Our latest edition tries to sum up the releases of the last two months in one fell swoop, with 37 reviews ranging from compilations to Film Score Monthly releases to three scores by John Williams!
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/feb06.html

John Williams comes out on top in our annual reviewers poll as well, though perhaps not for the score you'd expect!
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/2005picks.html

Editor's Choices for the latest edition:
Memoirs of a Geisha (Williams) - http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/memoirsgeisha.html
Munich (Williams) - http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/munich.html

And Editor's Commendations:
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Shore) - http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/lotr_c_fotr.html
The Snow Queen (Joyce) - http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/snowqueen_rei.html
La Puta y La Ballena (Goldstein/Tarrab) - http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/feb06/puta_ballena.html
And check out the many more reviews from some names that will be familiar to those who post here.

As well this seems as good a time as any to announce that I will be editing Film Music on the Web from its next update onward. Long-standing editor Ian Lace is retiring again, and I'm honoured to be trusted with editorial responsibilities. Gary Dalkin will continue as Associate Editor, Tina Huang continues to turn our pages of prose into webpage poetry, and Ian will act as Managing Editor for the site.

This is probably also a good point to invite anyone who is interested in reviewing for the site to contact me at mclennan.michael@gmail.com. We always seem to have more releases than we can quite cram in, so if you think you've got something to say about film music, and you don't mind getting a free CD in exchange for your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you.

Regards,
Michael McLennan

[Message edited by franz_conrad on 02-06-2006]

I'm pleased to announce the April update of Film Music on the Web. Those of you who've been by the site in the last couple of days will have seen some of the new reviews as we went through a few presentation ideas. Now that things are settling, it seems a good time to just draw everyone's attention to it.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/

We've carried 41 reviews in this update, as well as 5 capsule reviews in a new column we've established for those CDs we don't get time to give full review consideration to. Full marks went out to four CDs in this update, all releases from small labels, including the two latest releases from Monstrous Movie Music (This Island Earth and Mighty Joe Young), Mellowdrama's release of Enduring Love, and Cinefonia-Yad's reissue of Camille Claudel.

Our reviewers also specially recommend the following titles for this month: Horner's The New World, FSM's release of Duning's Bell, Book and Candle / 1001 Arabian Nights, Danna's Where the Truth Lies, the soundtrack for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Constant Gardener by Alberto Iglesias, and a non film score title, Orion, by Philip Glass.

With such a feast of titles under review, there are many more recommended throughout. We've grouped the releases by the following categories for your accessibility:

Current Cinema Releases
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#current
(Capote, Doom, Just Like Heaven, North Country, Mrs Henderson Presents, Proof, Stay Alive, These Foolish Things, Water)

Older Score Issues
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#older
(Effects, Escape to Victory, Finding Home, Firefly, Hotel Rwanda, Madison, Stripes!)

Compilations
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#comp
(Music from the films of Marlon Brando, Music from Harry Potter, Anthony Collins, Ennio Morricone, The Magnificent Westerns)

Internet-only releases:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#internet
(Felicidades, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Shadows of the Sun, Unknown Soldier)

Cinefonia-Yad Music:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#cineyad
(Camille Claudel, Following, Les notes de L'ecran, La lune dans de Caniveau, Les Orientales)

Film Score Monthly:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#fsm
(Bell Book and Candle, Invitation/Life of Her Own, Zigzag / The Supercops)

If Only they had written for films:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#misc
(Les Enfants Terribles, Malcolm Williamson: Orchestral Works)

We're also trying out a couple of editorial columns for this edition - a couple by myself, and one by our new reviewer Tom Kiefner.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/apr06/apr06.html#ed
Tom discusses the various incarnations of Copland's The Red Pony score in his column for this month, while I highlight composers Gabriel Yared and Mychael Danna (both of whom have THREE scores reviewed favourably in our current edition), and also speak at length on what to me was a score mostly ignored in the film score collector world, Alberto Iglesias's The Constant Gardener.

I hope both Tom and my columns will be favourably received, and become a part of the site in the foreseeable future. I invite anyone who has written an extended piece on film music that they think would be worth featuring here to submit it to me for a future update. Or if you would like to reply to a current piece, we would happily feature this in a future update too. This idea of pairing soundtrack reviews with soundtrack essays in our updates seems to me to be an exciting prospect - I'm always looking for deeper discussions of material than the typical short review format allows, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This is the first time I've edited the update the whole way through, so for the lateness of the update and any errors within, I must claim sole responsibility.
I would like to thank all those who supplied us with review CDs for this update. And all those who supplied us with reviews. We welcome in this update new reviewers Tom Kiefner (aka tomk), Tim Lines (aka Timmer) and Mark Rayen (aka MarkA), as well as a humourless guy I'd never heard of before called James Southall.

Thanks also to Len Mullenger for maintaining the site, and to Gary Dalkin for his assistance throughout the update. Special thanks to Tina Huang for her patience with my refrain of 'one more thing', and managing editor Ian Lace for his fine reviews and advice.

Thanks,
Michael McLennan

mclennan.michael@gmail.com