Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

What are some good science fiction based songs or albums? A favourite of mine is Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSifCF...

It's a beautiful adaptation of Wells story, it features many blends of music, funk, hard rock, folk, progressive rock, disco, but they are all blended seamlessly into an amazing concept album. It also features Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy fame on bass and guest vocals.

Time by Electric Light Orchestra is one of my old favorites.

1984 by David Bowie! Love it. I find Metric pretty dystopian actually...but I mostly pick and choose sci fi songs. Jonathan Coulton and Holst are also good at sci fi music.

Tubular Bells, by Rick Wakeman?

Pink Floyd's, Dark Side of the Moon and many other Floyd songs...

Just about anything by Yes...

Trans Siberian Express...

For Fantasy, I expressly like Chant, by the Benedictine Monks...

Tubular Bells is by Mike Oldfield :)

Sci Fi music makes me think of Rush 2112 & David Bowie. Anthrax has some great literature based music--though not necessarily science fiction.

Sci Fi music makes me think of Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Yes, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre...

Alan Parsons Project (Eye in the Sky album).

Igor wrote: "Tubular Bells is by Mike Oldfield :)"

Yes. Yes. I could not remember the name.

Thank you.

Alan Parsons Project, how could I have left them off the list. Great album...

As a huge Rush fan, I can tell you that they have sci-fi and fantasy themed songs throughout their early albums, and their latest album, Clockwork Angels, is a steampunk concept album.

Iron Maiden has some sci-fi themed songs as well, particularly on their latest album, The Final Frontier. Most of their early stuff, particularly during their heyday, tends to lean towards history, fantasy and horror.

X-post from Classic Scifi Films:

Louis and Bebe Barron's score to Forbidden Planet is the ultimate sci-fi album.

The score was the first entirely electronic music for magnetic tape, and the first all-electronic film score. Bear in mind that these were the days before modular synthesizers. 

The music was so revolutionary that the score was rejected by the Musicians Union and was not considered for a single award. In fact, the recording wasn't considered music at all, and instead the words, "Electronic Tonalities" appeared on cover of the original soundtrack LP. John Cage would be the first to call their work, "music."

To me, a sci-fi soundtrack this revolutionary and other-worldly secures its place as the ultimate scifi album.

Time by ELO is one of my favorites too.

I also quite like many of the albums by Blue Oyster Cult. A wide range of sci-fi and fantasy themes, including Michael Moorcock, stuff from the old Heavy Metal animated pulp movie, Godzilla, etc. I particularly enjoy their rendition of "Astronomy" (later covers by Metallica et al just don't compare), as well as "Psychic Wars".

Daft Punk, Pink Floyd, Vangelis, Kavinsky, Massive Attack, David Bowie, among others.

I absolutely must mention the Berlin School and early krautrock family of albums in this thread. Berlin School ambient space music has transported millions of listeners to otherwordly territories. The perfect score to careen through the blackness of space, to be swallowed by the event horizon, or to be consumed by brilliant white light.

(And yes, the drugs help.)

I'm talking about albums like Can's Future Days, Amon Düül II's Phallus Dei, The Cosmic Jokers' self-titled 1974 acid-inspired jam session LP, Tangerine Dream's Zeit (or any of the three albums they produced before investing in a sequencer), Cluster's Cluster '71, Popol Vuh's In Den Garten Pharaos and the cosmic-spiritual Hosianna Mantra LP, and the hundreds of other legendary space records recorded between 1969 and 1973.

These proto-electronic albums would see a second incarnation with the late 80s/early 90s wave of electro-ambient recordings by artists like ambient pioneer, Brian Eno and later by The Orb. But we truly reached DEEP SPACE with the emergence of drone artists like Wolfgang Voigt's Gas series and the unparallelled black-vacuum listening experience of Black Swan's Aeterna or The Quiet Divide.

There are literally hundreds of other albums I could name, but these are the first which came to mind.

Tune in.

Agreed, Innerspaceboy! Great stuff.

Lots of groups! The first that comes to my mind is Voivod, of course. Specially the álbum "Nothingface"

Jean Michel Jarre's "Equinoxe". Music doesn't really get much more science-fictiony than that.

For Fantasy, I like a lot of the Irish/Gaelic music.

