Andromeda Strain, The (1971)

Composer(s):
Gil Mellé

Released in:
1971

Reviews

The Story Behind the Soundtrack
by filmfactsman (January 21, 2005)
Hexagonal Music: How I Manufactured The Andromeda Strain Soundtrack LP

by Dr. Rick Steinberg

History done at the request of Jeff Kilan, June 2000.

In 1970, during the editing of his now classic movie "The Andromeda Strain", the director, Robert Wise, approached me with a view to have the soundtrack album marketed in a special manner. I was then in charge of Order Service for MCA Records; that is, record manufacture. He asked if it was possible to have the record pressed in a hexagonal shape as the extra terrestrial viral strain called Andromeda in the film was hexagonal. I said anything was possible, but that it would cost an estimated $20,000. While this was then a high figure for record production, it was minimal to the movie business and was agreed.

The executives at Kapp Records were only too happy to go along with the scheme as it relieved them of the production costs. (The soon to be defunct Kapp Records was one of several labels under the MCA umbrella at the time.) I discussed the matter with the president of Monarch Records, who pressed all MCA record requirements for the West Coast at that time. My idea was to have the music recorded in 10 Au format but put on a 12 Au matrix and manufactured as a 12 Au record. A steel hexagonal mold would then be made and this would be used in a press to trim the excess material from the 12 Au record to make a hexagonal shape, leaving the 10 inches of recorded material intact. This became the production method.

Kapp had agreed to a production run of 10,000 records. The pressing process encountered some problems: the unrecorded surface of the record had to be roughed so that it could be gripped for the cutting. This left unsightly corners on the finished record, therefore a more careful method of roughing only those edges that would not form the corners of the finished record had to be devised. Also, for a run of 10,000, the edges of the mold had to be sharpened frequently so as to leave a clean edge on the record.

The packaging into the record jackets also required extra time compared with normal jacketing. However, the total cost, including a spare mold, came to somewhat less than the quoted figure of $20,000. MCA were fortunate in having a very creative design team for their record jacket production. John LeProvost and Virginia Clark wanted to reflect the fact that it was music from a movie, thus they came up with the idea that the jacket should emulate a camera lens surrounding the actual record, but nevertheless pasted on a 12 Au square board.

The original 10,000 records sold out fairly rapidly. Gil Melle, the composer of the music, urged a second pressing, but the Kapp management did not want to go to the expense of reproducing the original format. It was therefore decided to repress the 10 Au recording on a 12 Au standard record and package it in a standard jacket. This did not sell so well, and MCA soon lost interest in the record.

Hope that's of some interest to the ANDROMEDA STRAIN fans out there. Looking forward to the continuation of the vinyl piece.

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