UPDATE: This set's now ready to ship. Order here and hit the jump for the track list.
ORIGINAL POST: Just a quick reminder that today, after months and months of anticipation from the soundtrack community, La-La Land Records will release the first-ever box set of music from the popular sci-fi series The X-Files.
From 1993 to 2002, composer Mark Snow was the go-to composer for the hit FOX series starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as two FBI agents following a myriad of paranormal cases. The repartee between Duchovny's Fox Mulder, a firm believer in life on other planets, and Anderson's sceptic Dana Scully, made for great television chemistry, and the stories developed for the show by producer/creator Chris Carter were sweeping, witty and unusual - often all in the same episode.
Snow was a vital part of the creative process from the first episode, with an eerie, whistling theme that became one of the most widely-recognized songs of all time and a No. 2 single in England. He composed music for all seasons of the show and two theatrical features, as well as several of Carter's other television productions, including Harsh Realm and the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen (both of which have received score releases from La-La Land).
The four-disc set, featuring music from 40 episodes across the seasons assembled with the help of Snow, will be available to order later today, 3,000 units strong with the first 400 boxes autographed by the composer. Order links and track lists will be up as they go live, but the press release is after the jump for your reading pleasure.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!
La-La Land Records to Release Limited Edition The X-Files 4CD Set
(Los Angeles, CA - May 2, 2011) La-La Land Records will release a limited edition (3000 units) 4CD box set of THE X-FILES Volume One - Original Soundtrack From the Fox Television Series, composed by Mark Snow (Blue Bloods, Smallville, Millennium). The compendium contains tracks from 40 of the beloved show's 202 episodes - over five hours of music! In addition, the deluxe packaging boasts a 40-page booklet including a track-by-track analysis of the selections with liner notes written by Randall D. Larson.
Brooklyn native Mark Snow has been making music since the 1950s. Following a start in the music industry as a popular recording artist with his band the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, Mark made the switch to composer for television and film in the 1970s. This prolific composer, best known for his scores for such television series as The X-Files, The Ghost Whisperer, Smallville, One Tree Hill, Kojak, Millenium, Pasadena, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, T. J. Hooker, Cagney and Lacey, Starsky and Hutch, Gemini Man, Family and Hart to Hart, is the only ASCAP composer to receive the "Most Performed Background Music" award every year consecutively since the inception of the award in 1985-6. He has been nominated 14 times for Emmy's for his work on television series and television films including Helter Skelter, Children of the Dust, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and Something about Amelia. Recent film projects include the scores for the X-Files movie X-Files: I Want to Believe, and White Irish Drinkers, an indie film directed by John Gray.
The brainchild of Chris Carter, The X-Files debuted in 1993 and quickly became a fan favorite for FOX. The show starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The duo investigates X-Files - marginalized cases that involve the paranormal. Mulder is a believer in the existence of extraterrestrials and Scully - a Jodie Foster-esque character -- is a skeptic.
The main story-arc of the show, involved Mulder and Scully's attempts to uncover a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens - the major villains are a shadow element called The Syndicate, usually represented by the Cigarette Smoking Man. In the 8th season, when Duchovny decided to leave the show, his fictional counterpart was abducted and Scully inherited a new partner, John Doggett (Robert Patrick). Duchovny would return for the final episodes of the series in its 9th season and also for the feature film released in theaters in 2008.
As the show matured, the Mark Snow's score did as well. "Musically, the show evolved from being more ambient, supportive music to really getting into some melodic music in a dark, Mahleresque style," said composer Mark Snow.
"Snow's first task when he came on board was to create the show's signature theme," described Randall Larson. "What he came up with was a rhythmic amalgamation of Synclavier and an electronically reprocessed whistler (it's Mark's wife who performs the whistling, which was sampled and doubled with a music software program called Proteus2)."
"That theme doesn't really go anywhere, musically, it just repeats itself, but it's so interesting," Snow said. The echo effect was created by accident. "I played the triplet figure and had accidentally left the Sony delay on, and it made that now-famous repeat."
The eerie, unsettling tone that Snow created helped The X-Files to stand apart from the other shows of its era. "It seems that people respond to my suspenseful music as if it's this really new approach," explained Snow, "but it's really the style of music I've come to love over the years since I was a student - music by Varèse, John Cage; all the real atonal material that perhaps I like more than some other composers."
The truth is out there ... and now you can revisit how it sounds with THE X-FILES Volume One - Original Soundtrack From the Fox Television Series (limited edition 3000 units), composed by Mark Snow. The 4CD set from La-La Land Records will be available at www.lalalandrecords.com and other online soundtrack boutiques on May 10, 2011.
