Nicholas Dodd’s Starlands Music Is Utter Bliss, Like a Dream Made of Love
Beautiful sounds drift in from afar like angels calling me
Who is Nicholas Dodd?
He is a British conductor, orchestrator, composer, and musician. He is mainly known for his film soundtracks, including Independence Day (1996), Avatar (2009), and Rampage (2018).
But there is another side to him
Before his career in movie soundtracks, he created “new age” music. But it’s very difficult to find any of it now.
I first became aware of this music when my mum had a cassette copy of his 1993 album Waves. It consists of the sound of waves on a beach, and then some music comes in over the top of the waves.
Side 1 contains piano music. It’s rather pleasant and sweet. But side 2 was always my favorite. It contains two pieces. In the first one, choir sounds fade in over the top of the waves, playing lush emotional chords. As I listened to this in bed, it felt like angels were coming in from the distant ocean.
This music eventually fades away again, leaving just the sounds of the waves for a minute or two. Then comes the most beautiful part. A cinematic orchestral-sounding piece emerges, and it really pulls on the heartstrings. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about it that gave me a deep feeling of longing.
For several years, that was the only music of Dodd’s I had…
But then one day, I was looking around one of those strange alternative shops in a nearby town. I then spotted a cassette called Starlands 1 — Nicholas Dodd, made in 1987. It was only a few pounds, so I bought it.
The inlay card says:
“Nicholas Dodd is an accomplished classically trained artist. His ‘New Age’ synthesizer work often reveals his classical background. Starlands 1, the first of a trilogy, has a truly uplifting effect, stirring heard and mind to heavenly vistas.”
Wow! I hoped it was going to be as amazing as all that!
When I listened to it, it was some of the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. It’s different from Waves but similar in some ways.
Luckily, somebody has converted it from cassette to a YouTube video. You can listen to the whole thing by clicking here, but I would like to highlight my favorite parts from it below.
Unfortunately, the sound quality isn’t quite as good as I remember my cassette sounding. Some bits distort a bit. But it’s good enough for you to understand what I’m talking about.
03) Green Embers
Listen to those beautiful big chords! I think the waves and seagull sounds are synthesizer generated, which for 1987 is pretty impressive.
04) Heavenly Hymn
I love how the sounds fade in gently. There’s a dreamy smoothness to it all.
05) Summer Solstice
Another one that fades in smoothly. This one swells really big, but I always feel like I’m never quite sure where it’s going next. It very much has a cinematic feel to it. I could imagine this in a film.
08) Redemption
This one takes a couple of minutes to get to its best bit. Then these huge chords sing out a beautiful tune.
What other “new age” music did Nicholas Dodd make?
Well, discogs.com lists 7 such albums:
- Starlands 1 (1987)
- Starlands 2 (1988)
- Starlands 3 (1988)
- Timeless Heart (1989)
- Moon Tide (1992)
- Waves (1993)
- Dolphin Fantasy (1994)
After that, he seemed to focus on making movie soundtracks
One look at his filmography on IMDB shows that he has been a very busy man. From 1993 to 2022, he has worked on 104 soundtracks! That’s an average of 29 per year! No spare time for playing around with “new age” music then.
Over the years, I’ve struggled to find any of the other “new age” albums. It took a long time for someone to put Starlands 1 on YouTube. No sign of either of the other Starlands albums on there. Sometimes I see them on eBay, but usually as cassettes rather than CDs.
But someone has uploaded Timeless Heart:
The track Because I Need is quite similar to Starlands 1. He is obviously using the same synthesizers.