I'll second the recommendations of Tangerine Dream (the record FORCE MAJEURE is a particular favorite from my youth) and Popol Vuh as excellent atmospheres to accompany one's fantastical reading. Another artist from that school I'd suggest is Klaus Schulze; his sf bona fides include tracks entitled Dune and Frank Herbert.

I read Neuromancer in 1984 when it was first published and I always thought that The Jesus & Mary Chain's doomy adolescent romanticism had a very street-level Sprawl feel to it. Meanwhile, all the rich kids clubbing on Freeside were dancing to Shriekback.

The late 1990s and early 21st century saw an explosion of folk rock from Scandinavia that is very driving and moody; good for all kinds of dark fantasy and even sf, in my opinion. The Danish outfit Sorten Muld (which means "Black Earth") set traditional folk songs to trip-hop arrangements to excellent effect. The lead track on the album MARK II is called The Man and the Elf-Girl but before I knew that I always privately thought of it as "the anthem of the Holger Danske Memorial Space Patrol". The Swedish band Hedningarna ("Heathens")has a ton of great songs, including Raven. Their best-of collection FIRE is a good place to start. Not to mention Gjallarhorn from Finland (named after Heimdall's magic trumpet!) and Sami singer Marie Boine.

Sheesh - I can (and do) go on...

And then there's Bill Laswell who, as musician, producer, remixer and all around impresario, was ultra-prolific in the late 90s and early 00s. A lot of techno-tribal beats, world music stylings, futuristic dub and very dark atmospheres. A good starting point is RADIOAXIOM - A DUB TRANSMISSION, a record with the subtitle "Bass: the final frontier". Two of the seven tracks include vocals by the wonderful Ethiopian singer Gigi.

Bill Laswell is great!

@ Jaime - I have 211 Tangerine Dream albums including the In The Beginning... LP box set and the Legend soundtrack LP, and love every disc.

Thank you for mentioning Schulze - just last night I posted to a krautrock group asking which of his albums I should start with.

I've just compiled 22 of his solo releases and the Ultimate Edition 50 CD box set from 2000, along with all of his collaborative work with Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, The Cosmic Jokers, and the 11-disc Dark Side of the Moog series with Pete Namlook.

I welcome your recommendations for his spaciest and most experimental sci-fi-sounding works. Please feel free to share!

@Innerspaceboy - WRT to Klaus Schulze, I own (and cherish) TIMEWIND, X and a 2 disc best-of called ESSENTIAL 1972-1993. A pal of mine from art school was a Schulze obsessive and I heard many of his other records, including DIG IT, which I enjoyed very much. All the records mentioned have pieces for the sfnal ear.

I am convinced that Schulze, himself, like Bowie was born in deep space.

My introductory playlist for the day is as follows:

[1972] Irrlicht
[1975] Timewind
[1976] Moondawn
[1978] X
[1986] Cyborg

Irrlicht is cosmically minimal and the first 5 minutes of X have sold me on ordering the original LP.

One more name to drop: Rachid Taha, a Paris-based Algerian singer. He comes out of the rai pop tradition but his songs have always had a harder rock edge to them (he's even done an Arabic version of The Clash's Rock the Casbah!). To me his work can evoke a harsh District 9 global village type of vibe. The records to look for are MADE IN MEDINA and DIWAN, both produced by Steve Hillage, of Gong fame.

You had me at Hillage/Gong.

Innerspaceboy wrote: "I absolutely must mention the Berlin School and early krautrock family of albums in this thread. Berlin School ambient space music has transported millions of listeners to otherwordly territories...."

You are so awesome for mentioning the Berlin School!! There is no one in my part of the world who knows bands such as Amon Duul II or Can-- I even had the chance to see Nektar live a few weeks ago in Minneapolis (!!). I had to discover them myself over the years as the closest I ever came to EuroProg is the usual suspects of Pink Floyd and Yes. So many bands I could mention from that time. . .

Jean-Michel wrote: "Time by ELO is one of my favorites too.

I also quite like many of the albums by Blue Oyster Cult. A wide range of sci-fi and fantasy themes, including Michael Moorcock, stuff from the old Heavy..."

