic, including original cue titles taken off the recording paperwork.

Pre-order links and track lists for Cutthroat Island and Something Wicked are below.

John Debney, Cutthroat Island (Original Motion Picture Score) (Quartet QR-532/QRLP-44, 2024 – original film released 1995) 2CD / 2LP

Disc 1

1. Main Title: Morgan’s Ride
2. The Rescue
3. Purcell Snatcher
4. Shaw is Caught
5. The Funeral
6. Morgan in Command
7. The Language of Romance
8. A Lady Scorned
9. The Chase Begins/Carriage Chase
10. Ainslee Plots/To Spittlefield/Uncle Mordechai
11. Morgan Captured/Sword Fight
12. Escape from Mordechai’s
13. Setting Sail
14. Charting the Course
15. First Kiss
16. Dawg’s Plan/Shaw Discovers Location
17. The Betrayal
18. The Storm Begins
19. To the Bottom of the Sea
20. The Island
21. Shaw Steals the Map
22. Discovery of the Cave (Extended Version)

Disc 2

1. Discovery of the Treasure
2. Caught
3. Dawg’s Pets
4. The Big Jump
5. Shaw Captured
6. Morgan Takes the Ship
7. The Hangman’s Noose
8. The Battle
9. To Dawg’s Ship
10. Morgan Battles Dawg
11. Dawg’s Demise/The Triumph
12. It’s Only Gold/End Credits (Extended Version)
13. The Wedding Waltz
14. Main Title: Morgan’s Ride (Alternate Take without Choir)
15. Carriage Chase (Album Ending)
16. Dawg’s Demise/The Triumph (Without Choir)
17. Morgan’s Ride and The Rescue (Synth Demo Version)

Disc 1, Tracks 1-2, 5, 7, 11-15, 18-19 and 21 and Disc 2, Tracks 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12 (edit) and 15 make up the vinyl program, originally released as Nu.Millennium Records 00009-4, 1995. This 2CD program previously released as Prometheus XPCD-157, 2007 and La-La Land Records LLLCD 1387, 2016.

James Horner, Something Wicked This Way Comes (Expanded Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Intrada ISC 494, 2024 – original film released 1983)

1. Main Title and Prologue
2. The Dust Witch
3. Jim Buys a Lightning Rod
4. Fury and The Dust Witch
5. Formation of the Carnival
6. The Peep Show
7. On the Merry-Go-Round
8. The Chase
9. Spiders
10. Holloway Talks to Dark
11. The Library Pt. 1
12. The Library Pt. 2
13. End Title
14. Lottery Look
15. Night Dance
16. Tetley’s Calliope Waltz
17. Clown March No. 1
18. Clown March No. 2
19. Beethoven Dirge

Portions previously released as Intrada ISC 95, 2009