Mark Snow, The X-Files, Volume 1: Limited Edition (La-La Land Records LLLCD 1170, 2011)
Disc One
- THE X FILES Main Title (Season 1)
- Scully to DC/Scully Meets Mulder
- The Close Encounter
- Scully & FBI Goon
- FBI Secret Vaults
- Hidden Away
- Slimed
- Cuffed and Tubbed
- On the Waterfront/Suspended Max
- Sweeper
- Out the Window
- Ramblin' Roland
- Green Goo Chase
- The Wells Brain
- Dead Man's Thoughts
- Fish Food
- Two Miles Off Jersey
- Honey Wagon
- Guillotined
- The Return
- Uniforms
- Players
- Trust Your Pistol
- Reanimation
- Guardian Angel
- The Mourn
- Mercy Wound
- Anasazi
- THE X FILES End Credits (Extended #1)
Disc 2
- THE X FILES Main Title (Short)
- Choo Choo Sushi
- Rail Song
- Graves
- Derailed
- Back in the Hood
- Harold & Chrissy
- Closure
- Dim Memories
- Jonestown Cocktail
- Extra-Ordinary Men
- A Place in History
- Respect
- El Camino
- Watergate Heart
- Hanging Boy
- Spirit Wedding
- THE X FILES End Credits (Extended Remix)
Disc 3
- THE X FILES Main Title (Remix - Short)
- JJ's Diner
- Post-Modern Posse
- Mother Genes
- Little Box of Sand
- Closure
- Quest for Swath
- Roadblock
- Home Sweet Home
- The Imposter
- A Brief History of Fox
- Number 42
- House Organ/Irrational Fear
- Bricks
- Piano on the Tack
- Fair Warning
- Star Crossed Bullets
- A Gift
- The Patriarch
- A Mother's Abduction
- Train Tune
- THE X FILES End Credit (Extended #2)
Disc 4
- THE X FILES Main Title (7th Season)
- Five Cards
- Sea of Blood
- The Martyr
- The Smell of Zombies
- The End of the Crusade
- Waterson
- Sniper Zombies
- Dancing Bones
- Hollywood
- The Kiss
- Scully's Serenade
- Hide & Seek
- Starspeak
- Hidden Truths/Big Happening
- Triangle
- Weird Organs
- Lone Gunmen Requiem
- The Tip
- A Synopsis & Release
- Mount Weather
- Scary Story/For Whom The Smoke Blows
- The Truth is Inside
- THE X FILES Main Title (Remix)
- I Made This/20th Century Fox Fanfare *
Disc 1, Tracks 6-8 from Episode 1x02 "Squeeze" - 9/24/1993
Disc 1, Track 9 from Episode 1x09 "Fallen Angel" - 11/19/1993
Disc 1, Tracks 10-12 from Episode 1x22 "Roland" - 5/6/1994
Disc 1, Tracks 13-14 from Episode 1x23 "The Erlenmeyer Flask" - 5/13/1994
Disc 1, Tracks 15-16 from Episode 2x01 "Little Green Men" - 9/16/1994
Disc 1, Tracks 17-19 from Episode 2x02 "The Host" - 9/23/1994
Disc 1, Tracks 20-25 from Episode 2x08 "One Breath" - 11/11/1994
Disc 1, Tracks 26-29 from Episode 2x25 "Anasazi" - 5/19/1995
Disc 2, Tracks 2-3 from Episode 3x09 "Nisei" - 11/24/1995
Disc 2, Tracks 4-5 from Episode 3x10 "731" - 12/1/1995
Disc 2, Track 6 from Episode 3x15 "Piper Maru" - 2/9/1996
Disc 2, Tracks 7-8 from Episode 3x20 "Jose Chung's from Outer Space" - 4/12/1996
Disc 2, Tracks 9-10 from Episode 4x05 "The Field Where I Died" - 11/3/1996
Disc 2, Tracks 11-13 from Episode 4x07 "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" - 11/17/1996
Disc 2, Tracks 14-15 from Episode 4x08 "Paper Hearts" - 12/15/1996
Disc 2, Tracks 16-18 from Episode 4x12 "Kaddish" - 2/16/1997
Disc 3, Tracks 2-3 from Episode 5x06 "The Post-Modern Prometheus" - 11/30/1997
Disc 3, Track 4 from Episode 5x05 "Christmas Carol" - 12/7/1997
Disc 3, Track 5 from Episode 5x07 "Emily" - 12/14/1997
Disc 3, Track 6 from Episode 5x20 "The End" - 5/17/1998
Disc 3, Track 7 from Episode 6x03 "Triangle" - 11/22/1998
Disc 3, Tracks 8-10 from Episode 6x04 "Dreamland" - 11/29/1998
Disc 3, Tracks 11-12 from Episode 6x05 "Dreamland II" 12/6/1998
Disc 3, Tracks 13-18 from Episode 6x06 "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" - 12/13/1998
Disc 3, Tracks 19-20 from Episode 6x11 "Two Fathers" - 2/7/1999
Disc 3, Tracks 21-22 from Episode 6x12 "One Son" - 2/14/1999
Disc 4, Track 3 from Episode 7x03 "The Sixth Extinction" - 11/7/1999
Alex Blanco says
Heh, thanks for the comprehensive episode-to-episode description for Mark's work. I've been looking for Paper Heart's theme and I finally found it.