BOC and Heavy Metal in general seemed to always have one step (or flight) into Outer/Inner Space in their work. Michael Moorcock has been very influential, and even had his own album!! He also appears on several Hawkwind albums reciting lines from his work used in their songs. :-)

The much-maligned Jefferson Starship's first album under that name was the Hugo-nominated hippifest BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE-- which is a complete retread of Heinlein's Methuselah's Children. (They received permission to use his material.) It was officially released under the name Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship and Kantner used the name later on for their sometimes-science-fictional later efforts.

@ Jean-Michel,

Thank you, good sir. I'm a 32 year old male working a retail job in the ghetto with coworkers who have never read a book in their lives and fancy themselves suburban "gangstas."

I've had to use the Web to find people interested in my music. I enjoy The Berlin School, The Canterbury Scene, Deutsche Elektronische Kosmische Musik, Ambient music, Barbarism, Chance Music, Computer Music, Dadaism, Darkjazz, Downtempo, Drone, Electroacoustic, Funk, Future Jazz, 50s-60s Electronic Music, the Fluxus Movement, Free Jazz, Fusion, Early Futurism, IDM, Indeterminacy, Microtonalism, Minimalism, Musique Concrète, Neo-Classicism, Noise Music, Nu Belearica, and Outsider Music.

As most of the people I encounter daily enjoy Taylor Swift, Bieber, One Direction, Carrie Underwood, and Lil Wayne, I decided to start a music foundation to increase global awareness of 20th century experimental sound.

We have over 8000 albums and 100,000 tracks, many of which have never been released in a digital format.

All wonderful works for creating "sci-fi ambiance."

PM me if you'd like to know more about the Foundation.

And again, I'm loving everything the Group is contributing to this wonderful thread. Great stuff!

Arjen lucassen's band - Star One
space metal and victims of the modern age

Arjen's other band Ayreon
To many to list...

Vangelis' Blade Runner score. Get the three-disc "trilogy" version.

I was happy to see Star One meantioned as i think they do the best directly SF influenced prog metal today. But for my money Advantasia's very 80's stile album Lost In Space will always be my soundtrack for the final frontier

Innerspaceboy wrote: "...My introductory playlist for the day is as follows:

[1972] Irrlicht
[1975] Timewind
[1976] Moondawn
[1978] X
[1986] Cyborg..."

Actually, Cyborg was released in 1973 ;P

Innerspaceboy wrote: "Louis and Bebe Barron's score to Forbidden Planet is the ultimate sci-fi album.

The score was the first entirely electronic music for magnetic tape, and the firs..."

YES! And when listened to as music alone, it's emotional impact, wonder, amazement, mystery and threat become so much more powerful.

Astounding piece of work. One unrivaled, I think, in soundtrack history. Way beyond its time, sounding unlike anything else even today.

I'd add Richard Pinhas (of the '70s French group Heldon), who released a lot of songs that paid homage to Frank Herbert and Philip K. Dick. Look for his solo albums, like Chronolyse, which is comprised of a seven part track named Sur Le Theme De Bene Gesserit, and then two other songs: Duncan Idaho and Paul Atreides.

Not so much a comment on SF music but one regarding music or musical references in science fiction:

From the moment I immersed myself in William Gibson's work, I began seeing all sorts of tips-of-the-hat to music of one sort or another. We find -

Steely Dan (who themselves took their name from Wm S. Burroughs): the console cowboy hangout called the Gentleman Loser, a street gang from Case's youth called the Deacon Blues, the femme fatale Rikki in Burning Chrome.
The Velvet Underground: The space tug Sweet Jane in Count Zero. The very title of the novel All Tomorrow's Parties.
In Idoru, the "Music Master" in fangirl Chia's music tutorial is clearly David Bowie. Angela, one of the protagonists of Mona Lisa Overdrive, is mentioned appearing in an 'art film' called Antarctica Starts Here, which is the closing track of John Cale's record PARIS 1919.

And then he has (former) musician Hollis Henry as protagonist in Spook Country and Zero History. I imagine her band The Curfew as akin to Garbage and other female fronted bands of the late 90s early 00s. She's described as looking like "a weaponized Francoise Hardy", which prompted me to look into - and consequently become quite charmed by - Miss Hardy's C&W tinged le ye-ye French pop.