Starkland CD Track Featured in New Rocket Science Film

The new film Rocket Science features Guy Klucevsek's witty rendition of Burt Bacharach's "The Blob" from Starkland's Free Range Accordion CD.

(PRWEB) August 29, 2007 -- The new film Rocket Science features a witty rendition of Burt Bacharach's "The Blob" from Starkland's Free Range Accordion CD. Guy Klucevsek created the engagingly different arrangement, performed here by Klucevsek (accordion) and David Garland (vocalist).

Read more about this Starkland CD:
www.starkland.com/st209/index.htm

Rocket Science is directed by Jeffrey Blitz, who made his feature directorial debut in 2003 with the documentary Spellbound, an exploration of the National Spelling Bee. Spellbound was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary, an Emmy Award for directing, and an Independent Spirit Award.

Recently released by Picturehouse/HBO, Rocket Science has received highly favorable reviews, zooming to an impressive 85% on the Critics Tomatometer. In addition, Blitz won the Dramatic Directing Award and Rocket Science was nominated for Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

The film follows the daily troubles of high-schooler Hal Hefner, who stutters and then decides to join his school's debate team. He also has a seriously dysfunctional family to deal with.

Ed Barzelay's score for Rocket Science employs a wide range of instruments, including the ukulele, tuba, accordion, cello, banjo, and kazoo, as well as handclaps, whistles, and other homemade sounds. "I wanted to feel the person in the room playing these instruments," Barzelay explains. "We wanted the music to feel a little awkward, in the same way that Hal feels awkward. And make that awkwardness graceful."

Guy Klucevsek's quirky arrangement of Bacharach's The Blob follows this same approach. Klucevsek writes: "I found The Blob (1958) on a tape John Zorn compiled for me which he called 'Rare Bacharach.' Bacharach wrote this tune for the horror B-movie of the same title, and it became his first hit as a composer. As an acoustic kinda guy, I was tickled pink to hear hand-clapping and mouth percussion produced the old-fashioned way - live, by human hands, fingers, and cheeks."

In addition to music from Barzelay and Bacharach, the soundtrack also contains tracks from the alternative rock band Violent Femmes.

Klucevsek's Free Range Accordion CD from Starkland also offers music from Pulitzer-winner Aaron Jay Kernis, Lars Hollmer, Jerome Kitzke, Klucevsek, Stephen Montague, Somei Satoh, and Lois V Vierk.

Read more about the Free Range Accordion CD at:
www.starkland.com/st209/index.htm

About Guy Klucevsek:

"One of only two or three important accordion composers" (The New Yorker), Guy Klucevsek has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, the Kronos Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, Bobby Previte, and John Zorn. Downbeat has described him as "a rebel with an accordion," who "combines poker-faced wit and imagination with command of his instrument, forcing you to re-think the accordion's limitations." Starkland also offers Klucevsek's Transylvanian Softwear CD, which won a "Recording of Special Merit" from Stereo Review.

Read more about this Transylvanian Softwear CD at:
www.starkland.com/st207/index.htm

Visit Guy Klucevsek's website:
www.guyklucevsek.com

About Burt Bacharach:

Burt Bacharach has crafted musically sophisticated pop songs since the 1950s, including over two dozen Top 10 hits. Raised in New York where he fell in love with jazz, Bacharach later studied theory and composition with Darius Milhaud, Bohuslav Martinu, and Henry Cowell. In the early 1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with lyricist Hal David, including a wealth of hits still popular today. Many of these were performed by Dionne Warwick. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach's songs were made famous by other popular musicians, including The Beatles, The Carpenters, Aretha Franklin, B.J. Thomas , Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Gene Pitney, Herb Alpert, and Luther Vandross. In the late '90s Bacharach's popularity was reinvigorated, his music drawing interest from such alternative artists as Oasis, REM, Stereolab, and Eric Matthews.

About Starkland:

The Starkland label releases compelling, engaging recordings of new, experimental, and alternative classical music. To view Starkland's complete catalog, visit: www.starkland.com/catalog/index.htm

Starkland's most recent release is Phillip Bimstein's Larkin Gifford's Harmonica, which was praised by The New York Times for "the irresistible charm of Mr. Bimstein's music" and "his uncanny knack for finding the music of everyday life."

Read more about this CD and listen to excerpts at:
www.starkland.com/st214/index.htm

Previous Starkland recordings have received over 150 favorable reviews, including those in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Billboard, and Sound & Vision. The label's releases have been featured on such national radio programs as NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Other Starkland recordings feature Charles Amirkhanian, Tod Dockstader, Paul Dresher, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Phil Kline, Guy Klucevsek, the Kronos Quartet, Ingram Marshall, Merzbow, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Somei Satoh, Carl Stone, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Pamela Z, and John Zorn.

For more, visit: www.starkland.com

About Picturehouse:

Picturehouse is a film production company formed in 2005 as a joint-venture of New Line Cinema and HBO Films. Some notable releases are: Last Days, Rock School, A Prairie Home Companion, Pan's Labyrinth, Gracie, and Rocket Science.

Learn more about Picturehouse:
www.picturehouse.com

Visit the official Rocket Science website:
www.rocketsciencemovie.com

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