Normally, the soundtrack for this kind of vision is a classical symphony or some avant-garde composition, remember Strauss’ ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ or Ligeti’s Atmospheres for Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’? Then you have the big composers who seem to be specialized for big budget movies like John Williamns (‘Star Wars’, ‘E.T.’, ‘Superman’, ‘Close Encounter of the Third Kind’) or Jerry Goldsmith (‘Star Trek’ films)… but for space movies we don’t go for light pop or electronica, the majesty of the sight oblige, it’s big orchestration or nothing.
However here is a new one that may change your mind, the video features the music of Jamie Smith who goes under the stage name of Jamie XX. He is a member of the London-based band the XX but he is also a music producer and remix artist, and his song ‘Gosh’ from his recently released album ‘In Colour’ becomes the soundtrack for a journey to Mars.
I don’t think we are ready to colonize the red planet anytime soon, it will take a while until we solve all the technical problems, but this is the ultimate dream of humanity. In the video, like in reality, the journey is slow and long but you have to be patient, and once we are flying over the red planet’s surface, it’s breathtaking and this synth swirling above shaky percussion brings you there. The music builds up until it creates something a bit mysterious, with remix of sounds and voices – according to Rolling Stone, Atlanta rapper Young Thug, Jamaican dancehall star Popcaan, and xx bandmates Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft are guest voices on the album – and this electronic number absolutely doesn’t sound like your usual soundtrack for these superb images provided by NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
The terraforming of Mars is just a hypothesis right now, and if it happens it will be a long and complex project, think about it, it takes at least 7 months to get there, and this video is only 4 minute long. But space may soon be our new dance floor.