65daysofstatic - Silent Running

I've been trying to force myself to read a bit more fiction recently. I generally have a dire attention span and despite the connotations with being somewhat dim witted, I'll readily admit that reading for pleasure has always been difficult for me. Yet the fruits of reading - particularly fiction - are not unknown to me, so when I do get going with something good, I find huge rewards. At this point you may be wondering where this post is going, but bear with me.

A couple of weeks ago I went on holiday for a few days and forgot to take the book I was currently reading; The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey - a book that is indicative of the sorts of quick-fix 'self-help' manuals that I've indulged in recently (woe is life). So I knew I wanted to dive into something entirely different. I found myself in Waterstones in Stratford-Upon-Avon with Neil Young's autobiography Shakey in one hand and Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebus in the other. Having had a love-hate relationship with fellow genre penman Peter F. Hamilton in the past, I was curious to explore another author's creativity in the mind expanding arena that is science fiction. Sorry Neil.

Without descending in to a book review, I find that sci-fi is often unique in its ability to tickle the imagination of the reader. It's outer-worldly, ethereal and often so far beyond our paradigms that we are forced to picture the scenes using a high level of independent creativity. This means that different readers experience the imagery in entirely alternative ways. This interpretation fascinates me, which is why I was intrigued when I saw that 65daysofstatic have recently recorded a live soundtrack to the 1972 sci-fi movie Silent Running.

I have not seen Silent Running so when I first listened to the sound-track from 65dos, I enjoyed being able to try and paint the mental pictures that they were trying to represent with sound. As it goes, I liked the creative exercise but wasn't blown away by the music itself. Perhaps it would make more sense if I were to listen to it with the visual accompaniment. However it did make me listen to the album in a different way; knowing that the sounds were themselves a musical interpretation of another medium, film. And in some ways, that's good enough.

You can download the soundtrack here.