Search - Del Rey & The Sun Kings :: Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin is Jackson Del Rey's (Savage REpublic, 17 Pygmies) homage to director Sergei Eisenstein's classic silent film. In his writings, Eisenstein stated that he hoped a new score would be written for the Battleship Potemkin every ten years. Eisenstein felt that although the imagery of the film would remain vital and vibrant, new music would help "update" the film and thereby aid its introduction to subsequent generations of moviegoers. The Battleship Potemkin was originally screened in Moscow in October of 1925. Interestingly, in 2005, (the 80th anniversary of Potemkin) the Pet Shop Boys were commissioned to compose a new soundtrack thereby "fulfilling" Eisenstein's wishes. However, the score by the Pet Shop Boys fails to capture and/or convey any of the unique drama or historical context of the film. And quite frankly, the '80s era Pet Shop Boys' score sounds, well, dated. Eisenstein kept notes about what kind of music he wanted to see behind "Potemkin." To this end, Del Rey & The Sun Kings chose to blend classical instruments including live violins reminiscent of Samuel Barber, with nylon stringed guitars and rather cool trumpets (think Miles Davis) together with an "industrialized" background of purposefully synthetic sounding Tangerine Dream inspired keyboards and various rhythmic, mechanical samples (Morse code/echo sounder/machine press).