Gil Mellé – The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Composer: Gil Mellé

Tracklist

1. Wildfire 02:46
2. Hex 04:00
3. Andromeda 02:24
4. Desert Trip 04:14
5. The Piedmont Elegy 02:23
6. OP 02:45
7. Xenogenesis 02:40
8. Strobe Crystal Green 04:55

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science fiction thriller film produced and directed by Robert Wise.
It is based on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel of the same name and adapted by Nelson Gidding.
The film stars Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne

as a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin.
With a few exceptions, the film follows the book closely and it is notable for its use of split screen in certain scenes.
The Andromeda Strain was one of the first films to use advanced computerized photographic visual effects,

with work by Douglas Trumbull, who had pioneered effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey,

along with James Shourt and Albert Whitlock who worked on The Birds.
Reportedly $250,000 of the film's budget of $6.5 million was used to create the special effects, 

including Trumbull's simulation of an electron microscope.
The film contained a faux computer rendering, created with conventional film-making processes,
of a mapped 3-D view of the rotating structure of the five-story cylindrical underground laboratory

in the Nevada desert named Project Wildfire.
A 2003 publication by the Infectious Diseases Society of America noted that The Andromeda Strain is:

"the most significant, scientifically accurate, and prototypic of all films of this (killer virus) genre,

as it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it,
and, finally, the work-up on its identification and clarification on why certain persons are immune to it."
The soundtrack of the fim was composed by Gilbert John Mellé (31 December 1931 – 28 October 2004),

an American artist, jazz musician and film composer.
Melle was born in New York City, where he was raised by a family friend after his parents abandoned him at the age of two.
As a child, he began painting and playing saxophone as a teen.
Before he was 16 years old, he was playing several jazz clubs in Greenwich Village.
At the age of 19, he signed to Blue Note, becoming the first white musician on the label’s roster.
At Blue Note, he released five 10'' EP records before recording his first full-length "Patterns In Jazz", in 1956.
In addition to recording and performing jazz, Melle continued with his artwork

and his paintings and sculptures were displayed at several New York galleries,
while his art was featured on his own albums, as well as records by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonius Monk.
He left Blue Note shortly after the "Patterns In Jazz" sessions, signing with Prestige.
Between 1956 and 1957, he recorded three albums for Prestige ("Primitive Modern", "Gil’s Guests", and "Quadrama"),
before deciding to halt his career as a traditional jazz bandleader.
Melle moved to Los Angeles in the ’60s, where he began to compose scores for film and television.
Over the next 30 years, he wrote scores for over 125 films.
He also began working with electronic music, building his own synthesizers, including (arguably) the first drum machine

and performing with the first all-electronic jazz band, the Electronauts, at the tenth Monterey Jazz Festival.
In 1967, he returned to recording with "Tome VI", an all-electronic jazz album released on Verve.
He continued to pioneer electronic music, writing scores for the tv series Night Gallery

and The Andromeda Strain entirely with synthesizers, which was unheard of at the time.
In addition to writing music for films, he composed several symphonies,

which he performed with symphony orchestras in Toronto, London, and New Zealand.
During the mid-’90s, Melle decided to concentrate on the visual arts,

in particular his computer-based digital painting, which drew great acclaim from art critics across America.
The Andromeda Strain was originally released by Kapp Records as a hexagon-shaped vinyl,

housed in an elaborate folded pod-shaped sleeve featuring an insert with folding instructions.

Memory